Rayek Rizek, modelling peaceful coexistence in Israel-Palestine

Rayek Rizek is Author of the book The Anteater and the Jaguar, former mayor of Neve Shalom/Wahat Assalam, and owner of Café Ahlan in that community. Born in 1955 in Nazareth to a Palestinian Christian family, he has been living in the Jewish-Palestinian village of Wahat Assalam (Arabic)/Neve Shalom (Hebrew)/ Oasis of Peace (English) since 1984.

The community is unique because it is the only community in Israel where Palestinians and Jews chose to live together consciously. The founder Father Bruno Hussar (1911-1996), a Nobel Prize nominee, believed that Jews, Christians and Muslims could share the country in peaceful coexistence. He did not have a predetermined formula for how that might be achieved, but he founded the community to explore how it might happen.

Father Bruno’s original request to establish a community, in 1976, was not approved by the state, but by 1984 when Rayek and his wife Dyana came to the site, there were five couples and ten single people living there (It was eventually recognised by the state in 1988). Bruno encouraged people not to worry how the community was to be managed and how their children should be educated. He believed answers to those questions would arise in time, and so it has proved.

There are mixed neighbourhoods in other Israeli towns, but in Neve Shalom/Wahat Assalam, members of the community chose to live together. And they choose to talk with one another in order to understand their differences and needs. That is not to say that agreement has been reached on every issue, and the regular influx of new arrivals means that the debate will always be ongoing.

After finishing High School, Rayek went to the USA in 1975. He returned to Nazareth in 1981 and a year later met his wife Dyana. It was she who introduced him to Wahat Assalam/Neve Shalom. They joined the community in 1984 and have been there ever since.

Rayek studied for a Masters Degree in Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution at Bradford University 2000-2001 and subsequently made a start on a PhD at Coventry – he didn’t complete it because of a shortage of funds. At Coventry, Professor Andrew Rigby (@CTPSR_Coventry) encouraged him to read about other intentional/alternative communities. It helped him put his own community in context.

Rayek came to appreciate Father Bruno more during his studies. Bruno never took the role of guru, even though he was much older than the other community members, but chose instead to learn alongside them about living in peace. This meant that the community was self-sustaining when Bruno passed away in 1996 - many such communities fail after the death of the founder, when there are arguments about the intention of the founder. (At the time of Bruno’s passing, the community had 32 families – half Jewish, half Palestinian, all Israeli citizens – a regional bilingual school, a School of Peace, a Spiritual Centre, and a guest house of 40 rooms.)

In 2017 Rayek completed a book ‘The Anteater and the Jaguar’ that tells the story of the Oasis of Peace and what he has learnt there that might contribute to the resolution of the conflict in the Holy Land. The title was inspired by a story that featured in an episode of the David Attenborough series ‘Life on Earth.’ The story is told by a tribe in the Amazon and relates how a Jaguar and Anteater were found locked in a deadly embrace, with the jaguar’s jaw around the anteater’s neck and the anteater’s claws embedded in the big cat’s flanks. For Rayek it articulates the complexity of the situation in Israel/Palestine. Rayek is trilingual, so can follow the evening news on Hebrew, Arabic and English speaking television. He finds it depressing but revealing how alleged ‘experts’ from both sides are stuck with their own positions. In the book he presents possibilities for Jews and Palestinians to liberate themselves from “the deadly hug of the two animals.”

He wanted the book to be positive and balanced, and not another addition to the extensive library of books that support one side or the other. It’s a perspective that arises from knowing his Jewish neighbours personally. When the Arabs and Jews first met in Neve Shalom/Wahat Assalam, they came to realise that there was another history that wasn’t told by either side. The starting point for that understanding was making a connection with the common humanity of the Arabs and Jews. Without the experience of living in the community, Rayek would not have been able to write the book: when he arrived at the community he had the idea that “I am right and they are wrong.”

Living in the community has caused Rayek to change his attitude and to learn to be more open. Community life in itself is a challenge, even before the additional complication of the external conflict. Living successfully there involves listening to others and trying to understand them without judgement and with self-control. It is an ongoing social and psychological challenge. It hasn’t been an easy experience for Rayek but he feels it has been beneficial.

In his book he describes the 200-strong primary school as “the jewel in the crown” of the community. In it lessons are conducted in Arabic and Hebrew, and the children play together as equals. Thousands of children have passed through the school. He believes that the impact of learning to live together is much greater in the formative years than later on.

