Neve Shalom Wahat Al Salam

Neve Shalom ~ Wahat al-Salam was established in 1970 by Jewish and Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel seeking to live side by side as equals while conducting educational work for peace, equality and understanding between the two peoples. The name means “Oasis of Peace” in Hebrew and Arabic. The community sits on a scenic hilltop midway between Tel Aviv/Jaffa and Jerusalem, on land donated by the adjacent Monastery of Latrun. By 2021 it has 350 members, half of them Jewish, and half of them Palestinian, citizens of Israel and is still growing. The village is home to a cluster of not-for-profit institutions established over the years to further its educational and outreach work for peace and social change: The Primary School, established in the early 1980s as the first Arab-Jewish school in the country, now serves about 300 children from the village and some 20 nearby communities. It has pioneered unique methods for teaching its bilingual, binational and multicultural curriculum. The School for Peace (est. 1979) works with Jewish and Palestinian professional groups, as well as youth, to create a genuine, egalitarian dialogue between the two people. Through workshops, training programs and special projects, the SFP develops participants’ awareness of the conflict and their role in it, enabling them to take responsibility to change the present relations between Jews and Palestinians.. Over 65,000 people have attended its programs. See https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-school-for-peace/ for more. The Pluralistic Spiritual Community Center offers a continually evolving program of interfaith activities oriented to the quest for peace in the country, the region, and globally, at a modern conference facility alongside the original white-domed House of Silence. The Nadi (the village's youth center, est. 2004) fosters and sustains bonds of friendship and values of mutual respect and responsibility among all the community's children, Arab and Jewish.