About the film

Children of Peace is a documentary by Maayan Schwartz, who grew up in Neve Shalom himself. He returns to the community where Jews and Palestinians have lived and raised children together as a long, deliberate experiment in coexistence.

The children in the film start out as best friends. The story follows them as they reach high school age and the community's shared life divides: Jewish youth go on to Jewish schools, and Palestinian youth go on to separate schools. Then comes the army. A beloved young Jewish man from the community, now a soldier in the Israeli army, is killed in a military accident near the end of his service, and how to mourn and memorialize him divides Neve Shalom, because the people there carry different Jewish and Palestinian stories. The community is shaken to its core, and it also remains a community.

This is not a film about whether coexistence is a good idea. It is about what it costs, day by day, to live it.

What makes it different

• Then and now, side by side. Old 1970s news footage of the village's children is woven together with new conversations with the same people as grown adults.
• Two languages, no labels. The film moves between Hebrew and Arabic and does not stop to tell you who is Jewish and who is Arab. You find out as people speak.
• An honest look, not a brochure. It shows the successes of the experiment and the painful parts, including what happens when the world outside the village does not stay outside.
• A childhood that "did not notice." People describe a happy, almost pastoral childhood, and then the point where they realized the conflict had been part of their lives all along.
• The first Arab girl born in the village. Shireen grew up among Jewish children and spoke Hebrew so well that other Arabs teased her for it. She recalls how the sight of a soldier in uniform reminded her of the occupation, even when the soldier was a friend and a neighbor.
• A camera that never left. As children they were filmed again and again by reporters and visitors, always asked the same questions about what it is like to live in a village of peace. Now one of their own is behind the camera.
• One day, two stories. On the day Jews in Israel mark Independence Day and Palestinians remember the Nakba, the village school's classes split so that each child learns their own people's story.
• Friends on two sides of the army. Jewish children are called up, and Palestinian citizens are exempt. Friends who grew up together talk, sometimes painfully, about what that did between them.
• Mourning together, then arguing. When the young man was killed in 1997, Palestinian neighbors, including a teacher who had taught him, grieved with his family. The argument over how to remember him came after.

Why now

The film was made before October 7, yet it may be more relevant today than when it was made. The future of coexistence is again in question, both for Neve Shalom and, as a small model, for Israel as a whole. Maayan has said that people like to imagine the village as a bubble, when in fact it feels what happens in the wider region first and most strongly, because it is the daily life of the people who live there.

Questions the film leaves with you

The film does not hand you an answer. These are some of the questions we hope to talk about together.

1. What do we owe our children: a protected place to grow up, or an early honest look at the world as it is?
2. When a community's loss comes through the army, how do people who see the conflict differently mourn together?
3. Which words do we reach for without thinking when we talk about this village and its people? Who do they include, and who do they leave out?
4. When do we mourn our own people in particular, and when do we mourn for everyone? Can one community hold both?
5. What can a community like HBT, with many views under one roof, learn from a village that chose to stay in conversation?

Voices, family and roles

Draft questions for the IPPC to refine.

6. Whose voices does the film put first, and whose do we hear less? What might it look like if it began with different people?
7. The village was built on equality between Jews and Palestinians. But at 18 the state asks different things of Jewish and Palestinian teenagers. Did the village's equality between peoples also reach girls and boys, or was that a separate question?
8. Shireen was the first Arab girl born in the village. What did growing up there ask of her, as a girl and as a Palestinian, and what did it ask of the boys around her? And for you: were there things you were expected to do, or not do, because you were a boy or a girl?
9. The adults in the film recall what their mothers and fathers taught them, and now they are raising children of their own. What did each parent hand down, and what do they hope to pass on?

The program

Details are being confirmed. Check back, or watch the Ma Nishtanah newsletter for the announcement.

Presented by HBT's Israeli-Palestinian Program Committee (IPPC). Co-hosts: [to be added].

Recognition

An official selection of the Docaviv Film Festival and many international festivals. Awards, as listed by the filmmakers and festival programs, include:

• Grand Prize, SimFest International Film & TV Festival
• Best Documentary, New York Independent Film Festival
• Best SuperDuc and Grand Prize, Notfilm Festival
• Grand Prize and Best Documentary, Warsaw Jewish Film Festival
• Best Documentary, Twelve Lions Film Festival
• Best of Fest, Walter's Pick and Best Documentary Audience Award, Twin Cities Jewish Film Festival

Learn more

• The film's own website childrenofpeace.info, from the filmmakers (opens in a new tab)
• Watch the trailer The film's trailer, on Vimeo (opens in a new tab)
• Film on Facebook The film's own page (opens in a new tab)
• Film on Instagram The film's own page (opens in a new tab)
• Interview with Maayan Schwartz and film review: [links to be added]

• Read about the village History, today's news and further reading