Early
Days in the village:
Father Bruno Hussar and
Anne Le Meignen.
The first
habitation was an old bus.
The first true
homes and public buildings were Swedish wood houses, salvaged from another location and
then reassembled on the hilltop.
Much of the early work was done by volunteers who came to brave
the spartan conditions for a weekend, a few weeks, or months.
After work came relaxation and time for social activities, helping
to form a sense of community between the Jews and Palestinians who had come together to
turn Bruno's dream into a real experiment.
Bruno only
considered that the village really got started when the first families arrived to make it
their permanent home.
The
presence of children required the establishment of a joint Jewish-Arab educational system,
where they could learn and play together. In 1984, Ety Edlund and Abdessalam Najjar
(seen here) established the bilingual, binational primary school - with nine children of
different ages!
~ To be continued ~
