The story begins with Ayn Hawd, a village with roots stretching back some 700 years that was captured during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War and emptied of most of its residents — many of whom were driven into refugee camps in Jordan and the West Bank. In what reads like an act of cultural erasure, the empty village did not simply fall into neglect: in 1953 Marcel Janco, a Romanian Dadaist émigré and one of the movement's founders, was enlisted to “preserve” the site by turning it into a Jewish artists’ colony. Houses that had sheltered generations of Palestinian families were refitted as studios and galleries; the village mosque was repurposed as a café/bar; traditional olive groves were uprooted and replaced with what one refugee, Abu al‑Hayja, bitterly called the “Jewish cypress.”
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AI concept artworkArchive Record · 1940s
How a 700‑Year‑Old Village Became an Artists’ Colony: The 1948 Expulsion and the Making of Ein Hod
Ayn Hawd / Ein Hod (Palestinian village) / 1940s
The story begins with Ayn Hawd, a village with roots stretching back some 700 years that was captured during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War and emptied of most of its residents — many of whom were driven into refugee camps in Jordan and the West Bank. In what reads like an act of cultural erasure, the empty village did not simply fall into neglect: in 1953 Marcel Janco, a Romanian Dadaist émigré and one of the movement's founders, was enlisted to “preserve” the site by turning it into a Jewish artists’ colony. Houses that had sheltered generations of Palestinian families were refitted as studios and galleries; the village mosque was repurposed as a café/bar; traditional olive groves were uprooted and replaced with what one refugee, Abu al‑Hayja, bitterly called the “Jewish cypress.”
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