They were told to wait a year
Avraham Ben-Hod came to Israel from the United Kingdom as a young man, married an Israeli, served in the army and kept serving in the reserves until he was fifty. He took a master's degree in botany at the Hebrew University. He loved growing things, and he loved the desert most of all — which is a strange thing to love, and explains a good deal of what happened next.
By the early 2000s a group of families from Ma'ale Adumim were making the drive into Jerusalem every week to be part of a congregation there. They asked whether they might start meeting in their own city. Their leaders told them to wait a year and pray about it. They did exactly that, and in 2005 they were sent out with a blessing.
Four rooms and a field
The living room
Avraham and Shoshi's house. The furniture went out to the yard on Shabbat morning and the bedrooms became the children's classes.
The field
A few thin trees for shade. When more people came than the house could hold, this is where they went.
The cave
About a year in a cave in the Good Samaritan National Park, on the road down to Jericho.
Below the bowling alley
A former nightclub, every wall painted black, filthy. Rented around 2012 and rebuilt by the congregation itself.
The black room
The nightclub is the part people remember. It was under a bowling alley, every wall was painted black, and it was filthy. The congregation cleaned and repainted it themselves.
Then something happened that nobody planned. From the first month in that building, the congregation's giving doubled, and it covered the rent.
Today we meet in a building on the edge of the desert, at eleven on Shabbat morning. About 120 of us, and a great many small children.
The people who carry it
Avraham Ben-Hod · Tal Rubin · Yinon Ben-Hod · Archie Leonard · Shilo Ben-Hod · Hezi Intrater
Around thirty-five people carry the week between them — teaching and prayer, worship leading, sound, presentation, the weekly portion, the children and the youth group. Almost all of it is volunteer.
