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NEVE SHALOM/WAHAT AL-SALAM
Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam is a cooperative village
of Jews and Palestinian Arabs of Israeli citizenship. It was founded
in the early 1970s on land originally leased from the adjacent Latrun
Monastery. By the year 2000, 35 families had settled in the village,
and another 15 families were in the process of building their homes.
The Community runs a primary school, a school for peace, and a center
for silence and meditation.
The Primary School
 As
soon as the first families with children moved into the community
a binational nursery was founded. This grew into a Kindergarden
and then a primary school. Offering an educational framework which
expresses Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam's ideals of coexistence and
equality, these were opened also to children from outside the village.
Today the school and kindergarten have an enrollment of 250 children,
90% of which come from surrounding Arab and Jewish communities.
The Jewish and Palestinian teachers each speak exclusively
in their own languages to all of the children. From an early age,
the children begin to develop an awareness of their identity, culture
and traditions. There is an atmosphere of openness and tolerance
that encourages the children to understand, accept and appreciate
each other.
 The
school has been supported 1/3 by the goverrnment, 1/3 by the parents
and 1/3 from donations. Now the government has drastically cut back
their support and funds are lacking. Dispite this they are going
ahead with a plan to extent the school to include the 7th and 8th
grades, a project requiring consiberable funding.
The School for Peace
Directed and facilitated by a joint Jewish-Palestinian staff, the
School for Peace runs encounter group workshops to develop the awareness
of the participants towards the conflict and their role in it, as
well as to enable them to explore and evolve their identity through
interaction with the other.
The School for Peace conducts the following programs:
- Encounter workshops on the conflict for Jewish
and Palestinian youth in Israel.
- Encounter workshops, in-service training and seminars
for adult groups, including teachers, journalists, lawyers, social
workers and university students.
- Encounter work between citizens of Israel and
Palestine together with Palestinian NGOs.
- Facilitator training courses. And other workshops
and seminars.
Planting Trees
The House of Silence (Beth Doumia /Bayt Sakina)
Designed to be a place for reflection, meditation or prayer, ("For
Thou, silence (doumia) is praise." (Psalm 65, 2)), the House
of Silence provides a common place of sanctuary to all people, despite
divisions of creed and culture. In the deep silence all are united.
The Guest Center
In more normal times Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam offers a reasonably
priced hotel. Equally distant from Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, in a
beautiful, scenic location it could be used as a base for touring
Israel, visiting the village and/or participating in programs. Certainly
to be considered for those who are traveling in the area.
More information about Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam
can be obtained at the web site: www.nswas.com.
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