Creating an Arab-Israeli Dialogue, One Note at a Time
By Rena Potok
On a rain-drenched afternoon in Philadelphia, I entered a small underground room at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts to observe a rehearsal of “Resonances” — a new composition commissioned by Intercultural Journeys, an Arab/Jewish ensemble that utilizes the arts as a vehicle to produce dialogue between the Israeli and Arab peoples. In rehearsal were Syrian composer Kareem Roustom, Arab-Israeli violinist Hanna Khoury and Israeli-Jewish cellist Udi Bar-David.
The three have worked together in Intercultural Journeys, but this was the first time they were meeting to rehearse “Resonances.” They began with a difficult section, each offering corrections and ideas. During a brief pause, Bar-David said to Roustom, “It must be weird, as a composer, to hear other people playing music that’s only been in your head until now.”
“It is,” Roustom responded. “But you get used to it.”
The idea for Intercultural Journeys first came to Bar-David, who is a cellist with the Philadelphia Orchestra and the director of I.J., in the late 1990s. “I’ve always been interested in and attracted to musicians who represent other cultures,” he said. “I reached out to Diane Monroe, an African-American friend trained in classical jazz and violin. We created a program that interposed a Hasidic melody, to ‘Yedid Nefesh,’ next to a Negro spiritual, ‘Motherless Child.’ We realized immediately the strong bond between the two.”
Soon after, Bar-David initiated collaborations between Israeli and Arab musicians (including renowned ud player Simon Shaheen), and a pick-up ensemble evolved. In 1998, the group traveled to Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam, which is a village jointly established by Jewish and Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel, and to Plum Village, a Buddhist village and meditation center in Vietnam where Bar-David met with Thich Nhat Hanh, the Buddhist monk, poet, scholar and peace activist. “He was the one who really made me realize what interconnectedness is all about,” Bar-David told me. “He’s the one — I’ll never forget that. He made it very clear that we are all one.”
The partnerships with Arab and Israeli musicians expanded after these visits, but it was the events of 9/11 that formed the impetus to incorporate I.J. as a not-for profit organization, to translate the success of the cross-cultural artistic experience into actual dialogue and ultimately to move people to the negotiating table. “I don’t think it’s that complicated,” Bar-David said.
Efforts now focus on inspiring individuals and groups to partner with I.J. in creating dialogue groups and on encouraging Arab and Jewish students to partner on college campuses. “Up to now, we’ve succeeded in bringing people together in the U.S.,” Bar-David said. “The music made them feel… open to discussion.” Now, he wants to make more concentrated efforts in the Middle East: “That’s where the real test will be. Here, it’s theory; there, it’s practice.”
To advance this goal, Bar-David commissioned Roustom, an ud player and composer who writes film scores and symphonic orchestral music (he wrote the soundtrack to “Encounter Point,” Ronit Avni’s award-winning 2006 documentary film on Palestinian-Israeli peace organizations), to write a composition that would create a new fusion between Arabic and Israeli musical traditions.
“Resonances” claims to be the first composition of its kind, an attempt to demonstrate musically how actual discourse might take place. The piece has three sections: The beginning and middle are a conversation between the violin and cello, an attempt at reaching across difference. The third movement is called “Rahat al-Arwah” (“the repose of souls”) and is written in the key of B half-flat — a note that does not exist on a keyboard but can be played on a string instrument between a B flat and a B natural. It is in that musical middle ground that the cello and violin finally meet and resolve their conflict.
Much of Middle Eastern spiritual music is written in the key of B half-flat. “Regionally, in the Middle East, it’s a very special sound,” Roustom said. “It’s often found in music by Coptic Christians in Egypt, in Jewish music from Iraq and Aleppo, and in Morocco and parts of Turkey.” To capture the strong spiritual resonance of this musical genre, the composer asked Bar-David to retune the lowest string on his cello to a B flat (the string is usually tuned to a C natural).
After the rehearsal, I asked Roustom to demonstrate the B half-flat. He gestured to Khoury, who picked up his violin and played the opening of “Hatikvah” in B flat and then again in B natural. Then he ran it again, but this time he played a B half-flat, pausing briefly on the note for emphasis. It was dissonant, unexpected. It hovered in the space between major and minor tonality.
That is the essence of Intercultural Journeys: an Arab violinist playing the Israeli national anthem to illustrate the work of a Syrian composer.
Bar-David sees “Resonances” as a manifestation of Arab-Jewish partnership. “I don’t see it as Arabic or Israeli music, because it creates a new musical language,” he said. “It’s an analogy to my thinking that Arabs and Israelis have got to engage in a dialogue that’s devoid of historical perspective, since the same history can be written different ways by both people.… You can explore it in the arts, and eventually it should be explored at the negotiating table.”
