Soup for All: A Centuries-Old Tradition of Community Care

Centuries ago, the sultan’s wife took an interest in feeding the poor in Jerusalem. Purchased by his mother as a slave from the area that today is Ukraine, Roxelana, as she was known, was enslaved during raids on the area that is today Ukraine and brought to the Ottoman palace. The sultan’s mother purchased her and gifted her to her son, Suleiman, when he was in his early twenties. Roxelana utterly captured the sultan’s heart, and when he became sultan in his late twenties, he married her. The title he bestowed on her was Khaski Hurrem Sultan, which translates to “Sultan’s Own Joy.” He declared she would be his one and only wife.

Hurrem Sultan went on to become one of the most powerful women in Ottoman history. Among her many other works and interests, in her later years, she founded several charitable works and institutions in Constantinople and elsewhere across the Ottoman Empire, including Jerusalem.

One of these was an endowed a massive charitable waqf complex in Jerusalem’s Old City that consists of a school, a mosque, and a soup kitchen. Named Khaski Sultan after its benefactress, the waqf was established on May 24, 1552, and today approaches its 500th birthday. 

This spot is dear to photographer Muath al-Khatib, who takes us behind the scenes to find out what’s cooking. 

I love how this place has been active for hundreds of years through all periods of time and has never stopped serving the poor. 

Khaski Sultan is located within a larger complex in the heart of the Old City that was built even before its founding, in the 14th century; even then, it provided food for the poor among other functions. It was referred to as the takiyya, or public kitchen (a place where free food, especially soup, is distributed). 

I grew up in this area, and my friends and I frequently played in the complex where the kitchen is situated.

The entrance with the big green Mamluk door is the main entrance to the Dar al-Aytam al-Islamiyya (Islamic Orphanage) complex where Khaski Sultan is and also the Islamic orphanage school. The building predates the Khaski Sultan and was formerly the palace of one Lady Tunshuk, who had it built in the late 14th century on a hill facing the al-Aqsa Mosque. The complex’s red-and-white facade is visible in the back. It has 25 rooms, 4 staircases, a dome, and a courtyard, and is a highly complex and historic work of architecture. 

The second entrance is the main entrance for the takiyya, where the people line up with their containers come to take the food from the kitchen. The complex is not far from the al-Aqsa Mosque compound.

Head Cook Samir Jaber has been working in the Khaski Sultan soup kitchen for more than 20 years. Only in the past five years, after a back injury, has he brought in two other people to assist him with the daily food preparation.

Every day, a different soup or dish is prepared—pea stew; chicken and cauliflower stew with rice; beef and beans; lamb; okra stew; mulukhiya (an ancient Egyptian soupy stew made of green Jews Mallow leaves); and more. Rice is a daily staple; the kitchen prepares 50 kg of rice each day.

On this day, Samir and his crew are preparing mansaf, a traditional Arab dish served on a large platter with rice on the bottom, chunks of lamb stew meat in the middle, and a yogurt sauce on the top. 

The kitchen offers two meals a day, five days a week, to about 200 families (around 1,000 mouths), and there are never any leftovers. 

In the holy month of Ramadan, the soup kitchen operates seven days a week.

Samir fills each community member’s container, in turn, from the main pot. Containers go home to families and feed seven or eight mouths—a daily hot meal for many who otherwise would have none.