An Interview with Einat Bezalel

“I had not known such a place existed,” says Einat Bezalel, “even though I had been active for a long time peace activism, for example, against the occupation.” The first time she set foot in Wahat al Salam/Neve Shalom was in 2017, for the funeral of Reuven Moskowitz, who had been a long-time friend of her father’s.

“It was a kind of shock,” she says. “I left my life in Tel Aviv and moved here.” Einat has been living in the village for four years. She was recently appointed to take over as director of the Pluralistic Spiritual Community Center.

Bezalel was born in Nahariya, and lived on Kibbutz Ga’aton and Tel Aviv. She is a trained dancer, and she has performed with modern dance troupes all over the world. “Dance and art are in my blood. My mother was a dancer as well,” she says. Today, she is still involved in the world of dance, though less intensively, sitting in on auditions and working on choreography.

“The PSCC combines everything I love,” she says. “It has people, culture, Palestinians and Jews coming together. I have been waiting for the chance to do something like this, to take on a project that is about equality and that reflects my political beliefs.”

“There are already challenges, and I’m finding that each needs to be addressed in its own way. But I try to work on three levels – past, present and future.

“The past means conserving the work – the flavor – of those who have come before me in the PSCC. That does not mean there won’t be changes, but I will work to keep alive the things that others started. In the present, I am dealing with people, getting things done. For the future, I am working on ways to move my ideas forward.

“The way that I see the PSCC, it is, first and foremost, a home for the community. But I envision a cultural center that will be part of a larger, international network. That is a network we have to create ourselves, and I am working in two directions at once: from the outside in, to bring artists to WASNS; and from the inside out, creating a space to export our ideas and forming new connections with the art world.”