Rayek doesn’t pretend that living in the community has been a walk in the park. For example, he resigned from the School of Peace in 1989 and boycotted the community from within for 7 years, though he still he engaged with it on the periphery and never left it completely. He returned to full engagement in 1997 when he became mayor. Becoming mayor compelled him to find forgiveness for past hurts and move on to a more fruitful period of his life.

He has served the community as mayor on two occasions. Between 1997 and 2000 he was still learning and was also preoccupied by making peace and (successfully) settling a longstanding dispute with the Monastery of Latroun that had gifted the land for the community. In the second period between 2005 and 2007 he had matured, had spent time studying intentional communities, and was better equipped to handle conflict creatively. He had come to realise the importance of forgiveness and of taking responsibility for ones own part in a conflict. One of the most useful books of the many Rayek has read is ‘The Golden Key to Happiness’ by (peace activist) Masami Saionji.

Despite an impressive visitor list that includes Richard Gere, Stephen Hawking, and Roger Waters (who played a concert for 75,000 people at Wahat Assalam/Neve Shalom), and visits from “hundreds of journalist over the years”, many people have not heard of the community. Rayek suspects that there is an intention in some quarters to ignore the community because it doesn’t fit the narrative that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is unresolvable. Nonetheless there are Friends Associations in most western countries and people wanting to learn more about the community and potentially contribute financially to the school in particular can contact it through them.

The community is not utopia, but it has demonstrated that with a constitution based on the idea that everyone is equal and with good intent from all participants it is possible to peacefully coexist.

There are 500 people in the community now. It cannot grow much more because it doesn’t have enough land (it has only 50 acres) – there is room enough for another 25 families, which would make it 150 families all told. There is no shortage of people wanting to join it: it is not only the current residents of Neve Shalom/Wahat Assalam that want to live together in peace. Most of the people who want to join are motivated by the prospect of providing “a better reality for their children.”

There is a perception in the press that people should be living together in perfect harmony in the community, but peace does not mean that, in Rayek’s view. It is about respect, tolerance, and common humanity. Rayek is inspired by the generation that has been through the school. For example, his two sons live in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and have a broad friendship group that includes Palestinians and Jews. They debate political issues but not to the point of severing the relationships between one another.

Israel/Palestine is “living under a big lie” and Rayek feels that most people realise this. Whenever he sees the community celebrating birthdays and holy days together he becomes “quite emotional.” Ultimately he is optimistic about the future for Israel/Palestine. He believes that everyone who is engaged in trying to create a reality based on denying the existence of the other will fail. At some stage everyone will realise that there is no other way but to live together as equals. Many ordinary citizens have already come to this conclusion; what is needed is leadership.

Rayek holds up the medical system in Israel as an example of where Jews and Palestinians are working together on a large scale towards a common goal, that of healing people.

His advice to his 20-year old self would be “to be more open, not to believe all you are told by politicians, not to believe everything you are taught in textbooks in schools, dig for the truth, don’t judge…remain open, remain humble… and keep learning. Realise that the other is a human being like you… and if you have any criticism towards their behaviour… try to imagine yourself in their place. ‘Racist’ means that the other is not a human being.”

(The website of the community is at wasns.org.

Rayek Rizek’s book is available on Amazon, in both English and German editions. Here are two reviews:

“Rayek Rizek’s masterful volume is a unique contribution to the story of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict like none I have ever read before. I have been studying, writing and working inside this conflict for 32 years. Never have I seen this combination of insights about the past, the present and the future, about the self in the context of conflict, about the central importance of story, the taking of personal responsibility, and the inescapable unity of the land and its peoples. If you seek a spell-binding story, an odyssey into the soul, and a beacon of hope beyond war, enter here.”

Rabbi Dr Marc Gopin, Hames H Laue Professor

George Mason University, Arlington VA

“Rayek Rizek’s book is essential reading, not only for those wanting to find out about the unique Oasis of Peace voluntary experiment in Jewish/Palestinian cohabitation, where the author has lived for 33 years, but also about the wider conflict. The Anteater and The Jaguar is that rare thing – a book that offers the reader the fruits of a lifetime of action, study and commitment by a principled and highly impressive participator.”

Oliver Ramsbotham, Emeritus Professor of Conflict Resolution, University of Bradford, UK

President of the Conflict Research Society)