In a time of Arab-Jewish strife, Abu Gosh is a rare oasis. It’s a place where Jewish-Muslim ventures thrive and goodwill toward Israel’s government is a fact of life.

This accommodating policy has paid off: Abu Gosh thrives on Jewish business. On Shabbat, when Jerusalem restaurants close, Jews flock to the town for some of the best hummus in Israel. Jewish weddings and bar mitzvas take place at the Bustan, a beautiful green-terraced garden near the mosque. Abu Gosh is also known for Baroque and Renaissance music concerts in the fall and spring. On Sukkot, Notre Dame Arche D’Alliance and the Crusader Church hosted music-lovers from all over for the Abu Gosh Vocal Music Festival.

Nevet and Amram Dolev, two concert-goers, began coming for the hummus and continued visiting during the intifada. “We became friends with many people,” says Nevet, a Tel Aviv University art historian. “There are also medieval frescos—the only ones in Israel—in the Crusader Church, and the Benedictine monks are friendly to both Arab and Jew.

“Brother Olivier lectures to Israeli soldiers on the archaeology of the church, and it’s amazing to hear him talk in Israeli Army slang. He recently returned from a serious operation in France, and Jews and Arabs were there to greet him along with the monks and nuns, throwing rice and singing. It was Muslim-Jewish-Christian ecumenism that couldn’t be seen anywhere else in the country.’’

In recent years most Israeli Arabs have felt increasingly alienated, both because of the plight of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza and perceived government discrimination to their community (see Feature). But Abu Gosh provides a model of coexistence. Jewish businesses are moving there, tempted by low municipal taxes. “When the intifada began,” says Jaber, “Israelis stopped coming for a few months. Business dropped 40 percent. But when they saw that it was quiet, they came back.” He points proudly to the Jewish-run Kessel candle factory, a linen store and a plant nursery.

There are also Jewish-Muslim businesses like that of Jerusalemite Dorit Cohen-Alloro and Sami Ibrahim, an Abu Gosh-born Muslim. They have been partners for 10 years, restoring old stone houses in Jerusalem. “Sami is a master craftsman,” says Cohen-Alloro. “He was involved with the restoration of the Old City synagogues. He knows how to work with stone, and I work with the architects, the clients. He can’t do the work I do, and I can’t do the work he does.

“We’re an example of real Arab-Jewish coexistence. And we’re always arguing,” says a laughing Cohen-Alloro, who has a Ph.D. in Jewish philosophy. “He seems easygoing, but Sami has the temper of those who live in Abu Gosh. If he disagrees about something, he’ll throw down his tools and walk away. [But] I wait a few days and then we discuss it again. On the other hand, he always calls us after Ramadan to say that they won’t begin their feast if my family’s not there.”

The two recently opened a thriving antique shop called Arabesque in a villa they built in Abu Gosh. It is there, with its two large showrooms and furniture-packed patio, that Ibrahim offers guests fresh lemonade and strong Turkish coffee. “My father Issa Ibrahim [also called Abu Sami] knows the history of the area best,” he says. “He was here in ’48.”

Abu Sami, a thin man in his seventies, is happy to talk. He explains that, according to tradition, the residents originated from Circassians—non-Arab Muslims from the Caucasus—who settled in the nearby Ayala Valley in the sixteenth century and intermarried with local Arabs. They dominated the area during the Ottoman period, levying taxes. Their subjects revolted, massacring many of them. Muhtar Abu Gosh survived and settled farther east, in the area that is today Abu Gosh. His descendants include four family clans; the two largest are the Zabers and Abu Sami’s Ibrahims. The two families comprise the main political parties in the town, and supporters of Ibrahim candidates often come in and out of the Arabesque antique shop to discuss the upcoming election.

“Perhaps because of the history of feuding with the Arabs around us,” Abu Sami reflects, “we allied ourselves with the Jews...against the British. They say that Yosef Abu Gosh helped the Herut leader, Geula Cohen, escape prison. We didn’t participate in the riots during the 30’s and 40’s. We did not join the Arabs from the other villages bombarding Jewish vehicles in 1947. The Palmah fought many villages around us. But there was an order to leave us alone. The other Arabs never thought there would be a Jewish government here.

“During the first truce of the War of Independence,” he recalls, “I was on my way to Ramallah to see my father and uncles, and I was captured by Jordanian soldiers. They accused me of being a traitor and tortured me for six days.”

Issa Jaber, director of the local department of education for the past seven years, feels the personal relationships created with Zionist leaders during the prestate period set the basis for later cooperation. “We had a perspective for the future,” he says.

Jaber, who is a cousin of the mayor, went to Ankara, Turkey, for his bachelor’s and a master’s degree in political science. Returning to Israel, he became head of the Abu Gosh High School. “We all feel we chose the right way,” adds Jaber, who also heads the Association of Tolerance and Coexistence. “But we’re not disconnected from the political reality. We have a strong sense of our Arab-Palestinian identity and we are loyal to the State of Israel. It’s very hard to walk the thin line that we do.”

Because of the community’s loyalty to Israel, however, other Arabs look at them with suspicion. “They do not have a good name,” says Adel Manna, director of The Center for the Study of Israeli-Arab Society at The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute. “They’re not trusted. They tell everyone what they want to hear.”

Abu Gosh residents would protest this. They identify as Arabs and as Muslims, says Sami Ibrahim. “They are becoming more religious, but they don’t mix religion with politics.”

Issa Jaber maintains that “there are other Arabs who would be good citizens, but Israel has not treated them equally. It hasn’t created the jobs and raised the level of education.”

For a long time Abu Gosh was also ignored. “For 20 years we were part of the Judean Hills Council,” explains Salim Jaber. “There was little improvement in the infrastructure of the town. Sewage ran in the streets. The roads were bad...schools were rundown. When Aryeh Deri was minister of the interior, things changed. He made us an independent municipality. A government-appointed administration oversaw the running of the municipality until 1998, when we elected our own government.”

That doesn’t mean that there are no problems. “There’s high unemployment, especially among the women, because they don’t go out of the village to work,” says the mayor.

Ibrahim is also worried about land for future generations. “There’s no room,” he says. “We must have leaders who will lobby the government for more land. I’m sure that the government will find a solution.”

It is clear that the town has absorbed a middle-class ethos of upper mobility. “Education is our first priority,” says Issa Jaber. “The biggest transformation is that five years ago, we had 20 graduates in higher education. Today, 170 students go to college.”

Salim Jaber is proud that residents accomplish things without resorting to violence. “We know how to use government channels. We believe in using the courts to get what we want.”

When asked if the youth are not tempted to be more radical, he points out that Abu Gosh is the only self-contained Arab settlement within the Green Line near Jerusalem. “They’re physically disconnected from Israeli Arabs,” he says.

Adds Ibrahim, “I feel respected in the government offices.... I don’t feel discriminated against.”

Daniel Doron of the Israel Center for Social and Economic Progress believes Abu Gosh is proof that financial interdependence can promote peace. “Economic interaction is more powerful than political divisions,” he wrote in The Wall Street Journal Europe.

Salim Jaber puts it another way: “We have a saying in Arabic, ‘Don’t throw stones into the well that gives you water.’”