Jewish Music in Iran

An Iranian Man in Tehran playing a well known Jewish song

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIBhS694jkY

Musical Diplomacy at Work - Arab, Jewish and Persian musicians Team up for Performances in Chicago, Washington and Casablanca.

Brett Zongker.Associated Press. Los Angeles Times. 08/11/07(http://articles.latimes.com)

WASHINGTON -- An ensemble of musicians usually separated by oceans and thousands of miles will perform together later this month for the first time, having until now composed music layer by layer, with sound files exchanged over the Internet.

Their goal: Show how the arts can bridge diverse cultures -- even among people who have never met in person before coming together on stage.


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A singer and instrumentalist from Afghanistan, a guitarist from Iran, a bass player from Ethiopia and drummers from Morocco are all part of the ensemble. They will accompany American Jewish tenor Alberto Mizrahi; Moroccan singer Haj Youness, who is Muslim and serves as dean of the Casablanca Conservatory of Music; and American keyboard and harmonica legend Howard Levy.

Performances are scheduled for Aug. 25 and Aug. 26 in Chicago's Lincoln Park, Aug. 27 at the Kennedy Center in Washington and later this fall in Casablanca, Morocco.

"It's just a delicious space of creativity," said Wendy Sternberg, an advocate of diplomacy through arts who organized the events as director of the Chicago-based nonprofit Genesis at the Crossroads.

"I'm very interested in not only showing that Arab and Jewish and Persian musicians can share the same stage but they can actually work together and create new art," she said. "In doing that, they make a statement that's really profound about how the world can be transformed through people collaborating."

Some experts in conflict resolution advocate interfaith dialogue or political symposiums, but Sternberg says the arts have a unique power to connect with and inspire core human values.

For the third year, Sternberg's organization is producing the outdoor food, art and music festival known as Hamsa-Fest in Chicago's Lincoln Park, named for an expression of luck from the Arabic root word for the number five (similar to the word "Hamesh" in Hebrew.)

This is the first time Genesis at the Crossroads has an ensemble that will tour around the world to promote diplomacy through the arts. The Casablanca show, still awaiting a specific date, is slated to be broadcast internationally by public radio, XM Satellite Radio and by Arab TV outlet Al Jazeera.

"What we're trying to do really is to say, in spite of our differences, that our historical sameness and music itself is a binding force between peoples," Mizrahi said. "And once musicians sit down, there is no Arab and Jew and Christian or whatever. There's just musicians."

As one of the lead performers, Mizrahi is promising a unique world sound, with the combined influences of a "jazz harmonica pianist," a Jewish cantor and jazz-influenced Middle Eastern music.

At least six different languages will be heard, including Arabic, Hebrew, Spanish and French.

Each soloist will be given moments for improvisation, Mizrahi said.

"All of a sudden you can be on a magic carpet, flying from New York from the Lower East Side to Morocco and then back over to Jerusalem and then out to jazz clubs out there in Chicago," he said. "It's going to be a travel experience in music."

Jewish rabbi leads historic for peace delegation to Iran

U.S. Civilian Diplomacy Delegation Departs for Iran; Woman Rabbi Makes Historic Visit for Peace. Ethan Vesely-Flad, Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR). 04/30/08
(http://www.payvand.com/news/08/apr/1309.html)




In the wake of comments on April 21st by U.S. presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton, who responded to a question of a theoretical future attack by Iran on Israel by saying, "I want the Iranians to know that if I'm the president, we will attack Iran," a 21-person interfaith peace delegation to Iran will depart New York on Tuesday, April 29, 2008. The two-week delegation is organized by the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR), the oldest and largest interfaith peace organization in the United States, and is FOR's seventh fact-finding and friendship delegation to Iran.


Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb

Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb, one of the first ten women rabbis in the history of Judaism, will co-lead the delegation, becoming the first woman rabbi to visit Iran and the first U.S. rabbi known to travel there in a formal peacemaking capacity since the 1979 revolution. "I am deeply concerned that Senator Clinton, a national political figure, discussed the prospect of military action against Iran and even stated, 'we would be able to totally obliterate them'," said Rabbi Gottlieb. "This is a time for finding common ground between our two nations, not threats. When our elected leaders choose belligerent rhetoric over dialogue, it is up to us as everyday Americans to serve as civilian diplomats."

The group will be hosted by Iran's Center for Interfaith Dialogue, an official entity committed to supporting interaction between different religious communities. The interfaith delegation includes people of Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Christian, and Indigenous spiritual commitments. The delegates hail from 11 different U.S. states and include best-selling author Sam Keen, author of Faces of the Enemy (also an award-winning public television series), and a diverse group of six young adults who are of Afro-Brazilian, Indigenous (Navajo), Jewish American, Iranian, European, and Korean American heritage.

"More than half of Iran's population is under the age of 30, so I am especially excited to meet with young Iranian artists and educators to discuss our passions and concerns for the world," said Shauen Pearce, an artist and co-director of FOR's Youth & Militarism program. "I think that through such people-to-people relationships we will lay a foundation for resolving the tension between our governments and stand in community with one another."

The delegation will travel to Tehran, Shiraz, Isfahan, Hamadan, and Qom, and meetings are scheduled with educators and students, politicians, artists, and religious leaders from the Muslim as well as minority Christian, Jewish, and Zoroastrian communities. The delegation's reports will be published on FOR's blog, and background information about the Iran program can be found online on FOR's web site.


