Kfar Tikvah (, in

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Culture, language and peoples * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England * ''English'', an Amish ter ...

means: Village of Hope) is a kibbutz-style village near

Kiryat Tiv'on Kiryat Tiv'on (, also Qiryat Tiv'on) is a town in the Haifa District of Israel, in the hills between the Zvulun (Zebulon) and Jezreel valleys. Kiryat Tiv'on is located southeast of Haifa, on the main road to Nazareth. Kiryat Tiv'on is the resul ...

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

for people with disabilities .

History

Kfar Tikvah was founded in 1963 under the leadership of Sigfried Hirsch by a group of Israelis on the top of a mountain near Kiryat Tiv'on. With the help of German volunteers from a German association and with the help of some German donors, they started to implement the vision of the founders in the same year. The establishment was inaugurated in 1964.

Idea

Sigfried Hirsch and his co-workers founded Kfar Tikvah on the site of the abandoned Kibbutz Givat Zaid. Here Hirsch's idea of

disabled people Disability is the experience of any condition that makes it more difficult for a person to do certain activities or have equitable access within a given society. Disabilities may be cognitive, developmental, intellectual, mental, physical, ...

living like other people became a reality: "They should live like us!" he declared at the inauguration ceremony. Kfar Tikvah today sees itself as a kibbutz of a special kind even though it does not belong to the

kibbutz movement The Kibbutz Movement (, ''HaTnu'a HaKibbutzit'') is the largest settlement movement for kibbutzim in Israel. It was formed in 1999 by a partial merger of the United Kibbutz Movement and Kibbutz Artzi and is made up of approximately 230 kibbutzim. I ...

. The disabled people of the

village A village is a human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand. Although villages are often located in rural areas, the term urban v ...

consider themselves kibbutz members and assume, as far as possible, tasks and duties for the

community A community is a social unit (a group of people) with a shared socially-significant characteristic, such as place, set of norms, culture, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given g ...

. Since the construction of the village on the site of the former

Kibbutz A kibbutz ( / , ; : kibbutzim / ) is an intentional community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. The first kibbutz, established in 1910, was Degania Alef, Degania. Today, farming has been partly supplanted by other economi ...

Givat Zaid, which took place in 1963 with the help of German volunteers, Kfar Tikvah has become something of a sign of German-Israeli relations.

Structure

Basically, the structure of the village corresponds to that of a kibbutz. The management consists of parents or ward representatives, employees and representatives of the disabled. This is the main difference from other facilities. In Kfar Tikvah, the disabled people have a right to speak, also on a leadership level. Their elected representatives have the right of co-determination and co-decision on occupational matters, community projects, and acceptance of new members.

Work

Kfar Tikvah provides jobs for 200 disabled people. In addition to daily work in gardening, laundry and housekeeping, the business enterprises on the grounds of the village offer additional job opportunities.

Business operations

Kfar Tikvah runs a winery, a

dog The dog (''Canis familiaris'' or ''Canis lupus familiaris'') is a domesticated descendant of the gray wolf. Also called the domestic dog, it was selectively bred from a population of wolves during the Late Pleistocene by hunter-gatherers. ...

breeding farm and a

candle A candle is an ignitable candle wick, wick embedded in wax, or another flammable solid substance such as tallow, that provides light, and in some cases, a Aroma compound, fragrance. A candle can also provide heat or a method of keeping time. ...

factory A factory, manufacturing plant or production plant is an industrial facility, often a complex consisting of several buildings filled with machinery, where workers manufacture items or operate machines which process each item into another. Th ...

. Residents of the village work in these businesses. A ceramic workshop has also opened.

Learning

Kfar Tikvah was the first disabled facility to convince the

University of Haifa The University of Haifa (, ) is a public research university located on Mount Carmel in Haifa, Israel. Founded in 1963 as a branch of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the University of Haifa received full academic accreditation as an inde ...

to offer its educational programs for the disabled. Since then, the university has been using the program for the training of students in social professions and offers the ''chaverim'' and their families the opportunity to work out an individual learning program together. In this way, a unique project that benefits both sides, the university and its students in training and Kfar Tikvah, was created by the special support of its members.

German-Israeli cooperation

Without this cooperation Kfar Tikvah would not have been conceivable. They were German volunteers from the association, which in 1963 designed the buildings of the former Kibbutz

Givat Shaul Givat Shaul (, lit. (''Saul's Hill''); ) is a neighborhood in West Jerusalem. The neighborhood is located at the western entrance to the city, east of the neighborhood of Har Nof and north of Kiryat Moshe. Givat Shaul stands 820 meters above sea ...

for the disabled. Since then, Kfar Tikvah has been an active and special sign of German-Israeli and Christian-Jewish

cooperation Cooperation (written as co-operation in British English and, with a varied usage along time, coöperation) takes place when a group of organisms works or acts together for a collective benefit to the group as opposed to working in competition ...

. Here, German, Israeli, Jewish and Christian volunteers work together with the other ''chaverim''. This cooperation is repeatedly appreciated by the visit of the German delegations and the German foreign affairs minister.

References

External links

* {{Coord, 32.7013, 35.1150, display=inline,title Villages in Israel Kiryat Tiv'on 1963 establishments in Israel