Equality within Difference:

The Story of Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam

by

Jesse Zerger Nathan

A Research PaperPresented to the

Department of Historyand the

Department of Bible and ReligionBethel College

In Partial FulfillmentOf the requirements for the Course

Social Science Seminar, History 482and

Advanced Religious Studies, Bible/Religion 482Mark Jantzen, AdvisorPatty Shelly, Advisor

North Newton, KansasApril 2005

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Table of Contents

Acknowledgements…...................................................................................................................i

Preface……………………………………...……………………………………….….............iii

Introduction......…………………...…………………...………………………….….................1

Part I: The Story

The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: A Brief History......….........…...…….…...................2

Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam: Background and Structure...........................................9

Four Paths: A Historical Analysis of the Village

Numerical Parity and the Maintenance of Practical Equality........................14

The Economics and Financing of Co-existence......………..............................23

Branching Out: Opening the Primary School to Area Villages......................31

Tom Kita’in and a Community in Crisis...........................................................40

Further Discussion...........................................................................................................48

Part II: The Philosophy

National Identities in Dialogue.......................................................................................51

A Certain Kind of Contact..............................................................................................53

Three Pillars: The Philosophical and Practical Dimensions of an Inter-ethnic, Inter-faith Community

The First Pillar: The Exploring Identity, Encountering “The Other”...........58

The Second Pillar: Primary Education for Peace ...........................................63

The Third Pillar: A Center for Pluralistic, Spiritual Understanding.............66

Judeo-Christian Theological Implications.....................................................................68

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Final Conclusions.........................................................................................................................72

Appendix A: Timeline.................................................................................................................76

Appendix B: A Map of Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam............................................................80

Bibliography.................................................................................................................................81

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Acknowledgments

A project of this magnitude could not have been completed without the tremendous support of my community. This paper discusses the complexities and diverse experiences at one specific community, yet constant throughout this discussion is the underlying belief in the importance of community itself—as a source of hope, peace and, ultimately, support. My community—while not as intentionally defined as that of Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam—has provided me with an incredible amount of assistance and encouragement, and, in doing so gives me great hope as I seek to be a peacemaker. I am so thankful for this support. In trying to thank everyone one often leaves someone out, but I will try nonetheless.

Most basically, I simply could not have financed the trip to Israel/Palestine for the month of study at Neve Shalom had it not been for the generous donations of so many friends and family. I have been overwhelmed and humbled by the amount of support I’ve received and I cannot fully express my appreciation. Thank you.

While staying at Wahat al-Salam I was welcomed into the community routine, encouraged to talk to many diverse people and allowed to enmesh myself into the daily life of the village. It was all that a researcher could ask for. Thank you Abdessalam for your time and encouragement; Howard and Dorit for being so generous with your time and resources; thank you Kamil, Ilan, Daniella, Boaz, Shireen, Ariela, Nava, Ruth and Ety for giving me a chance to talk with you about the community. Thank you Raida for allowing me to observe your classroom, as well as giving me a chance to discuss my observations with you. Thank you to the hotel staff for your generosity and help those rugged, first few days. Ori, Noam, Chris, Heidi, Felix, Wissam and Judith, thank you for including me in your activities, hanging out with me, and taking the time to engage me on your ideas and perspectives. Thank you Bob and Michal for a wonderful Saturday afternoon of eating, shopping, walking the dog and playing games—and for access to your piano. Rita, thank you so much for helping arrange my place at the volunteer house, as well as for your engaging discussion about the village. Thank you Rayek for sipping tea with me at sunset, and, most of all, thank you Anne for a wonderful, adventurous ride (and discussion) on the way to Jerusalem.

I want also to thank so many people at Bethel College who have helped me along in this process. While it is impossible to complete such a listing, I do, in particular, want to thank Professors Patty Shelly, Mark Jantzen, Penny Moon and Duane Friesen for your guidance and support. You have taught me so much more than you will ever imagine, and you have helped me to find myself. For me, the four of you are teachers in the most important and inspirational sense of the word.

So many of my friends played key roles in keeping me going, especially during difficult times, and for all of their support I am deeply appreciative. The illustrious crew of dudes whom I live with—Jared Hawkley, Ian Huebert, Andy Gingerich, Henry Dick, Nick Schrag, Eric Stucky and Jesse Overright—have been a constant source of intellectual and creative stimulation. For this, as well as for being the people I have depended on most for friendship and the everyday supports of life, I thank you. Thank you Andy for being the best roommate I could ever have and for always being “Showbiz”—I could not have done it without you. Other friends—too many to fairly name off—have helped me in immeasurable ways, sometimes without even knowing it. I am so thankful for you all.

Since I first began my formal education, my family has provided me with a space in which any idea was acceptable for discussion—and in which questioning was never deemed

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dangerous. I am so thankful for the influence, guidance and support that has always come from my parents—Sandy Nathan and Kirsten Zerger—as well as from my siblings—Daagya, Jono and Josh. For all of the editing on this and many other papers, thank you. Most importantly, thank you for giving me my first and most lasting experience of what community ought to be.

Finally, this project could not have been completed without the faith and support of my best friend, Steph Long. Thank you, Steph, for being the center around which my life is grounded, for allowing me to search, discover and create while providing the love, friendship and companionship that keeps me going. I love you.

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Preface

The human race stands on the brink of its own undoing. Daily we are bombarded with reports of disaster and despair, from global warming to global terror. Politics often seems empty and corrupt, symbolic at best. Organized religion is increasingly hijacked by fundamentalists seeking to advance an agenda rarely concerned with the welfare of the planet, let alone the welfare of most of the planet’s people. Despite the dawn of the Information Age, ethnic and racial divisions rooted in nationalist fervor have spawned appalling abuses of human rights globally. The United States—supposedly the ideal nation-state—preaches democracy abroad while curtailing civil liberties for its own citizens and ignoring the plight of thousands of its own poor, sick and isolated. Were every person on this planet to consume at the rate of the United States, the planet and its ecosystems would collapse—according to some commentators, this collapse has already begun.1

Our task as global citizens—in whatever vocation we work from—is therefore to strive in whatever way we can to reverse this seemingly inevitable spiral towards a disastrous future. I have come to believe that the most effective, practical and moral answers to most (if not all) the social, economic, political and religious problems of our times are rooted in nonviolence. It is this or else, in the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., nonexistence.

As nationalism continues to rear its bloody head and the nation-state grows increasingly disconnected from the daily lives of its citizens, a beacon of potential hope lies in the growing movement worldwide to re-embrace community.2 In a multitude of forms, intentional and indirect, loose and rigid, community means a commitment to the clichéd, but ever important slogan: “think globally, act locally.” A concerted effort to rebuild community means rebuilding our society at a fundamental level—rebuilding it around a new set of priorities emphasizing nonviolent co-existence with our world, not the violent, competitive domination of the world that we see manifested around us so clearly. Rebuilding in this manner is an immense task; it will require nothing short of a paradigm shift.

Theology is, in many ways, the study of paradigms. It encompasses the totality of all stories—seeking to determine a pattern by which we can find meaning, and perhaps some hint of the Divine. History, on the other hand, is the story of change over time—and any historian knows that great change comes gradually, sometimes in the smallest, seemingly imperceptible increments. Studying history and theology, therefore, is more than an “objective” task for cool-headed scholars in classrooms and coffee-shops far from the “real” world. It is a task for each of us: to find the narratives that can help us envision great changes one story at a time.

The story of Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam is one of those stories. I will not idealize this small, hilltop village. It has its share of problems and controversies. It is not a utopia and the people have never striven for that unrealistic goal. Rather, the villagers of Wahat al-Salam seek humbly to create, through their intentionality and perseverance, a laboratory in which the possibilities of peace can be explored—a nonviolent response to the sea of violence swirling around them. Theirs is a beacon that can help us see hope in those seemingly abstract ideals of nonviolence and community, in a concrete, clearly applicable way.

I write this paper, therefore, not from any objective standpoint (for such objectivity is clearly a myth), but from my own personal interest in searching for alternatives to the road our 11 Walter Wink, Engaging the Powers (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress Press, 1992), 220-227 and Gordon D. Kaufman, In the Beginning…Creativity (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress Press, 2004), 33-52 and 71-106.22 Elise Boulder, Cultures of Peace: The Hidden Side of History (New York: Syracuse University Press, 2000), 87-160.

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world seems headed down. I am writing as a historian and as a theologian laden with all the biases and assumptions that my background and personal narrative bring to the table. Nonetheless, as part of the search for a common meeting point in the larger academic and general discussion of these issues, this paper is grounded in as fair and unbiased an analysis of the evidence as I can muster—a sort of humbly subjective attempt at objectivity, though certainly such an attempt is always imperfect.

In the end, I hope that this research results in more than a paper. I hope that reading this story reveals a painting set on a much larger canvass: a story about Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam? Yes. A story about peacebuilding in Israel/Palestine? Yes. But also, I hope, a story that leaves us grappling with the questions that these villagers have made a part of their lives—questions of how we practice and live what we believe. These questions are daunting, but as this village demonstrates, ultimately approachable. Indeed only if we begin approaching these questions will we ever also begin to find answers.

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“Better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.”

-Chinese Proverb

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Introduction

Few modern crises draw as much attention and intense confusion as the Israeli-

Palestinian conflict. This complex conflict exists on numerous levels—as a religious dispute, a

nationalist clash, a power struggle and a land conflict, to name the most common. Consistent

throughout all of these dimensions, however, is the fundamental struggle between two peoples,

two distinct histories and two colliding identities. Few groups have set out to address this

confrontation between identities as a core element in this struggle. One such group is Neve

Shalom/Wahat al-Salam,3 which, translated, means “Oasis of Peace” in both Hebrew and Arabic

respectively.

Neve Shalom is indeed an oasis surrounded on all sides by violence and religious strife, a

village born in response to the pressing social, national and religious tensions between Israelis

and Palestinians. The history of Wahat al-Salam, explored in the first part of this paper, offers a

picture of a community grappling with issues both specific to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as

well as those more generally found among any group of people intentionally living in

community. Four events or decisions in the community’s history define the story of this village:

(1) the decision in the beginning years of the village to maintain an even fifty-fifty split between

Arab and Jewish families in the community; (2) choosing in early in the community’s history to

construct an economic infrastructure dependent on donations, with a minimal internal economy;

(3) the 1990 decision to open its primary school to Arab and Jewish children from around the

region, instead of keeping it solely a village school; and (4) the 1997 death of Tom Kita’in, the

son of two community members and a soldier in the Israeli Defense Forces.

3 Throughout the paper, I will alternate the title used for the village, referring at times to the community as Neve Shalom and at times as Wahat al-Salam (and additionally sometimes as NSWAS, the acronym for the full name). I believe this is in line with and out of respect for the efforts to assert equality within the village itself, between Arabic and Hebrew as the languages of two peoples and thus two identities.

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Within this historical framework, the second part of the paper explores the basis for the

community’s past and current successes. Neve Shalom is guided by a philosophy that recognizes

the need to maintain and affirm national, religious and ethnic identity, rather than submerging

identity into the proverbial melting pot. The community has applied this loose philosophy and

cultivated a community through an environment of sufficient daily cross-cultural interaction,

interfaith understanding and inter-ethnic dialogue. This application is grounded in three pillars:

(1) a School for Peace which brings together Arabs and Israeli Jews for “encounters”—

challenging workshops that hope to facilitate dialogue between two identities, and thus plant the

seeds for future co-existence; (2) a primary school that applies the lessons of co-existence and

dialogue among children at a young age; and (3) a Spiritual Center that seeks to provide a place

for inter-faith discussion and spiritual growth within the community. These three elements have

successfully fostered peaceful co-existence at Wahat al-Salam. Additionally, these pillars offer

an opportunity to explore the theological implications of witness through co-existence—and

what the example of this community can mean for people of Judeo-Christian faith.

Part I: The Story

“The enemy of truth is very often not the lie—deliberate, contrived and dishonest—but the myth—persistent, persuasive and realistic.”

--John F. Kennedy

A. The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: A Brief History

The historical narratives playing out in the minds of Israelis and Palestinians are

inseparable from their particular perceptions of the present conflict. Likewise, the history of

Neve Shalom cannot be understood apart from its historical context.

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Roughly six million people inhabit Israel proper4, with approximately eighty percent of

the population identifying themselves as ethnically or religiously Jewish, fifteen percent as

Muslim and two percent as Christian. The state of Israel defines itself as a “Jewish State” but

also as a democratic nation.5 Yet Israel/Palestine is today embroiled in a bitterly divisive

conflict between two national groups—Israeli Jews and Palestinians (both Muslims and

Christians). 6 Commentators, residents and scholars agree that one constantly encounters

“mistrust, fear and anger everywhere,” from Palestinian voices expressing deeply felt oppression

and disappointment, and Israeli Jews communicating disillusionment and “a growing wish for

escapism.”7 Inside Israel/Palestine the situation is locked in “stalemate,” between what some

call “the existence of privileged and second-class citizens…perpetuated by state-backed

discrimination against Arab citizens” on the one hand and the steady fear of terrorist attacks on

the other.8 Most observers, even ardent defenders of Israel as a Jewish State, acknowledge a

certain degree of “preferential treatment” for Jewish citizens, extending into “all major aspects of

social and political life, including schooling, health care, housing and land use.”9

The most recent manifestation of this polarized reality is the struggle known as the

Second Intifada (Intifada means “shaking off” in Arabic), beginning in October 2000, after

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon offended Muslims nation-wide with his visit to the Al-Aqsa 4 The term “Israel proper” generally refers to the Israeli land not including the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.5 Sonia K. Weaver, What is Israel/Palestine? Answers to Common Questions (Winnipeg, Canada: Mennonite Central Committee, 2004), 4.6 How one refers to this area and its people is an important question, with politically explosive implications. I have chosen to refer to the area as Israel/Palestine in the hope that it will represent a certain attempt at neutrality (although it obviously reveals some bias). Clearly, this territory is hotly disputed and calling it either Israel or Palestine seems to make some presumption about who is right or wrong in the complex land-claim struggle. While I am not suggesting that Israel should not exist as a state (when referring to the state specifically I will denote it as the State of Israel), I am recognizing the many convoluted, unresolved claims to this territory that must be sorted out. Additionally, I will refer to Palestinians as either “Arabs” or “Palestinians,” depending on the context, based on the fact that this is how they consistently present themselves to outsiders. They explicitly reject the label “Israeli Arab” as a denial of identity. Jewish residents of Israel/Palestine term themselves “Israelis” or “Israeli Jews.” For clarity, I will use the term “Israeli Jew.” 7 Michal Zak, ed., School for Peace Report: 2003 (Wahat al-Salam/Neve Shalom: School for Peace, 2003), 4.8 Ibid.9 Weaver, What is Israel/Palestine?, 5.

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Mosque, which stands on the site of the ancient Jewish Temple Mount. After the visit, in which

Sharon brought armed Israeli Defense Forces onto the premises of the Mosque and generally

ignored Muslim custom, Palestinians took to the streets, many perceiving it as an act of complete

disrespect and domination. When Israeli police killed thirteen Arab demonstrators over a span of

just a few days, violence exploded across Israel/Palestine.10 Consequently, “Jews have all but

disappeared from Arab towns and villages, Arabs have begun avoiding contact with Jews, and an

atmosphere of anxiety has taken hold.”11 In reality, this recent outburst of violence is the

outcome of a clash that has been building between Jews and Palestinians for decades. Sharon’s

inflammatory visit simply ignited the latest round of violence in a conflict that can be traced to

the end of the nineteenth century.

Zionism, “the belief that Jews should have a state of their own,” emerged in late

nineteenth century Europe.12 Even before modern Zionism was fully articulated, however,

settlement of Palestine by Jews had begun. By the 1860s, approximately 10,000 Jews lived in

the Holy Land, with eighty percent of those residing in Jerusalem, the majority of them recent

immigrants.13 In 1862 Moses Hess wrote Rome and Jerusalem, declaring his Jewish

“nationality” as tied “inseparably” with the Holy Land and Jerusalem. In 1878, a group of

Jerusalem Jews established the first all-Jewish settlement in rural Palestine, called Petah Tikvah,

which promptly collapsed due to infighting, crop failure and malaria. By 1882 it was largely

defunct. 14

The sense of Jewish nationality became even more pronounced in 1889, when a Russian-

born Jew, Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, set out to revive Hebrew by modernizing it, outfitting it with

10 Rabah Halabi, ed., Israeli and Palestinian Identities in Dialogue: The School for Peace Approach (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2000), 5.11 Ibid.12 Weaver, What is Israel/Palestine?, 11.13 Martin Gilbert, Israel: A History (New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1998), 3.14 Ibid., 4.

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adjusted terminology, and “creating a uniform system of pronunciation…for daily use.”15

Establishing and legitimating a more unified Jewish language served to unite the Jewish people

as a whole, creating an increasingly conducive environment for Jewish national identity to

solidify. The revival of Hebrew was the most significant part of a general flowering of Jewish

activity in Palestine. Still, by the end of the nineteenth century, 90 percent of all residents in

Palestine were Arab, and the majority of them were Muslim.16

It was onto this stage that a Hungarian-born Jew, Theodore Herzl, entered the scene.

Appalled at antisemitism in France, especially during the trial and conviction for treason of

Alfred P. Dreyfuss (a conviction which was later found to be wrong), a French Jewish army

officer, Herzl called on Jews to establish a state where Jews could be safe and free from anti-

Semitic oppression. In his book Der Judenstaat (“The Jewish State”), Herzl outlined his vision

for a Jewish homeland, and, in 1896 founded the World Zionist Organization to further the

growing Zionist aspirations of Jews worldwide.17 Herzl bluntly asserted: “Palestine is our ever-

memorable historic home. The very name of Palestine would attract our people with a force of

marvelous potency.”18 While Herzl’s secular vision for a state was unappealing to many

Orthodox Jews, the immigration of secular, socialist-leaning Jews to Palestine increased

dramatically in the early twentieth century and was met with substantial hostility and restriction

by the Ottoman Turkish government of Palestine. By 1914, there were over 90,000 Jewish

inhabitants of the land.19

Ottoman control of Palestine evaporated after World War I, when land controlled by the

defeated Axis, including the Ottoman Turks, was parceled out among the victors. Great Britain

15 Ibid., 8.16 Weaver, What is Israel/Palestine?, 10.17 Gilbert, Israel: A History, 10.18 Ibid., 11.19 Ibid., 30.

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was given a mandate to administer Palestine, with the presumption that it would govern until

Palestine was ready to rule itself democratically.20 Palestinians assumed that an independent

state was at the end of the process, and that Britain supported this self-determination.

