Bruno Hussar
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Bruno Hussar (, ; 5 May 1911 – 8 February 1996) was the founder of Neve Shalom / Wahat al-Salam ("Oasis of Peace"), an Arab/Jewish village in the no man's land between
Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...
and
Palestinian territories The occupied Palestinian territories, also referred to as the Palestinian territories, consist of the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and the Gaza Strip—two regions of the former Mandate for Palestine, British Mandate for Palestine ...
, dedicated to coexistence. Hussar derived the name from the
book of Isaiah The Book of Isaiah ( ) is the first of the Latter Prophets in the Hebrew Bible and the first of the Major Prophets in the Christian Old Testament. It is identified by a superscription as the words of the 8th-century BC prophet Isaiah ben Amo ...
(32:18): ''"My people shall dwell in an oasis of peace"''. Born in
Cairo Cairo ( ; , ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Egypt and the Cairo Governorate, being home to more than 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, L ...
, he converted to Roman Catholicism while studying engineering in France. He was a genuinely 'transnational transcultural and multilingual' individual.Grace Feuerverger
''Oasis of Dreams: Teaching and Learning Peace in a Jewish-Palestinian Village in Israel,''
Routledge 2001 p.118.
Before he founded the village, Hussar established the House of Isaiah in
Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...
, a
Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...
-
Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...
ecumenical Ecumenism ( ; alternatively spelled oecumenism)also called interdenominationalism, or ecumenicalismis the concept and principle that Christians who belong to different Christian denominations should work together to develop closer relationships ...
study center. He came to Jerusalem to establish this institution in 1952. For many years, he was also a leader and priest for the Hebrew Christians, a tiny congregation of Hebrew-speaking Catholic residents and
Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...
i Jewish converts to Catholicism.


Early life and education

He was born, André, in Egypt in 1911, the son of a Hungarian father and a French mother, both assimilated Jews. He grew up speaking several languages and used to call himself a "man with four identities".Renato Kizito Sesana, ''Father Kizito's Notebook'', Koinonia Media Center 1996 p.198.Paul Versluis
'Bruno Hussar,'
Shalom cc org. 12 April 2015: 'I feel I have four selves: I really am a Christian and a Priest, I really am a Jew, I really am an Israeli and if I don’t feel I really am an Egyptian, I do at least feel very close to the Arabs who I know and love."
On completing his secondary schooling at the Italian School in Cairo, he moved with his family to Paris where he studied engineering. During his university studies, he was drawn to studying the problem of the nature of evil, and the figure of Jesus, and converted to Christianity.Maria Chiara Rioli
'A Christian Look at the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. Bruno Hussar and the Foundation of ‘Neve Shalom/Wahat Al-Salam’,'
in ''Quest: Issues in Contemporary Jewish History'', Journal of Fondazione CDEC", n.5 July 2013.
He received his French nationality in 1937.


