Interview with Rivka Assoulin
Interview with J. Rivkah Asoulin
Interview with J. Rivkah Asoulin, Founder and Executive Director of Ancient Roots Israel
“Herbal medicine is not a collection of “urban myths” and diet fads. True herbal medicine is like any other professional modality of healing, there are trials, studies, and science to support their use, just like pharmaceutical medicine. .”
When J. Rivkah started diving into the healing power of herbs, she sought a community with the same passion. She was surprised that very few people in Israel from the English-speaking community touched on these subjects. Hence, she ended up founding an international herb-focused community and leading the first-ever international herbal conference and community in Israel. J.Rivkah was part of our 2020 summit, and we finally got to sit down and discuss the power of herbalism.
She is known as Wise Woman Fertility , where she serves as an herbalist, fertility consultant, women’s health educator, and lecturer, certified kallah teacher (and balanit) and is the creator of JFAM; the only Jewish sympto-thermo method of fertility awareness.
J. Rivkah is also the founder and executive director of Ancient Roots Israel, the first international herbal conference and community in Israel.
How did you go from being a theater director to helping women with fertility and reproductive health?
My parents allowed me to grow up as a professional child actress. The progression to directing was quite natural. By the time I hit my early 20s, I had directed an award-winning commercial and video, community, and academic theatre. As a director, I enjoyed not having to worry about my weight and all of the other things that actors have to worry about. The weight issue was important because, in my teens, I had begun gaining weight no matter how many hours I spent at the dance studio or restricting what I ate. At the same time, I started experiencing extremely debilitating pain during my menstrual cycle. At first, I was told that this was all in my head, but eventually, I received a diagnosis of PCOS and Endometriosis.
After years of doctors, medication, and surgeries, I was desperate for a cure for my reproductive health issues and stumbled into herbal medicine. Where I had once memorized lines in scripts, I was now memorizing “alternative,” or as I like to call them, “ancient” women’s health resources and, with G-d’s Help, managed to cure myself and go on to have children, something I was told would never be possible.
Friends were amazed and began to ask me if I could help them and so, one by one, I began to take on clients and build Wise Woman Fertility. I learned herbal medicine as an autodidact and on the fly. I was obsessed with helping each of these women as I had been obsessed with truly saving myself from a life of chronic pain and infertility. Along the way, I became a certified kallah teacher and created my own sympto-thermal method of fertility awareness: JFAM (Jewish Fertility Awareness Method).
While teaching and public speaking, I witnessed a thirst for truly safe, effective, and proven cures to health issues that Pharmaceutical Medicine could not provide. I began to wonder where the other herbalists were in Israel and tried to search in English but came up with nothing. This profoundly concerned me.
As it turned out, I wasn’t a “lone herbalist” in Israel. Israeli herbalists have a thriving community filled with innovation and impressive accomplishments. However, they could only be found in Hebrew. This prevented English speakers from finding resources in Israel and preeminent foreign herbalists from connecting and collaborating with their Israeli counterparts.
Herbal medicine is not a collection of “urban myths” and diet fads. True herbal medicine is like any other professional modality of healing, there are trials, studies, and science to support their use, just like pharmaceutical medicine. However, unlike pharmaceutical medicine, there are thousands of years of history and personal stories of its use that we can look to for guidance when addressing illness.
Herbalists worldwide seek professional opportunities to connect and share this knowledge, so that we all can become more skilled healers. And so, like many other herbalists, I got on a plane and flew to one of the many international herbal conferences for such an opportunity.
Israelis take such pride in being world leaders in many areas; high tech, medicine, and more, but we had no presence in the field of herbal medicine on the “international scene.” With the encouragement of my husband, I realized that it was time for this to change, and Ancient Roots Israel was born.
How does Herbalism help with fertility?
In every way. Most of my clients come to me after pharmaceutical medicine has failed them. They are desperate, like I was, for a cure. We are taught that G-d created the cure before the illness, and we can see evidence of this in the food and medicine that G-d causes to grow from the earth. Baruch Hashem, the herbs have rarely failed me or my clients; outside of allergy or rare circumstance, they have never caused harm. I don’t know how many other modalities of medicine can make that claim.
Ancient Roots Israel is holding the first international herbal conference in Israel, in the Galilee , in 2023, can you tell us more about it?
Absolutely! Ancient Roots Israel is the first international herbal conference and community in Israel. It has been a labor of love, where professional herbalists from around the world have come together to give hours of free and low-cost herbal programming to the public. Our inaugural conference was in 2020, and we had over 70 participants attend from all over the world. Due to Covid, the conference has been postponed until now, and we are coming back bigger and better than ever this winter. The conference will be held on January 22-24, 2023, at Ana Poriya Resort in Galilee.
The conference is always priced at-cost, and the organizing team (myself included) are all volunteers passionate about returning our birthright of herbal medicine, the people’s medicine, back to the people. We are thrilled to be welcoming internationally renowned herbalist Matthew Wood and master herbalist and television personality Sara Chana Silverstein from the USA to join Israeli superstars Nissim Krispil, Nir Avraham, Peretz Gan, and many more to create 3 days and 2 nights of workshops, plantwalks and masterclasses for people of all skill levels to learn about herbal medicine. The program includes main lectures for everyone, but then we break up into smaller groups for the workshops and plantwalks so that you can “choose your own adventure” and tailor make the program, just for you.
For example, GCI patrons will appreciate our culinary and foraging plantwalks, where they will learn how to heal at home with tasty, fresh, and nourishing meals they can find right outside their door. And, of course, clinical herbalists will want to take their plantwalks with fellow clinicians who will be certain to point out the plants you wouldn’t want to eat, but would want to use, with caution, to heal.
There truly is something for everyone at ARI2023! For more information, go to www.ancientrootsisrael.com.
When you hear the words: Israel, Galilee, Food, Culture, and Innovation, what is the first thing that comes into your mind?
Ancient Roots Israel, of course! We are based in the Galilee and are exploring the ancient uses of food and plants as medicine, together.
Israeli herbalist Nissim Krispil described this so beautifully at ARI2020. While writing the first herbal encyclopedia in Hebrew, he went into the Arab communities of Israel to inquire about their herbal traditions. He was told that their traditions are, in fact, our traditions, as their ancestors learned them from the Jews who were living in Our Holy Land before our expulsion to the diaspora. They told him that they have preserved these traditions, and expanded them to include their own, throughout the generations so that all Israelis, Jew and Arab alike, can share the skill of healing with plants together. This is where food as medicine can truly change the world!
What is a fun culinary fact about you?
I am bubbling over with ideas for combining herbal medicine and culinary creations and am very open to collaboration on this topic. I’d love to see a café created, where patrons can order meals to address specific health issues and chef has an herbalist on hand to develop the healing menu! I could see ancient breweries springing back to life, making meads and brews using healing herbs as they once did, to improve male vitality and general health. All we need is the right GCI graduate to connect with our herbalists network and…BOOOM! Collaboration.
Our free food programming also includes the ARI Virtual Plantwalk Series which offers nearly one hundred videos about plant identification for medicinal and culinary use.