On December 7, 1917, however, the path toward democratic self-rule for Palestine (then

predominantly Arab) became tangled in the Balfour Declaration. After growing pressure to

appease a strong Jewish-Zionist lobby, the British government, with this document, gave its

support to the “establishment in Palestine of a National Home for the Jewish People,” thereby

committing Britain’s resources “to facilitate the achievement of this object.”21 This declaration

outraged Palestinians who perceived it as a lack of support by the British for Arab Palestinian

self-determination. The British government argued that Arab restriction on Jewish immigration

was the only reason more Jews did not live in Palestine, and therefore that Jews were not

“driving [the Palestinians] out of their country,” but rather overcoming an age-old barrier to

Jewish immigration.22

Violence and retaliation between Jewish and Arab settlements steadily increased with the

official ending of World War I in 1919. This galvanized Jewish nationalism worldwide and a

third wave of emigration crested, known as the “Third Aliyah” (“aliyah” means “ascent” in

Hebrew). In the span of four years, 35,000 Jews immigrated to the Holy Land; most of them

were socialists, the vanguard of what would become the collectivist movement in the new state.23

In May 1921, the Jewish armed forces, known as the Haganah, were founded in response to

growing violence. Years of low-level violence persisted, and Jewish immigration numbers

20 Weaver, What is Israel/Palestine?, 10.21 Gilbert, Israel: A History, 34.22 Joan Peters, From Time Immemorial: The Origins of the Arab-Jewish Conflict Over Palestine (New York: Harper and Row Publishers, 1984), 234.23 Gilbert, Israel: A History, 43.

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climbed until, by 1946, the Jewish population in Palestine was 600,000.24 For Arabs this

increase in Zionist immigration marked the slow disappearance of a dream—the dream of an

independent Palestinian state. For Jews, these rising tides of Zionist pioneers marked the

realization of a dream—a dream that became especially urgent in light of the shocking anti-

Jewish sentiment manifested in the Holocaust.

The vision for a Jewish State became reality in 1947, when the United Nations passed

General Assembly Resolution 181, known as the Partition Plan of Mandate Palestine. It gave 56

percent of the land to Jewish Israelis and 44 percent to the Palestinian Arabs.25 Palestinians

rejected the partition and on May 15, 1948, David Ben-Gurion declared Israeli independence,

igniting the 1948 War. In the course of the fighting, 700,000 Arab Palestinians became refugees

and over 400 Palestinian villages were demolished.26 By the end of the fighting, “Israel

controlled 22 percent more land than originally called for in the Partition Plan, covering 78

percent of Mandate Palestine.”27

From 1948 to 1966 a “military administration governed the areas within Israel proper

where the Palestinians lived,” limiting Palestinian movement and expression.28 Control was

administered both by force—such as through the expropriation of Arab lands—and also

psychologically—by “constructing a collective identity in a manner different from, cut off from,

that of the rest of the Palestinians [those living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip or abroad].”29

This was managed through control of the Palestinian educational system among other things, and

it left Palestinians with an “indistinct, rootless identity that elided their Palestinian selfhood.”30

24 This was, however, only 33 percent of the total population, with the vast majority still Arab Muslims and Christians. See: Weaver, What is Israel/Palestine?, 11.25 Ibid., 12.26 Ibid.27 Ibid., 13.28 Halabi, ed., Israeli and Palestinian Identities in Dialogue, 3.29 Ibid.30 Ibid.

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By the time war broke out again in 1967, the identity of Palestinians in Israel/Palestine was “an

identity of obedience, estranged from its own history and culture.”31

During the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel was attacked by a loose alliance of Arab nations

including Jordan, Egypt and Syria, ostensibly fighting for Palestinians. By the time the Six-Day

War ended, Israel had driven the Jordanians across the Jordan River, the Egyptians out of the

Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula, and the Syrians out of the Golan Heights. After the Camp

David accords of 1978, the Sinai was returned to Egypt, but the other three territories remain

under Israeli control and are known as the “Occupied Territories.” Israeli settlements in the

Occupied Territories were built on confiscated Palestinian land, and have flourished since the

early 1970s as a means of cementing its control of the occupied land. Today there are over

400,000 settlers in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.32

Ironically, it was also in the early 70s that the first hints at dialogue between Jews and

Arabs began. Meetings between Jewish and Arab Palestinian academics began in earnest,

mostly via the Israeli Community Party. These meetings “met the need of Arabs to pursue

contact with Jews and stroked the liberal leftist ego of a marginal Jewish group.”33 It was not

until the beginning of the First Intifada—a nonviolent uprising against the Occupation—on

December 9, 1987, that real defined Palestinian resistance truly began. For the first time,

Palestinians declared that the occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip by Israel was

unjust, and that Palestinian statehood must be granted. This awakening of a Palestinian

resistance sparked concerted efforts at dialogue as more Israel Jews began to sympathize with the

growing Palestinian outcry. Out of this dialogue came the Oslo Peace Accords in September

1993. The Oslo Accords were perceived by supporters to be one of many incremental steps

31 Ibid.32 Weaver, What is Israel/Palestine?, 19.33 Halabi, ed., Israeli and Palestinian Identities in Dialogue, 7.

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toward peace that would, at last, set the course toward future resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian

conflict. These agreements, however, never reached fruition. Former Israeli Prime Minister

Yitzhak Rabin, an important broker in the peace process, was assassinated on November 4, 1995

by a radical right-wing Jewish Yeshiva student upset by what he perceived to be Rabin caving to

Arabs. Further implementation of the accords deteriorated as both sides wrangled over details,

unable to put into practice the peace plan. Finally, when Oslo Accords interim phase expired in

May 1999, Palestinians and Israeli Jews “had gone from enthusiastic embrace of the Oslo

accords to a mood of pessimism and despair.”34

Consequently, when Ariel Sharon visited the Al-Aqsa Mosque in 2000, accompanied by

“hundreds of armed Israeli soldiers and police,” he provoked an intense reaction from Arab

Muslims. Across the country, Arabs declared that they had had “enough” of the occupation, the

restriction and control of their own destiny. Sharon’s irreverent visit to site of supreme holiness

—like the Al-Aqsa Mosque—could not, most Palestinians felt, be tolerated. Within hours

protests sprang up in Jerusalem and elsewhere and in the first week after the visit, thirteen

Palestinian protestors had been killed by Israeli Police and Defense Forces. As of 2004, this

Second (much more violent than the first) Intifada, has taken the lives of 2,600 Palestinians and

700 Israelis.35

B. Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam: Background and Structure

Into this pressing socio-political environment Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam was born.

The collectivist movement in Israel has always been prominent. Beginning in 1905, the Jewish

National Fund gave generous support to socialist collectivists seeking to establish communal

34 Weaver, What is Israel/Palestine?, 24.35 Ibid., 27.

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farming villages known as Kibbutzim or Moshavim.36 This support (explicitly from the Israeli

government and tacitly from the larger society) continues to the present day, but it has not helped

the residents of Wahat al-Salam. Historically, the community “has gotten little support from

successive Israeli governments…[and has felt] particularly marginalized by the current

government” of Ariel Sharon.37 The lack of government support—for everything from paved

roads to connection to the electricity grid—has made things dramatically more difficult for the

village, especially in comparison to the Kibbutzim and Moshavim of Israel/Palestine.

Whatever it lacked in governmental support, however, the community has made up for in

ambition and pure will. Started on a barren hilltop in what is known as “No Man’s Land”

(established in 1948 as a buffer zone between Israel proper and the West Bank), almost

equidistant from Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, Neve Shalom officially began in 1972 as an inspiration

of the late Bruno Hussar. Born in Egypt in 1911, Hussar’s parents were both Jewish, although

his own spiritual pilgrimage led him to become a Dominican monk. During a 1969 North

American lecture tour, Hussar began referring to “what I then called the ‘crazy’ dream of Neve

Shalom.”38 His original vision was audacious:

The dream of Neve Shalom is shared by a group of people deeply concerned about the situation. It sprang from the conviction that something must be done to change it…We had in mind a small village composed of inhabitants from different communities in the country. Jews, Christians and Muslims would live there in peace, each one faithful to his own faith and traditions, while respecting those of others. Each would find in this diversity a source of personal enrichment. The aim of the village: to be the setting for a school for peace…people would come here from all over the country to meet those from whom they were estranged, wanting to break down the barriers of fear, mistrust, ignorance, misunderstanding, preconceived ideas—all things that separate us—and to build bridges of trust, respect, mutual understanding, and, if possible, friendship.39

36 Dov Weintraub, Moshava, Kibbutz, and Moshav (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1969), 9.37 Nick Perry, “Arab and Jew find friendship in Oasis from Israel hostilities,” The Seattle Times, 3 May 2004. 38 Bruno Hussar, When the Cloud Lifted: The Testimony of an Israeli Priest (Dublin: Veritas Publications, 1989), 104.39 Ibid., 103.

10

In 1970, the Trappist monastery at Latrun helped make Hussar’s vision a reality by

leasing the hill where the NSWAS community sits today40 for a “peppercorn” rent of “three

pence a year and a 100 year lease, renewable for forty-nine years.”41 This particular hill had

witnessed one of the bloodiest battles of the 1948 war, and “had a history of bloodshed back to

biblical times.”42 However it was nationally neutral as part of “No Man’s Land,” and Hussar

liked the idea that it had “never been a Jewish land or an Arab land.”43

The community’s name, “Oasis for Peace,” is drawn from Isaiah 32:18, in the Hebrew

Bible, which declares that “the work of the righteous shall be peace…and my people shall live in

an oasis of peace.” This imagery captivated Hussar and the early NSWAS “pioneers”: that

Wahat al-Salam might be a place of harmony and respite, physically apart from the desert of war,

but temporally connected as a source of renewal and spiritual healing for the people of a land

broken by conflict.

In 1972, Wahat al-Salam became a place where (primarily foreign) itinerant travelers and

wanderers gathered to discuss issues of peace and help develop the idea of a community founded

on the principle of co-existence. These early groups also included Jews and Arabs from

surrounding villages and Kibbutzim who developed friendships and “danced and prayed for

peace.”44 Hussar describes those humble beginnings: “The epic story of Neve Shalom’s first

years cannot be contained within the framework of this book…There were the first meetings

between Arabs and Jews…then the life of the first ‘pioneers’ on the hill, without water and

without a single tree…There was no electricity and when it rained the road was impassable.”

40 The Trappist monks held the deed to this land previous even to British administration, obtaining the land and founding their monastery sometime during the Ottoman reign. See: Rizek, interview by author, 12 January 2005.41 Ibid., 104.42 Jeannie Lynn Sowers, “Living with Conflict’: The Problem of Consensus in the Jewish-Palestinian Community of Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam” (Bachelor Thesis, Harvard and Radcliffe Colleges, 1989), 18.43 Ibid., 18.44 Hussar, When the Cloud Lifted, 105.

11

The terrain, he added, “was stony and covered with brambles, and had not been cultivated or

inhabited since the Byzantine era.”45

The main concern for Hussar, however, was the “absence of those for whom Neve

Shalom had been conceived: the people of the country.”46 While the hilltop served as a gathering

ground for concerned persons, and many local Jews and Arabs visited throughout the week, few

families were willing to commit to the idea of permanent residence due to the “extreme poverty

and above all the lack of security for the future.”47 When the first family arrived in 1976—a

Jewish couple from the village of Ben-Shemen—Hussar felt that it was a sign of affirmation

from God, and that these newcomers would give “a new impetus to community life.”48 Within

another year, Pax Christi, a Catholic peace organization, visited and subsequently organized the

donation of money from Germany to support the budding project.

These “gifts” proved to be crucial—they included money to pay for Wahat al-Salam’s

linkage to the national water supply, finances to purchase an electric generator and solar

paneling, and money to pay for a new access road.49 In 1979, the NSWAS School for Peace was

founded to bring Arabs and Israeli Jews together for dialogue and engagement. A bi-cultural

nursery was started in 1980, and in 1981summer camps for Arab and Jewish youth to engage

together in dialogue and friendships at the community. A community newsletter from August,

1981 explains, “These camps were the most successful to date due to the intensive character of

the programs.”50 Although one founding resident commented that, “There were no facilities

here [and] looking back the camp was probably a somewhat naïve [pursuit],”51 almost two

45 Ibid.46 Ibid., 106.47 Ibid., 107.48 Ibid.49 Ibid., 108.50 “A Brief Description of the Summer Camps,” archives, Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam (Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam, July/August 1981), 1-3. 51 Sowers, “Living with Conflict,” 19.

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hundred youth and thirty teachers participated in six different camps in 1981.52 By 1982 there

were seven families residing in the village—four Jewish, two Muslim and one Christian. Seven

of the eleven community children attended the community’s nursery, which was run by two

parents, one Jewish and one Arab.53

In 1984 NSWAS opened a bi-lingual, bi-cultural primary school for the community’s

children—the first of its kind in Israel/Palestine. This, and the steady development of

community life and institutions, led to a sense of security that allowed villagers to move beyond

primarily concerning themselves with survival. Now they could begin to consider more

sophisticated issues regarding community cohesiveness and interaction. By 1988, seventy

people lived in the village. Half of them were Jewish Israelis, while the other half were Arabs.

Thirty were children, all attending the village primary school, kindergarten or nursery.54

Having achieved the foundational goals of Arab-Jewish parity of population and relative

financial security, NSWAS moved into a new era in the 1990s. In 1990, it opened its primary

school to children from villages around Wahat al-Salam, starting with children from the nearby

village of Abu Ghosh.

The NSWAS community is governed by a five-member council known as the Secretariat.

The head of this council is officially the Secretary General but is commonly called the mayor.

The secretariat deals primarily with the administrative duties of the village. Elections occur

yearly for this body, and anyone on the Secretariat can be re-elected indefinitely. Currently,

there are twenty-five Arab families, nineteen Jewish families, three mixed families and 202

residents, 93 of whom are children.55 Economically dependent on fundraising and the revenue

52 “A Brief Description of the Summer Camps,” 2.53 Hussar, When the Cloud Lifted, 108.54 Ibid., 126.55 Demographic Information Sheet on Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam, created by Howard Shippin, Public Relations Department, Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam, January 2005, 2.

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earned by the community guesthouse, the village places no restriction on its members working

outside the village—in fact, over half work outside Neve Shalom. The three main institutions

that the community maintains are the School for Peace, the Primary School and the “House of

Silence,” a community gathering center for spiritual discipline and interfaith discussion. Wahat

al-Salam has also begun a new Humanitarian Assistance Program (HAP) which utilizes the

medical resources of the community (a pharmacist, several doctors and a few nurses) to

coordinate and provide medical technology and aid to Palestinians cut off from adequate care

due primarily to the occupation.56 In terms of population, the community is growing. Neve

Shalom maintains a small screening committee which filters through potential resident applicants

as part of the new membership process. The village plans to expand dramatically in the coming

years, and hopes to integrate several hundred new residents gradually.57

C. Four Paths: A Historical Analysis of the Village

“Neve Shalom is a big fantasy, and that’s the main value of it. It affects reality like any fantasy affects reality…that people have a small light somewhere to

remind them that there is a way to do it.”

--Founding member of Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam58

1. Numerical Parity and the Maintenance of Practical Equality

56 Abdessalam Najjar, interview by author, 10 January 2005, Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam, tape recording, Mennonite Library and Archives (M.L.A.), North Newton, Kansas.57 Howard Shippin, interview by author, 6 January 2005, Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam, tape recording, M.L.A.58 Sowers, “Living with Conflict,” 1.

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At the core of Bruno Hussar’s vision for Wahat al-Salam lay the aim to prove that “it was

possible to live together” despite differences, in a village built on a “spirit of equality and

brotherly cooperation.”59 All that Neve Shalom is today seems rooted in the early decision to

embrace heterogeneity by implementing practical structures to assure equality amidst diversity.

One of the earliest members of the community, Abdessalam Najjar, commented in 1990: “From

the outside, it must appear that Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam is a complicated community and

its functions difficult to understand.” But it is precisely the intentional choice to foster “side-by-

side” living that has attracted people to live at Wahat al-Salam. This co-existence, Najjar

explained, has always been rooted in a singular commitment to “full equality at all levels

between the two peoples.”60 Practical application of this ideal meant a decision at the

community’s birth to maintain a fifty-fifty balance at all times between the number of Arabs and

the number of Israeli Jews living at Neve Shalom.

In the larger Israeli context, the idea of a collective settlement based on the co-habitation

of Arabs and Israeli Jews has remained on the fringes of the conversation—and almost only in

conversation, rather than in any specific action. One villager described his attempts to create a

Jewish/Arab Kibbutz in the early 1980s, prior to coming to Neve Shalom. These efforts began

in the late 1970s when he and other peace activists noticed that across Israel, wherever there was

any conversation between Arabs and Israeli Jews, at the end of the meetings, “everyone went

home to their respective places—ignoring the deeper issues between Arabs and Jews, such as the

concept of living together.”61 He and others eventually proposed an Arab/Jewish Kibbutz model,

but the Israeli Jewish Kibbutz movement rejected the idea outright. Afraid of Arabs returning to

land they had lived on before the 1948 War, even left-leaning socialists dismissed any real 59 Hussar, When the Cloud Lifted, 126.60 Abdessalam Najjar, “Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam (Oasis of Peace),” article insert, Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam Newsletter, Number 37, May-September 1990, 1. 61 Ilan Frisch, interview by author, 19 January 2005, Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam, tape recording, M.L.A.

