Phone: 972-2-626-6800 FAX: 972-2-628-5764 ADDRESS: Muristan Road P.O. Box 14076 Jerusalem 91140 via Israel
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"Many people who were educated in this institution, including myself, are grateful to it and consider the school their second home…These people look with great satisfaction when they see this school a source of light to the coming generations."
Abdullah Awad, alumnus of the Evangelical Lutheran School in Beit Sahour.
The village of Beit Sahour, traditionally revered as the home of the Christmas Eve shepherds and the location of their fields, is a close-knit community of families with strong ties to the land and to one another. About 80 percent of the village’s inhabitants are Christian, and 20 percent are Muslim. Like its neighboring villages in the Bethlehem region, Beit Sahour has long been a pilgrimage site for Christians from all over the world, and during peacetime, the village relied heavily on tourism for its economic wellbeing. Tourists used to seek the traditional Beit Sahour crafts of carved olivewood, candles, and elaborate traditional Palestinian embroidery.
Today the Evangelical Lutheran School in Beit Sahour continues to serve the changing needs of the local community. The school’s 460 students take courses in traditional academic subjects such as languages, mathematics, geography, and history, but they also take part in vocational training classes that emphasize producing local traditional handicrafts. Investing in the region’s future, the school maintains workshops for woodworking, candlemaking, and ceramic-production, as it hopes for the return of tourism to the Holy Land.
The Lutheran School also maintains a strong tradition in music and dance. Choirs and dance groups perform both locally and abroad.
The Evangelical Lutheran School in Beit Sahour reflects tradition in its existence and permamence. It is founded to develop students spiritually, psychologically, and educationally. The school’s mission is that of a holistic approach to development, the creation of self-confidence, the reinforcement of community and co-operation, as well as the creation of responsible citizens capable of adapting to the continuous changes of time through an educational system unique in its performance and results.
The school works diligently to build bridges of communication with the local and international communities.
By the late nineteenth century, the German mission in Bethlehem had already established itself as a significant educational and ministerial presence in the Palestinian villages to the south of Jerusalem. The German School in Bethlehem was founded in 1860 on land purchased by German missionaries for a Lutheran church and school. It was the first school in the area to admit both boys and girls, and word spread quickly of the high quality of education being offered there.
In 1900, a group of citizens from Beit Sahour approached the German mission in Bethlehem and asked that a teacher be sent to Beit Sahour to help educate the village’s children. The Berlin Mission agreed to help fund the project, and in 1901 the mission rented an old house in the village and paid an educator from the nearby village of Beit Jala, Mr. Suleiman Abu Diyyeh, to begin the work of the school. Mr. Abu Diyyeh began teaching a group of 40 boys and 25 girls in the rented building; in 1902 the German mission purchased land for permanent facilities, and in 1904 the first school building was completed and opened.
The school flourished throughout the tumultuous years of the twentieth century, growing and changing to meet the needs of the Beit Sahour community. During and following the Arab-Israeli War of 1948, the Lutheran World Federation cooperated with the school to open a soup kitchen on the school’s premises to serve Palestinian refugee children and families displaced during the war. Upper classes were gradually added to the school during the following decades. Grade 12 was added in 1996, and in the spring of 1997 the Evangelical Lutheran School in Beit Sahour graduated its first class of students.
Principal: Mr. Salameh Bishara
Evangelical Lutheran School of Beit Sahour
PO Box 55
Beit Sahour, Palestine via Israel
Phone: +972 2 277 2720
Fax: +972 2 277 2204
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