Schwartz - Neve Shalom

I have arrived!

My tour group dissolved but some of us stayed behind. The bus took us to a tourist trap called "Mini Israel," a macabre walk-through miniature of the country boasting such oddities as a band of Ashkenazi yetis (I kid you not) and mechanical Orthodox Jews no bigger than my pinky finger davening toward the Wailing Wall.

Three kilometers away from Mini Israel rose two hills upon which sat a monastery and Neve Shalom/Wahat Assalaam, my destination. After wasting several hours in the tourist trap (our guide wanted us to see every last little engraved plastic detail) we finally departed. The bus driver intended to take me to the village but made a wrong turn. I was dropped off, with my luggage, ten kilometers away from the Latrun Junction.

Latrun was the site of a bloody battle that occured during Israel's War of Independence. The Israeli army suffered most of its casaulties in an extended operation to gain control of the highway to Jerusalem. Backed into a corner, the State of Israel consripted male refugees from Europe -- survivors of the Holocaust -- for a mighty push against the Arab armies at Latrun, a battle Israel won but with great cost to both sides. Ironically, Latrun is now a stop for an eged bus that comes three times a day to take travelers to the village.

Underneath the searing sun, the soles of my feet burning on the black tar of the highway, I hitch-hiked my way past Latrun to the mouth of the road that leads to Neve Shalom. I still had a two kilometer walk ahead of me, uphill! Dragging my luggage behind me I set off. Taxi cabs sped by me, ignoring my plight. Not until I collapsed under the shade of a dying tree jutting out from the side of the curving hill did Fate finally assist me: an Arab fellow in a jeep took stopped and transported me to the gate of the village.

When the first families arrived here twenty-seven years ago, they lived in an old bus beside a bedouin family. The hill was rocky, barren and infested with gnats and flies. Today, it is resplendent with green trees and bushes, and the slope of the hill is lined with the avant garde boxes of the fifty Arab and Jewish families that live here.

I am very excited to be here, though I am nervous. First, my spoken Hebrew is awful and my spoken Arabic worse, and while the villagers speak English well enough, I would much rather achieve some linguistic fluency. Second, the only other volunteers here will be leaving in two weeks and then I will be on my own for at least two weeks, possibly for many months. The number of volunteers the village has received has dwindled since the Al-Aqsa intifada began. I find the lack of international activism disappointing: this village exists precisely because there is an Occupation (or "Situation" as the Israelis call it), preciesely because there is an Intifiada. Third, there is almost no one my age here -- especially of the female variety, I won't lie -- and I fear that I may meet no one. Fourth, my money situation is still difficult. Fifth and finally, while there is a great dream behind this village, as Rosa, one of the volunteers, put it, "The people here are still people, just trying to do the right thing." I must keep that in mind. In just the night and morning I've been here I've already heard some of the difficult internal political difficulties of the village.

Well, we shall see what becomes of our intrepid hero. We shall see...

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Now it's time to read-up on Ben's adventures. I love the photo of the horse!!