Nitsana: A Desert Village of Hope Where Young People Build a Shared Future
Deep in the Negev desert near the Egyptian border, far from Israel’s big cities and the daily headlines, there is a small village that quietly tells a very different story about this land. Its name is Nitsana—and here, Jews, Muslims, Bedouin, Christians, and young immigrants from Ukraine and Russia live, study, and grow together.
No slogans. No grand speeches. Just everyday life shared side by side.
In a recent conversation, Avi Cohen, director of Nitsana, described the village as “a place of hope… a place of love, and a love of mankind.” And as he tells the story of this unique youth village, it becomes clear: Nitsana is not just a place. It’s a model of what Israel could become.
A Youth Village, Not Just a Village
Nitsana isn’t a typical town with families and regular schools. It’s a youth village—a residential educational community for teenagers and young adults from across Israel and beyond.
Young people come to Nitsana at a critical stage in their lives, usually in their mid-teens or early twenties. For a year or more, this remote desert community becomes their home. Here, they:
- Go to school in several different educational programs
- Take part in music, art, and sports
- Learn life skills, responsibility, and independence
- Discover who they are and what kind of adults they want to become
Avi calls it “a school for life.” The goal isn’t just academic success—it’s human flourishing. Every student, whether from Tel Aviv, a Bedouin village, or a town in Ukraine, is meant to feel they have equal opportunity to pursue their dreams in Israel.
Many Communities, One Home
What makes Nitsana so remarkable is the mix of people who live and learn there. In one small desert village you’ll find:
- Jewish Israelis
- Arab Muslims
- Bedouin youths from the Negev
- Christian staff and participants
- Young immigrants from Ukraine and Russia spending their first year in Israel
Some of the programs have been running for nearly 40 years. One long-standing initiative welcomes young men and women from the former Soviet Union. For many of them, Nitsana is literally their first stop in Israel—their first home in a new country, far from family and everything familiar.
Imagine being 18, leaving everything behind, and starting again in the middle of the desert. Nitsana tries to make that moment less frightening and more full of possibility.
What’s the Secret?
When asked for the “secret” of Nitsana, Avi smiles. His answer is simple:
“It might sound like a cliché, but it’s simply love.”
He explains that when people never meet each other, they can easily grow up with fear, stereotypes, and even hatred. Many of us live in bubbles—Jewish, Arab, secular, religious—each with fixed ideas about the others.
But something changes when you:
- Share the same dining hall
- Do homework in the same classroom
- Play football on the same field
- Talk late into the night about your fears and dreams
Over time, the “other” becomes a friend, a colleague, a roommate. The differences don’t disappear, but they stop being the main thing.
Of course, it’s not always easy. When the students arrive, there is often deep suspicion and fear. Avi tells of one group of 15-year-old Jewish boys who came to Nitsana at the start of the year:
He noticed they were carrying long wooden sticks.
When he asked why, they answered matter-of-factly:
“Because there are Bedouins here. It’s for protection.”
Avi gently told them they wouldn’t need the sticks—that they would soon discover the Bedouin boys were “lovely” and they would get along. But he doesn’t hide the reality: the fears are real on all sides, and the process of building trust takes time.
October 7 and the Earthquake in the Village
The horrific attacks of October 7, 2023 and the long war that followed shook Nitsana to its core. The village was already a delicate, sensitive place before the war—a rare experiment in coexistence. When the war began, it felt, in Avi’s words, like “an earthquake.”
On that dark weekend, many of the staff were away. Some of the Arab staff called Avi and said:
“We can’t come back to the village.
We’re afraid we will be killed in revenge.”
The fear was mutual and very human. The same Arabic language heard in the terrorists’ videos was also the mother tongue of some of Nitsana’s students and staff. The emotional confusion was enormous.
Avi gathered everyone he could on a Zoom call. With tears in his eyes, he told them:
- Even in the darkest moments, they must hold on to hope.
- The village must remain a place of protection, not retaliation.
- He personally promised to do everything in his power to keep them safe.
