|
The Idea
After the murder of six million Jews in central Europe, many survivors of this genocide sought refuge in Palestine. In 1948, the new State of Israel was declared. Many people who no longer had shelter in Europe fled there.
They sought to rebuild their lives in a young country which was threatened by enemies on every border.
At this time – the Holocaust having ended barely ten years before – a group of Christians in Europe decided to support the young State of Israel. They wanted to live in Israel: They wanted to show solidarity with the people who had been pursued and hunted by their own generation only a few years before. They wanted to help to build up this country in its early days.  1964: The first inhabitants of Nes Ammim in front of the Swiss bus.  Today: The volunteers of Nes Ammim.
Today Arabs and Jews live there side by side – in one country – and they live in one conflict. People from other countries come to Nes Ammim and find a home in Israel for a limited time: They come to find out first hand how Jews and Arabs live, what they believe in and how they deal with each other.
Volunteers who have lived in Nes Ammim can work in their homelands as ambassadors: if anti-semitism, agitation against Israel or against Muslims flames up, they can stand up and put things straight, because they are informed and knowledgable.
In 1963, the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, approved the Nes Ammim project.
The basis of this project was the Memorandum (LINK) in which the aims and duties of Nes Ammim are recorded. It is an important document which served to calm the fears of many Jewish citizens, rabbis and Members of the Knesset: It was never an aim of Nes Ammim to convert Jews, although at the beginnin many people saw this as a possible threat.
In fact the opposite is the case. Nes Ammim wants to ban the idea of missionizing Jews from Christian theology. In German and Dutch churches this was successfully done, with the help of theologians (Kremers, Busse) who had been working in Nes Ammim.
 A referendum in the old Knesset building in Jerusalem...  Levi Eshkol, the third Prime Minister of Israel, and one of the most important Israeli friends of Nes Ammim, helped the Memorandum to pass in the Knesset.
"Nes Ammim" means "sign for the nations" and it refers to the Hebrew Bible, the Christian Old Testament, Isaiah 11, 10. In this phrase, God promises an everlasting peace in paradise to all people of the earth. On the day when this peace begins, God will give the people a
sign – × ×ť עמיס "Nes Ammim". The pioneers who founded Nes Ammim in 1963, named their village so because they came to Israel to work for peace and reconciliation between Jews and Christians.
The symbol of the stylised ear of wheat represents the Jewish kibbutzim in Israel which were living almost solely from farming when the pioneers built Nes Ammim.
While the ear of wheat stands on the ground, the fish only crosses it. The IChThYS fish is the ancient symbol of the Christians. The ear of wheat and the fish overlap: Israelis and volunteers meet in Nes Ammim. The sign of the village is the symbol of an Israeli kibbutz with a Christian background. 
Today´s aims
The aims of Nes Ammim have grown over the years, just like Israel has developed: • To show practical solidarity with Jews and Arabs. • To inform volunteers comprehensively and in a well-balanced manner about Israel, Judaism and Islam. • To support the dialogue and the peace process between Jews and Arabs. • to free the Christian theology of anti-semitism and of its compulsion to missionize Jews.
Read more about the dialogue work of Nes Ammim and about the study program for volunteers.
|
News
| Legal Information I Contact I Sitemap I Apply |
|