Nabi Elias
About a month ago when we began our activities with women and two young men of Nabi Elias. A group of students asked us to teach English. After coordinating and postponing. Brenda, our new member, promised to dedicate her Friday mornings to teach them English.
We arrived at our destination. 7 women students and one mail student were already waiting at the women’s club with a welcome and prepared to work. Brenda immediately began the work of getting to know one another and the class.
So as not to interrupt, Tamar and Devorka left to go around the village and they had an stirring meeting with two women and their children. One of them was busy making tasty pittot in an enormous taboon (of which we bought) and the second who knew Hebrew after years of working with a family in the village of Malal and she shared with us her thought on Israelis and Palestinians and her good memories of the days that she worked in Israel. She also told us about her family and that of her friend, the baker. In the covered yard in which we sat opposite the taboon the small children of the family wandered around. They enjoyed themselves and broke into laughter when we photographed them and showed them the pictures. One cute little 8 year old boy was our guide to the club and back.
When we arrived back the lesson had nearly ended and the faces of the young people were very expressive. They glowed with happiness and laughter. Brenda had brought an interesting and amusing curriculum for the lessons and the atmosphere was wonderful. (They probably had forgotten for an hour or two the daily problems which we caused them). When the next lesson was discussed a few asked for the lesson to be for two hours and not for one.
A-Nabi Elias
See all reports for this place-
A-Nabi Elias this is a Palestinian village in the northern West Bank, east of Qalqilia on Road 55, north-east of Alfei Menashe colony and west of Karnei Shomron colony and the Palestinian city of Nablus. As of 2016, the village was populated by 1,458 inhabitants.
Near the village is a maqam (holy site memorializing a sanctified person) - the prophet Elisha. Until 2021 Road 55 crossed the village. Then a bypass road was paved through olive groves that were sequestered from the villagers. Consequently, the farmers were left with small olive groves that they could not access nor cultivate. Inhabitants protested against the road for weeks, supported by peace activists, but nothing helped and the road is now a given fact.
The village's main street had been a shopping center for all residents, including colonists. We even saw a Kashrut (kosher food) inspector in a butcher shop close to the falafel stand… The bypass road, according to tradesmen, has impacted their businesses and clients, while others claim that there are customers now for parking has become easier.
Alfei Menashe and Tzofim colonies nibble at the village lands from the north and south and get closer to it all the time. Colonists of Alfei Menashe have outdone themselves, sending their surplus sewage from the oxygenation pools toward a-Nabi Elias land, even reaching the houses.
The villagers are known as seekers of peace. For years there was no hostility towards Israelis. On the contrary, we were always welcomed warmly and stopped there to enjoy their delicious, inexpensive falafel.
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