Israel test village makes neighbors of Jews, Arabs

By DEBORAH HORAN, Special to the Chronicle

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NEVE SHALOM, Israel — Ranin Boulos, a lanky, eloquent 13-year-old, breaks into a sprint when she spots Naomi Mark near a restaurant in this village. “She’s my very best friend,” Ranin explains with a wide smile. “There’s a connection between us. The last thing I think is that we’re different.”

Yet their friendship is unique here in Israel because Ranin is Arabic, Naomi is Jewish. In a country where Arabs and Jews tend to live apart and often harbor deep suspicions of one another, the girls’ friendship is a testament to the ability of the human will to overcome hatred and prejudice.

The girls are products of what their parents call an “experiment in peaceful coexistence” first envisioned by the Rev. Bruno Hussar, an Egyptian Jew who converted to Christianity and became a Dominican monk. In 1972, Hussar leased property from a nearby monastery about 30 miles southwest of Jerusalem and established the village of Neve Shalom, which means New Peace in Hebrew.

It was to be a place for Jews and Arabs to live together. Today, 15 Jewish families and 15 Arabic families dwell here in the belief that if they expose their children to the other side, they can slowly chip away at old attitudes and stereotypes. Fifteen more families have been accepted to move to the village, and 300 more are on a list waiting to get in.

“By being here we are making a statement that you can have a conflict as complicated as the Israeli-Arab conflict and still live together,” says Ranin’s dad, Daoud Boulos, a television director of Arabic children’s shows. The family moved to Neve Shalom in 1989.

An innovative effort from the start, the village also boasts the only bilingual and bicultural primary school in Israel. Beginning in kindergarten, children learn subjects in both languages from two teachers, one Jewish and one Arabic. Everyone celebrates Muslim, Jewish and Christian religious holidays. At first, the school served only the 15 children of the village.

But the idea of an integrated class has slowly caught on. Today, 100 students attend, two-thirds from surrounding towns. And next year, a Jewish village in the Galilee region plans to open a joint secular primary school.

How this transcription was made

Date confirmed on the page (folio-verified (the folio on the jump page reads “8A ★★★ Houston Chronicle Monday, April 20, 1998”. 20 April 1998 was a Monday. Paper and date both match Maria’s label, and the arc).

Context added by this archive

The last clipping of the batch and one of the two or three strongest.

A family of Arab citizens of Israel are at the centre of a two-part series, three of them speak at length, and the paper still cannot settle on what to call them: Arabic six times in its own voice, Arabs seven times, and Palestinian never — while reserving Palestinian for people in the West Bank and Gaza in the same columns.

Cite this clipping

"Israel test village makes neighbors of Jews, Arabs," Houston Chronicle, 20 April 1998, p. 1A, continued 8A. Covering Palestine archive, CP-1998-034. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-1998-034