Ein Hud in the 21st century

After more than 56 years of waiting the regional council of Hof Hacarmel, at which Ein Hud is a member of, started repairing both the access road and the internal roads of the village, on Wednesday morning august 11 the renovation commenced and is still ongoing.

This is a big step in the life of the Assosiation Of Forty -and even a much bigger one in the lives of the residents- because the government decided to recognize the village in 1994, but since then they didn\'t realize the benefit of being on the map of Israel, in ten years time from the essential infrastructural facilities they only got governmental water in 2003.

Recently big green buckets appeared in village, and with them came the garbage collection system, yet the problem is not entirely solved because trucks have difficulties moving around the village. Living without a garbage system is hard to imagine in our present civilized world, but it is a new and a very pleasant service for the inhabitants of the village.

A traffic sign had been placed near the entrance of the village stating it\'s name, (although misspelled), this ends the invisibility and the indirect closure of the people who live there, however the authorities are still refusing to place a sign on the main Haifa Tel-Aviv road.

With the process of official recognition the citizens can now exchange their Identity Cards for a new one, which states that they live in the village of Ein Hud. This is a formal step –like being on the map- but it has a very symbolic meaning. Since 1948 every person living in an unrecognized village is registered somewhere else like in the nearest kibbutz or in a near by city.

The process of recognition has begun and the inhabitants of the village will start getting services slowly, but they have to face difficulties even if they receive something. Having a new road was one of their aims, but the truth is that the road is just a temporarily solution, by covering the existing narrow steep and rocky road with used tar. It wasn\'t built by the government nor by its\' standards, it was a compromise reached between the village committee and the regional council after the second demanded municipality taxes which normally cover the expenses of the basic infrastructure. If the council builds a road (doesn’t matter which quality) it means that they have something from the council, so they have to pay taxes. The cost of the road is only 1% of the permanent one, that is supposed to be built by governmental standards, so it appears to be the cheapest way for the council to have the right for collecting municipal taxes. In the future the citizens and the Association of Forty will have to fight again to get the permanent access road.

Ein-Hud is one of the first villages which got an official road, so it means for the other villages that there is a way to gain support from the government, so this example can be followed by others.

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Ein Hud in the 21st century

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