| For the past decade, Kanaan has been a fixture in Berlin’s fashionable Prenzlauer Berg district. Named after the Old Testament’s Promised Land, a region spanning parts of modern-day Israel through to western Jordan, it was never just somewhere to eat. Its founders, Oz Ben David, an Israeli, and Jalil Dabit, a Palestinian, insisted their 120-seat dining room was a place to promote co-existence and break down barriers.
Both Israeli citizens, the owners could not be more different. Oz is the grandson of Holocaust survivors, raised among right-wing Jewish settlers, while Jalil is a Palestinian from Ramla, near Tel Aviv, a Muslim and the son of a communist. They met trying to import tahini into German supermarkets. “We managed not just to build a business together, which is amazing and crazy - we also created a vision for the future,” said Oz. |