Aviram Bar-Akiva

“Yashi came to me in my dream at 5:32am one day, I woke up immediately. He told me to go to his place in the nature, near the oak tree, the place I knew already. There I found it, the way to find my cure. The oil, nature, nutrition, treatment and friends. With a wonderful, supportive and dedicated woman we went along to the journey – me, nature, the oil and the creation. We have reached a deal that I am walking out of it to live.”

This is what Udi has told me as I asked him what he is doing. After that revelation Udi set out to find a place he called “A house called cure”. It was an open house, so that everyone could join and seek their cure with Udi’s herbs. It was a time of change in Israel, Medical Cannabis had become available to more and more people under a new health reform. But that was no good as Udi desribed it. As Cannabis was made more available, its quality had dropped and it was no longer potent as was before and concentrated Cannabis oils that were once available are now considered illegal to sell, even at the Cannabis dispensaries.

“A house called cure” had been known by the patients, they came to Udi even before the opening of the house with Cannabis flowers for him, which he took and processed it to concentrates. The purpose of the house was for those who seek cure can stay there, consume Cannabis concentrates, find relief for their pain and suffering and might even be cured from their illness. Udi’s job was to keep making more and more oil. He worked around the clock, distilling, stirring, cooking and bottling the precious medicine and giving it back to whom was coming, not before explaining how to use it wisely and safely. He was never alone all that time, people came and stayed there with him, volunteers, patients and friends all there to support him.

"Just come." Those were the words Udi told me over the phone. That was my invitation to come and document his house. 

The house as I knew it operated for only few months, before it was closed down by the authorities. I came and went as I pleased, documented and photographed the two stories house in Binyamina where in one hand patients of many illness came in, especially cancer patients at their last effort to feel good and maybe defeat this demon, and on the other hand Udi and his assistances cooking and distilling the Cannabis oil for them, giving those patients hope with their angelic deeds.