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movement towards such a kibbutz. Without governmental support—in the form of land, tax

breaks and other financial assistance—the kibbutz idea stagnated, and has remained only an idea

to this day.62

Eventually, the ideal of co-existence drew these activists toward Bruno Hussar’s

experiment in of cooperative living at Wahat al-Salam. By the late 1970s, in the midst of the

fledgling attempts at dialogue and cooperative “side-by-side” learning, it became clear that

equality was essential to any success at Neve Shalom. However, while the mutual goodwill

created by such interaction was important, villagers decided that “the experience of equality

cannot be attained through universal good feelings alone.” Rather, it was decided, equality must

be “attained instead by the acceptance of difference…Neve Shalom’s ideology thus means

striving for an equality based on the recognition of diversity.”63 Whereas most collectivists in

Israel were looking for people “like themselves to fit into a particular community,” Wahat al-

Salam presented a radical new idea for a “heterogeneous model where there was no attempt to

create some sort of a uniform” population—in fact, quite the opposite, the idea of a fifty-fifty

population balance was the accepted parameter for existence.64

While the decision to maintain this equity was, by most accounts, a conscious one, the

exact moment of its conception remains unclear. “It’s hard to remember how the decision was

made, but it was very important to express equality [and] so it was a conscious decision for our

purpose,” commented Ilan Frisch, a first-generation villager.65 The original contract for the land,

signed in November of 1970, more vaguely denotes that the land must be used to “establish,

maintain, develop and administer centers of settlement in which persons of all the religions and

the peoples of Israel and of other countries…will meet, make contact, dwell, tour, or make a 62 Ibid.63 Sowers, “Living with Conflict,” 33-34.64 Howard Shippin, interview by author, 6 January 2005.65 Frisch, interview by author, 19 January 2005.

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livelihood together.”66 The exact process by which this was translated into an explicit

commitment to a fifty-fifty balance, however, may be lost to the historical memory of the village.

The decision was apparent by the late 1970s, at least in theory, “but nothing was ever written

down,” commented one villager. In fact, he noted, it is unclear whether writing such a statement

down would actually have been legal based on laws regulating the settlement of villages in

Israel. “It was,” however, “understood that it had to be fifty-fifty and that numerical equality

was important.”67 This was, according to many villagers, one of the first and most important

decisions made by the community.68 Fundamentally, the community realized that “we are not

learning about others” if co-existence and equality are not connected as essential.69

The theory of equality and maintaining a fifty-fifty balance took over a decade to

actualize. Between 1976 and 1982, seven families came to reside in the village, but four were

Israeli Jewish. This would be the closest the village would come to parity before a true fifty-fifty

balance was established in the late 1980s. A November 1983 internal community report

indicated that the village held nine families and ten singles, but an imbalance favoring Israeli

Jewish families remained.70 The years from 1984 to 1986 were, in the words of one villager, “a

very important time to learn what was going on and to cauterize what we were trying to do in

terms of equality.”71

In general, the early 1980s were a time for singular focus on a few key tasks for the

village, and achieving parity in numbers was one of these primary concerns. Still, as late as the

summer of 1988, Arabs “represented about 40 percent of the total population of the village, not

66 “Administration of Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam: The Financial and Legal structure of Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam,”Public Relations Department, Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam, 19 January 2005, 1.67 Howard Shippin, interview by author, 17 January 2005, Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam, tape recording, M.L.A.68 Dorit Shippin, interview by author, 12 January 2005, Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam, tape recording, M.L.A.69 Ruth Shuster, interview by author, 18 January 2005, Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam, tape recording, M.L.A.70 Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam, internal memorandum, archives, Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam, November 1983, 3.71 Bob Mark, interview by author, 19 January 2005, Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam, tape recording, M.L.A.

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yet the equal representation desired to promote equality.”72 Efforts to achieve parity intensified

in the latter part of that year, and the village actively sought new applicants who would balance

the population (applicants who were, of course, deeply committed to the concept of co-

existence). The community developed a rigorous application process involving a selection

committee, a one year-trial period and then final approval by the whole village at the general

assembly. (Much of this process remains intact today, although the one-year trial period is no

longer adhered to as strictly).

At last, by the end of 1988, fifty percent of the residents were Arabs—both Muslim and

Christian—and the other fifty percent were Israeli Jews. This achievement marked a turning

point. Existence defined by Hussar’s original vision had been attained. Hussar wrote in 1988,

“Now…there are seventy people in the village. Half of them are Jews and half are Palestinian

Arabs…all are Israeli citizens, though aware that they belong to different groups.” The village

now shifted toward a new phase of existence: working on the primary school, the construction of

a “House of Prayer,” and growing the increasingly visible School for Peace, so that Neve Shalom

could further “reach fulfillment.”73

While by and large, the achievement of parity made maintaining numerical equality

easier than, challenges remained—and continue to manifest themselves in the present life of the

village. By the end of 1989, the village faced a financial crisis. One major source of

fundraising, a grant financed by the Ford Foundation, had expired and no alternative source had

been found, leaving Wahat al-Salam economically pinched. Instructors at the School for Peace

were let go, but there was controversy about who was let go and why.74 The core ideal behind

maintaining numerical parity, however, held strongly. The April 1990 Newsletter affirmed that

72 Sowers, “Living with Conflict,” 44.73 Hussar, When the Cloud Lifted, 127.74 Ariela Bairey, interview by author, 20 January 2005, Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam, tape recording, M.L.A.

18

the previous months had “involved a great deal of heart-searching and re-evaluation,” but, “in the

final analysis, it can be said that the democratic structure which has been built up—upon which

we base the day-to-day life in this unique community has been put to the test in a number of

ways and found to be strong enough to confront difficult and controversial differences.”75

Several years later more controversy arose regarding the fifty-fifty balance. Some

villagers felt there was a growing power imbalance centered on the lack of lingual equality.

Despite high-minded ideals to the contrary, many residents felt that Arabic and Hebrew were not

equally spoken, thus creating a power imbalance in favor of Israeli Jews. A letter circulated by

one community member called for a change in the numerical balance from to one-third Israeli

Jew and two-thirds Arab. The idea, however, never gained much support and quietly faded as

the community addressed the language imbalance through increased efforts to make Arabic and

Hebrew more equal in the primary school setting.76 Additionally, many villagers came to

recognize that the traditional Israeli Jewish/Arab power imbalance was addressed in Wahat al-

Salam, both by the fifty-fifty membership equity and also by the disproportionate representation

of Arabs in administrative positions of community government. In the last twenty-five years,

for example, there have been only three years in which a Jewish secretary-general (mayor)

governed the community. “We look at things like that when speaking about power issues,”

commented one villager.77

The most significant challenge to numerically balanced stability, however, has also been

the most recent one. In 1993 a “wealthy Jewish developer and a union of retired Israeli anti-

terrorist police officers” sought to obtain land adjacent to Neve Shalom (land owned by the

Israeli government), and “applied for permits to build suburban-style villas.” With powerful

75 “The Other Side of the Coin,” Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam Newsletter, Number 36, January-April, 1990, 1. 76 Dorit Shippin, interview by author, 12 January 2005.77 Mark, interview by author, 19 January 2005.

19

supporters and tentative governmental backing, this collection of potential settlers threatened the

village’s “carefully engineered utopia” maintained by fifty-fifty parity.78 Then Secretary-

general Ahmad Hijazi remarked that “for them, it’s a question of location, here or somewhere

else. For us, it’s a question of survival.”79 As opposed to mainstream Israeli life, the delicate

numerical balance represents a “chance for [Arabs] to feel safe—keeping the number equal is

very important”—and this is precisely what the attempt at settling directly adjacent to Neve

Shalom threatened.80

These developers sought to capitalize on Neve Shalom’s municipal status. Full

municipal status (recognition by the Ministry of Interior) had been granted only in 1986,

allowing the village more specific control over its utilities and development. It was not until

1987 that the Israeli government recognized Wahat al-Salam’s existence by putting it on maps

and bus routes. “Hoping to take advantage of our [relatively] new municipal status” by attaching

a neighborhood of 350 houses on the adjacent land, these veterans planed to create what they

called “Neve Shalom B.”81 The danger in this was immediately clear to villagers: “We would be

dwarfed and dominated by a large community of solely Jewish residents who, with no interest in

anything we had tried to create, would infringe upon the identity…of the village.” Additionally,

the new residents would become co-governors of the municipality and thus the village. They

would, for example, be legally permitted to “become members of the general assembly of the

village, could control the budget, and take over our representation in the regional council.”82

Soon after the proposal of “Neve Shalom B,” another group developed a plan to establish a

housing project just to the north of Wahat al-Salam, to be called Naot Latrun. This plan called

78 Richard Boudreaux, “No Peace of Mind for Model,” Los Angeles Times, August 31, 1997.79 Ibid.80 Shireen Najjar, interview by author, 17 January 2005, Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam, tape recording, M.L.A.81 “The Land Issue: NS/WAS Struggles to Assure its Future,” Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam Newsletter, Number 48, January 1998, 6.82 Ibid.

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for as many as 440 new homes, representing another attempt to exploit the existing municipality

of Neve Shalom.

Soliciting active involvement in an opposition campaign from supporters worldwide, the

villagers first appealed to Israel Land Administration (ILA), asking that the community be able

to buy another patch of adjacent land to the south of Neve Shalom to grow the village in an

attempt to counteract the encroaching developers. The ILA, however, made such a sale

dependent on Wahat al-Salam’s acquiescence to the “Neve Shalom B” plan. The village

declined this option and intensified its mobilization of opposition. By the end of 1995, a

concerted lobbying campaign led by the village but with the essential support of the Jewish

National Fund (the agency responsible for procuring land for the State of Israel since the early

1900s, as well as protecting the environment in Israel) and the Association for the Protection of

Nature (an Israeli environmental organization) convinced the Israeli Building and Planning

Commission to reject the developers’ application for permission to build on this state-owned

land.83

The battle to preserve the community’s unique balance re-ignited in 1998 when the

developers again approached the government, this time asking for permission to create their new

neighborhoods as independent settlements (but on the same adjacent land neighboring Wahat al-

Salam. This was only a slightly more appealing idea for villagers and opposition was again

roused. Community members cited the likelihood that at some point in the future the Israeli

government would “oblige a merger” of all three communities, threatening the “special

character” of the village and its fifty-fifty balance.84 By 2002, the government even included this

newly proposed settlement—Naot Latrun and Neve Shalom B—in a larger plan to build fourteen

83 Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam, “Commission Rejects Plan to Build New Settlement next to NSWAS,” 5 February, 2004, http://nswas.org/print_friendly.php3?id_article=218 (accessed January 19, 2005).84 Ibid.

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new settlements along the pre-1967 Israeli border. On February 3, 2004, the Building and

Planning Commission again rejected this proposal, relieving the community for a second time.85

Understanding that such a settlement plan might eventually be approved by the

Commission, NSWAS developed a plan to grow the community rapidly. One community

member noted that in order to preserve the delicate numerical balance between Jews and Arabs

—that which maintained this as a place of “equality, mutual understanding and educational work

for peace”—the village needed to expand. “We are still not large enough,” he explained, “to

block some of these attempts to surround our village…When you go to the authorities asking

them to reject other developers, they say that if we don’t succeed in growing larger, they will not

support us.”86 In order, therefore, to be taken seriously, to demonstrate growth and expansion

requiring that the adjacent land remain open for Neve Shalom’s expansion, the village has

embarked on a plan to absorb several hundred new families.87

During the second push by the outside developers, Wahat al-Salam re-negotiated its

contract with the Latrun Monastery. Under the new terms, signed December 29, 1999, the

village returned fifty of its one-hundred leased acres in return for permanent possession of the

other fifty and a nominal amount of money. Additionally, the monastery promised that no new

development would occur on the fifty acres that the village returned to it.88 Among other

conditions, one primary stipulation in the re-negotiated contract requires Neve Shalom to

maintain its fifty-fifty parity.89 It thus took almost three decades for the community’s steadfast

insistence on its defining, foundational idea of Arab-Jewish equality to be codified in a binding,

written, legal document.

85 Ibid.86 Frisch, interview by author, 19 January 2005. 87 Howard Shippin, e-mail message to author, January 20, 2005.88 Ibid.89 Bob Mark and Rita Boulos, interview by author, 12 January 2005, Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam, tape recording, M.L.A.

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2. The Economics and Financing of Co-existence

Central to the stability of any community or village is its economic viability. Neve

Shalom/Wahat al-Salam is no exception. Crucial to understanding the capabilities of the

community as a source of idealistic, nonviolent change is an awareness of how the village

maintains itself economically. In contrast, however, to most collective settlements in

Israel/Palestine—the Moshavim and the Kibbutzim, for example—Neve Shalom has received

little financial support from the government. It therefore has been forced to make conscious

economic choices in order to survive, choices which offer important insight into the identity and

future of Wahat al-Salam.

NSWAS existed before its economic structure, or even its source of financial support,

materialized. In 1976, a Pax Christi group from Germany was “struck by the contrast between

the loftiness of [Neve Shalom’s] aims—reconciliation and peace—and the poverty of [its]

resources.” This group organized a series of financial gifts from Germany that permitted the

village to construct an access road, build a generator and solar roofing, and hook up to the

national water supply.90 These first donations became the basis for an important financial

conduit of support for Wahat al-Salam: the twelve Friends Associations. A few years later,

beginning with the German Friends Association, groups of people around the world set up

financial donation organizations designed to raise money abroad to support the community’s

needs.91 Even in 1985, the community newsletter noted that several more groups “from Pax

Christi in West Germany and from the Evangelical Group of Hessen and Nassau (both supporters

90 Hussar, When the Cloud Lifted, 108.91 Today there are Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam Friends Associations in France, Germany, Switzerland, Canada, Great Britain, Austria, Denmark, Belgium, Italy, the United States, Sweden and the Netherlands. See: Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam, “Support for Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam,” (accessed April 3, 2005) http://nswas.org/rubrique26.html

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of Neve Shalom from ‘the early days’),” continued to strengthen ties important to the financial

viability of the community.92

While Hussar called these first gifts a “sign” from God, the village remained unsure of its

financial structure. Questions of how funding would be maintained and how such funding would

be disbursed loomed large.93 Early on, “it was understood that there was a struggle with money

—no village in Israel is established without systems of support, usually governmental agencies.”

Those same agencies, however, which traditionally supported collective settlements like the

Kibbutzim, “historically refused to help Neve Shalom.”94 It soon became clear that the lack of

economic support made internal self-sufficiency exceptionally difficult. “Even though there is a

collective effort, it was always understood that we couldn’t take upon the responsibility of

providing a livelihood to the residents here.”95 Consequently, remarked one villager, “we’ve

always been dependent on help from the outside—we didn’t have any other means of support.”

Even the financial entitlements flowing from the 1986 grant of municipal status to NSWAS were

too little, too late—sixteen years too late. “Before then…the mail didn’t even come up here, and

we had to pay for electricity [through a generator] ourselves...Even after recognition, we had to

pay for the widening of our dirt access road.”96

Aside from its everyday needs—water, sewage, electricity—the community began to

build an identity around its developing educational institutions—the School for Peace and the

bilingual primary school. Early on, villagers came to see educational work as their primary

focus and to understand that such work required substantial financial support.97 “The main focus

in our community has always been educational work…because we wanted to do work that would

92 “Neve Shalom Widens its Horizons,” Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam Newsletter, Number 22, 1985, 2.93 Hussar, When the Cloud Lifted, 108.94 Frisch, interview by author, 19 January 2005.95 Ibid.96 Howard Shippin, interview by author, 6 January 2005.97 Dorit Shippin, interview by author, 12 January 2005.

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find a way to have an impact on the environments around us,” commented one villager. Such

work represented, to early members of the community, “the obvious interests of the people who

came here,” in the 1970s and early 1980s. Additionally, many came believing that while

NSWAS could never exercise political power in the interests of peace, educational work was a

possible niche for a community experiment like Wahat al-Salam that wanted to affect peace.98

To this day, “we are constantly reminded that education changes the situation” and that “we, at

Neve Shalom, do not seek a political approach.”99

Educational institutions, however, are expensive. Like schools everywhere, “our

educational institutions were not able to carry themselves and always needed support from the

outside.”100 One teacher at the primary school commented,

I don’t know of any educational institution that really generates income. Most institutions take money in to pay for their costs—private institutions are subsidized by parents. The education that we work on is for peace, and so there never was any expectation or dream other than getting state, or outside funds. It would be impossible to ask for anything other. That means fundraising.101

In 1985, the School for Peace received a $75,000 grant from the Ford Foundation, and

throughout the 1980s and 1990s, NSWAS newsletters made repeated financial pleas for support

of the village’ s educational work. In 1999, the community received a grant of $125,000 from

the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation, to construct of a new middle school at Wahat al-

Salam that would otherwise have been impossible.102 In 1991, the community newsletter

reminded that fundraising is “always one of the less enviable aspects of organizational work yet

the most necessary to perform,” but has helped NSWAS accumulate a “very impressive” amount

98 Ibid.99 Eitan Kremer, interview by author, 18 January 2005, Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam, tape recording, M.L.A.100 Frisch, interview by author, 19 January 2005.101 Mark, interview by author, 19 January 2005. 102 “Weinberg Foundation Accepts Challenge and Donates $125,000,” Baltimore Friends of the Oasis of Peace Association Newsletter, June 1999, 1.

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of donations for its educational projects.103 As the villagers had already come to realize in the

late 1970s, “this work you cannot make a profit out of—you need organization and

fundraising.”104

It is impossible to pinpoint exactly when, these two factors—a lack of governmental

support and the increasingly clear village focus on education—coalesced, culminating in the

conscious decision to make fundraising the primary means of economic stability. “We never

wanted to be a kibbutz, and organizationally we resemble more of a development or a collective

settlement,” commented one of the first members of the community.105 Another villager

remarked, “One thing is clear: it was a conscious decision [to be dependent on fundraising].

Maybe money can come from Israel itself someday,” but for now, the community remains

largely dependent on fundraising, as it has since its inception.106 As former Secretary-General

Rayeck Rizek explained, because Neve Shalom is not an “establishment project,” it has never

been supported by the state. Yet educational work meant fundraising requirements for NSWAS

through which, “we became used to [economic] stability based on donations.”107

The reliance on fundraising, has not, however, excluded attempts at other forms of

income generation. In the early 1980s, efforts began to develop some sort of village industry

which could relieve the financial dependency on fundraising. A November 1983 report revealed,

in fact, a strong desire to seek economic self-sufficiency and shirk the yoke of outside

fundraising:

For obvious, practical reasons some of the members of Neve Shalom have to earn their living outside the settlement, whilst others are employed in the branches

103 “Looking Back Over the Year…Fundraising,” Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam Newsletter, Number 40, September-December, 1991, 11.104 Shuster, interview by author, 18 January 2005.105 Frisch, interview by author, 19 January 2005.106 Daniella and Boaz Kita’in, interview by author, 19 January 2005, Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam, tape recording, M.L.A.107 Rayek Rizek, interview by author, 12 January 2005, Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam, tape recording, M.L.A.

