After our visit to Latrun, we took a short bus ride to the small community of Neve Shalom-Wahat al-Salam(WAS-NS). Nestled along a hillside over looking a grape vineyard. WAS-NS was established in the 1970s by Israeli Jews and Arab Palestinians, looking to demonstrate the power of coexistence through mutual respect, acceptance and cooperation. 

The Oasis of Peace as it is known, houses 60 plus families within its community and is democratically governed and owned by its community members. Having no political affiliation, this community houses the country's first bilingual, bi-national school. The goal of which, is to provide a learning environment based on mutual respect, acceptance and awareness, while helping children foster their own individual identity.

Today, the community has opened its school's doors to the residents surrounding the WAS-NS campus. The community educates roughly 250 children ranging from nursery to junior high school, with 90% of it students coming from outsides its gates.

Though the WAS-NS community is based on peace and acceptance, I learned it has faced its own internal challenges.  One of the greater challenges that "almost compromised the community," as our guide Daud stated, was one based around the death of a young community member killed while serving in the IDF. Faced with the challenge of how to memorialize this young man, the members of the community democratically debated for over a year on how to sensitively acknowledge the loss while sticking to the community's founding principles. In the end, the community agreed to memorialize him with a plaque located in a newly built basketball court.

A delicate decision had to be made by the WAS-NS community by engaging in a hard and long decision-making process. I couldn't help thinking about how this could serve as an example of how this country and region of the world, could one day put religion aside and focus on the one true factor in this whole equation. It was a testimonial to the power and determination of the human spirit.

I found the experience of visiting the WAS-NS community to be very insightful. While the history of this country and region of the world seems to be focused on using its religious and political lenses, it was refreshing to see a community putting that aside and refocusing  on the today and tomorrow, instead of the yesterday. Though I'm a strong believer in knowing your history and where you come from, I'm an even stronger believer in taking your history, learning from it, and using that wisdom to improve the quality of your life and others around you.