Oasis of Peace

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Neve Shalom redirects here. For the synagogue in Istanbul, see Neve Shalom Synagogue

View of the village
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View of the village

Oasis of Peace, officially named Neve Shalom (Hebrew: נווה שלום) and Wāĥat as-Salām (Arabic: واحة السلام‎) is a cooperative village jointly founded by Israeli Arabs and Jews in an attempt to show that the two peoples can live side by side peacefully, as well as to conduct educational work for peace, equality and understanding between the two peoples. The village is located on one of the two Latrun hilltops, midway between Tel Aviv-Jaffa and Jerusalem, in the territory Israel has controlled since 1967, which was until then no man's land between the Israeli and Jordanian lines.

Neve Shalom ~ Wahat as-Salam takes its name from a passage in the Hebrew Bible (Isaiah 32:18): "My people shall dwell in an oasis of peace." The village was conceived and founded by Bruno Hussar, an Egyptian born Dominican brother (of Jewish origin) on forty hectares of land leased in 1970 from the Trappist abbey at Latrun for a symbolic sum. As Hussar relates in his autobiography, he set up home there, and waited for others to join him. In 1999, when the village was well-established, the Monastery gave twenty hectares of the original leasehold into its permanent ownership, with the rest reverting back to the Monastery.

The village currently (2006) has some fifty families with another 300 (Jews and Arabs) on the waiting list for settlement in the village. A recently approved expansion plan will permit the village to grow in coming years by another 90 housing lots. Also, since its founding, the village has had a regular rotation of international volunteers brought in to provide basic support functions at its various facilities.

Neve Shalom ~ Wahat as-Salam is home to three educational institutions:

  • A bi-national, bi-lingual (Arabic - Hebrew) children's educational framework, with an enrollment (2005) of 200+. About 90% of the pupils come from towns and villages in a 30 kilometer radius of Neve Shalom ~ Wahat as-Salam. The largest unit in the children's educational framework is the primary school, founded in 1984 as the first such bi-national school in the country. Today, the school is recognized and receives some support from the state.
  • The School for Peace: a unique educational institution offering Jewish-Arab encounter programs in the spirit of Neve Shalom ~ Wahat as-Salam. Founded in 1979, the SFP has conducted workshops, seminars and courses for some 45,000 youth and adults from Israel and the Palestinian territories. The School for Peace also trains facilitators in conflict-group encounter skills.
  • The Pluralistic Spiritual Centre in Memory of Bruno Hussar (known as "Doumia ~ Sakinah"): a place and a framework for spiritual reflection on issues at the core of the middle east conflict and the search for its resolution. The Centre conducts a variety of activities and seminars that are open to the general public.

Neve Shalom ~ Wahat as-Salam also has a small (39 room) guest house that is open to visitors, and offers programs aimed at acquainting local or foreign groups with the village and its cultural context.

The village has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize four times.

On June 22 2006 former Pink Floyd frontman Roger Waters gave a concert at Neve Shalom.

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