26

which are being developed with an eye to becoming economic undertakings—the sheepfold, the beehives, the greenhouse, the almond and olive trees, and the hostel. All these activities are in the early stages of productivity. Lacking support from established institutions, the work proceeds on the basis of trial and error. The effort to create a profitable economy is a constant factor to be confronted, since it is vital to the existence of the settlement. The present size of the settlement hampers such development and it is obvious that the only way in which this vicious circle can be broken is by the infusion of sufficient funding from a realistic superstructure and the creation of new sources of income.108

The report commented that the community’s goal was to “increase the [sheep] herd to

450 head and to provide them with adequate and efficient husbandry to maintain a healthy and

profitable flock” in the coming year. For the olive and almond groves, villagers hoped “to

increase both these groves to a size which will make them economically viable.” Both plans

were part of a larger village effort to “find and to establish a small, suitable industry” in the near

future.109 Earlier the March, 1983 newsletter claimed that there was a lack of outside fundraising

for several months, and that “for the moment, [lambing] is the sole source of income for the

settlement.” Fortunately, it was “a good lambing season and there is more meat available for

sale…a timely boost to our finances.”110

Not until 1988 did the olive trees began to provide any sort of stable yield. The

community hoped that in the following year it would be able “to bottle and label the olive oil

attractively and to begin marketing it on a more profitable scale.”111 By 1990, 250 more olive

trees were planted, and tourists were finding an olive oil purchase at Neve Shalom to be “a

popular way in which to make small donations to Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam and to take

home suitable and acceptable gifts.”112 Maintained only by volunteers, the olive groves were the

108 Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam, internal memorandum, archives, Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam, November 1983, 1.109 Ibid., 2-3.110 “Developments,” Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam Newsletter, Number 14, January-March, 1983, 4.111 “The Olive Trees,” Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam Newsletter, Number 33, November, 1988-January 1989, 3.112 “The Olive Grove,” Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam Newsletter, Number 37, May-September 1990, 5.

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most prominent and successful industry at the community as late as 1992.113 A 1993 bulletin

offered potential donors the option of planting an olive tree for $25 as a means of supporting this

small olive industry.114

Each effort at industry, however, eventually faced nearly insurmountable difficulties. As

early as 1985, villagers claimed that “our sheepfold continues to be something of a ‘problem

child,’” requiring more management and maintenance than it seemed worth.115 By the early

1990s, only the village hostel and olive grove remained as sources of internal industry. Over the

previous several years, each potential source of self-sufficient funding—almond groves,

beehives, sheep farming—had failed to materialize into anything sustainable. It became clear

that “these romantic ideas” were not going to work out. “There was not enough energy or human

resources to develop these things naturally.”116 When using solely volunteer help became

impractical and inadequate, difficulties arose in determining who would help maintain and

harvest crops or herd sheep: “While these early pioneers made many attempts at agricultural self-

sufficiency,” remarked former Secretary-General Rizek, “first, it was not a very professional

effort, second the need for large, stable sources of income became too important too quickly and

third, villagers stopped taking these agricultural efforts seriously.” Logistical problems

developed and the promise of any long-term, economic success from these endeavors faded

away, even as the village came to depend more fully on larger grants and donations.117

While low-level efforts at olive industry continued, by the mid-1990s the community had

almost fully accepted its dependency on outside fundraising. In retrospect, said one community

member, “we were never recognized as an agricultural community, nor had enough land for it—

113 “The Olive Grove,” Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam Newsletter, Number 43, September 1992-March 1993, 9.114 “Plant an Olive Tree at the Oasis of Peace,” American Friends of Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam Association Newsletter, Spring 1993, 8.115 “Development Projects,” Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam Newsletter, Number 24, 1986, 5. 116 Dorit Shippin, interview by author, 12 January 2005.117 Rizek, interview by author, 12 January 2005.

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it was not subsidized either.”118 The village came to recognize that “the main product” of Neve

Shalom “is its educational work,” which eventually overrode other attempts at industry. This

direction was, at some deeper level, “understood fairly early on” as the primary path for this

particular village.119 Indeed, most of the village’s olive trees were lost in the new land contract

signed with the Latrun Monastery in 1999, since they were planted primarily on the fifty acres

returned to the Monastery. By 2000, the only source of internal income-generation was the

hotel, which in recent years has barely broken even.120

The initial idealistic desire for complete self-sufficiency faded almost completely by the

end of the 1990s. Even operating any sort of personal business is nearly impossible due to the

relatively remote location of the village. 121 Such an investment is, to most villagers, far more

risky than simply getting a job inside or outside the village. Treasurer Kamil Tibi wonders

whether the financial dependency on fundraising has made it so impossibly difficult for internal

industry to thrive or for anyone to successfully sustain a small business: “I don’t know if we can

deal with other businesses…if we become bigger in order to collect more taxes from more

families, maybe. But now we are too small and the government does not like us.”122

While all agree on the fact of fundraising dependency, some villagers speak of the lack of

self-sufficiency as only temporary, noting that the village “must eventually get away” from this

dependency and its constant reliance on the whims of outside sources of income.123 “We want to

see ourselves as independent economically,” explained Tibi. “Eventually, we hope not to need

the support of the outside because it is much more stable for our community to be independent—

118 Howard Shippin, interview by author, 6 January 2005.119 Howard Shippin, interview by author, 17 January 2005. 120 Howard Shippin, interview by author, 6 January 2005.121 There remain a couple small businesses serving only the community, such as the gift and snack shop near the hotel.122 Kamil Tibi, interview by author, 11 January 2005, Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam, tape recording, M.L.A.123 Ori Sonnenschein, interview by author, 18 January 2005, Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam, tape recording, M.L.A.

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even of donations.”124 Others have come to understand this dependency as a necessary part of

being an educationally-centered community that is not well-liked by the government.

“Personally,” commented one villager, “I think fundraising is a legitimate resource. It is honest

and it is our right. Sure, in this community the economic situation could be improved…but this

place will always support education, it’s the only thing for us.”125

While no serious plans to develop self-sufficiency exist, the NSWAS economic structure

—rooted as it is in dependency—will continue to generate internal debate about the best

financial path for the village. Whether or not the pendulum swings back towards economic

independence for Wahat al-Salam, the financial structure of the community, shaped as it is by the

ever-present tension with the Israeli government and the village’s own commitment to being an

educational base, will continue to define Neve Shalom.

3. Branching Out: Opening the Primary School to Area Villages

“If we are to reach real peace in this world, and if we are to carry on a real war against war, we shall have to begin with the children.”

-M.K. Gandhi

For the villagers of Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam, the bilingual, bi-national primary

school based in the community is of great importance. The 2004-2005 Primary School Report

described it as “an island of sanity and hope in the troubled social and educational environment

of the Middle East.”126 The mere existence of a school based on bilingual education in which

Arabs and Israeli Jews co-exist together in a learning environment is a radical project, and it has

been a part of the village’s basic activity for most of its history. The decision in 1990, however,

124 Tibi, interview by author, 11 January 2005.125 Dorit Shippin, interview by author, 12 January 2005.126 Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam, “The Primary School in 2004-2005,” 12 November, 2004, http://nswas.org/article307.html (accessed January 19, 2005).

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to open the school to children in surrounding villages was a dramatic step for the community.

The process by which this decision was made, as well the challenges it has created for the

community mark an important turning point. The decision itself represents one of the most

significant attempts thus far to make Neve Shalom’s work applicable and accessible to a wider

population.

The basic philosophy of the school is similar to the underlying principles of co-existence

in the village generally. Because the education of children represents those principles put into

practice, the primary school is both “one of the most important and one of the most difficult”

aspects of life at Wahat al-Salam.127 At the primary school, “Jewish and Palestinian children can

learn together on an equal basis,” with a “Palestinian and a Jewish teacher—each speaking

his/her own language at all times” while conducting lessons. The school attempts to educate the

children in a manner that inspires curiosity about and understanding of, both one’s own identity

and of other identities in one’s midst.128 “Each child is taught to understand their culture and also

learn about the other’s culture,” through an emphasis on “co-existence, tolerance and friendship,

but not assimiliation.”129 This is a vastly different approach than that of most educational

institutions in Israel/Palestine. All primary schools in Israel report to the Ministry of Education,

but “the norm is separation. Arab schools are administered separately from Jewish schools…this

has the effect of perpetuating the division between the two populations.”130 The philosophy of

the Neve Shalom primary school stands in stark contrast to this norm where Israeli Jews and

Arabs each learn only their own heritage and narrative.131

127 Michal Zak, interview by author, 10 January 2005, Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam, tape recording, M.L.A.128 Ety Edlund, “Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam: The Community’s School—Report on the School,” article insert, Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam Newsletter, Number 36, January-April, 1990, 3.129 Grace Feuerverger, “Oasis of Peace: A Community of Moral Education in Israel,” Journal of Moral Education 24 (1995): 124.130 Sharon Burde, “The Oasis of Peace: More Than a School,” The Fourth R, 73 (July 1996): 8-9.131 Zak, ed., School for Peace Report: 2003, 46.

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The growth of the primary school began with the 1980 founding of a “nursery for the first

five babies of the village….[T]wo nurses—one Palestinian and one Jewish—were responsible

for the nursery, and each spoke only her own language at all times to all of the children.”132 As

the children grew and the village expanded the question of how to give the children of Wahat al-

Salam a primary education became pertinent. Without any options for a bilingual, bi-national

education in Israel/Palestine, the villagers asked the Ministry of Education for help. The

Ministry of Education, however, had no knowledge on the subject and “warned against making

such experiments at our children’s expense.”133 In November 1983, laying “the foundation for a

Primary School…which will provide a unique educational framework” became a formal goal and

main priority for the fledgling community.134 By May, 1984, a newsletter explained:

We reported fairly fully on this new and important project in our last newsletter and now can add that the work of construction has reached the point where it is being concentrated on the finishing stages…But the subject bears further serious study because Neve Shalom, which prides itself on initiating new concepts in the educational field is, once again, pioneering in an impressive manner. Our primary school, which will open on September 1, will be the first such mixed Arab-Jewish school to be established in the State of Israel…We plan to build a school which can be a model for the country as a whole; and if and when political and other conditions develop for the better, there should be an increasing interest in our methods of handling Arab and Jewish cultural and ethical values in an atmosphere of understanding. This will be no small achievement and, in itself, will justify all the efforts spent in creating Neve Shalom to date.135

On September 1, 1984 the school opened with eight school-age Israeli Jewish and Palestinian

Arab children, all from Wahat al-Salam.

The following five years were spent developing a curriculum for cross-cultural, bi-lingual

education. The curriculum increasingly gave “expression to the different national and cultural

132 Bruno Hussar, Abdessalam Najjar and Michal Zak, “Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam: An Experiment in Co-Existence,” Echoes of Peace: Quarterly Bulletin of the Niwano Peace Foundation, 42 (July 1993): 11.133 Ibid.134 Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam, internal memorandum, archives, Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam, November 1983, 4.135 “The New Neve Shalom Primary School and Kindergarten,” Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam Newsletter, Number 19, May 1984, 2.

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identities in the school’s pupils.”136 The successes of those early years, in turn, led to the

consideration of another possibility: opening the doors of the school to children from

surrounding villages. In August 1988, an internal report on the status of the Nursery,

Kindergarten and Primary School indicated that staff at the school were to “begin organizing the

school towards its planned second stage: that of absorbing Jewish and Arab pupils from outside

the community.”137

Two significant reasons motivated this new thinking at the primary school. As a practical

matter, the school simply could not survive with only the small number of students in its

classrooms (often less than ten for all grades). More ideologically, villagers realized that

essential to the idea of spreading the ideals and practices of co-existence was the need to expose

more than just its own children to such possibilities.

Initially, numbers drove the need to open the primary school. In 1986, for example, of

the fourteen students, seven were old enough to graduate, leaving the school in 1987 with only

seven children, spanning several grades.138 One villager commented that in terms of numbers,

“it became very obvious that if we wanted the school to go on, we had to bring more children

in.”139 There simply were not enough children in the village. “We couldn’t,” explained one

teacher, “wait any longer.”140 Having grown up in the school during those years, one former

student and now a member of the village’s second generation, Ori Sonnenschein recalled,

“Having the school opened to the outside brought a lot of people here. It was just too small

before…we were with the same people every year.”141

136 Hussar, Najjar and Zak, “An Experiment in Co-Existence,” Echoes of Peace, 11.137 The Educational Committee of Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam, “Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam—The Nursery, Kindergarten and Primary School,” internal memorandum, archives, Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam, August, 1988, 3.138 Mark, interview by author, 19 January 2005. 139 Daniella and Boaz Kita’in, interview by author, 19 January 2005.140 Mark, interview by author, 19 January 2005. 141 Ori Sonnenschein, interview by author, 18 January 2005.

33

Practicality, however, was not the only major concern driving the desire to expand the

school. Ideologically, remarked one of the community’s founding members, “we realized that it

was very important for many kids—living in the village and outside—to grow up together, in

order to accept their differences and live in peace.”142 Community members realized that

opening the school was important if Neve Shalom were to influence the larger society: “it was a

way you spread a message, an idea” to other people.143 Some villagers described it in terms of

sharing what the village was learning about co-existence. “It was,” indicated one villager, “a

must. For many, it wasn’t right to keep [the school] just for ourselves…the idea was to bring the

message to others and the best thing we could do was to bring them to the village—our

experience wasn’t just for the village, it was for other people.”144 As an educational model, it

also made more sense—especially as part of the larger educational approach that Wahat al-Salam

was pioneering.145 As such, it built a new model for the outside society that would, villagers

hoped, “serve as an inspiring precedent” for the rest of Israel/Palestine.146

The transition was not without difficulty. In an abstract sense, developing a strong

community will to open the up school was important. A first difficulty, noted one villager, “was

that we needed sort of a confidence that we could do it.”147 More concretely, Neve Shalom had

to consider the rate at which the school could open its doors. “Supplying the necessary physical

space for a bigger school” became a crucial difficulty, and with it came the need for more

funds.148 “Economically,” remarked one villager, “it was difficult [because] it required a lot of

142 Anne Le Meignen, interview by author, 13 January 2005, Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam, tape recording, M.L.A.143 Ruth Shuster, interview by author, 18 January 2005.144 Kremer, interview by author, 18 January 2005.145 Nava Sonnenschein, interview by author, 17 January 2005, Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam, tape recording, M.L.A.146 The Educational Committee of Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam, “Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam—The Kindergarten and Primary School,” internal memorandum, archives, Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam, August, 1991, 2.147 Howard Shippin, interview by author, 17 January 2005. 148 Rizek, interview by author, 12 January 2005.

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people in a small village to support the change—we wanted to bring in populations from

different areas, but it was difficult technically.”149 The May 1990 newsletter called the decision

to open the primary school an “exciting step forward” for the village, but cautioned that

“inevitably it will have to depend on our ability to finance the program.” The newsletter

explained these costs: “At least one extra teacher will have to be employed in the primary

school, a certain amount of additional equipment will be required and the cost of transporting the

children daily to and from their homes is estimated at $13,000 for the year.”150 Eventually,

through successful worldwide fundraising campaigns, the community was able to complete the

construction of new buildings, hire a new teacher and meet its other needs before expanding.

In September 1990, the community opened its primary school to area villages, inviting

Arab and Israeli Jewish children to learn in an environment based on equality. The first year,

twelve Palestinian children commuted from the nearby village of Abu Ghosh. In 1991, eighteen

Jewish and Palestinian youth joined the school. By 1993 eighty children attended the school,

with most of them representing outside villages.151 In February 1991, one of the teachers, Ety

Edlund, reported that the work had been “both difficult and fascinating…the staff must deal

more intensively with questions of national and cultural differences between the children.”

Overall, however, “the progress has been encouraging. For the first time, we had a group of

children who were used to a very different way of working and had never before been

together.”152

While numerical parity in the makeup of the village population has remained a constant

and overriding concern, such carefully engineered equality has been largely impossible in the

149 Frisch, interview by author, 19 January 2005.150 “The Kindergarten and Primary School,” Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam Newsletter, Number 37, May-September, 1990, 3.151 Hussar, Najjar and Zak, “An Experiment in Co-Existence,” Echoes of Peace, 11.152 Ety Edlund, “Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam—Report on the Primary School and Kindergarten,” internal memorandum, archives, Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam, February, 1991, 1.

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primary school. While Arab children have few options for quality schooling, Jewish children

have many strong educational institutions available to them such as the primary school at Neve

Shalom. Consequently, the demand for quality education like that offered at Wahat al-Salam is

much higher among Arab parents than among their Jewish counterparts.153 This represents part

of a larger problem facing the Israeli-Palestinian peace process identified by villagers: Arabs

tend to be much more willing to seek alternative options to their present situation (in this case the

largely sub par educational opportunities available for their children) than Israeli Jews by nature

of the fact that Arabs are in a worse (i.e. oppressed) situation.154 Nonetheless, the school strives

for equality in its curriculum, in the learning and speaking of both Arabic and Hebrew and in

day-to-day learning.155

In 1992, the Ministry of Education recognized the Kindergarten, entitling it to some

support and accreditation, and “promised recognition for the primary school if we [found] the

means to grow and to present them with a school for 100 children.”156 The following year, the

primary school met that goal and was recognized as a private school by the State of Israel. This

recognition offered the school freedom to determine its own curriculum, as well as the ability to

absorb children from anywhere in the region. “The independence to develop its own curriculum

is essential in order to attain the School’s unique objectives [and] the right to receive children

from anywhere in the region is necessary in order to maintain an equal number of Jewish and

Arab children.”157 By 1996, two-thirds of the 105 students at the primary school came from a

153 Mark, interview by author, 7 January 2005.154 Halabi, ed., Israeli and Palestinian Identities in Dialogue, 4 and 97-119.155 For further discussion see Part II of this paper discussing application of NSWAS philosophy at the primary school.156 Hussar, Najjar and Zak, “An Experiment in Co-Existence,” Echoes of Peace, 11.157 Burde, “The Oasis of Peace,” The Fourth R, (July 1996): 9.

