Al-Jamaheer is a registered association for the development of the Bedouin villages and towns especially in the field of social welfare and the improvement of the Arab Bedouin life in the district of Beersheba and the Negev. A group of Bedouins- mainly social activists and academics- established the association in 2000. The association members are skillful and experienced in social activity and have good relations with the Bedouin community in the economic, social, educational and judicial fields and they are involved in the activity to preserve the Bedouin legacy and culture. Feeling that the Bedouin culture is facing a real danger of extinction because of different reasons, the association members do their best to preserve and documenting it. The association has dealt with reconciliation among the Bedouin tribes through strengthening the traditional Bedouin courts and it has solved old disputes and conflicts. The head of the association is Ali Abu Rabei’a, an academic who got his MA in Middle East history from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem from and a Bedouon from Abu Rabei’a tribe that live east to Beersheba.

 

• Preserving the Bedouin culture like Bedouin poetry and horse and camel races.

   

   

• Helping the needy Bedouins and those stricken by natural disasters like floods in winter and sand storms in summer.

   

   

• Encouraging the illiterate Bedouins to learn.

  

   

• Reconciliation among the Bedouin tribes and strengthening the traditional Bedouin courts to reduce the level of violence and disputes among the different tribes and to reduce the level of crime among the uneducated and delinquent Bedouins.

   

   

• Establishing an educational institution for the gifted pupils and another institution for the handicapped and the children with exceptional needs. There are no institutions for such children in the Bedouin villages and towns in the Negev.

  

   

• Struggling for the rights of the Bedouins like getting enough water and pasture land so that they may be able to raise their flocks.

   

   

• Documenting the present Bedouin life and the old traditions by interviewing old men and women and photographing working and weaving tools and household materials.