Members of FOR's April 29 - May 13, 2008 Iran delegation:

Rev. John Backe, Denver, Colorado
Hank Brusselback, Dixon, New Mexico
Alicia Cattoni, Ventura, California
Michelle Cook, Tucson, Arizona
Rev. Patricia de Jong, Berkeley, California
Lily Tinker Fortel, Columbia, Missouri
Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb, Berkeley, California
Suad Jafarzadeh, Germantown, Maryland
Sam Keen, Sonoma, California
Katharine Kunst, Berkeley, California
Susan Mark Landis, Orville, Ohio
Charles London, Brooklyn, New York
Sean McConnell, Richmond, California
Mark McHugh, Minneapolis, Minnesota
Gaia Mika, Dixon, New Mexico
Patty Nuelsen, New Haven Connecticut
Shauen Pearce, St. Paul, Minnesota
Rudy Perkins, Athol Massachusetts
Rev. Allie Perry, New Haven, Connecticut
Ethan Vesely-Flad, New York, NY
Carol Watson, Los Angeles, California
About FOR:
Vision: We envision a world of justice, peace, and freedom. It is a revolutionary vision of a beloved community where differences are respected, conflicts are addressed nonviolently, oppressive structures are dismantled, and where people live in harmony with the earth, nurtured by diverse spiritual traditions that foster compassion, solidarity, and reconciliation.
Mission: FOR seeks to replace violence, war, racism, and economic injustice with nonviolence, peace, and justice. We are an interfaith organization committed to active nonviolence as a transforming way of life and as a means of radical change. We educate, train, build coalitions, and engage in nonviolent and compassionate actions locally, nationally, and globally.

Jewish, Muslim women bond in France over pastry

Elizabeth Bryant. Chronicle Foreign Service. 01/22/09
(http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/01/22/MNGF15CHB7.DTL&type=printable)

As Israel rained bombs on Gaza and anti-Semitic attacks hop-scotched across Europe this month, Hakima Milati worked the phones, inviting Jewish and Muslim women to visit the main mosque and synagogue in the eastern central city of Lyon.

It didn't take long to book the 60 places available for the event, which included a Kosher meal, said Milati, a Muslim. "I've had to turn people away."

Tension between Jews and Muslims are on the rise across Europe as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict plays out once again across the continent. Nowhere is this more apparent than in France, home to Europe's largest communities of Muslims and Jews, at roughly 6 million and 600,000 people, respectively.

More than 55 anti-Semitic attacks have been registered in France since the Israeli offensive on Gaza began Dec 27. Synagogues have been firebombed and spray painted with graffiti, and Jews have been taunted and attacked on streets. In perhaps the most serious incident, a Jewish man was stabbed four times in a Paris suburb after attackers noticed he was wearing a Jewish symbol, according to the Interior Ministry. He suffered only minor wounds.

Other anti-Semitic attacks have occurred in Belgium and Denmark. The Paris-based European Jewish Congress has registered more than 100 anti-Semitic incidents in Britain. Jewish Europeans say the episodes bring back memories of the second Palestinian intifada that began in 2000. Nearly 750 acts or threats against Jews in France alone were recorded that year.

"It is unacceptable that Jews be targeted and that a wave of anti-Semitism is spreading again over Europe," said Serge Cwajgenbaum, the group's secretary-general. "No country in Western Europe is spared."

The violence represents perhaps the biggest challenge to date for Milati's Jewish-Muslim women's group, Peace Builders. The organization of some 500 women was founded in 2002 by French Jewish journalist Annie-Paule Derczansky after she covered a story on Israeli-Palestinian women's associations.

"What I realized was that women could still construct something together when it came to artistic and cultural things," said Derczansky. "It was on that basis that I told myself that I had to disconnect women in France from their differences over the Middle East and connect them with things that brought the two sides together."

Derczansky, who believes it's a mother's duty to instill a sense of tolerance in her children, began organizing debates over common heritage - many Jews and Muslims in France hail from North Africa. She organized movie nights featuring the 1991 film "Children Are Like Our Own Children, A Forgotten Resistance: The Mosque of Paris" that tells the story of how the mosque sheltered French resistance fighters and French Jews during World War II.

The women in the group also visit mosques and synagogues, learning about each others' faiths. More recently, they began meeting once a month in a suburban Paris restaurant to bake baklava and other pastries.

In September, Peace Builders opened a chapter in the port city of Marseille. The women sometimes bring their families to the events, and Derczansky hopes to organize school trips and sporting events in the near future.

"Obviously we won't change the world. But women who spend several hours making pastries and eating them together can't go home and start saying bad things about the other community," Derczansky said.

The only area off limits is politics.

"When it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, each of us has our position, but we respect each other," said Milati, co-president of the Lyon chapter.

Unlike some interfaith groups involving Jews and Muslims in France in recent years, Peace Builders appears not to be unraveling over Gaza. Just this month, Muslim members of the Jewish-Muslim Friendship Society reportedly resigned in protest of the silence of their Jewish counterparts over the Israeli bombing campaign.

Richard Prasquier, president of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France, said relations with the country's Muslim umbrella organization (the French Council of the Muslim Faith) are good. But, he added, "much of the violence comes from youngsters who are not part of the organization, and within the organization there are elements that take radical positions."

Both Milati and Derczansky say there are many people in their respective communities who question the point of Peace Builders. Few devout Jews or Muslims are joining the group. And mistrust runs particularly deep among ethnic North Africans, they say, despite their common heritage.

"The thinking among many of the Jewish women is, 'the Arabs threw us out (of North Africa) and now they want to throw us out of Israel,' " said Derczansky. "But if people leave our debates seeing things differently, learning things, then that's very good."


E-mail Elizabeth Bryant at foreign@sfchronicle.com.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/01/22/MNGF15CHB7.DTL

This article appeared on page A - 3 of the San Francisco Chronicle

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