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dozen surrounding Jewish and Arab villages. By 2000, the primary school had over 250

students. The School had “created a precedent which cannot be ignored.”158

Recognition by the state in 1992, however, granted the school only “recognized, non-

official” status, which guaranteed only limited state funding. Additionally, with over two-thirds

of the school’s students coming from the Mateh Yehuda region in which Neve Shalom is located,

the school needed to attain “extra-regional” status in order to gain both more funding and full

legitimation from the state. After several years of negotiations, as well as an effort on the

village’s part to improve relations with local authorities, in 1997 the Israeli government granted

the school “experimental status.” Among hundreds of applications, only one other school was

granted such status in 1997. This new status allowed for an increase in state financial support,

but more importantly it meant that the Ministry of Education would explore and learn from the

methodology of the experimentation of Wahat al-Salam’s bilingual, bi-national primary school.

For villagers, this recognition was an encouragement that there was a growing awareness about

what Neve Shalom was creating: co-existence in the learning environment for children.159 In

2000, after several more years of growth, then Minister of Education and Culture Yossi Sarid

granted “official, extra-regional” status, placing the school on “more sound economic footing,

and [it] indicates that bi-national education, as practiced at Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam, is seen

as fully legitimate by the Israeli education authorities.”160 For the community, this too was

cause for celebration.

Difficulties, however, remain. In January 2004, the Ministry of Education unexpectedly

cut off transportation support for the community, leaving the village to foot a large busing bill.

158 Ibid.159 Anwar Daoud, “The Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam Primary School: 1997 Annual Report by Headmaster Anwar Daoud,” Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam Newsletter, January 1998, Number 48, 16.160 Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam, “The NSWAS Primary School Opens the School Year for the First Time as an ‘Official Extra-Regional School,’” 1 September, 2000, http://www.nswas.com/school/updates/schoolyear2000.htm (accessed January 19, 2005).

37

Throughout the country, economic crisis translated into educational cutbacks. For Neve Shalom,

this meant massive debt since its transportation served a wide, “extra-regional” area.161 For

some members of the community, however, these budgetary problems represent the surface of a

larger set of issues that the primary school faces. Some claim that the primary school is growing

too fast—opening itself up before it has fully developed a curriculum or a financial base to

handle any influx of outside children. “We are trying to develop a standard curriculum, but

instead of spending money on that, we are paying for transportation for the outside kids to come

and be at our school.”162

The deeper question remains one of integration. Since the early 1990s, the most difficult

aspect has always been how the school integrates children from a different context. Children

who were not born in the village—Israeli Jewish children who have no exposure to Arabic and

Arab children with no exposure to Hebrew—often join the school in the third, fourth or fifth

grade. “Children need to start here from the kindergarten on up,” commented one villager, so

that they can learn the languages from the beginning.163 With most of the children coming from

outside families, some parents of children in the village have begun to feel as if the curriculum is

beholden to outside parents who do not understand the interests of the village or its unique and

delicate balance between Israeli Jews and Arabs.164 As the economic crisis forces the school to

consider more cuts, voices calling for a re-examination of the primary school are becoming a

louder, though still small minority. “It is my opinion,” explained one community parent, “that

we should save the school for our own children for many years until we establish a base for the

school; until we know exactly what to do and how to reach out and to integrate on our own

161 Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam, “The Primary School in 2004-2005,” 12 November, 2004, http://nswas.org/article307.html (accessed January 19, 2005).162 Rita Boulos, interview by author, 18 January 2005, Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam, tape recording, M.L.A.163 Ibid.164 Mark, interview by author, 7 January 2005.

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terms.”165 While no one seems to question the community’s commitment to exposing the larger

society to its ideas, the disagreement focuses instead on how the primary school can maintain its

stability while still affecting the region around it.

Overall optimism seems predominant in relation to the school, even during difficult

economic times. Villagers still believe that the primary school is one of their most important

projects.166 Indeed, the opening of the primary school continues to represent one of the main

motivations for the village’s existence: to affect change in the region through education. That

priority, highlighted by the 1990 decision to open up the school, was articulated by teacher Ety

Edlund in 1993. She wrote in the community newsletter, “Those who attend from outside the

village no longer feel so at odds with their friends at home. They welcomed the peace accords

with great happiness, and by their writing, drawing and discussing, even the younger children

seemed to understand the significant of the agreement.”167 For villagers, such results will likely

remain a source of great inspiration and satisfaction as they continue to develop the primary

school.

4. Tom Kita’in and a Community in Crisis

In its history, Neve Shalom has faced numerous challenges, to both its existence and its

identity. The death of a native, Jewish son, Tom Kita’in, however, created perhaps the most

divisive, painful crisis that the community has ever experienced. His death became more than

the painful, protracted source of grief that any death creates. Because he died serving in the

Israeli Defense Forces, the helicopter accident which took Tom Kita’in’s life represented much

165 Boulos, interview by author, 18 January 2005.166 Le Meignen, interview by author, 13 January 2005.167 Ety Edlund and Anwar Daoud, “Statements of Principals,” Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam Newsletter, Number 44, April-October, 1993, 4.

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more to villagers—both Arab Palestinians and Israeli Jews. It provoked discussion, deep

disagreement and a divisive conflict over national identity and military service, as well as the

manner in which NSWAS handles conflict. For many people at Neve Shalom the conflict

arising from how Kita’in’s death was handled remains an open wound.

While outside scholars and reporters tend to assign a religion as the main sore point in the

Israeli-Palestinian struggle, most Israeli Jews and Arab Palestinians define the clash as one

between two national groups, in which religion, land and politics are used as tools to promote the

larger, nationalist goals of both peoples.168 “Quite often,” one villager commented, “we forget

that this is not a religious conflict—although religion is used to perpetuate nationalist tension.”169

Consequently, the focus at Wahat al-Salam has always been less about dialogue between

religions and more about dialogue between two national groups. The sharper edge of this reality

is that issues of nationalist importance in the Middle East become flashpoints for conflict. Such

flashpoints include the differing characterizations of the 1948 war—Israeli Jews tend to see it as

their Independence Day, while Palestinians refer to it as “The Catastrophe,”—or events

celebrating nationalist heroes like Yassir Arafat for Palestinians and David Ben-Gurion for

Israeli Jews.170

Previous to the death of Tom Kita’in, the NSWAS community has rarely discussed one

potentially divisive topic: national military service. This turned out to be an explosive flashpoint

for Wahat al-Salam. For young Israeli men, service in the Israeli Defense Forces is mandatory

upon the completion of high school. Since no such equivalent exists for young Arab men,

especially those living outside of the West Bank or the Gaza Strip, the issue of serving one’s

nation in combat was a topic that most at Neve Shalom had not confronted directly. Tom

168 Zak, interview by author, 10 January 2005.169 Rizek, interview by author, 12 January 2005.170 Mark, interview by author, 7 January 2005.

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Kita’in’s mother explained, “As a Jew, I did not understand how deeply difficult this question of

army service really was—for Israeli Jews it was simply something you did at a certain age.”171

His father agreed: “The crisis that was created occurred in part because before, we didn’t talk

about many things, like service in combat units, in the army.”172 Most community members, in

fact, “were in denial” and did not carry on any “public dialogue” about how to approach the topic

with either Palestinian or Israeli Jewish children, or among themselves.173 In retrospect,

according to villagers, the stage was set for conflict on the issue—especially because of its ties to

the issue of nationalist conflict. “It was so difficult,” remarked one community member,

“because [military service] just wasn’t discussed enough among us.”174

Tom Kita’in was the oldest son of Daniella and Boaz Kita’in, who arrived in the village

when Tom Kita’in was nine years old. He grew up in the village, attended its primary school and

developed and maintained, by all accounts, strong connections with many villagers.175 When he

completed high school he began his mandatory service in the Israeli Defense Forces, and took

the unprecedented step (for village children) of serving in a combat unit. For his family, it was

difficult to see happen, and his mother, Daniella Kita’in, explained, “I wasn’t happy but it wasn’t

my place to stop a grown boy, and besides, in Israel this is what boys do, they join the

military.”176 Just five months before his service term expired Tom Kita’in was serving with a

helicopter division in Northern Israel along the Lebanese border. His unit was involved in the

withdrawal of Israeli military forces from Southern Lebanon. “Helicopters,” he told his parents,

“are much safer than cars, so that’s what we travel in.”177 On the night of February 4, 1997, two

171 Daniella and Boaz Kita’in, interview by author, 19 January 2005.172 Ibid.173 Ibid.174 Dorit Shippin, interview by author, 12 January 2005.175 “Tom Kita’in,” Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam Newsletter, January 1998, Number 48, 2.176 Daniella and Boaz Kita’in, interview by author, 19 January 2005.177 Ibid.

41

helicopters carrying seventy-three soldiers, including Tom Kita’in, were patrolling together.

They were flying in “no lights” mode, and were flying side-by-side. The military considered this

the safest mode of transportation, presuming that if one helicopter flew past a given point, the

Israeli enemy—the militant Islamic group Hizbullah—would be alerted, and would thus be given

time to fire on the second helicopter. As the helicopters crossed the Lebanese border, however,

confusion broke out and the two began flying in circles trying to avoid each other.

Unfortunately, they were unable to properly see each other’s location and collided in what would

be considered the worst military accident in Israeli history. All seventy-three soldiers aboard,

including Tom Kita’in, were killed.178

For Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam, Tom Kita’in’s death marked only the beginning of

what those who were boyhood friends of Tom Kita’in recall as a surreal time.179 When Tom

Kita’in’s parents asked the community to put up a memorial marker at the basketball court

saying: “Tom Kita’in: a child of peace killed in war,” the community exploded.180

For many Arab members, conflicting emotions gripped them from the moment they heard

of Tom Kita’in’s death. On one hand, Tom Kita’in was a child of the village—friend, in fact, to

many of the Arab children and parents. On the other he was a soldier in the Israeli Defense

Forces, an armed body which, in other parts of Israel/Palestine, was carrying out the work of an

occupation that Palestinians see as bloody, oppressive and completely at odds with the mission

of the village. His combat unit was or would have soon been involved in military action against

Arabs in Lebanon, some of whom might even be considered by some Arab villages as “our

brothers and sisters.”181 “When I heard about this crash,” remembered one of the now-grown

Arab children who was friends with Tom Kita’in, “I did not know who was involved, but I knew 178 Daniella and Boaz Kita’in, interview by author, 19 January 2005.179 Ori Sonnenschein, 18 interview by author, January 2005.180 Daniella and Boaz Kita’in, interview by author, 19 January 2005.181 Boulos, interview by author, 18 January 2005.

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that soldiers were killed and that they were on a military mission. I don’t think,” she explained,

“that they were doing good things for Arabs.”182 When it became clear that one of the village’s

own was involved, “I tried to ignore that he was a soldier. But it was hard to decide: was he a

soldier or my neighbor? Soldiers kill Arabs, but I am so sad that Tom Kita’in is dead. It was

very difficult.”183

Consequently, the issue of a memorial for Tom Kita’in proved much more controversial

than expected. The family felt its request was “reasonable,” because of the “human aspect—

Tom Kita’in was a son of this community.”184 Some Arab villagers, however, felt that such a

memorial was tantamount to accepting—if not celebrating—Tom Kita’in’s death as a soldier in

the Israeli armed forces. Many Palestinian Arab members of the community found it very hard

to think of their community as one with a memorial to an Israeli soldier. The family was,

however, “in a state where we needed all the support we could get.” 185 As the divide grew and

it became clear that a memorial would not be erected without a brutal debate, a “painful feeling”

settled over the village.186

By the end of 1997 there was still no memorial and divisions were growing. Central to

the debate was how to separate national politics from one’s personal affinity for a boy who had

grown up in the community. Villagers could not separate “between our personal and political

issues,” and for the family this felt insensitive.187 In their darkest moments, the family wondered

“whether our faith in the concept of Neve Shalom was broken,” because they felt that they were

denied the support any community ought to offer in such awful circumstances. Yet the dilemma

Tom Kita’in’s death created in the minds of Palestinians, many of whom had grown up

182 Shireen Najjar, interview by author, 17 January 2005.183 Ibid.184 Daniella and Boaz Kita’in, interview by author, 19 January 2005.185 Ibid.186 Nava Sonnenschein, interview by author, 17 January 2005.187 Ruth Shuster, interview by author, 18 January 2005.

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experiencing great trauma at the hands of Israeli troops, remained “one of the hardest things

we’ve ever dealt with.”188

After months of contentious discussion, then-mayor Rayeck Rizeck, an Arab Christian

himself, brought the decision of whether to have a memorial for Tom Kita’in before the entire

community at the General Assembly, hoping for some democratic outcome. Facilitators and

mediators were brought in to open dialogue, and reduce polarization among community

members.189 Finally, in December 1999, almost three years after Tom Kita’in’s death, a majority

of the community members voted in favor of the memorial. It was a bittersweet resolution. The

community remained as fractured as ever, largely though not exclusively on Arab/Israeli Jewish

lines. After so many months of struggle, the vote seemed almost hollow and a certain

“bitterness” remained, even for the Kita’in family. “Despite the positive outcome,” remarked

Tom Kita’in’s father Boaz Kita’in, “the hostility and internal opposition stayed on after the

decision.”190 Additionally, the vote was still a compromise: the plaque was smaller than had been

originally requested, and to this day, the marker at the basketball court is the only sign in the

entire village written solely in Hebrew.

Tension, while fully present after the December 1999 vote, became far more low-key for

several months. In May 2000, however, the conflict re-surfaced in full force. “A tenuous

harmony” was disturbed when Boaz Kita’in was invited by the Israeli Knesset (parliament) to

light a torch as part of the annual Independence Day celebration.191 For Kita’in, this was both a

way to remember his son and a way to honor the work of Neve Shalom. The theme of the torch-

lighting was “Different and Equal,” and Kita’in felt that the Knesset had chosen people who

188 Rizek, interview by author, 12 January 2005.189 Daniella and Boaz Kita’in, interview by author, 19 January 2005.190 Ibid.191 Laurie Copans, “In Israel, Little is so Divisive as a Celebration,” The South Florida Sun-Sentinel, 10 May 2000.

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represented this theme, especially in peace work, such as that which occurs at Wahat al-Salam.192

Additionally, he explained, he was chosen because of his personal connection to the death arising

from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Other villagers opposed to the memorial for Tom Kita’in, became outspoken in their

opposition to Boaz representing Neve Shalom at an Independence Day ceremony. One Arab

resident, Anwar Daoud, commented that, “this doesn’t express the co-existence that there was

supposed to be here, for peace and brotherhood.”193 To many Palestinian Arabs, Israeli

Independence Day remains a tragic date—the day when they lost their land and country. For a

member of their village to participate in a ceremony celebrating that day proved to be even more

difficult to accept than the memorial for Tom Kita’in.194 Many Arabs were incensed when Boaz

decided to take the invitation; although he pointed out that he had consulted first with both the

headmaster of the school and the mayor of the village.195

Throughout the conflict—both over the memorial and over Boaz’ attendance at the torch

lighting—two primary discussions evolved. At one level, Tom Kita’in’s death and the

subsequent controversy over how to honor his life without necessarily endorsing his military

service was prominent. “It gave the community the chance to talk about the issue of serving in

the army,” a discussion which many villagers felt was long overdue.196 Second, it forced the

community to confront itself, and to see firsthand how villagers communicated during a crisis.

By all accounts, the conflict was handled less than adequately and villagers communicated far

more poorly than they would have preferred. When Boaz accepted the invitation to light a torch

for Independence Day, for example, the primary school, where he was principal at the time,

192 Daniella and Boaz Kita’in, interview by author, 19 January 2005.193 Copans, “In Israel,”The South Florida Sun-Sentinel, 10 May 2000.194 Daniella and Boaz Kita’in, interview by author, 19 January 2005.195 Ibid.196 Ruth Shuster, interview by author, 18 January 2005.

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suffered because some staff and community members asked that he step down. They felt that he

no longer represented the interests of the community and therefore could not serve as principal.197

Accusations were flung back and forth and tensions built up, infecting more and more aspects of

community life. When the Israeli press caught wind of these tensions, articles appeared

reporting that the differences were “a tragedy” and that this crisis showed that there was “trouble

in paradise.”198 Villagers were quoted—by some accounts mis-quoted—in a manner that

highlighted the division, emphasizing the failings of the community and not its successes.199

Rayeck Rizeck, in a letter to the Jerusalem Post criticizing its reporting, wrote, “There was a

mixture of agreement and disagreement on both sides. As with all arguments in the village, the

subject became one for general discussion,” and “our recourse to dialogue and compromise” can

be “the example we offer to the world.”200 Nonetheless, these various examples illustrate the

factitious, polarized climate in which the village found itself for several years. These years,

explained one villager, “Were very sad, but maybe meaningful because of what we had to deal

with.”201

For the community, the struggle over how to deal with Tom Kita’in’s death is a

continuing conflict, an ignored but sore wound. Boaz Kita’in is a leader in the Association of

Bereaved Families for Peace and Reconciliation and he travels around Israel/Palestine arguing

for peace as one who experienced firsthand the price of war.202 Closure, however, remains

elusive. Many villagers see a need for more discussion on the issue, though most are skeptical

about whether that will ever happen. “The issue,” said one, “is not closed. It needs to be re-

197 Copans, “In Israel,”The South Florida Sun-Sentinel, 10 May 2000.198 Rayek Rizek, “On Healing Wounds,” Jerusalem Post Magazine, 26 March 1999.199 Rizek, interview by author, 12 January 2005.200 Rizek, “On Healing Wounds,” Jerusalem Post Magazine, 26 March 1999.201 Kremer, interview by author, 18 January 2005.202 Daniella and Boaz Kita’in, interview by author, 19 January 2005.

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opened and re-discussed, but for most people this may be too hard.”203 As a community, “we are

tired” from these events, remarked another villager. Nonetheless, the ability to maintain the

community even during the rockiest of years is, for others, a sign of the strength of the

community—and of the continued opportunity for dialogue and growth surrounding this and

other conflicts. Founding member Anne Le Meignen pointed out, “Of course we have problems!

