Nablus Soap Company - MorningCalM December 2018

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ASH AND OIL

 In the West Bank city of Nablus, people have been making soap with olive oil for centuries. The Nablus Soap Company is one of the city’s last soap factories, carrying on this enduring symbol of the region.

Photography by Sam McGuire

To wash something clean, all you need is water, grease and ash. The Sumerians knew this as far back as 3000BC, etching cuneiform recipes that called for ash to be mixed with cypress and sesame oils. People in the West Bank’s Nablus region burned barilla plants near the Jordan River to combine with olive oil, and by the 13th century, Nabulsi soap had become a bona fide industry. In the grand scheme of things, Mojtaba Tbeleh’s family is a newcomer — they’ve only been making soap for hundreds of years.

In that time, the family has left such a deep mark on the industry that a soap cutter in Nablus today is called a tubeili. Since 1971, the Tbeleh family has been operating the Nablus Soap Company. Their traditional soap still uses the same basic ingredients ancient civilizations did: water, an alkali compound (in this case, sodium hydroxide) and olive oil. Spain may be the largest producer of olive oil today, and Italian the cuisine most immediately associated with it, but it was in the Levant that people first pressed oil from olives some eight millennia ago. Tbeleh considers the sourcing of ingredients to be the most important step in making soap, and he prefers to work with local suppliers and farmers to buy organic olive oil.

At its core, soap is the result of a reaction between fat or oil and an alkali. Oil repulses water, but soap can attach to both kinds of molecules, allowing water to rinse oil away. At Tbeleh’s factory, a team of 22 people — 15 men and seven women — helps spark this chemical reaction. After mixing the ingredients together, the soap makers boil the soap over two to three days, stirring it the whole time. Because of the soap’s natural components, the workers can test whether it’s ready by taste. Once the flavor is just right, the soap is spread over a clean floor and left to dry for another few days, after which it’s hand-cut into blocks and stamped with the Nablus Soap emblem. Shelved in mesmerizing rows, the soap blocks are left to dry for up to three months.

It was likely the Crusaders who brought olive oil soap to Europe, spurring its spread beyond the Middle East. One of the biggest draws was its lack of scent; medieval European soap often used animal fat. The Nabulsi soap industry reached new heights of prosperity in the 19th century, and soap-making families amassed glittering wealth and influence. At one point, there were more than 50 soap factories in a city stretching just 28.6sqkm.

But Nablus lies near major fault lines. An earthquake that struck the region in the early 13th century killed around 30,000 by some estimates, with Nablus among the most heavily affected areas. An earthquake in 1927 took hundreds of lives and reduced parts of the Old City, including several soap factories, to rubble. By the time Tbeleh took over the company from his father in 1986, few factories remained. “My family’s factory, which was located in the Old City, was also destroyed and demolished due to the earthquake, and they had to build a new factory in another area,” says Tbeleh. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has taken its toll on the industry, too. Production of soap became more difficult, with the cost of raw materials rising and transportation through the city’s roads becoming more complicated. In 2002, one of the oldest soap factories in the city was destroyed by an air strike.

Still, the Tbeleh family flourishes. Currently, the company is headquartered in the city’s industrial zone, in a factory built in 2009. Though Tbeleh watched his father make soap while growing up, taking over the business hasn’t been easy. Years ago, he even lost a finger in a maintenance accident. “For me, this industry is the history of my ancestors,” he says. “It’s the profession that my family has inherited for many centuries.” Tbeleh’s goal was not only to protect this inheritance, but to grow it. “One of the most difficult things in running the business is to keep up with any development in this industry, not only at the local level but also globally,” he says. He keeps one foot planted in tradition — and the other in new territory.

Nablus Soap’s product line has expanded over the years, now including soaps with untraditional ingredients: saffron, figs, dates, thyme and even mud from the waters of the Dead Sea. Its soap transcends borders, reaching the Gaza Strip and Israel as well as over 70 other countries.

The Nablus region has long been inhabited. In spite of natural disasters, wars and other erosions of the passing millennia, you can still trace its complex history. Parts of the old grid-oriented Roman streets are still visible in the Old City; the Great Mosque of Nablus was at first a basilica, then a Byzantine church, then a mosque, then a church, then a mosque again. The name Nablus comes from the Greek neapolis — “new city” — but soap making is a steadfast anchor. And though there’s an impermanence to soap too, gone once used, the Tbeleh family will be stirring up the next batch.