Career

The experience of
World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
, awareness of
antisemitic Antisemitism or Jew-hatred is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who harbours it is called an antisemite. Whether antisemitism is considered a form of racism depends on the school of thought. Antisemi ...
prejudice within his own confession, deepened his reflections, stirring an interest in his Jewish
converso A ''converso'' (; ; feminine form ''conversa''), "convert" (), was a Jew who converted to Catholicism in Spain or Portugal, particularly during the 14th and 15th centuries, or one of their descendants. To safeguard the Old Christian popula ...
origins, and the desire to combine that heritage with his own adherence of the Catholic Church. This orientation was influenced notably through contacts with the philosemitic French-Catholic philosopher
Jacques Maritain Jacques Maritain (; 18 November 1882 – 28 April 1973) was a French Catholic philosopher. Raised as a Protestant, he was agnostic before converting to Catholicism in 1906. An author of more than 60 books, he helped to revive Thomas Aqui ...
and his wife Raïssa. Refusing to disguise his Jewish origins, he was at risk in Nazi-occupied France and had to flee the country. At war's end, he studied philosophy in a
Grenoble Grenoble ( ; ; or ; or ) is the Prefectures in France, prefecture and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of the Isère Departments of France, department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Regions of France, region ...
seminary and was ordained a Dominican priest on 16 July 1950, taking the name Bruno, after the founder of the
Carthusian Order The Carthusians, also known as the Order of Carthusians (), are a Latin Church, Latin enclosed religious order of the Catholic Church. The order was founded by Bruno of Cologne in 1084 and includes both monks and nuns. The order has its own rul ...
,
Bruno of Cologne Bruno of Cologne, OCart (; ; – 6 October 1101), venerated as Saint Bruno, was the founder of the Carthusians. He personally founded the order's first two communities. He was a celebrated teacher at Reims and a close advisor of his former pupi ...
. He saw in the foundation of the state of Israel a step towards the fulfilment of a Christian salvific plan and was charged with establishing a Centre for the Study of
Judaism Judaism () is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic, Monotheism, monotheistic, ethnic religion that comprises the collective spiritual, cultural, and legal traditions of the Jews, Jewish people. Religious Jews regard Judaism as their means of o ...
in the Israeli sector of Jerusalem in 1953. He desired to establish a monastic brotherhood in Jerusalem as an anti- Torquemada symbol disavowing the persecutions of Jews which the Spanish inquisitor (who was himself a Dominican with Jewish ancestors) had undertaken.Pinchas E. Lapide
''Hebrew in the Church: The Foundations of Jewish-Christian Dialogue''
William B. Eerdmans, 1984 p.118.
He encountered considerable difficulties with the Latin Catholic Hierarchy of the Holy Land, whose members were predominantly of Arab origin, and assisted in the establishment of the St. James Association to cater to the minority of Jewish Catholics, a year later, on the 14 December 1954, who were viewed with suspicion by Palestinian Catholics and marginalised by Israeli Jewish society. At the same time he undertook pastoral care of the
Jaffa Jaffa (, ; , ), also called Japho, Joppa or Joppe in English, is an ancient Levantine Sea, Levantine port city which is part of Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel, located in its southern part. The city sits atop a naturally elevated outcrop on ...
Arab Catholic congregation, which deepened his awareness of the complexities of life for the Arab population in Israel. In 1959, together with
Brothers A brother (: brothers or brethren) is a man or boy who shares one or more parents with another; a male sibling. The female counterpart is a sister. Although the term typically refers to a familial relationship, it is sometimes used endearingl ...
Jacques Fontaine and Marcel-Jacques Dubois, he opened St. Isaiah House, the aim of which was to foster dialogue and prayer between Christians and Jews. He obtained secret permission from the Vatican to have a Jewish wedding celebrated before the Catholic wedding was performed in 1960. He participated, with the support of Cardinal Bea in the work of the
Second Vatican Council The Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican, commonly known as the or , was the 21st and most recent ecumenical council of the Catholic Church. The council met each autumn from 1962 to 1965 in St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City for session ...
, where he helped draft the document, '' Decretum deo Iudaeis'', which was to mark an important turning-point in Jewish–Catholic relations He greeted the reunification of Jerusalem subsequent to Israel's victory in the
Six-Day War The Six-Day War, also known as the June War, 1967 Arab–Israeli War or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab world, Arab states, primarily United Arab Republic, Egypt, Syria, and Jordan from 5 to 10June ...
with joy, as a mark of eschatological significance and he became more markedly pro-Zionist, defining himself as a Christian, Jew and loyal citizen of the State of Israel. Israel's annexation of East Jerusalem, together with its occupation of both the
West Bank The West Bank is located on the western bank of the Jordan River and is the larger of the two Palestinian territories (the other being the Gaza Strip) that make up the State of Palestine. A landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...
and Gaza spurred Hussar with a sense of urgency to develop a process of reconciliation that would unite Jews, Christians and Muslims. This vision, according to Chiara Rioli, is to be distinguished from that of most
Christian Zionist Christian Zionism is a political and religious ideology that, in a Christian context, espouses the return of the Jewish people to the Holy Land. Likewise, it holds that the founding of the State of Israel in 1948 was in accordance with biblica ...
evangelical advocates like
John Hagee John Charles Hagee (born April 12, 1940) is an American pastor and televangelist. He founded John Hagee Ministries, which telecasts to the United States and Canada. He is also the founder and chairman of the Christian Zionist organization Chr ...
, in that the event is not understood to foreshadow the apocalyptic
Second Coming The Second Coming (sometimes called the Second Advent or the Parousia) is the Christianity, Christian and Islam, Islamic belief that Jesus, Jesus Christ will return to Earth after his Ascension of Jesus, ascension to Heaven (Christianity), Heav ...
of Christ. He originally proposed setting up a new interfaith centre, an "oasis of peace" modelled on the
kibbutz A kibbutz ( / , ; : kibbutzim / ) is an intentional community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. The first kibbutz, established in 1910, was Degania Alef, Degania. Today, farming has been partly supplanted by other economi ...
, on the slopes of
Kiryat Ye'arim (), also known as Telz-Stone, is a strictly Orthodox town in the Jerusalem District of Israel. It is located in the approximate area of an ancient place mentioned in the Bible, from which it takes its name. It is bordered on one side by the Mu ...
by
Abu Ghosh Abu Ghosh (; ) is an Arab-Israeli local council in Israel, located west of Jerusalem on the Tel Aviv–Jerusalem highway. It is situated 610–720 meters above sea level. It takes its current name from the dominant clan inhabiting the town, ...
, but decided to settle on larger grounds, some , owned by the Trappist order of the
Latrun Latrun (, ''Latrun''; , ''al-Latrun'') is a strategic hilltop in the Latrun salient in the Ayalon Valley. It overlooks the road between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, 25 kilometers west of Jerusalem and 14 kilometers southeast of Ramla. It was the si ...
Abbey, on no man's land according to the
1949 armistice lines The Green Line, or 1949 Armistice border, is the demarcation line set out in the 1949 Armistice Agreements between the armies of Israel and those of its neighbors (Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria) after the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. It served ...
, and equidistant from the three cities central to Judaism, Christianity and Islam, of
Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...
,
Tel Aviv Tel Aviv-Yafo ( or , ; ), sometimes rendered as Tel Aviv-Jaffa, and usually referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the Gush Dan metropolitan area of Israel. Located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline and with a popula ...
and
Ramallah Ramallah ( , ; ) is a Palestinians, Palestinian city in the central West Bank, that serves as the administrative capital of the State of Palestine. It is situated on the Judaean Mountains, north of Jerusalem, at an average elevation of abov ...
, implying thereby the 'equal proximity to the three Abrahamic religions of the
Holy Land The term "Holy Land" is used to collectively denote areas of the Southern Levant that hold great significance in the Abrahamic religions, primarily because of their association with people and events featured in the Bible. It is traditionall ...
.


