Get together for new families

On Thursday, January 26, a festive get-together took place for a group of ten recently accepted families, and village members. The new families had recently completed their final stage of being voted into the village and are now eligible to build houses under the expansion plan, as soon as the infrastructure has been completed there. The entire process of being accepted and building a home often takes several years and therefore requires considerable commitment on the part of prospective families.

The meeting took place in the Pluralistic Spiritual Center building and began with a pot-luck meal. Adnan, as chair of the board of the Municipal Society, said some words of welcome. He pointed out that when these new families actually arrive in the village, we will comprise exactly a hundred member families.

After the meal, we saw a slide presentation on the history of the Latrun Trappist monastery, from whom the village received the land. Two of the monks, Paul (the previous abbot) and Louis, honored us with their presence and the presentation itself was given by Mr. Ze’ev Bloch (Zeben), a long-time legal counsellor for the monastery, originally from nearby Kibbutz Nachshon. During the presentation, a separate activity was arranged for the children.

Afterwards, the new families remained for a short meeting in which the next steps of the process towards building a home in the village was explained to them.

Thanks to Raida and Rajaa for helping to arrange the evening.