“Resonances” premieres October 27, at 7:30 p.m. at the Connelly Center at Villanova University, as part of the 2009 Theology Institute Annual Conference. The program will also feature Puerto Rican drummer Rolando Morales-Matos and a Philadelphia Orchestra string quartet.
For additional performances, visit www.interculturaljourneys.org.
Rena Potok is a writer and editor living outside Philadelphia. She was recently appointed director of general education at the Schools of Graduate and Professional Studies at Rosemont College. Her first novel, “Swallows Garden,” was published by Bzztôh in the Netherlands in April.
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Thank you Rina Potok for this important story of exemplary musicians modeling the relationship-building largely missing, thus allowing ignorance and fear to rule and government progress to be arrested.
Sadly, the article's title is inaccurate. The dialogue of Udi and Hanna is not "Arab-Israeli" but Arab-Jewish or Palestinian-Jewish.
Your title perpetuates the accidental or intentional perception that within the state Jews are true Israelis and Arabs are not.
This certainly is not the law of Israel and is humiliating to one-fifth of Israel's Arab population.
We hope that the Forward staff will further refine its understanding of the people of Israel and the language of thoughtful journalism about them.
In support,
Libby Traubman, BA, MSW Len Traubman, DDS, MSD San Mateo, CA
While our comment above related prop0erly to the relationship of Udi and Hanna, further exploration of this excellent article shows that there is responsible identification of each of the other individuals -- Arabs within and outside of Israel.
Thank you for this article -- a needed choice of story of human successes.
Libby and Len
The article is full with confusing terms... it is either that the reporter does not understand the reality in the middle east or she does but trying to confuse the readers by introducing half-facts. 1. The violinist is an Israeli (Arab) and the cellist is an Israeli... and after that she says that it is a meeting between Arab and Israeli... Didn't she know that being an "Israeli" does not mean that you cannot be Arab? for example the violinist. 2. The composer, he is syrian however he is American as well. Why you ignored this fact? And I think he made a great job of taking Arabic music from Allepo (his first, Syrian, half) and putting it into symphonic structure (to meet his second, American, half). So where is exactly the Israeli-music here ? I have no clue! 3. Rahat al-Arwah and spiritual music... just to make it clear... the ones who preserved the spiritual music were the Muslims singing religious poems called Qodood in Iraq and Allepo, and absolutely not the "Jewish music"... is it ignoring it in purpose? or is it that she just lack the basic knowledge of music in the middle east? And these are just few examples… Actually I could not find one single paragraph without an “inaccurate statement” of a “half-fact”… sooooooooo ridiculous!
Some of the harsh criticism above is a little tone-deaf. I think that Potok does an impressive job of the promising ethno-musical dialogue that Roustom, Khoury and Bar-David are exploring, a rare and important collaboration. Hyper-sensitivity to labels has a way of missing the important dimensions of their work which Potok addresses so well.
"Israeli" is a Jewish identity. It is true that one-fifth of the population of Israel is Arabic, and it is true that they are Israeli citizens. However, "citizenship" and "identity" are not the same. Therefore, if you were to meet an Israeli Arab, he would tell you that he is an Israeli citizen, or an Israeli Arab, or a Palestinian who has Israeli citizenship, etc. He will never say: "I am an Israeli". That would mean - in his own eyes - that he is declaring himself to be a Jew.
Very often, Americans view others in the world as if they live in the American social reality. In America, anyone born in America sees himself as an American - and he sees all others born in America as American. This is not the reality in other places in the world. In Finland, for example, there is a Swedish-speaking minority. They are Finnish citizens, but they call themselves "Swedes". The Finns (also from the point of view of these Swedish-speaking Finnish citizens) are those who speak Finnish as a native language. An American Jew can ask his Russian-born great-grandfather if (in his youth in Russia) he was "Russian". No, he wasn't. He was a citizen of the Russian Empire, but he was a Jew (a Yiddish-speaker). The "Russians" were those who spoke Russian as their first language.
Most importantly, "yisra'el" (in Hebrew) and "isra'il" (in Arabic) are words that have deep historic meaning. In both civilizations, the word means the "Jews" - in Hebrew "bnei-yisrael" and in Arabic "bani-israil" (the children of Israel). Hence, the word "Israeli" generally means "a Jew from Israel" - in the Hebrew-speaking society as well as in the Arabic-speaking society.
Libby and Len Traubman feel that it is "humiliating" to the Israel Arabs that they are not called "Israelis". This is not an issue in Israel at all. The Jews and Arabs are citizens of the same state (Israel) - but they do not see themselves as sharing the same ethnic identity. It is very common to speak of "Israelis and Arabs", meaning "Hebrew-speakers and Arabic-speakers". Language is meant to be clear, understandable - and natural. Calling everyone "Israeli" when that is the self-identity of only the Hebrew public is very unclear - and, therefore, unnatural.
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