Identity

'I feel I have four selves: I really am a Christian and a Priest, I really am a Jew, I really am an Israeli and if I don’t feel I really am an Egyptian, I do at least feel very close to the Arabs who I know and love."


Foundation of Neve Shalom/Wahat Al-Salam

An earlier attempt had been made by two families of the St. James Association to build a Christian kibbutz, on land provided by the Sisters of Our Lady of Sion in
Ein Kerem Ein Karem (; )Sharon, 2004, p155/ref> also Ein Kerem or Ain Karem, is a historic mountain village southwest of Jerusalem, presently a neighborhood in the outskirts of the modern city, within the Jerusalem District in Israel. It is the site of th ...
in the 1950s.Chronology
'Chronology A-1947-1965,'
St James Vicariate for Hebrew Speaking Catholilcs in Israel, 14 December 2007.
Worries existed about the reactions of the nearby Arab villagers, and of the Israeli government, though the abbot of the Latrun monastery, Elie Corbisier, was enthusiastic. Hussar, assisted by letters to the Pope written by Rina Geftman, sought not patronage, but formal authorisation for his projected ''Yishuv Neve Shalom'' from the then
Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem The Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem () is the Latin Catholic ecclesiastical patriarchate in Jerusalem, officially seated in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem is the archbishop of Latin Church Catholics of th ...
, Alberto Gori (1949–1970), who was opposed to the plan. A feasibility study by the Patriarchate advised against the project, but Hussar and Corbisier went ahead, signing a lease on 6 November 1970, and implemented it, despite resistance from the new head of the Jerusalem Patriarchate,
Giacomo Giuseppe Beltritti Giacomo Giuseppe Beltritti (December 23, 1910—November 1, 1992) was an Italian prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Patriarch of Jerusalem from 1970 to 1987, the last non-Arab to hold this position ...
. NSWAS - the name came from a phrasing in
Pope Paul VI Pope Paul VI (born Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini; 26 September 18976 August 1978) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 21 June 1963 until his death on 6 August 1978. Succeeding John XXII ...
's address bidding Israel's then-president Zalman Shazar farewell on January 5, 1964Pinchas E. Lapide
''Hebrew in the Church: The Foundations of Jewish-Christian Dialogue,''
William B. Eerdmans, 1984 p.149: 'May this holy land be an oasis of peace'.
- began to be developed on 400
dunam A dunam ( Ottoman Turkish, Arabic: ; ; ; ), also known as a donum or dunum and as the old, Turkish, or Ottoman stremma, was the Ottoman unit of area analogous in role (but not equal) to the Greek stremma or English acre, representing the amo ...
s of land, under harsh pioneering conditions, by some ten members of the same group in 1970, though the first families only arrived in 1976. With the advent of Israeli Jewish and Palestinian Arab families after 1976, and the moral and financial support of Friends of NSWAS in France, Italy, Switzerland and Belgium, the community began to grow. Wellesley Aron and his wife joined the village in 1980. Though prayer and reconciliation were considered fundamental from the beginning, a new tendency arose, as settlers showed more interest in justice and fraternity, and in social action, than religion. Hussar imposed from the very outset a politics of neutrality. Issues of identity nonetheless came to the fore as a central concern of the community, something which led to rifts, and indeed the abandonment of the project by one of its key founding members, Rina Geftman, in the 1980s. By 1984, the village had 70 members, equally divided between Jewish and Palestinian Israelis.


