Entering Jerusalem through the Lion’s gate, there’s a narrow street immediately to the right. If you follow it to the end, you’ll arrive at Burj al Luqluq – or Tower of the Stork - the watchtower of Jerusalem’s north eastern corner since the Mamluks ruled the city. Between these two landmarks lies the neighbourhood of Bab-Hutta in the heart of the Muslim quarter. Poor and densely populated, it’s a fascinating corner of one of the world’s most fascinating cities, and it’s here you’ll find the families of the Dom – “The Gypsies of Jerusalem.”
It was here that Amoun Sleem was born and raised and lives to this day with the families of her five brothers and four sisters. When I first met Amoun in January 2025, it was four miles north of Bab Hutta in the district of Shuafat at the “Domari Society of Gypsies in Jerusalem.” In the following interview she describes her journey. From anger at the discrimination which cut short her own education, to developing a program that transforms the lives of women and girls in a community where female illiteracy is 80%.
After a brief catch-up, the conversation continued as recorded below:
Thanks again for taking the time to speak to me. Can you begin by explaining who the Dom people are?
The Dom are an ethnic group who have lived in the Holy Land for more than 200 years. Originally, everybody agrees that they came from India. They left around 400 years ago and then spread to different areas and different countries.
We are a small ethnic group and we have our own language, the Domari language. We are just a small community living in the Holy Land, and actually one of the oldest communities living here.
The word “Gypsy” can be problematic in Britain because it’s often used pejoratively. How do the Dom people describe themselves?
We are considered one of the most discriminated societies in the Holy Land, and also in the Middle East in general. That is why we try to call ourselves Dom people, not Gypsy people. Sometimes we connect it with “Domari Gypsy” so people can understand who we are.
We have our own habits, our own language, our traditions. But people discriminate against us. They don’t accept our culture, our habits or our traditions. They treat us like people who don’t exist at all.
That has created so many issues and so many problems, and so many challenges for the new generation as well.
For readers in Europe, perhaps the nearest comparison is with the Roma. The Dom and Roma have their origins in India, but they are distinct peoples. Is that correct?
Absolutely. We come from the same homeland, India, but we are two different groups. The Gypsies in Europe, who call themselves Roma or Lom, and us—the thing connecting us is the homeland in India. But we are completely different communities. They have their own language and we have our own language.
The problem is that we also pay the price for how people look at Gypsies in Europe. They don’t accept them and discriminate against them, and we receive the same treatment here.
Here we are living between two things. We are living between Palestinians and Israelis. Palestinians look at us as Gypsies, as a low community, and Israelis look at us as Arabs. So from both sides you feel you are not treated fairly.
Nobody gives you attention or treats you equally with other communities. Even now we are not officially considered one of the minorities of the Holy Land, despite living here for more than 200 years.
Approximately how many Dom people are there in the Holy Land?
Inside Jerusalem, in the Old City and around it, maybe 2,000 to 3,000 people. We also have a few thousand living in the West Bank.
Before the war in Gaza, we had around 15,000 Gypsies there, even a little bit more. But right now we have no idea what has happened to them—if they are still alive, if they still exist. Nobody knows.
You were born and raised in the Old City of Jerusalem. What is that like?
I have lived there all my life. I was born and raised inside the Old City. It is a very unique and beautiful place.
Although with everything that is going on, and all the difficulties and the hard life you sometimes go through, it is unique. You feel you are closer to the sky and to God in that area. You feel you are in a unique place.
Today there are maybe around 75 to 80 Dom families still living in the Old City.
When I was growing up, we had Palestinian families close to us and we considered them like family or friends of the Domari. My grandmother always had good relationships with the neighbourhood, and my father had great relationships with them. We lived like a small community. It didn’t matter whether you were Gypsy or Arab.
We always grew up in a mixed community, and that was what made it unique at that time.
Right now, we feel that we live among many people but are still discriminated against by many people. That is the difference. At that time I didn’t feel it. Right now, I feel much more difference between people than there was in the time of my father and grandmother.
What was school like for you as a Dom child?
It was not a normal life at all. Going to school in the Old City was one of the most important moments in your life, but it was very difficult for us.
I don’t speak only about myself. I speak in the voice of many Gypsy girls who went to school at that time. We faced discrimination from teachers and from the school. They treated us very, very badly.
We received a lot of punishment sometimes just because we came from that background. We didn’t have many friends because everybody would point and say, “You’re Gypsy.”
It was a very difficult period that many Gypsy children and girls lived through. That is one reason many Gypsy girls dropped out of school at a very early age. They didn’t feel welcome. They didn’t feel they were coming to a place where everybody would treat them as a human being.
