HAIFA, Israel – The serenity of this port city on Israel's northern coast stands in stark contrast to the spate of violence that has gripped other areas of the country in recent days. Referred to as an "island of sanity" in a country where flare-ups frequently kill the innocent, Haifa is a haven for residents of chronically volatile Israel.

"Haifa has become a symbol of coexistence," said Hani Elfar, former director of Beit Hagefen Arab Jewish Cultural Center. "Jews and Arabs lived together [here] before the establishment of the state of Israel."

Photos: An Island of Sanity: Scenes from Haifa, Israel View All 10 Images

Peaceful coexistence has been fleeting in other areas of the country recently as violence has spread. On Friday, four Palestinians were killed near the Gaza border and two Israelis were wounded in stabbings in Jerusalem and Hebron. Violent attacks have spread from the traditional hotbed of Israeli-Palestinian clashes in Jerusalem and the West Bank to Tel Aviv, with four people stabbed near a military headquarters Thursday.

The increasing intensity of the attacks follows the deaths of four other Israelis and three Palestinians in the last week as tit-for-tat lone wolf attacks threaten to turn into a sustained campaign.

Elfar explained that part of the reason Haifa has been able to function so successfully with its multicultural inhabitants is because Jews and Arabs weren't suddenly forced together into the same place when Israel became a country in 1948. They had already established a status quo where "historically, Jews and Arabs lived together side by side." Haifa is the third largest city in Israel, with a population of nearly 300,000.

The Beit-Hagefen Arab Jewish Center in Haifa, Israel. Teresa Welsh for USN&WR

Elfar, an Arab Christian, remains involved with the inter-religious nonprofit center that promotes intercultural dialogue and peace between different religions and ethnicities. Founded in 1963, the center runs programs for visitors and youth as well as cultural activities like art exhibitions and theater productions. Beit Hagefen seeks to enrich, encourage and promote Haifa's coexistence.

"We get together. We study together. We grow up together. We live together. We work together," Meir Ben Zeev, a Jew from Haifa, said of living in the city. "Somehow it works."

The constant threat that simmering tension in Jerusalem could boil over is absent in Haifa. The city feels lighter, with beautiful views of the Mediterranean bay from a cityscape that climbs the green mountainside. Like everywhere in Israel, street signs are in Hebrew, Arabic and English. But in addition to the different atmosphere felt in the city, subtle visual clues suggest things are different here: The Jewish Star of David, a Christian cross and the Islamic crescent are all displayed outside Beit Hagefen – an uncommon site in a country where divisions between the three religions regularly cost people their lives.

Sarah Vader epitomizes the multicultural mission of Beit Hagefen, which focus not only on understanding between Jews and Muslims: She is originally from Switzerland with an American father and a half-Swiss, half-Iranian mother.

"It's beautiful to be now in the city of Haifa and be able to see how different people live together, and efforts are made to really promote dialogue and understanding," Vader said. "But not just for the sake of dialogue and understanding. It's for the sake of living together in the same geographic space."

Vader is a member of the Baha'i faith, a religion founded 170 years ago by Baha'u'llah in Persia, or modern-day Iran. She works for the Baha'i World Centre, the religion's administrative and spiritual center in Haifa, and said it is important that residents of Haifa constantly work toward understanding.

"We can't take it for granted that everything will continue to be fine," Vader said.

Haifa is home to the Baha'i Gardens on Mount Carmel, second holiest site for the faith. But in a country dotted with places holy to Jews or Muslims (and sometimes both), Haifa has none. Such sacred places elsewhere in Israel are frequently home to repeated violence, but the absence of such sites in Haifa is part of the reason people are able to live in harmony with one another.

"Jesus was not here in Haifa. Moses was not here in Haifa. Mohammed was not here in Haifa," Ben Zeev said. "The place is relaxed."

A woman and child walk down a street in Haifa, Israel. Teresa Welsh for USN&WR

This is stark contrast to Jerusalem, where holy sites for Jews and Muslims lie literally on top of one another. The Western Wall, the holiest place in Judaism and also revered in Christianity, is the only remaining wall of the Second Temple which dates to 500 B.C. and used to stand on the Temple Mount. The Second Temple replaced Solomon's Temple, which had been built on the same site but was destroyed by the Babylonians.

But also on the Temple Mount lies Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest site in Islam. Muslims believe the Prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven from the site and built a mosque there in commemoration of that event. Now, clashes frequently erupt between Muslims and Jews seeking to worship at their respective holy places, currently administered by a Jordanian organization through a special agreement. Under those terms, only Muslims are allowed to pray there, but recent events are fueling fears the Israeli government is going to change the status quo arrangement.

On Friday, Israeli police banned men under age 45 from entering the Al-Aqsa compound in attempt to keep out those most likely to agitate.

"Jerusalem is not a holy city. How people act there, all of them – Jews, Muslims, Christians – they destroy the holiness," said Moad Ode, an Israeli Muslim who lives in Haifa. "But if you come to this place you see the holiness in people's eye and how they behave and live their life."

Ode said that when so many people place such importance in "a stone" – like the Temple Mount – they can destroy the holiness of a place. "People make a place holy and not a stone," he said.

Ben Zeev said he believes that much of the tension in Jerusalem stems from people who read their holy book – be it the Torah, Bible or Koran – and mistakenly interpret the text as instruction from God to destroy those who don't share the same beliefs.

"Jerusalem is the biggest unsolved riddle in the world," Ben Zeev said. "It's never going to be solved because always there are going to be the people who interpret the scriptures wrongly."

Ode agreed with this assessment that people take the words from their holy texts too literally. He said that the different ways of understanding God's words creates divisions among people, and leads Muslims, Jews and Christians to believe that God sent prophets and holy books to separate people and cause them to kill one another.

"Something is wrong here," Ode said. "[Is it] something wrong with God? Or something wrong with the way people understand God's word?"

The center encourages leaders from all religions to understand one another better, and to urge their congregations to do the same. Last year, the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur and the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha fell on the same day, a potential cause of tension between the two communities.

"So the religious leaders and the authorities came together and said, 'what are we going to do to make sure that everyone is able to commemorate or celebrate their holiday within this same common space?'" Vader said.

Moad rejects the characterization that being able to have such conscious, respectful conversations makes Haifa unique. He doesn't see anything remarkable in the fact that Jews and Arabs live together there peacefully.