Home

The Charism of Sion

The Family of Sion

Our History

News

Links

Shalom LJS 5th May, 2006

Israel at the end of April is beautiful. Everywhere is green and the gardens of the houses in the village where I have been staying these past five days are fragrant with honeysuckle and full of colour. To have been in Israel this week over Yom Ha-Zikkaron (Remembrance Day for Israel's Fallen Soldiers) and Yom Ha-Atzma'ut (Israel Independence Day) and among Jews, Christians and Muslims was a moving and sometimes challenging experience.

Neve Shalom - Wahat al Salaam, where I was staying is set on a hill not far from the Latrun Monastery outside Jerusalem. Fifty families are settled there - 25 Jewish Israelis and 25 Palestinian Arab Israelis. The primary school and the international School for Peace there are remarkable achievements in a countruntry which is still so young and which bears so manyscars of war and conflict. Out of the suffering of both Jews and Palestinians in this peaceful and gentle place has emerged a remarkable project: not only the village, but also a brand new pluralistic Spirituality Centre. On Monday night after a day of lectures, music and poetry to mark the opening of the Centre and the tenth anniversary of the death of the founder of the village, Father Bruno Hussar, we stood in the prayer hall to share each other's holy texts and pray together: Muslims, Christians and Jews.

To know that here and in other parts of Israel, there are men and women, and children, learning each other's language, learning their narrative of loss and pain and reaching out gently, sensitively to the other, filled me with hope for the future.

There is much still to do: Neve Shalom - Wahat al Salaam - an oasis of peace in its silence and dialogue will point the way towards understanding and peace.

Shabbat Shalom, Alexandra Wright