It was a very difficult and painful period.
You dropped out yourself for a time. What made you return to education?
I dropped out when I was in elementary school and lost two years of my life. I wasn’t able to continue because the teachers punished us all the time and treated us badly in front of the whole school.
That gave me a reason not to go back.
But if you want to get a better life, if you want to get a better future, you need to read and write. You need education. That was the reason I went back to school, because I wanted a better future like any other child.
How important is family within Dom culture?
We live together. In my family, my five brothers who are married live there, and my sisters who are not married live there too. We live as one big family, with the children and grandchildren—about 25 people together.
Most Dom have traditionally married within the community, although the new generation has more freedom. Now some marry Palestinians as well. We see quite a big number of girls marrying into Palestinian society, and young men from the community marrying into Arab society around us.
That started changing around 20 years ago. Before that it was completely forbidden. Now there is more freedom to choose.
Family is still very important. When you marry, you are still connected with the community. Traditionally, you don’t live far away as a completely independent person. People believe that living together keeps the culture and traditions and makes the community strong.
What employment opportunities are available to Dom people?
They are very limited.
We have many girls working in nursing in hospitals. Some women have studied and received an education and have better jobs. We now have a few young people studying engineering and a few studying law.
But many men have very simple jobs—bus drivers, cleaners, manufacturing and similar work. There is high unemployment.
One reason is education, and another is that this is considered one of the poorest communities among all the communities living in the Holy Land. They are poor in education because they are poor financially. They cannot continue studying, so they drop out at an early age to get jobs rather than continuing to high school or university.
Was your own experience of discrimination what led you to create the Domari Society?
I started this community centre because I lived a difficult childhood. I was discriminated against. I was rejected by many people, by friends and by schools inside the Old City.
At that time, I felt I wasn’t welcome anywhere. Why? What was the reason? Because I came from this community.
But I don’t see that this community does so many things wrong compared with other communities. They are poor, yes. They have their own style of living, yes. But that doesn’t give people the right to treat us as unequal.
I was a child who listened and behaved well. You had no right to treat me badly, not accept me and always punish me just because of my background.
That was the reason I created this community centre: to promote Gypsy culture, to make people understand that we are human beings. God created us like any other community.
We have the right to study. We have the right to live like any other community. Don’t judge us just because of our background. Come and learn more about us, and give the new generation the chance to be treated like other children.
It came from my pain and my concern. Instead of creating anger, I turned it into a place where I could build bridges between us and others.
How did the Society develop?
I became active in my community when I was around 18 or 19. Before we had a community centre, I welcomed people into my home so that they could learn more about the community.
In 2000, we started registering as a nonprofit organisation. In 2007, God helped us to get a basement where we could start our activities.
So we have been doing this work for around 26 years.
What does the Domari Society do today?
We help the community in different fields, but we focus especially on children and women.
Almost 80 per cent of people in my community don’t read or write. We try to provide education to women so they can build confidence in themselves. We know many of these women married at a very early age and couldn’t get an education. We try to give them something that makes them feel, “It isn’t too late. I can learn.”
For children, we have an after-school tutoring programme from the age of six. It is for children who are going to school, and we want them to continue going to school and not drop out.
We help them with homework and with subjects they need support in. In that way, we can help them continue their education.
The community is also one of the poorest, so we provide food packages once a month to the families most in need.
You also help women develop skills that can enable them to earn an income?
Yes, of course.
We give courses that fit their situation. If women don’t read or write, we can give sewing or jewellery-design courses that don’t require reading and writing. In that way, women can create their own products.
We have embroidery and catering courses, so women can work from home and make food. For younger women, we provide courses such as hairdressing and cosmetics so they can find jobs in different areas and different fields.
How important is preserving the Domari language?
Our language is only a spoken language. It isn’t written and we don’t have an alphabet.
The new generation learns it at home by hearing their parents speak the language. We did try one course some years ago, but it doesn’t really work like that. You cannot create an alphabet for this language; it works through sound.
Many families in Jerusalem still speak Domari.
You mentioned that Dom culture has traditions that are distinct from those of the surrounding Palestinian community. What are some of those differences?
Weddings are different from Palestinian weddings. Even when somebody dies, there are different traditions.
Right now, people sometimes try to make things more similar to Palestinian traditions because they don’t want to attract attention.
We still have arranged marriages in the community, and marriage at a very early age. The way families live is also different. Family lives inside family. Even when you marry, you remain connected with the community.
The idea is that this keeps your culture and your traditions, and you feel strong together.
Your family itself has very deep roots in Jerusalem, doesn’t it?
