Mother Jones
They come to the Jerusalem Youth Chorus from as far away as Ramallah (a Palestinian outlook in the occupied West Bank) and a moshav (a Jewish settlement) outside of Jerusalem. They speak Arabic, Hebrew, and often a bit of English. They are five tenors, eight sopranos, six altos, and seven basses. They are 13 Palestinians and 13 Israelis, all high school students. Some are friends of friends with Gilad Shaar, Naftali Frenkel, and Eyal Yifrach, the Israeli teens whose kidnapping and killing sparked the latest round of clashes; others grew up around the corner from Muhammad Khdeir, a 16-year-old Palestinian boy who was murdered in the wake of those kidnappings.
For the past two years, the chorus—the only mixed Israeli-Palestinian choral group in the Holy City—has met weekly in Jerusalem to sing at the international YMCA, one of the few places Arabs and Jews can meet comfortably. This summer, they’ve rehearsed several times a week—despite the rocket launches and airstrikes—in a flurry of preparations for their first international singing tour. It took them last week to Kyoto and Tokyo, Japan, where they could enjoy a break from the troubles at home.
Here the kids perform “Adinu,” based on a poem by the Sufi mystic Ibn ‘Arahi: “I believe in the religion of love, wherever love is found.”
Micah Hendler, the chorus’ founder and director, didn’t know whether anyone would show up for rehearsal on the day after Khdeir was killed, especially anyone from Palestinian East Jerusalem, in whose Shu’fat neighborhood the boy’s body was discovered. “Don’t risk your safety,” he recalls telling them. But half of the kids made it anyway—including half of the Palestinians.
“Then this girl comes in from Shu’fat,” Hendler says.
“How did you even get here?” he recalls asking her. “Like physically. How did you get here?”
Source:
These Israeli and Palestinian Kids Would Rather Sing Than Fight
