Summer Camp 2025
Summer Camp 2024
Summer Camp 2023
Summer Camp 2022
Summary of Peace Camp 2025 This year as well, the Friends of Open House summer camp took place in Ramla. The camp promotes values of mutual respect, humanity, and shared living. It is an educational project that has been operating continuously for 34 years, driven by a deep belief in the importance of strengthening relationships between Jews and Arabs … more »
by Lutfia Gnime, summer camp co-director This year we opened our camp despite all the fears of the war, it was important for us to tell the world that we will continue to believe in our way, the way of peace and tolerance. The camp began July 1st and ended 21st of July … more »
The Peace Camp of Open House was held between July 3rd and July 21st, 2023, the Arab-Jewish camp that has existed for many years with the aim of strengthening ties and coexistence between the two peoples.
This year’s summer camp was between the 3rd to the 21st of July, 2022. The Ramle municipality provided the grounds of the YRF learning center and we could accept 80 participants to full capacity, ages 9 to 12. The participants were from Ramle Lod the neighboring Kibbutzim, Neve Shalom/Wahat as Salaam and even from the North. The … more »
We are delighted to share with you what was happening at our end during 2021. First of all, the Ramle Municipality offered us the YRF grounds (Youth Renewal Fund) for our Summer Camp in Ramle itself. The mayor of Ramle, Michael Videl, considered the summer camp a public statement against the severe violence between Arabs … more »
Now for the 27th year our summer camp this year took place between the 1st of July to the 19th for 98 Arab and Jewish children between the ages of six to thirteen.
Fifty Jewish and Arab High School students from the Galilee visited Open House as part of an educational tour of the ‘mixed city’ of Ramle on the 22nd of February. Khader Alkalak, our administrative director receives them in the afternoon after the Nursery children are picked up by their working parents at 4 PM. Our long … more »
Our 2018 Summer Camp was held between July 3rd and July 23rd at the Terra Santa High school in Ramle. Our summer camp included day trips to the multi layered archaeological sites of Ramle. One of them is what today we call The Pool of Arches. It was created in the 8th century by Aharun … more »
It is our 26th year of Nursery School. This year we have 27 children in the Day Care Center with Lamis, Johana and Nadia as the experienced staff members and three younger part time helpers.
30th of November to 3rd December 2017, we had our Journey-Masa, Masar, for 22 students from Jewish and Arab High Schools. This unique project is in cooperation with Neve Shalom/ Wahat asSalam, spiritual center. Accommodations for the first two nights were in the guest house of Neve Shalom. Vivian Rabiah and Dorit Shippin together with Elad Vazana prepared the younger counselors and … more »
Between the 2nd to 20th July was our 25th Summer camp! It is 26 years of Open House activity. We had 94 Jewish and Arab children between the ages of six to twelve, with one from Jaffa and one from Nazareth . Preparing for the summer camp takes months in advance – registration, creating the program, organization of busing from … more »
The OPEN HOUSE Summer Peace Camp enriches the educational and recreational possibilities for Arab and Jewish children. The Summer Peace Camp enables Jewish and Arab youngsters to break down stereotypes of one another; to better understand each others’ identity, language and culture; and to develop friendships based on shared experiences.
From March 13th – 16th, a group of 30 Israeli teenagers embarked on a Journey to engage with diversity and become closer together. The unique opportunity of this Journey rests in the fact that our teenagers represent Muslim, Jewish, and Christian faiths. Their experiences and identities center around the diverse cultures and environments through which … more »
Applying Virginia Satir’s Model to creating mutual curiosity and developing partnership between Palestinian-Arab and Jewish citizens of Israel.
As in the past 24 years, we held our Summer Peace Camp in July for three weeks (1st to 22nd July). For Jews and Arabs to meet from an early age is absolutely essential if one is not to fall into the socially prevalent stereotypes on both sides which basically lead to the dehumanization of … more »
Here is a group of thirty high school students from two schools, a Jewish and an Arab, participating in Masa-Masar – The Journey. They were together for four days between the 7th and the 11th of May, 2015. Massa-Masar-Journey Program – May 7-11 / 2015 “This Journey changed me, I will always ask questions. … more »
The purpose of the youth delegation aged 14 to 18 was to experience the multi-faith dimensions of this land and create relationships with people their own age from Open House.
I wish to share with you a first time experience–talking to hundreds of Palestinian pupils from a school in Beit Hanina, a Palestinian town near Jerusalem with a wall in its heart.
Students from Be’er Sheva University School of Education visited Open House on March 2nd . They were on an educational tour of Ramle.
In partnership with Bircat Shalom community in Kibbutz Gezer, led by Rabbi Miri Gold & Neve Shalom Spiritual Center, we have initiated multi-faith gatherings in our respective communities.