My grandmother told us that our family has lived in the same house and the same neighbourhood for more than 120 years. Three generations or more lived in the same neighbourhood.
There are photographs from around 1910 showing Gypsies inside the Old City. So the story that the Dom have been in Jerusalem and the Holy Land for around 200 years is supported by that history.
Before coming here, people say the Dom lived in many Arab countries and places such as Turkey, Iraq and Iran. They kept moving through the Middle East. They settled in Jordan and Egypt, where there is still a big community, and eventually settled here in the Holy Land.
One of the most encouraging examples of the Society’s work is a young woman who first came to you as a six-year-old and has now studied law. Can you tell me about her?
She was a little girl when she came to our tutoring, our after-school programme. She was six years old.
She continued with us until high school, and we were able to get a little support to help her continue to university. At university, she studied law.
She has finished her university degrees but still needs to pass some exams. I am very grateful and proud to see that her journey is continuing.
Hopefully, finally, she can become the first officially qualified female lawyer in the community.
The situation for men within the community seems particularly difficult. Why do you think that is?
It is many of the things you mentioned: lack of education and discrimination.
Many men in the community feel they are different from men in other communities. They have less luck in life, fewer chances to get better jobs or a better education.
That can drive them towards things nobody wants them to go through, like drugs or alcohol, and that completely damages their future.
Many men don’t get the chance to get a better education or better jobs. They end up in very low-paid jobs such as cleaning and can become stuck there because no other chance opens to them.
We also have quite a big problem with drug addiction among young and middle-aged men in the community.
How difficult have the past few years been for the Domari Society itself?
We are now in a big struggle. This is one of the most difficult years the Domari Society has gone through.
We have nothing except this community centre, and we are always working to help the community. But we are not treated as an equal centre with other centres.
We used to have a few organisations helping us, but since the war we were the first people they cut off because they think, “You are a small community.”
Yes, we are a small community, but we are a community with a lot of struggles and issues. This community needs so much attention, and instead that attention has been cut.
That has taken us back to the beginning.
Before, we had several courses and programmes running for women and men. Right now, maybe we can do one or two courses this year. That’s it.
We are struggling with rent and other expenses. We don’t see anybody knocking on our door and saying, “Amun, we would like to help.”
Before the war, visitors to Jerusalem would also come to the Domari Society. How important was that?
Tourists had a real influence on us.
Before the war, groups would come just to hear our story and try our food, and they might give a small donation. That was really helpful because people could see the need of the community and understand the activities we were running.
But right now, you don’t see tourists. It has been almost three years. We call them the dry years.
We don’t see the light at the end of the tunnel yet. It affects our work and our situation, and the problem is that we don’t know the time or date when things will be back to normal.
What message would you like to give to people in Britain, the United States and elsewhere who hear your story and would like to help?
I would say: please give this community a chance.
We have been living with discrimination and rejection for many, many years. We have been struggling all our lives and have always been treated unequally.
Please give us the chance to be treated equally with other societies, and give us the chance to continue our mission—to help children, women and families survive this difficult period.
If I get the chance to be invited to churches, synagogues, mosques or community centres, I would be more than happy to come and explain more about this community and to fundraise so that this work can continue.
If we close this community centre, it means the Gypsies don’t exist in the Holy Land. This is the only address. This is the future, and this is the culture.
We don’t want this culture to end. We need people to listen to this culture and give it a chance to continue to exist.
What would happen to the community if the centre did have to close?
It would damage many families’ lives.
I describe it like a river delivering water to many families. If you close the tap on that river, those families don’t get water.
Children’s education would stop. Help for families would stop. Women who receive attention and support, including women struggling with early marriage, would lose the chance to receive better education and better programmes.
I’d like to finish with something that people who visit the Domari Society quickly discover: food and hospitality. Is food an important part of Dom culture?
Gypsies have some of the greatest hospitality you will ever see.
They come from a very poor background, but they always like to treat their guests and the people who visit them, and to share whatever they are able to share.
Gypsy food is unique because we have our own way of adding spices to a dish. We have taken a lot from the Middle East, but we created something different from it.
We have our own dishes, but we also take Middle Eastern food and make it differently—with different spices and different ways of cooking. That makes the food unique and delicious.
And the most important thing is that it comes from their hearts.
They like to cook, and they like to share.
Amun, thank you again so much for your time. I hope I will see you again in Jerusalem soon—or perhaps one day you will come and see us here in Liverpool.
Absolutely. I will be more than happy. Thank you so much.
Find out more about the Domari Society of Jerusalem here and please donate to enable their vital work to continue.
The following is a short film about the Domari language - called the “Birds Language” in the ME.