Address Shefa-'Amr, Israel | ||
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The Sisters of Nazareth convent (Arabic: دير راهبات الناصره - شفاعمرو) is a monastery located in the city of Shefa-Amr, Israel.
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History
In the year 1857, after the citizens of Shefa-Amr saw how much the Sisters of Nazareth convent in Nazareth has helped the people of that city, they contacted one of its sisters called sister Hilo with an offer to contribute a piece of land in the center of Shefa-Amr containing remains of a 4th-century church for the purpose of building a new convent on it. Sister Hilo accepted the offer and the convent was built on that land. Later in 1860 a new school was built in the convent's area, this school was expanded over the years and teaches nowadays 1000 of the city's children.
In those days the area lacked any health care systems so the sisters built a small infirmary and gave health care services to the people of the city, the treatments were given to anyone regardless of his religion. In the year 1914 the European sisters had to leave and go back to their home lands, some of the people of Shefa-Amr asked for the infirmary to remain opened, because the head sister couldn't do that she asked the other sisters to evacuate the convent in order to let another monastery occupy the place and rerun the infirmary. The sisters ordered 30 Camels from Haifa to move their stuff, when the camels arrived the men of the city asked them why they came for and then ordered them to go back. Then they went to the sisters and said "We don't want and infirmary, we don't want another convent we just want the Sisters of Nazareth to stay" and they stayed there for the next 8 days making sure no one left.
In the current days the convent is the house of three sisters: sister Liya Aboud from Shefa-Amr, sister Donsian Nasrawy from Nazareth and sister Muna Ghanem from Lebanon.