Not everyone returned immediately. But slowly, some staff came back. Then the kids followed—Jews and Bedouin, immigrants and locals. Together they began to rebuild trust in the middle of war.
The pain was not theoretical. Some staff members from Nitsana were killed in the fighting. Some Bedouin students lost relatives in Gaza. Everything around them was touched by grief and fear—yet they chose to stay, live, and work together.
Talking About the Hard Things
Tensions did surface. In one meeting of program managers, Avi recalls feeling the atmosphere become almost physically aggressive between two leaders from different backgrounds. He realized that simply “avoiding politics” would no longer work.
So Nitsana brought in professional facilitators—one Jewish, one Arab—to guide deep, honest conversations about the hardest issues:
- The war
- Identity
- Fear and anger
- Conflicting narratives
It wasn’t easy. But opening those conversations, instead of suppressing them, helped the staff reconnect. They learned that being colleagues and friends does not mean agreeing on everything—but it does mean choosing relationship over division.
A Microcosm of Israel’s Bigger Challenge
Avi believes Nitsana offers an important lesson for the whole country.
He points out that Israel is divided into many “tribes”:
- Secular Jews
- Religious and ultra-Orthodox Jews
- Arabs
- Bedouin
- Druze
- Immigrants from many countries
Most people live in separate communities with limited real contact. This is true not only between Jews and Arabs, but even within the Jewish population itself.
Avi’s concern is clear:
“I am not afraid of Hamas or Iran as much as I am afraid of the disconnect between us, between Israelis.”
For him, the real test is whether Israel can find a shared vision and common values that different groups can believe in, even while keeping their own traditions and identities. Nitsana is a small but powerful example of what that might look like in practice.
Walking with the Bedouin Community
One of Nitsana’s most important roles is its work with Bedouin youth. Many of them come from villages where:
- Schools are under-resourced
- Education levels lag years behind the national average
- There is easy access to weapons and a lot of violence
- Trust in state institutions is very low
When 15-year-olds arrive at Nitsana, their academic level is often closer to that of an 11-year-old. The staff work extremely hard to close that gap—but they also see the huge potential in these teenagers when they finally receive proper support.
Language is a big part of that. Classes are in Arabic, but a major goal is teaching fluent Hebrew so Bedouin students can later succeed at university and in the job market. After several years in Nitsana, a Bedouin boy who once felt like an outsider can sit and speak Hebrew with confidence—opening doors across Israeli society.
Building trust with Bedouin families took years. At first, they were suspicious:
- “Do you want to turn our children into Jews?”
- “Are you trying to push them into the army?”
So Avi and his team did the slow, patient work of visiting villages, sitting with tribal leaders late into the night, listening and explaining. They started with just 15–20 students. Today, there are around 150 Bedouin students, and there’s no more space.
A Wave of Volunteers and a Sign of Friendship
After October 7, another crisis hit the region: the collapse of the local agricultural workforce. Many Thai farmworkers were killed or abducted, and their government called them home. Fields around Nitsana were suddenly left without hands to harvest and plant.
Then something beautiful happened.
Volunteers began to arrive—from the Netherlands, from Germany, and other places in Europe—through an organization that formed and grew in response to the crisis. They came to work the fields, support local farmers, and stand with Israel in a very practical way.
For many Israelis, this was a powerful surprise. In a time when they mostly saw images of angry demonstrations against Israel in European capitals, here were young Europeans who got up early, worked hard in the sun, and shared meals with them.
For Nitsana, this volunteer project became a living sign of friendship and encouragement from abroad.
Why Visit Nitsana?
If you’re planning a trip to Israel, Nitsana is not just another stop on the map. It’s a chance to:
- See what practical coexistence looks like in real life
- Meet young people from very different backgrounds building their futures together
- Experience a community that chooses hope, even in the darkest times
- Be inspired by educators and students trying to be “a light in the darkness”
And besides all that—Avi smiles and reminds us—it’s simply beautiful there. A quiet village in the desert, full of stories, struggles, and small miracles of reconciliation.