The Arab Development Society (ADS) Jericho, 19forties and 2012

Susanne Bosch (2012) and Hanah Safieh, documentary photography from the 1940ies and fifties

In 1945 a strategy was developed by Musa Alami to improve life in Palestinian villages with “the object of raising the social, economic and educational standards of Arab villages in Palestine.”http://mailbox:///C:/Users/Hofter/AppData/Roaming/Thunderbird/Profiles/48dbwiob.default/Mail/Local%20Folders/Inbox?number=1927755024#_ftn2

The Arab League approved the plan “to strengthen the fallah, to rid them of depth and thereby save the lands from being lost to money-lenders and to fall into alien hands.” A survey of 350 villages was conducted to define the needs in 1946 and 47.  In 1948, the course of history in the region transformed the plans and lead the need not only “to raise the standard of existing villages, but to create the very conditions of an ordered and settled life”http://mailbox:///C:/Users/Hofter/AppData/Roaming/Thunderbird/Profiles/48dbwiob.default/Mail/Local%20Folders/Inbox?number=1927755024#_ftn3 for ten thousands of refugees.

In 1948 a group of refugees and Musa Alami started to dig for water in the desert of the Jordan Valley and the success of this enterprise led to the foundation of a non-profit organization; an agricultural school and experimental farm in Jericho to provide training for the Palestinian refugee population: THE ARAB DEVELOPMENT SOCIETY (ADS).

Musa Alami ran the ADS jointly with a board until his death in 1984. The educational vocational training center that provided skills and education for several generations and thousands of Palestinians closed in the 1990s due to various reasons.

2012: ADS still exists and remains as dairy, date and fish farm which provides large parts of the West Bank with their local products. 65 people work on the farm and 21 families still live on the large and beautifully designed territory located right next to the King Hussein Bridge leading to Amann in Jordan.

the photos were produced / explored in context with Susanne Boschs contribution to the project "Jericho - beyond celestial and terrestial", 4th edition of cities exhibition, Bir Zeit University Museum and Academy of Art, Palestine / Ramallah