Wahat al-Salam/Neve Shalom was founded on a total belief in the power of dialogue. Masha Gessen writes about the community in the aftermath of the Hamas attack and amid Israel’s war in Gaza.
Wahat al-Salam/Neve Shalom—which means Oasis of Peace, in Arabic and Hebrew—was founded by Bruno Hussar, an Egyptian-born Jew who fled the Nazi invasion of France and later became a Dominican priest. Around 1970, he secured a large parcel of land, on loan from a Trappist monastery, to attempt an experiment in nonmilitarism and religious pluralism in the middle of Israel, halfway between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.
He discovered that his father was using the food trailer to host barbecues for Israeli soldiers near the Gaza border. This didn’t feel right. “I mean, it’s a war,” Adam told me. “I don’t want to make it fun.” Yair Ben Shabath has lived in Wahat al-Salam/Neve Shalom for twenty years. In 1996, when Benjamin Netanyahu was first elected Prime Minister, Yair saw the ascent of the Israeli right as potentially disastrous.
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