Mixed schools

In the late 1990s, the Center established several ''Yad b’Yad'' (Hand in Hand) schools in Israel, aiming to encourage Jewish and Arab children to study together.


School of Peace

In response to the need to educate the Israeli Jewish and Palestinian children in the village, a school was set up with a bilingual curriculum in both Hebrew and Arabic, English French before the children left primary school to enter into the Israeli state school system. The School of Peace, with input from
Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ; ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, part of the United Kingdom in the north-east of the island of Ireland. It has been #Descriptions, variously described as a country, province or region. Northern Ireland shares Repub ...
's educational system and elsewhere, established in 1979, also emerged from this paedeutic necessity. Throughout the 1980s, the NSWAS model was widely covered, both by the international and local Israeli press, for its role in promoting dialogue in the midst of the ongoing
Israeli–Palestinian conflict The Israeli–Palestinian conflict is an ongoing military and political conflict about Territory, land and self-determination within the territory of the former Mandatory Palestine. Key aspects of the conflict include the Israeli occupation ...
. The stress on neutrality nonetheless came under considerable strain in the 1980s, during Israel's "First Lebanon War", and especially after the outbreak of the
First Intifada The First Intifada (), also known as the First Palestinian Intifada, was a sustained series of Nonviolent resistance, non-violent protests, acts of civil disobedience, Riot, riots, and Terrorism, terrorist attacks carried out by Palestinians ...
. Hussar refrained from taking any public stand, though he did write in his 1988 book, ''When the cloud lifted'', that the Intifada was:
"a natural consequence of growing pressure on the 'territories', due to the Occupation and Jewish settlements – and it has given rise to inevitable and harsh military repression."
At this time, a Nazareth Muslim resident and friend, Abdessalam Najjar, began to assume, as village secretary, a larger leadership role. As a result, the village staged a one-off, exceptional protest against the oppression in the
Occupied Palestinian territories The occupied Palestinian territories, also referred to as the Palestinian territories, consist of the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and the Gaza Strip—two regions of the former British Mandate for Palestine that have been occupi ...
. Hussar's own dedication to Zionism did not change. He thought the Jews had a right, sanctioned by the United Nations, to live in a land of their own. At the same time, he declared
In itself Zionism in not in any way against the right of the Palestinian Arabs to a national existence in the same region; the land is spacious enough for that. (…) No Jew who truly lives in the spirit of the Torah can be indifferent to the fate of the Palestinian Arabs and their hopes. This land is their home too.”