Senior Fulbright scholar and director of Middle East Center for Peace, Prof. Paula Rayman, conducted at Open House a workshop in nonviolent communication for Arab and Jewish women…
At this time, when rockets are falling all over the country from the south and from the north, and the airplanes are on their way to bomb Gaza, we pray and hope that a lasting ceasefire will come into effect immediately. We at Open House feel for both sides, and we pray for both sides. … more »
In the past 3 years Open House has been doing major work empowering women as individuals and in the community.
Celebrating the Light on Human Right’s Day, 10th of Dec, was the initiative of artist Shulamit Ashkenazi. After participating in our Interfaith course for women, Shulamit became quite an activist at Open House.
The OPEN HOUSE Summer Peace Camp has been running for 22 consecutive years. By now, we have gained a lot of experience about how to melt fear and prejudice, which manifests more strongly the older a person is.
In the past 3 years Open House has been doing major work empowering women as individuals and in the community. Open House, in co-operation with the Kolech forum of religious Jewish women and the Interfaith Encounter Association…
Open House, together with the spiritual center in Neve Shalom held the event on November 18th at the “Alamaria” school in Ramle.
This is the first time that such a thing has happened to our Open House community and I wish to share it with you. Adam Hijazi from Neve Shalom died this summer in a car accident together with his father Ahmad Hijazi, the director of the School for Peace in Neve Shalom.
This was a truly groundbreaking year for Open House Ramle’s Summer Peace Camp. The camp was based at Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salaam for the fifth year in a row and had 103 total campers: 43 Arab campers and, a record high, 60 Jewish campers.
For this coming year, we extend to you blessings of health and joyful creativity! We wish to share with you, our dear friends, a beautiful letter we received from the parents of Yael, who participated in our summer camp this year for the first time.
Here is a clip from our Summer Camp this year from our 6 year olds! The song chosen for this clip is called “Yachad”;–Together – together, heart to heart, we will open new light in the sky..when the heart opens, it embraces the world.. it is not too late, if we believe..
The Olive Tree Project is a program we had been dreaming about the whole of last year. We wished to work with 2 schools–a Hebrew school and an Arab school which will create olive tree sculptures for each other.
On the occasion of The UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 10 of Dec. 2011, we had another concert at Open House with FODfest, Friends of Daniel Pearl Festivel, also called Music in Common.
November 20 is the Day of the Child, marking the anniversary of the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Children. On Friday, November 18, Open House young adults led sessions on children’s rights at the Terra Santa school in Ramle. Here are the words of Bissan Salman, 19, who led the sessions together with Muhammad Kabua, 18, and Vivian Rabia: “First we brainstormed … more »
Throughout 2011, there were 9 sessions, held at Open House, designed for Arab women on the topic of the development of the sexuality of children. These topics are pretty much shunned in the Arab community and are a cause for embarrasement. The Muntada Foundation, based in Haifa, has made it its purpose to promote greater … more »
Between July 3rd and 21st, OPEN HOUSE held its annual Summer Peace Camp. As in past years, the principal venue was the mixed Jewish-Arab village of Neve Shalom/Wahat as-Salam (NS/WAS). There were 83 boys and girls who participated, from 6 to 14 years old. They came from a variety of locations, including Ramle, Lod, Kfar … more »
Dalia was invited to speak in a TEDx event in Jaffa holding the title, “Desire to know the Other”. The event was held on September the 7th 2011 in the beautiful setting of the East West House and the speakers were Jews and Arabs working for peace. Among the speakers were grass roots, interfaith and community organizers as … more »
NEVEI KODESH Synagogue members in Boulder Colorado, have taken initiative to help Open House by creating postcards from the art work of our Peace Camp and Nursery School. Members of Nevei Kodesh Congregation are holding a dialogue group with Christian and Muslim Palestinian Americans who together have taken on this project to raise funds for … more »
Day of the Child Following The Day of the Child on the 20th of November 2010, two volunteers from “The Journey” of previous years, Bissan and Muhammad, initiated activities in two schools, to raise the consciousness in relation to Children’s Rights. They used a poster which visually portrayed the basic rights of children according to international … more »
On the 14th of October 2010, a Concert was held at Open House, offered by FODfest–Friends of Daniel Festival, in memory of Daniel Pearl, the American Jewish journalist murdered by Al-Qaeda. Daniel Pearl believed that music crosses borders and he loved to to play with people from the different communities wherever he traveled. The Itar … more »
The 2010 summer camp of Open House took place between the 4th of July to the 22nd on Neve Shalom grounds with 97 Arab and Jewish children. Participants were gathered from the greater Ramle area including Lod, Neve Shalom, Kibbuts Gezer, Beit Hashmonai, Carmei Yosef, Gizo, Eshtaol, Kfar Uriah Ein Hemed Abu Gosh and Beit Nakuba. … more »