This is proof that we are living.” Boaz Kita’in echoed the call for continued reconciliation

several years ago in a memorial service marking the anniversary of his son’s death: “Maybe one

day we can have one Memorial Day for all those who were killed on this land, Jews and Arabs.

Then,” he explained, “we will remember that the most sanctified thing of all is human life.”204

D. Further Discussion

The history of Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam is dynamic—the community continues to

change and its story remains in flux. We have traced four important points in the village’s

history, beginning with two foundational decisions. One—the decision to maintain a fifty-fifty

balance between Arab and Israeli Jewish residents—defined the nature and make-up of the

community. The other—the choice to focus the community’s efforts on education, with its

concomitant funding requirements—defined the priorities and economic structure of the village.

Two more events stand out as defining experiences for the village. In 1990, the community

opened the doors of its primary school to a wider swath of Israeli-Palestinian population, seeking

to include non-village children in the community’s experiment with co-existence. More recently,

in 1997, Neve Shalom grappled with the death of Tom Kita’in, native son and soldier in the

Israeli Defense Forces.

203 Rizek, interview by author, 12 January 2005.204 Copans, “In Israel,”The South Florida Sun-Sentinel, 10 May 2000.

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While each of these points represent only a snapshot of the community’s history, each

helps reveal a fuller picture of life at Wahat al-Salam. First, these events show the priorities of

the village. A small community like Neve Shalom must have some specific intention, some

reason for existence that justifies its continued existence.205 The priorities of this community

have been overwhelmingly focused upon education, emphasizing that equality can exist side-by-

side with diversity. Wahat al-Salam’s ideals have thus centered on and been defined by this

particular educational emphasis. Principled educational projects—for example, the primary

school—continue to be central to the identity of the village, requiring large amounts of the

community’s resources and energy. For Neve Shalom, this leads one toward a larger

understanding of how villager’s views of themselves and of their community have evolved over

time. While they seem to see themselves as members of particular national groups, as well as

peacemakers seeking to understand these differences and embrace them—by creating co-

existence through a concerted educational effort. Above all, however, villagers seem

themselves as educators modeling and teaching about the possibilities of co-existence.

Second, the practical difficulties of living at Neve Shalom also become apparent. Key

questions surfaced throughout our discussion—questions of money, infrastructure, staff and

logistics. As the community expands, these practical difficulties will continue to be important in

the evolution of Wahat al-Salam. More broadly, the difficulties that the community has faced

logistically are similar to the hurdles any such intentional community might face. For example,

Neve Shalom has gotten very little support from the surrounding society. Other intentional

communities, depending on their context, might face a similar lack of governmental and societal

assistance, especially if such communities are viewed as particularly radical. Intentional

communities are frequently designed “redress social inequalities and injustices by reducing their

205 Frisch, interview by author, 19 January 2005.

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scale.”206 Historically, as in the case of Wahat al-Salam, such an attempt places the community

at odds with many societal and governmental policies and assumptions, creating tension and a

potential lack of support from these sources for said community effort. There exists, therefore,

both pressure on the community to be independent of the larger society by being different or

economically, socially and ideologically separate but, at the same time, there exists also the

difficulty in standing alone, apart from this larger society. The logistical problems that Wahat

al-Salam has faced, in large part, stem from this tension between independence and dependence

on Israeli society. Creating a village like Neve Shalom, therefore, ultimately requires a careful

understanding of the contextual difficulties that such a community will likely face as it attempts

to stand on its own.

Additionally, the history of this community shows that the typical problems in any

society, problems of finding “a balance between freedom and control, mobility and permanence,

variety and uniformity, inclusion and exclusion” are unavoidable, even (perhaps especially) in a

small, intentional village—such as the tensions surrounding how to maintain parity, how to

manage the community’s finances or how to process the death of Tom Kita’in.207 This is not

necessarily discouraging; in fact, it is a realization of the reality in which all human societies

exist. “The idealized version of communal life,” writes Rosabeth Kanter in her book

Commitment and Community, “must be meshed with the reality of the work to be done in a

community, involving difficult problems of social organization.”208 This fact is something

villagers at Neve Shalom seem comfortable with—a humble realism combined with their

concerted idealism—and it is a lesson that those who seek to create such experiments in

communal living must heed. In essence, this historical analysis reveals that while developing 206 Sowers, “Living with Conflict,” 1. 207 Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Communes: Creating and Managing the Collective Life (New York: Harper and Row, Publishers, 1973), 212.208 Ibid., 64.

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similar ideological goals and maintaining such a vision is important, the second component of

that—the practical, day-to-day enactment of these goals is equally essential, and sometimes more

difficult.

Finally, handling conflict at NSWAS remains central to the overall functioning of any

such community. Tom Kita’in’s death focuses this concern specifically on the issue of national

identity—a powerfully important issue for this village in particular, but for other communal (or

otherwise) efforts at peace. Particularly for Neve Shalom, a community committed to working

through destructive nationalistic self-identification, Kita’in’s death became a focal point

revealing how difficult it is to truly transcend the grip of nationalism.

Benedict Anderson calls nationalism the force which binds us together in “imagined

communities”—nationalism therefore “invents nations where they do not exist.”209 Nationalism

unites people in vastly different geographical and contextual realities under the vague concept of

nationality. Defining the “nation” is therefore quite arbitrary and historically ambiguous.

Deciding who constitutes an imagined community—a nation—has historically been used to

determine who has access to certain rights and privileges. This quest to define national identity

is “the whole body of efforts made by a people in the sphere of thought to describe, justify and

praise action through which that people has created itself and keeps itself in existence.”210 Being

a member of the nation, therefore, has always carried immense social, economic and political

value for citizens. Nationalism inspires its intense fervor and bloodthirsty devotion precisely

because being a part of such an imagined community is so defining for one’s identity. “It is the

magic of nationalism to turn chance into destiny”—to give the individual some transcendent

source of self-identification.211 209 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities (London: Verson Publishing, 1991), 6.210 Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, “African-American Women’s History and the Metalanguage of Race,” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 17 (Winter 1992), 270.211 Anderson, Imagined Communities, 12.

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The educational efforts of Neve Shalom seek to re-frame conflicting national identities by

promoting diversity (difference manifested by variations in religion, social background and

nationality, for example) through a mutual understanding of equality between peoples. The

bloodiness of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict itself illustrates the destructive force of nationalist

conflict. The difficulties in seeking to bring these two competing national identities into

dialogue and co-existence were revealed in the rupture Tom Kita’in’s death created in the

community. Highlighting the degree to which nationalist conflict on the outside impacts the

micro-society of Neve Shalom, Kita’in’s death verified a problem villagers frequently cite: the

inability to fully escape the macro-level, nationalist clash. This problem is especially ambiguous

for villagers struggling to determine how young, Israeli Jewish men raised in a village of peace

ought to respond to mandatory military service. Tom Kita’in’s death thrust onto the village a

difference—Tom Kita’in’s desire to partake in military (and therefore national) service—that no

amount of equality, for some community members (especially Arab Palestinians), could easily

overcome. Anderson characterizes military service as the ultimate form of national allegiance—

the willingness to die for some imagined community. Theologian Walter Wink describes

nationalism as a religious phenomenon: “only a transcendent cause can induce young men to risk

their lives voluntarily in the absence of any conceivable self interest.”212 Because Kita’in was

serving in the national defense forces, and because he was clearly serving the national interests

of one nation-state over another, his death further inflamed nationalist tensions already latent in

the inherent structure of NSWAS—a community directly built by two peoples of distinct

national identity. Ultimately, this conflict revealed either a certain gray area where further

community processing is needed or the limitations of any community set within a nationalist-

212 Wink, Engaging the Powers, 94.

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induced conflict. For Neve Shalom to move forward toward healing it will have to face more

directly the complex question of national identity in terms of military service.

Wahat al-Salam often presents itself less as a specific model and more as a laboratory for

experimentation about how to co-exist amidst conflict.213 As such, its history will continue to

offer interesting questions—both for this specific village and for other such experiments. The

Israeli-Palestinian conflict is itself a difficult, protracted clash, and Neve Shalom stands as a

unique source of hope for a different kind of existence in Israel/Palestine. In the greater vision

for peace in the Holy Land historians must continue to understand the village in its context,

embracing the inspiring, but complex and difficult reality that this “Oasis of Peace” will continue

to grapple with.

Part II: The Philosophy

“Neve Shalom…is dedicated to the idea that Jews and Arabs can live together in peace, without having to sacrifice either identity or dignity. It is a daring

experiment in a country where mutual hatred, suspicion and fear create a chasm between Arabs and Jews.”

-Los Angeles Times, October 1984214

A. National Identities in Dialogue

213 Abdessalam Najjar, interview by author, 10 January 2005.214 “What the Press is Saying about Neve Shalom,” American Friends of Neve Shalom Association Newsletter, January 1985, 2.

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From the beginning, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been “a struggle between two

national movements, the Zionist and the Palestinian, over the same bit of land.”215 Any attempt

at interfaith dialogue seeking peace between religious groups in Israel/Palestine that does not

base its effort in this fact will ignore the proverbial elephant in the room, and likely face

insurmountable difficulties. This nationalist conflict manifests itself in two primary ways. First,

a protracted external conflict between two nationalist bodies—the State of Israel and the various

Palestinian liberation organizations—has been fought in the name of land, religion and self-

determination. Second, an internal, more personal struggle has been waged in the daily lives of

individuals on both sides of the conflict struggling to define their identities—as Jews, Christians,

Muslims, Arabs, Israelis, Druze, or some combination of these or some other identity. It is this

second aspect of the conflict that Neve Shalom concerns itself with in the maintenance of a

philosophy centered on a dialogue between two national identities.

Scholars once assumed that as the world grew increasingly more interconnected by global

capitalism and commerce, the importance of national identity would fade away. “In fact,” argue

the facilitators of the School for Peace at Wahat al-Salam, “we have been witnessing just the

opposite: a resurgence of national, ethnic, and religious identities that appears to be gaining

momentum.”216 Worldwide, liberation movements increasingly manifest themselves in national

or ethnic terms, rather than on some overarching ideology. In turn, the resurgence of nationalist

fervor in the twenty-first century calls theologians, scholars and activists interested in peace to

question the roots of this drive, at least insofar as it continues to provoke bloodshed and

destruction internationally. We are, in essence, called to ask “what are the conditions under

which we organize into the groups we have organized ourselves into?” This task, then, focuses

215 Halabi, ed., Israeli and Palestinian Identities in Dialogue, 2.216 Ibid., 1.

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on the identities we have created for ourselves, and how an honest dialogue with those identities

we are in conflict with can be maintained but at the same time allow for peaceful co-existence

and further discussion.217 This is the pertinent question fundamental to the philosophy of co-

existence and inter-ethnic, inter-faith dialogue at Neve Shalom.

Because “nationality has become a barrier which is rarely crossed,” the community

centers itself on exploring that sticking point in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.218

From the outset, Bruno Hussar believed the village must maintain a philosophy in which “our

aim is to help to prepare a new generation of Jewish and Arab citizens, mature and reasonable,

capable of freeing themselves from myths and political manipulation from outside, solving their

problems in a spirit of dialogue and making peace.”219 Essentially, he believed that “through a

respectful openness to the other person,” something that must be both “taught and practiced at

Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam, each one preserves his identity.”220 Today, most of the villagers

would identify very little in the community as a particular, unifying ideology.221 Despite this,

underlying all that the villagers do, the basic philosophy of the community remains singular: “the

important thing,” wrote Bruno Hussar just a few years prior to his death, “is not to try to resolve

conflicts but to learn how to live with conflicts.” It therefore becomes possible, he explained, “to

live together in brotherly love even if we disagree on many points, because we know that we all

pursue the same goal,” that of peaceful co-existence, rooted in a commitment to both equality

and difference.222 “We are not,” agreed one long-time member, “trying to be the same.”223

217 Mark, interview by author, 7 January 2005.218 Sowers, “Living with Conflict,” 14.219 Hussar, When the Cloud Lifted, 108.220 Ibid., 126.221 Mark, interview by author, 7 January 2005.222 Hussar, Najjar and Zak, “An Experiment in Co-Existence,” Echoes of Peace, 10.223 Perry, “Arab and Jew find friendship,” The Seattle Times, 3 May 2004, B1.

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In more academic terms, the facilitators at the School for Peace explain this underlying

philosophy as a means “to develop an awareness,” among community members, School for

Peace participants and the greater populations of Israel/Palestine, “about the conflict and their

role in it, as well as to enable them to explore and evolve their identity through interaction with

the other.”224 This philosophy, in fact, is difficult to maintain, because it encourages those who

engage it “to open wounds, to speak from their hearts, and to explore new directions without

disregarding reality, without turning our backs to the past, and without trying to erase our

differences.”225 For the villagers of Neve Shalom, this philosophy is practically applied in the

both the educational approach of the community and in the daily life of the village.

B. A Certain Kind of Contact

Jesse: So the village could have an effect on the rest of the world?Noam: Oh yes! A lot of people talk about peace, but we live it here.226

Despite inhabiting a geographically small region, Israeli Jews and Arab Palestinians

manage to avoid significant contact. “Like blacks and white in the United States, Arabs and

Jews in Israel live together without really meeting,” other than the “instrumental kind of

meeting” which “typically involves an Arab worker with a Jewish boss.”227 Even “mixed” cities

like Lod, Ramla or Jerusalem, more accurately resemble urban areas reminiscent of the

segregated South in the United States. Israeli Jewish and Arab residents live together, but on

separate, unequal terms. Both groups lead separate lives, grow up in separate neighborhoods and

experience separate educational systems. “The two peoples have virtually no contact with one

another outside official frameworks like government offices or places of employment,” which

224 Halabi, ed., Israeli and Palestinian Identities in Dialogue, 49.225 Hussar, Najjar and Zak, “An Experiment in Co-Existence,” Echoes of Peace, 12.226 Noam Shuster, interview by author, 18 January 2005, Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam, tape recording, M.L.A.227 Halabi, ed., Israeli and Palestinian Identities in Dialogue, 6.

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are hardly balanced encounters. For Israeli Jews, the utter lack of contact is even more stark

since “Jews rarely need to come, and rarely do come, into contact with Arabs in ordinary daily

life.” Indeed, these “mixed” cities show no more aptitude for egalitarian, non-prejudiced co-

existence than the rest of Israel/Palestine.228

Merely having contact with ‘the other,’ therefore, is not sufficient to overcome prejudice.

One villager explained that in order to overcome prejudice and move forward toward equality,

“it is not a question of time, but rather it has more to do with the quality or nature of the

contact.”229 Sociologist James Jones posits that despite the belief that by “bringing people

together without regard to race, color, religion, or national origin, we could destroy stereotypes

and develop friendly attitudes, such positive effects of contact were not automatic.”230 Instead,

Jones argues, inter-group attempts to reduce prejudice must be premised on “equal status and…

the intent of working toward common goals.”231

Facilitators at the School for Peace quickly learned this fact. They determined that

“cordial contact, as contact (‘eating hummus together’), may provide a good feeling for the

moment but solves nothing,” and instead, may do more to preserve and entrench stereotypes and

deeper animosity.232 Bruno Hussar, it seems, also understood that some level of intentionality,

of determination to go beyond typical Israeli-Palestinian contact was and is a necessary

prerequisite to peace. The intentionality of Wahat al-Salam therefore creates an atmosphere in

which community members are brought into each other’s lives in an intimate way and constant

contact with the ‘other’ as one’s neighbor, teacher or administrator cannot be avoided. Villagers

strive to embody the need for more meaningful contact based on equal relations in day-to-day

228 Ibid., 7.229 Mark, interview by author, 7 January 2005.230 James M. Jones, Prejudice and Racism (New York: The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 1997), 324.231 Ibid., 325. 232 Halabi, ed., Israeli and Palestinian Identities in Dialogue, 8.

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life. “The village in general,” wrote researcher Grace Feuerverger, “encourages a sense of

community” promoting certain values about equality and identity.233 Essential to this model for

peaceful co-existence is this commitment to equality-based, intentional contact in a community

setting.

Daily contact at Neve Shalom, however, is not necessarily couched in terms of religion,

although an inter-faith experience exists. Current Secretary-General Abdessalam Najjar

remarked, “Religions are private here” and one will not “find Muslims, Christians and Jews

talking about their faith” regularly and rigorously. “Interfaith,” however, “is living with your

associates” of a different religion.234 While Bruno Hussar’s original dream envisioned a more

religiously vibrant community, the inter-faith experience at Wahat al-Salam has evolved toward

a more encompassing inter-ethnic experience rooted in the firm belief that two national identities

are in dialogue, as opposed to only religious identities. “The first idea of Neve Shalom,” wrote

Hussar, “was religious in character...in fact, Neve Shalom has become a non-religious

undertaking, dedicated to bringing together the Jews and Arabs in Israel.”235 This shift occurred

largely because those attracted to the idea of living in the village were predominantly secularly-

minded, though some have had strong cultural or more personal ties to their respective religious

backgrounds.236 Hussar recalls being “vigorously attacked” by a group of young

fundamentalists. They asked him, “how can you, a Catholic priest…live among Jews, Muslims

and atheists without trying to convince them of the truth of the Christian faith?”237 Hussar’s

response reflects the underlying attitude reaching across religious boundaries toward an inter-

faith solution to the conflict:

233 Feuerverger, “Oasis of Peace,” Journal of Moral Education (1995): 113.234 Abdessalam Najjar, interview by author, 10 January 2005.235 Hussar, When the Cloud Lifted, 109.236 Ibid.237 Ibid.

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These men and women, the families who live on this hill…can’t bear being in a country where two peoples never stop fighting. They feel they must do something to help them come together in peace. Don’t you think that one day, even if it’s after their death, Jesus will appear to them and say, ‘I was hungry for reconciliation and peace and you gave me to eat…? How do you know that these workers for peace are not the children of God…[and] it is this attitude of faith that makes me sure Neve Shalom is doing God’s work.238

Just as the daily contact serves to overcome the superficial, incidental interaction of Israeli Jews

and Palestinian Arabs in mainstream Israel/Palestine, it also creates a constant—though indirect

—inter-faith experience.

