בניה קלה Biniya Kala, Quick Building by Jews Here in Israel

Those of you who read my husband's blog may have caught his post about the building (construction process, not structure) across the street.  We've both been photographing it from our house, front door, merpeset (terrace) etc.

Until very recently, people have denigrated the idea of building with Jewish workers only for the very practical reason/excuse that Jews don't work as quickly as Arabs.  Traditional building here is of the "brick by brick" or pouring cement which ends up taking forever.

This building by conventional methods and Arab workers was begun 2 years ago.

I have no doubt that this old-fashioned method builds homes to last.  In addition it's fire-proof and needs little upkeep/repairs.  At least that's our experience.  Both of our sons live in Jerusalem stone buildings that were built over a hundred years ago.  One is in Nachlaot and the other in Nachalat Shiva.  One of the big disadvantages to the old-fashioned brick by brick method is that there is no way to do it quickly.  It's either slow or very, painfully slow.  The larger the building, the longer it will take.  You can't build the fourth floor before the second or third.

In recent years all sorts of prefabricated and other assemble/kit types of building methods have been tried to speed things up.  Some neighbors had the walls poured as cement in situ.  Cement walls cause awful insulation problems.  Modern building materials have been tried, too.  A few years ago, after the government began confiscating "caravans," mobile homes aka trailers as they were being transported to the yishuvim communities in Judea and Samaria, an in situ method was developed to assemble the walls etc. from factory-made building "sheets."  Entire caravan neighborhoods were built like that.

Caravans under construction

Now the same basic method is being used to build houses.  Here's the new house across from us.  The foundation and security room are cement, and the rest seems to be like the caravans.  Bli neder I'll continue photographing until the neighbors move in.