By Joel Magalnick, Editor, JTNews
You can tell that these two women – one Jewish, one Palestinian – have spent much of their lives together. The way they spout out in unison the American cities they have visited over their three-week visit or giggle at what one another says shows the closeness of Adi Frish, 21, and Laila Najjar, 20.
The two grew up in a small enclave midway between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem called Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam – Oasis of Peace. The town, which consists of 50 families, half of them Jewish and half of them Palestinian (though Israeli citizens), was begun as a conscious effort to have Jews and Israeli Arabs live together peacefully.
Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam was founded in 1972 by Father Bruno Hussar, a Catholic priest who was born Jewish, and envisioned an open community based on the Biblical passage of Isaiah 32:18: “My people shall dwell in an oasis of peace.”
Though people of any faith are welcome to live in the village, the focus is on building relationships between Jews, Christians and Muslims.
Both Adi’s and Laila’s parents helped establish the village in 1978, and now the children of those first pioneers are traveling the world and explaining the environment in which they grew up.
“We are teaching both languages [Hebrew and Arabic] – and English as a third language – and we are actually learning about each other’s holidays, each other’s cultures,” says Laila. “We are celebrating our holidays with each other, and they teach us in the schools to want to respect and to hear each other’s opinions.”
“We know communication is the only way that we can cooperate,” says Adi, who said that the 3-1/2-year-old intifada has not put strains on the relationships between the two peoples, like it has in many villages where Jews and Israeli Arabs lived in harmony for generations.
“Of course, both sides lost a lot of people from violence,” she adds. On “both sides, we feel pain no matter who is killed – Arabs or Jews.”
The two women came to Seattle in May, at the end of an eight-city tour through the U.S., representing American Friends of Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam, which raises funds for the village. They have also traveled to Italy and Switzerland to talk about and help bring in money for the village as it attempts to expand to 65 families over the next year.
The ultimate goal is to grow to a maximum 150 families in the next several years. Currently, 300 families are on a waiting list to move in.
Adi and Laila grew up attending the community’s bilingual, bicultural primary school. The school educates 300 children from both the village and surrounding towns, and splits classes in half between Arabs and Jews – each with a Jewish and Palestinian teacher. The school is the only bilingual/bicultural school recognized by the Israeli Ministry of Education.
In addition to the primary school, the School for Peace brings in more than 1,000 people each year to participate in workshops and sessions that help one side understand the viewpoints of the other. Starting at the high school level, students come to listen to each other’s perspectives in a program that has expanded to university-level Women’s Studies courses as well as other adult learning. The School for Peace also collaborates with four Israeli universities in programs ranging from weekend retreats to semester-long courses.
When Laila, herself a student at the Jerusalem Academy for Art and Design, presents Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam to other Palestinians, “most of the reaction is very positive. When I talk about the village, I’m showing [it] as Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam – both languages,” she says, “they see that this is not just important for me to say my language or the other language.
“Actually, I think that the most important thing, the best way they can know about or understand about the village, is that they come to see…my way of living and my relationship with the others who are Jewish, or how we celebrate the holidays. They also tell me that it’s so sad that they don’t have this opportunity to live like me.”
Adi, who works as a manager for a health club company, says that understanding of what her village is like has mostly drawn positive reactions.
“Most of my friends are very positive, they want to know more about the village. They’re curious to see the village, to meet my friends,” she says. “Sometimes they say that we’re living in a dream or asking the question ‘How can I not be afraid?’”
On their trip, the two women spoke about how though they now study and work outside of their “oasis,” it is where they want to spend their lives, a sentiment different from the many young Israelis leaving the country to try to find a better life elsewhere.
“I want to stay in the village and not just in the country,” says Adi. “I can’t see myself living in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv, because I believe that the village is the way that my parents raised me. I want to continue with this kind of education and I want it to continue with my children.”