Against this backdrop, the contact at Wahat al-Salam begins to redress the social

inequalities and prejudices of Israeli-Palestinian society. The nature of the village, based in

intentional living, promotes an environment in which many seemingly small, daily interactions

become much more important than they might in mainstream Israeli-Palestinian villages. This is

both what makes the village special and so difficult to live in. Living at Neve Shalom, however,

means that “you almost don’t have any choice…[because] the conflict between the two peoples

is a chapter of our life here that you can’t ignore—it comes from everywhere.”239 Living in a

community of this sort means that almost every aspect of life is touched by cultural, ethnic,

religious or national differences in how things are thought about, discussed and carried out.

Transportation, decoration, publicity, political and social life, community landscaping—

everything may—and likely has—come into the spotlight as a source of inter-religious or inter-

cultural tension that must be worked through. Even which name is written first—Wahat al-

Salam or Neve Shalom—on signs is a source of discussion. “This creates a uniqueness about the

life of this community…but we don’t live to eliminate the sides, but to help the sides express

themselves.”240

238 Ibid., 110. 239 Kremer, interview by author, 18 January 2005.240 Ibid.

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This interaction is fundamentally rooted in equality and a directedness toward a common

goal, confirming the necessary theoretical design for any successful anti-prejudicial contact as

outlined by James Jones previously. One villager explained, “We are a small community and we

are meeting each other often—we have to be with each other.”241 Being with each other, in fact,

means much more than eating hummus together or waving as one passes on the street. A teacher

at the primary school remarked, “You are prejudiced as long as you just hear about something or

someone but are not forced to interact with them.” But, she explained, “when you see him face-

to-face, see him and listen to his voice, see what he is wearing and what he looks like—you get

into each other’s house, it is different.” Most importantly, “you are not hearing about each other,

you are hearing each other.”242 To many villagers, this is the practical application of the

community’s theory calling for equality and difference as a means to peace and overcoming

prejudice. Whereas outside the ‘other’ is an enemy—and minimal daily contact permits one to

continue thinking in this manner—inside the village, the ‘other’ becomes one’s partner for peace,

uniting both people in a common goal. Such contact, therefore, is essential to overcoming

stereotypes, creating equality and enhancing the possibilities of co-existence.

C. Three Pillars: The Philosophical and Practical Dimensions of an Inter-ethnic, Inter-Faith Community

1. The First Pillar: The Exploring Identity, Encountering “The Other”

The most direct educational application of this philosophy lies in the efforts of the School

for Peace. Since its inception in the early 1980s, it has stood at the core of the community, an

institution which has brought in thousands of participants from across Israel/Palestine, seeking to

241 Tibi, interview by author, 11 January 2005.242 Raida Hatib, interview by author, 17 January 2005, Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam, tape recording, M.L.A.

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offer them an education in co-existence, equality and difference. The 2003 Annual Report

optimistically noted, “More than a thousand people took part in our programs in 2003,

demonstrating the will of civil society and brave individuals on each side who are committed to

maintaining contact with the ‘other,’ even in times of severe conflict.”243 Demand for this type

of education is increasing. Due to the difficulty of gaining entrance into Israel proper, only 99 of

the 880 Palestinian participants in School for Peace programs came from the Occupied

Territories.244 One group, however, of Palestinian students traveled in on back roads from the

West Bank “without entry permits into Israel,” therefore placing themselves at “great personal

risk.”245

Internationally renowned for its particular approach, the School for Peace has developed

a model which they call an “encounter,” facilitating dialogue between or among groups of Arabs

and Israeli Jewish adults and children. The encounter brings together an intimate, intentional

group of people seeking dialogue. Some last several days, while others take place only for an

afternoon. While most encounters take place at Neve Shalom in the School for Peace facilities,

the School also increasingly facilitates encounters at major universities in Israel/Palestine, to

both professors and students. The encounter, however, has evolved over the course of the

community’s history. While at one point the encounter resembled something similar to inter-

personal mediation, with an emphasis on the relationships between the particular participants, it

has since been crafted more as the creation of a microcosm of society.246 Currently, the

encounter seeks for its participants to represent the sides of the conflict—Israeli Jews

representing Israeli society and Palestinians representing Arab Palestinian society. Instead of

243 Zak, ed., School for Peace Report: 2003, 4.244 Ibid., 9.245 Ibid., 38.246 Haviva Bar and David Bargal, “The School for Peace at Neve Shalom—1985 Description and Assessment of a Longitudinal Intervention Among Trainees and Staff,” submitted to The Ford Foundation, (Jerusalem: The Israel Institute of Applied Social Research, February 1987), 30.

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seeking to create friendship and goodwill between participants (though that is certainly desired),

this approach emphasizes the re-creation of the dynamics of mainstream Israeli-Palestinian

society, with the hope that such a re-creation will offer a forum for understanding the power

imbalance of Israeli-Palestinian society. In turn, it is hoped, this will create a situation in which

identities come into dialogue, allowing for the possibility that some work towards the possibility

of co-existence will occur. School for Peace facilitator, Rabah Halabi, explained:

After considerable trial and error, we created an approach to this work that sees the encounter as one between two national identities; the goal is to examine and construct one’s own identity through the encounter with the other. The utopian alternative would have been to build bridges beyond nationality and aspire to a universal human society; this approach, alas, does not work in reality…hence in the existing reality, our aspiration is to unravel and then reconstruct participants identities because only an encounter between confident identities can lead to a genuine meeting of equals and permit the option of building a more humane and just society.247

These face-to-face encounters generally involve a certain evolution—if successful—

toward a new understanding about the relationship between the two national groups and the

possibility for change. In the first stage, participants are asked to recognize their differences. In

many cases, participants begin by speaking about their lives, at first hesitantly. Soon,

Palestinians tells stories of discrimination, curfew, harassment, bulldozed houses, and lost loved

ones. Israeli Jews tell stories of terror, suicide bombers, and a deep, pervasive fear of 61nti-

Semitism.248 Second, eventually these differences become apparent, highlighted and focused

upon—often painfully. Often a sense of competition develops, with both sides laying out their

stories of fear and anger, each side jockeying to show “whose culture [is] more humane and

progressive,” or what it means to defend oneself, often through lengthy discussions about the

meaning of suicide bombings and occupation.249 Third, if this painful, cathartic experience does

247 Halabi, ed., Israeli and Palestinian Identities in Dialogue, 8.248 Zak, ed., School for Peace Report: 2003, 32.249 Ibid.

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not de-stabilize further dialogue, an appreciation for them is developed—a stasis, in which

dialogue acquiesces into acceptance. Both sides, at this point, “eventually [manage] to listen and

to acknowledge and take responsibility.” The most difficult step, for example, is often taken

when Israeli Jews admit the position of power they have in the larger society.250 Finally, coming

full circle, the encounter hopes to end with some understanding of the fears of both sides and the

inherent differences between the two groups—an understanding, which, ideally, is premised on

an acceptance of equality. Indeed, “only when the Arab group becomes strong, shaking off the

sediment of inferiority feelings and uprooting the internalized oppression, can it also help the

Jewish group to free itself from being the oppressor.”251 This, then, is the beginning of co-

existence.

The process of encounter does not always reach this desired final stage. Many Israeli

Jews, for example, are uncomfortable with the shift in power, often at a deep, barely conscious

level. For some, it feels as if they are asked to apologize for their identity—a difficulty rooted in

the essential question that the encounter is asking of participants, that being, what is the root of

one’s identity, and how is it constructed? For those tied deeply to the existing structures of

Israeli society and the contact between Israeli Jews and Palestinians that those structures create,

acknowledging this power imbalance is too much.252 For some Palestinian participants, it is

impossible to let go of one’s anger at the Israeli ‘other’, whom they have come to see as an

enemy permanently. The difficulty for participants in the encounter is aptly summarized by the

words of one villager, who remarked that through it, “you are losing your enemy and making

him your partner.”253

250 Ibid.251 Halabi, ed., Israeli and Palestinian Identities in Dialogue, 8.252 Nava Sonnenschein, interview by author, 17 January 2005.253 Shireen Najjar, interview by author, 17 January 2005.

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There are, however, many powerful examples of genuine encounters which vigorously

engage deep prejudices and grievances. The testimonies of those who have completed the

program offer a clear picture of this process of release, appreciation and acceptance of both

equality and difference. One Arab participant explained:

I couldn’t believe how cavalier some of the Jewish participants were with regard to the terrible treatment of the Palestinians in the occupied territories. It just made me feel sick. I have relatives who were badly injured in certain fights. I do see Israelis, therefore, as aggressors. I can’t help it. But I never thought of the mass murders of their people in Eastern Europe. They are more traumatized than I ever imagined. We have to learn about each other’s pain and acknowledge it. It’s the first time I’ve ever considered that.254

A Jewish youth participant described an equally powerful experience:

Those four days I spent at Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam changed my entire outlook regarding Arabs. I never thought I could live with them in peace, happily, and that we could be friends. Every day I hear through the media and on the street that there was another terrorist attack, that another bus exploded, and it made me hate the Arabs more and more. I didn’t know that they aren’t all like that. That not all of them are murderers and terrorists. I discovered that they also have children, boys my age who live to have a good time, listen to music, play football and basketball—exactly the same things I like doing…I don’t know how I could live and study under the conditions they live and study under…During these four days I discovered new people, a new culture, a new world, and I really hope they can improve their lives in Israel and that they won’t curse us—the Jews—every day of their lives.255

Many Jewish participants recall a similarly difficult and painful confrontation with their position

of power, and both groups consistently report grappling with their newfound sense of

understanding about the pains and fears of the ‘other.’ “How can I trust people who want to

destroy me and my people? I am terrified of Arab terrorists,” explained one Jewish participant.

“But [after an encounter],” he explained, “I’m willing to listen and see what they have to say…I

know now that not every Arab wants to blow up innocent people, and its true that the situation in

254 Joseph Montville, “Neve Shalom: A Model of Arab-Israeli Co-existence,” The Middle East Quarterly, 5 (December 1998): 3.255 Ibid.

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the West Bank is desperate.”256 One 35 year old Jewish mother described her experience after an

encounter: “The meeting was painful for me because it confronted me with the results of my

actions and power as an Israeli. Even if I understand the logic behind these actions, I was

embarrassed to learn how destructive they are to both sides.”257

Ultimately, coming to know the ‘other’ is often a process of coming to know oneself

more fully—but first one must become aware of how ones identity is constructed, and in what

ways it is predicated on hatred for the “other,” before this deconstructed identity can be rebuilt

with new possibilities for co-existence at its core. “Ongoing contact between the two peoples

sharpened identities, brought people a high level of awareness, and sometimes caused tension,

but, overall, stabilized their identities.”258 Painfully, but genuinely, the encounter work therefore

represents a defining, practical application of the underlying philosophy at Wahat al-Salam:

equality within difference.

2. The Second Pillar: Primary Education for Peace

Fostering equality within difference by directly applying the philosophy of the village

continues as the village educates the next generation of Israeli Jews and Arab Palestinians. The

primary school at Neve Shalom promotes inter-faith, inter-ethnic relations at a young age, but

also brings parents and educators into the experience. Both Hebrew and Arabic are, at least in

theory, equally prevalent in the primary school setting. Students are exposed to teachers who

speak both Arabic and Hebrew. Classroom activities emphasize the historical and cultural

narratives of both sides in the conflict. Similar to those around the village, signs and instructions

256 Ibid.257 Zak, ed., School for Peace Report: 2003, 33.258 Halabi, ed., Israeli and Palestinian Identities in Dialogue, 7.

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in the primary school are in both Hebrew and Arabic. Israeli Jews learn to speak and write

Arabic and Palestinian Arabs learn those skills in Hebrew. This has a profound impact on all

involved. Children leave the school, explained one parent, with an understanding of “open-

mindedness as a tool,” which they can apply to a variety of confrontations with difference in

many aspects of life.259

Learning about each other’s religious holidays and narratives is also an important aspect

of this primary school interaction. While children and parents are encouraged to strengthen the

particular religious identity or cultural heritage that they feel tied to, this is not promoted out of

hostility toward other such identities. Rather, a certain sensitivity is developed. In 1998, for

example, Hillary Clinton, on a tour of the Middle East, stopped at the Neve Shalom primary

school to witness a winter celebration which included the lighting of Hanukkah menorahs, the

decoration of a Christmas tree and the kindling of a Ramadan lantern. Overwhelmed by the

sense of inter-faith learning, she said “God’s work is our own, and certainly the work of building

peace and building trust is among the most important work we have to do. Thank you,” she told

the children and their teachers, “for doing God’s work, the everyday work of peace.”260

Researcher Grace Feuerverger observed a similar experience at the primary school’s annual

Christmas party. To her, “this event exemplifies the moral enterprise in which these people are

engaged on a daily basis, both personally and professionally.”261 At the party she recalled

noticing an Arab woman sitting beside a Jewish woman, both with two small children in their

labs. They began discussing their lives in very everyday terms—about their children and the

kindergarten. “This is what peace is all about,” Feuerverger remembered.262 As children acted

259 Ruth Shuster, interview by author, 18 January 2005.260 Aryeh Dean Cohen, “Hillary Gets View of ‘The Everyday Work of Peace,” The Jerusalem Post, 14 December 1998.261 Grace Feuerverger, Oasis of Dreams: Teaching and Learning Peace in a Jewish-Palestinian Village in Israel (New York: RoutledgeFalmer, 2001), 36.262 Ibid.

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out the Christmas story to the narration of the story in both Hebrew and Arabic, she recalled

thinking, “here was the Christmas message as it had been originally meant: good will to all

humanity!”263

Most importantly, the school challenges children and educators to move beyond

simplistic, superficial attitudes toward peacemaking that seek only to subvert difference as a way

to “put aside differences” and “live peacefully.” As teachers at the school emphasize,

peacemaking does not require one to enjoy ‘the other,’ only to co-exist in peace and harmony—

respect and equality, in fact, become more important even than mutual friendship.264 One story,

illustrated by one long-time teacher at the school demonstrates this clearly. She describes an

incident in which two boys in her class—one an Israeli Jew and the other a Palestinian Arab—

were constantly at odds with each other, even resorting to racist insults and confrontations on the

playground. The teacher separated the two children, seating them at opposite ends of the

classroom. It was to no avail. Their squabbling continued, across the room, disrupting the class

even more. Finally, she placed them at the same work table, next to each other. They were

furious—and they both convinced their parents to call in requesting that the seating arrangement

be adjusted to split these two up. The teacher did not budge. During one class period, she asked

the class to work with a partner to create a drawing together, in which both children would work

together to decide on format, layout, color scheme and subject matter. She paired the two

misbehaving children together. At the end of the demonstration, each pair presented their

drawing. The two aforementioned children displayed a drawing different than all the others: it

had a line drawn down the middle, exactly halfway through the page, and on each side a

completely different drawing—one by each child—was illustrated. The teacher asked the

263 Ibid., 38.264 Ety Edlund, interview by author, 18 January 2005, Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam, tape recording, M.L.A

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children if this drawing fulfilled the requirements of the assignment. Most students said it did

not, but the teacher instead challenged this notion, arguing that in fact, the drawing was

absolutely satisfactory because it met the parameters. It was a drawing in which both children

had agreed peacefully on a format and had respected each other’s side of the drawing, affording

each other the mutual respect necessary to create their own pictures. It was a lesson in the

underlying notion that peace depends on something much deeper than merely “liking” the

‘other.’ Rather, the inter-ethnic contact that the school fosters seems premised on the same

foundations that James Jones argued for: equality and an effort towards a common goal.

3. The Third Pillar: A Center for Pluralistic, Spiritual Understanding

A final avenue for interfaith dialogue is the growing presence of the Pluralistic Spiritual

Center. In 1983 the community established a “corner of silence” as a place where “those of all

religions who” would be welcome to use as a “spiritual retreat.”265 In 1986, the village began the

construction of a “House of Silence,” a dome-shaped location for people to find space for

meditation in silence. The “House of Silence” was inspired by a loose translation of Psalm 65

—“For You silence is praise”—and is today a place that the community hopes will inspire

members to pursue both communal and individual spiritual practice.266 “Silence,” explains a

village information sheet, “has the quality of being a universal language, which everyone can

rediscover and understand, despite differences of place, race, religion or opinion.”267 In 2004,

265 “A Corner of Quiet,” American Friends of Neve Shalom Association Newsletter, March 1984, 1.266 There is a bit of a discrepancy here. Bruno Hussar’s autobiography and various community handouts about the House of Silence quote Psalm 65, verse 2 as saying “For You silence is praise.” Hussar cites this as the inspiration for the given name of this spiritual center, the House of Silence. In the New Revised Standard Version and Revised Standard Version of the Bible which I consulted, the translation was quite different. The R.S.V., for example, quoted it as, “O thou who hearest our prayer! To thee shall all flesh come.” While I am not sure where Hussar’s interpretation came from, perhaps it was based on a translation of the verse in which “prayer” referred to “silent vows,” since some translations (such as the New English Bible) quote the verse as, “Thou hearest prayers, vows shall be paid to thee.”267 “The Bruno Hussar Center for Spiritual Pluralism,” (village handout, Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam, 2005), 1.

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construction for the Spiritual Center began, commencing the construction of what villagers hope

will be a community center for interfaith dialogue and study. It will house several areas

designed to allow worship by Muslims, Christians, Jews or others, as well as a small library of

study resources. Together, these projects, as well as the activities associated with them,

comprise the Pluralistic Spiritual Center. “Since its establishment, the Pluralistic Spiritual

Center has tried to contribute to the community by creating opportunities for the members to

meet in various frameworks.”268

Multi-faceted in its approach, “these meetings have aimed to strengthen the ties between

us, improve communication and deepen interpersonal understanding.”269 The Spiritual Center

focuses the community’s interfaith experience in two specific ways. First, it encourages

theological discussion crossing religious boundaries, emphasizing faith that seeks understanding.

