For the first time in Israel, an integrated community for people with disabilities will be established - Shacharit. Its regulation began a year ago with a government decision alongside eight other communities, and it recently received the signature of Central Command Chief Yehuda Fuchs on an order associating it municipally with the Samaria Regional Council, paving the way for its establishment.
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Although there are communities that work to integrate people with various disabilities, such as Givot in Gush Etzion, it is now a community that will be established from the outset as an institution around which there is a settlement, with all that this implies. For the first time in Israel, a community will be built from scratch with an education complex at its center, which will provide accompaniment, treatment and even housing for people with special needs and disabilities.
The Education Campus will be designed for all ages - from daycare to adults - and for all functions, from low to high, and around it young people, both secular and religious, will live in affordable housing.
Yair Farm settlement in Samaria,
"Model Zionism 2024"
The establishment of the new community, whose planning took seven years and is now receiving official approval, will enable families whose children with special needs or disabilities to live close to the children, who enjoy an educational framework and integration into employment throughout their lives.
Samaria Council head Yossi Dagan says that the decision to establish the community in a desirable location in western Samaria, a relatively short distance from central cities, is part of an organized ideology for integrating people with disabilities into society.
Yossi Dagan at the Altar of Joshua (archive), photo: Elichai Menachem
"I believe with all my heart that an idealistic and fulfilling society is measured by the attention it pays to links that need help. There is nothing more exciting to me than building a community around kindness, help and a community that surrounds and grows alongside people with disabilities and special needs. This is the right model for settlement and Zionism in 2024," Dagan says.
"Gospel for Samaria"
Doron Brut, a Yakir resident, Noam's father, 18, on the autistic spectrum, leads the issue of special needs together with other residents of Samaria. "Unfortunately, until now, adults with special needs have been forced to move far from their families and their natural place, or to remain in their parents' home and become an impossible burden on the family. In the past, families were forced to leave Samaria in order to receive proper care for their children.
Horvat Amir site destroyed by Palestinians, near the settlement of Kiryat Stalactites in Samaria, photo: Samaria Regional Council
"In recent years, the equation has changed, and Samaria has become the warm home for special families," says Brut. "There is no doubt that the establishment of the new settlement will bring huge news to Samaria as a whole. Samaria and its environs need a community based on an educational institution for adults with special needs, including living in the community, affordable employment tailored to them, all out of a feeling that they are part of the community and not a burden."
In the place where the settlement of Shacharit is expected to be established, Hava has been located for the past seven years, in order to protect state lands from Palestinian takeover. Now, with the general's signature on the order, the council will begin planning a master plan for the new settlement, the first that was actually approved out of the nine communities in the young settlement that received approval in principle in a government decision last year.
Samaria, Photo: Regavim
"To me, the establishment of a settlement around special needs is a historic and exciting event – the jewel of Samaria," Dagan says.
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