Meditation and prayer building

In 1983, NSWAS opened a huge building, later capped with a white dome and set apart, within a landscaped garden environment, called the Doumia (''silence'' in
Biblical Hebrew Biblical Hebrew ( or ), also called Classical Hebrew, is an archaic form of the Hebrew language, a language in the Canaanite languages, Canaanitic branch of the Semitic languages spoken by the Israelites in the area known as the Land of Isra ...
). Hussar made a precise semantic distinction in Hebrew between ''sheket'' (absence of noise) and ''dumia'' (profound silence), associating the latter with the 'freshet of air, the voice of a subtle silence'
Elijah Elijah ( ) or Elias was a prophet and miracle worker who lived in the northern kingdom of Israel during the reign of King Ahab (9th century BC), according to the Books of Kings in the Hebrew Bible. In 1 Kings 18, Elijah defended the worsh ...
heard in the desert according to the Book of Kings (19:12). Beppe Sebaste
''Porte senza porta: incontri con maestri contemporanei,''
Feltrinelli Milan 1997, pp.16-26, p.22.
In his later years, Hussar withdrew there, returning to his foundational notion of a place where prayer and meditation would play a formative role within his community, as the point of conjunction between the three Abrahamic faiths. He was even more culturally ecumenical, learning from a Japanese priest how to perform mass while practising
zazen ''Zazen'' is a meditative discipline that is typically the primary practice of the Zen Buddhist tradition. The generalized Japanese term for meditation is 瞑想 (''meisō''); however, ''zazen'' has been used informally to include all forms ...
. He was to break his retreat into silence on hearing of the news of the
Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin Yitzhak Rabin, the prime minister of Israel, was assassinated on 4 November 1995 at 21:30, at the end of a rally in support of the Oslo Accords at the Kings of Israel Square in Tel Aviv. The assailant was Yigal Amir, an Israeli law student and u ...
, which struck him as putting an end to illusions created by the peace previously envisaged as a result of the
Oslo I Accord The Oslo I Accord or Oslo I, officially called the Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements or short Declaration of Principles (DOP), was an attempt in 1993 to set up a framework that would lead to the resolution of th ...
. He interpreted the assassination biblically as a sign of ''aharit ha-yamim'', the end of days, and
'a major step forward in the march of the Jewish people towards messianic fullness. . .when the Jews and the Gentiles, trees that complement God’s single olive tree, will be united in the same praise.'


Death and heritage

On the occasion of Brother Hussar's death, 8 February 1996, and burial at Neve Shalom, thousands of people only from Israel gathered at NSWAS. Hussar was nominated in successive years (1988, 1989) for the
Nobel Peace Prize The Nobel Peace Prize (Swedish language, Swedish and ) is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the Will and testament, will of Sweden, Swedish industrialist, inventor, and armaments manufacturer Alfred Nobel, along with the prizes in Nobe ...
. Until 1989, the village lacked recognition as an Israeli village, but in September of that year the Israeli Ministry of the Interior finally granted it that legal status. Difficulties arose in the increasingly conflicted years that followed, esp. during the
Al Aqsa Intifada The Second Intifada (; ), also known as the Al-Aqsa Intifada, was a major uprising by Palestinians against Israel and its Israeli-occupied territories, occupation from 2000. Starting as a civilian uprising in Jerusalem and October 2000 prot ...
, as NSWAS found itself isolated, unable to forge significant connections with either Israeli or Palestinian society. His friend of long-standing Dubois, went on record as stating that both he and Hussar, in embarking on a naïve adventurous Zionism, had 'completely denied the Palestinian tragedy'.


Works

*Autobiography: ''When the Cloud Lifted''


See also

* Gregory Baum — ''Nostra aetate'' co-author * John M. Oesterreicher — ''Nostra aetate'' co-author


References


External links


Short Biography at the Neve Shalom web site


- Article at ''www.peacemagazine.org'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Hussar, Bruno 1911 births 1996 deaths 20th-century Roman Catholic priests Converts to Roman Catholicism from Judaism Egyptian Ashkenazi Jews Egyptian expatriates in France Egyptian expatriates in Israel Egyptian people of French descent Egyptian people of Hungarian descent Egyptian Roman Catholic priests Israeli Ashkenazi Jews Israeli people of Egyptian-Jewish descent Israeli people of French-Jewish descent Israeli people of Hungarian-Jewish descent Israeli Roman Catholics Members of the Dominican Order Clergy from Jerusalem 20th-century Egyptian Jews 20th-century Egyptian people