The center holds “meetings where we study the scriptures of the religions of the country, in order

to discover and unite on their common message of justice, brotherly love, and peace.”270 Over

the past two decades, classes have been held focusing on Bible or Koranic study and teaching

scripture for peace education.271 In 2004, the center hosted a conference focusing on “Religion,

Social Identity and Education among Arabs and Jews in Israel,” and drew approximately 100

participants from around Israel/Palestine.272 Through study and dialogue about the unique and

common aspects of each faith tradition, community members and participants hope to encourage

a deeper awareness of each other’s identity and faith. Additionally, they seek an understanding

268 Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam, “Doumia Sakinah Update,” 4 June 2004, http://nswas.org/article232.html (accessed February 7, 2005).269 Ibid.270 Hussar, Najjar and Zak, “An Experiment in Co-Existence,” Echoes of Peace, 10.271 “The Primary School, The Kindergarten and the Nursery,” Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam Newsletter, May-August, 1992, 6.272 Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam, “Doumia Sakinah Update,” 4 June 2004, http://nswas.org/article232.html (accessed February 7, 2005).

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of the common elements within each tradition promoting nonviolence and justice, and how those

aspects might be understood in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian context.273

Beyond theological dialogue, the Spiritual Center promotes contact designed to provide

culturally rooted interfaith experiences. Such interaction is rooted in the core idea of developing

the community as a community, by bringing it together through common celebration and other

exposure to the culture and tradition of other religious groups in the village.274 An October 1990

newsletter recalled a community celebration for the Bar and Bat Mitzvah’s of two village

children. The newsletter noted that, “particularly significant was the fact that people of many

faiths and traditions were joined on this day; to celebrate…it was a proclamation of faith by

Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam and its enlarged family.275 More recently, for example, the

Spiritual Center has sponsored seminars and workshops on bridging across boundaries during

times of conflict—crucial to any sort of interfaith dialogue—as well as dialogue sessions

regarding the effects of the Holocaust on Jewish psyche and spirituality—also an important topic

for Muslims, Christians and Jews to discuss in an the search for understanding the deep spiritual

needs of the Jewish people following a history filled with persecution.276

While villagers are frank about the need for more community development and

interaction, the Pluralistic Spiritual Center and its activities remain an important aspect of

interfaith contact.277 By bringing villagers into contact through interfaith study, celebration and

dialogue based on equal terms, prejudice is slowly overcome and co-existence becomes a more

firm reality.

273 Ibid.274 Dorit Shippin, interview by author, 12 January 2005.275 “A Community Celebration—October 6,” Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam Newsletter, Number 38, 6.276 Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam, “Memory and Peace,” August 2003, http://nswas.org/article131.html (accessed February 7, 2005) and, Dorit Shippin and Dyana Shalufi-Rizek, “Memory and Recognition,” September 2003, http://nswas.org/print_friendly.php3?id_article=136 (accessed February 7, 2005).277 Abdessalam Najjar, interview by author, 10 January 2005.

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D. Judeo-Christian Theological Implications

"There came our messengers to Abraham with glad tidings. They said, "Peace!" He answered, "Peace!" and hastened to entertain them with a roasted calf. "

-The Qur’an, Book 11( Hud), verse 69

“Enter ye here in peace and security."

-The Qur’an, Book 15 (Stone Land), verse 46

From a Judeo-Christian perspective, there are several theological implications to the

philosophical framework through which Wahat al-Salam creates interfaith dialogue and contact,

at the School for Peace, the Primary School and the Spiritual Center. Jim Wallis, speaking at

Bethel College in North Newton, Kansas, declared that all “great” social movements in history

“have a spiritual foundation.”278 Likewise, any broader peace movement in Israel/Palestine will

require a deeper commitment to a theological and spiritual shift centered on an alternative vision

for Holy Land. Understanding the philosophy—and the very existence—of Wahat al-Salam in

theological terms is essential in learning how we apply the work of this community to the

conflict. Neve Shalom therefore offers us a model from which we can think about (1) being the

change we seek in the world; (2) creating hope rooted in both practicality and idealism; and (3)

seeking a meeting between truth, justice and peace.

In the Hebrew Bible, Isaiah 32:18 promises, “My people will abide in an oasis of peace,

in secure dwellings, and in quiet resting places.”279 The language of Isaiah emphasizes the

existence of a place apart from the powerful, fallen structures around it—an oasis in a desert.

278 Jim Wallis, “Peacemaking in Hard Times” (lecture, Bethel College, North Newton, KS, February 18, 2005). For full recording, see M.L.A. Peace Lecture Series Collection. 279 All passages from the Hebrew Bible and New Testament come from The New Oxford Annotated Bible: New Revised Standard Version (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994) and The Holy Bible: Revised Standard Edition (New York: Thomas Nelson, Inc., 1971).

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Deriving its name from this text, Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam seeks to be that oasis in a desert

of conflict. Beyond solely discussion and dialogue, this community seeks to be the change it

hopes for by living its core beliefs and testing them in practice every day. The community,

therefore, is “proof” of a deeper commitment to implementing the ideals of peace in everyday

life.280 The power of this witness is tremendous.

Beginning with the Abrahamic covenant, from the Hebrew Bible through the New

Testament, God calls on the people of biblical Israel to separate from the existing system of

domination—rooted in empire, greed, idolatry and violence—and seek out an existence

demonstrating a new way to be in the world premised on love, justice and righteousness. The

language through Isaiah 32 is explicit about this call. Isaiah 32:16-17 proclaim: “Then justice

will dwell in the wilderness, and righteousness abide in the fruitful field. And the effect of

righteousness will be peace, and the result of righteousness, quietness and trust for ever.”

Emphasizing the new way in the wilderness, righteousness, trust and peace are bound together in

an alternative way of being. Villagers view their community the same way. The power of

“being” as a source of witness was summarized by one villager who commented that “we are

actually ‘doing’…We are a symbol that Jews and Arabs are able to live together,” even though

the culture and institutions all around tell them and the world otherwise.281

In the New Testament, language focusing on the power of “being” versus “saying” is also

significant. Grounded in the Divine, claim New Testament authors, we become what we seek

rather than just preaching righteously about the change we hope for. Ephesians 2:15 argues that

through God, we are “one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace,” thereby

creating, in verse 19, a new “household of God.” The idea of being a “light unto the world”

280 Rizek, interview by author, 12 January 2005.281 Frisch, interview by author, 19 January 2005.

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comes out even more vividly in the language of the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus describes

a new, transformative way of being centered on nonviolent love and a rejection, again, of the

oppressive, dominant system all around. In Matthew 5:14, Jesus commands his followers to be

“a city set on a hill” that “cannot be hid.” Rather than be a lamp hidden under a bushel, he calls

followers to exist in such a way that their light is “on a stand” so that “it gives light to all in the

house.” Neve Shalom embodies this profound theological position by being a nonviolent

community—a village on a hill—representing an alternative to the “present social reality”

dominated by violence and injustice.282

A second implication of Wahat al-Salam lies in its role as a hope-bringer for a society in

need of hope. Proverbs 29:18 reminds that “Without a vision, the people perish.” Hope is the

fire that ignites our will to live, even in times of great danger or despair, and even in the face of a

seemingly dismal future. Yet hope-bringing is a difficult task. Too often, people are willing to

embrace false or misleading sources of hope—such as belief in empire, military might, or some

simplistic solution to the protracted Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Dr. John Paul Lederach argues

that hope is connected to dreaming and that these combine to create faith. Such faith, however,

is not tied to a single messianic hope. Rather it is tied to a humble, yet assured, hope that many

realities are possible. Lederach describes “biblical dreamers” like Noah and his Ark, or Moses

and his Exodus as imbued with the ability to live according to a vision of unseen and unknown

realities. Their hope, argues Lederach, did not “predict the future according to the present.”283 It

was not deterministic or static, like messianic hope—it accepted not a predictive vision, but an

unseen, unknown vision.

282 Rizek, interview by author, 12 January 2005.283 John Paul Lederach, Journey Toward Reconciliation (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1999), 195.

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Although Neve Shalom villagers are frequently interviewed by the media, they remain

skeptical of news coverage because it tends to distort their mission and turn their village into

some utopian dream. Villagers do not speak in terms of seeking perfect, utopian harmony.

Instead, they speak of seeking to create a laboratory for discussing, learning and creating hope

and peace through co-existence.284 Theirs is a humble, but powerfully hopeful dream. In the

daily struggle for fair and equal co-existence, there is both enduring tension and constant

peacemaking. Life is messy and filled with conflict, joy, and a faith in their hopeful discovery

about how to live together in peace. How can such a strong sense of hope remain in a village

that promises little in the way of utopian certainty and much in the way of messy conflict?

The answer lies in the principled way that Wahat al-Salaam villagers have chosen to fill

their role as hope-bringers, touting not a utopia but an alternative vision rooted in the practical

realities of life lived amidst conflict. They do not promise present peace, yet the very existence

of their village represents the hopeful promise of a peaceful future. Neve Shalom is not a perfect

model; it is, however, a model that does not distort hope through unrealistic utopian claims.

Villagers do not wish to be idolized; they wish to inspire real hope and generate real energy in

real people to work for a better future.

This, then, is what it means to be an ethical hope-bringer in a world too often brought to

the verge of utter despair: generating radical hope rooted in the uncertainties of human reality,

but ultimately faithful to the ideal of an altered and improved future (though not a perfect one).

We must reject the use of messianic hope even though it offers us more personal control through

its manipulation of fears and visions of utopia. Instead, as John Paul Lederach challenges,

ethical hope-bringers must “stay so close to the ground that we feel the very soil’s moisture

bubbling up from people’s daily life, pains and realities,” while at the same time staying “so

284 Mark, interview by author, 7 January 2005.

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close to our dreams of what could be that we can feel and hear the seeds pregnant with life as

they break forth from below the surface.”285

Theologically, embodying their beliefs and creating humble hope combine with a third

facet present in Neve Shalom’s existence: the ability to bind truth, justice and peace together.

Psalm 85:10 envisions such an encounter: “Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet; justice and

peace will kiss each other.” Few things are as important to villagers as maintaining a genuine,

honest dialogue in which the pretenses and assumptions of the dominant paradigm are stripped

down—both through the educational efforts of the School for Peace and the Primary School, and

through day-to-day contact and interfaith discussion. Truth-telling—including opening up the

wounds of occupation and terrorism—are essential to the mission of the community.286 In a

biblical context, truth and justice must accompany any peacemaking initiative. Without justice,

moving forward from pain is impossible, making peace a distant hope. Without truth, justice is

unlikely. And without a faithful commitment to peace, justice becomes violent and retributive.

All three must walk hand in hand, embodying a commitment to equality and difference, dialogue

and interfaith contact. Neve Shalom, therefore, reveals a model for theological analysis by being

an alternative vision, by creating humble, but radical hope and by joining truth, peace, and

justice. Theologically, these three commitments must be applied to any peacemaking attempt.

Only then will both groups be able to create the vision of peace laid forth in Micah 4:4: “They

shall sit every one under their vine and under their fig tree, and none shall make them afraid.”

Part III: Conclusions

285 Lederach, Journey Toward Reconciliation, 197.286 Frisch, interview by author, 19 January 2005.

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Integrating the story of Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam with an analysis of the philosophy

reveals the true tapestry of this unique community. The history of the village can be traced

through four pivotal decisions and events: (1) the initial choice to maintain a fifty-fifty balance

between Arab and Israeli Jewish residents; (2) the early decision to focus on education, thus

becoming dependent financially on outside donations; (3) the 1990 move to open the doors of the

primary school to children outside the village; and (4) the 1997 death of village native Tom

Kita’in and the ensuing conflict. These key points in village history offer a glimpse into the

priorities, practical difficulties and conflicts of living in this—or any similar—intentional

community. The underlying philosophy of the village rests on three significant pillars of

application: first, in the School for Peace “encounter approach” second, in primary education and

third in the day-to-day contact and interfaith study promoted by the Pluralistic Spiritual Center.

Both the story and philosophical heart of Wahat al-Salam are woven with strands of

change and conflict, inspiration and idealism. Neve Shalom’s commitment to equality within

diversity is manifested in its staunch determination to maintain an equal balance between Arab

and Israeli Jewish residents, as well as in the practical application of its philosophy through

education. Both in their decision to open the Primary School to children living outside Wahat al-

Salam and in their continued efforts to create the kind of “contact” that reaches across

boundaries to reduce prejudice and promote co-existence, villagers have further affirmed this

commitment. Despite practical, financial and logistical difficulties, the community perseveres,

struggling to maintain its oasis amidst conflict, its hope amidst despair and its desire for truth,

justice and peace despite the misunderstandings and injustices of war.

The integration of both history and theology in this analysis of Neve Shalom offers a

unique possibility to explore the multi-faceted and complex dimensions of a community in flux.

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Questions raised are not separated by the walls of one discipline or another. The challenge is to

answer these questions—about peace and community, hope and history—in an equally integrated

manner, thereby providing a fuller understanding of the complex reality of peacemaking at

Wahat al-Salam, and throughout Israel/Palestine. Realizing this complexity, and the interwoven

importance of equality and difference, hope and justice, truth and peace, will in turn reveal the

enormity of the questions Neve Shalom’s existence asks us to grapple with.

Appendix A: Timeline

The following is an incomplete but comprehensive timeline spanning the history of the community through January 2005. It was created with the help of Howard Shippin, Rita Bolous, Abdessalam Najjar, Eitan Kremer, Ilan Frisch, Ruth Shuster, Nava Sonnenschein, Kent Etlund and Bob Mark.

1970—Bruno Hussar signs contract with Latrun Monastery

1972—First residents, including Bruno Hussar and Anne LeMeignen take up residence on a hilltop on the newly leased land, calling it Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam (“Oasis of Peace” in both Hebrew and Arabic respectively)

1976—The first family begins living at Wahat al-Salam

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1977—First outside donations, led by the efforts of German Pax Christi group, give economic support to the fledgling community287

1979—The School for Peace is established, pioneering a unique educational approach centered on the “encounter” between Arabs and Israeli Jews

1980—The village nursery is founded

1980-1981—Summer camps held at Neve Shalom in an effort to bring together Israel Jews and Arabs

1983—“Doumia,” established as a “corner of quiet” where people of all faiths could meditate, pray or worship

1984—The Primary School is established, though open at this stage only to children residing in the village

1984—The village hosts its first “Open Day” celebration, inviting artists and musicians from around the country—both Israeli Jews and Arab Palestinians—to perform in a day-long festival promoting peace and the possibilities of co-existence

1985-1986—Facilitators at the School for Peace take their philosophy of “encounter,” and put it into practice in Northern Ireland, attempting to begin building bridges between hostile parties in that conflict

1986—Full municipal status is granted to the municipality of Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam, granting it access to the electrical grid and a place on the Mateh Yehuda regional council governing municipalities in the area

1987—The community access road is paved for the first time with finances raised from friends associations

1987—The community hosts a second and thus far final “Open Day,” reaching an attendance of 20,000 people from around Israel/Palestine288

1987—Israeli government recognizes the community officially, placing it on maps and bus routes

1988—Construction finishes on the House of Silence, marking a spot for pluralistic worship and prayer in silence for people of all religious and spiritual backgrounds

1988—Parity in numbers reached, marking the first time that Wahat al-Salam is officially populated by an evenly split population—half Israeli Jew and half Arab287 The first “Friends Associations”—groups who do fundraising and promotion for the community—were established in the early 1980s, beginning with the German Friends Association. See also: Kremer, interview by author, 18 January 2005.288 For further information on both celebrations of “Open Day,” see: Kremer, interview by author, 18 January 2005.

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1989—Due to financial difficulties, the School for Peace is briefly paralyzed, though it regains its footing within a year, with an almost entirely new faculty

1990—The Primary School is opened to area villages, allowing children from these neighboring places to attend289

1990-1991—The School for Peace offers programs for adults for the first time, as well as programs at major Israeli and Palestinian Universities

1992—Community Kindergarten recognized by the Israeli Ministry of Education, allowing it some financial support and academic accreditation

1992—Neve Shalom opens a community guesthouse, replacing the youth hostel it had maintained from the early 1980s290

1993-1995—Wahat al-Salam successfully wards off attempts by developers to build a “Neve Shalom B” community adjacent to the village, which would have likely enveloped and destroyed the carefully created balance that villagers sought to maintain

1996—Village founding father Bruno Hussar dies at the age of 85

1996-1997—Facilitators at the School for Peace take the “encounter” philosophy to the Greek-Cypriot conflict, attempting to begin building bridges among warring parties there

1997—The Neve Shalom Primary School is granted official “experimental status,” allowing for increased financial support from the state and making the school a source of exploration and learning for educators from around the country

1997—Community son Tom Kita’in is killed in a helicopter crash while serving in the Israeli Defense Forces

1998-2002—Villagers stave off a second attempt by developers to include the “Neve Shalom B” plan as part of Israeli government settlement plans for the region

1998-1999—Neve Shalom is connected to the regional water/sewage system; previously the community had relied on a self-sufficient, internal water/sewage system

1999—A compromise of sorts is reached on the issue of how to remember Tom Kita’in, and a plaque is placed above the basketball court in memorial; it remains the only sign in the village written only in Hebrew

289 There are currently 228 students enrolled at the primary school from a variety of surrounding villages and communities. See also: Howard Shippin, e-mail message to author, January 20, 2005.290 Officials at the guesthouse estimate that they receive 12,000 visitors a year on average, and that they have hosted over 250,000 visitors since the founding of the village. See: Ruth Shuster, interview by author, 18 January 2005.

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2000—The Israeli Ministry of Education grants the Wahat al-Salam Primary School official “extra-regional status,” granting the school more financial support and further legitimation by the State of Israel

2000—Boaz Kita’in, father of the late Tom Kita’in, is invited to light a torch at the annual celebration of Independence held at the Israeli Knesset

2001—Neve Shalom establishes the Humanitarian Assistance Program (H.A.P.) in an effort to participate in medical aid and outreach in the occupied territories, targeting especially Palestinians unable to obtain proper medical care due to the highly restrictive occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip by Israeli forces

2003—The community opens its Junior High School

2003—Construction is completed on a Sports Hall, which includes basketball and gym facilities for the village

2004—Construction begins on the expanded facilities of the Pluralistic Spiritual Center (P.S.C.)

2004—The village access road is expanded to a two-lane road, and re-paved

2004-2005—Neve Shalom begins a series of discussion and community mediations in an attempt to begin processing the expected dramatic growth in size of the community projected for the coming years as part of the village expansion plan

Appendix B:

A Map of Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam, circa January 2005

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