Common Ground for Christians, Jews and Muslims
The rehearsals of the Magnificat youth choir provide some of the rare moments when harmony reigns in Jerusalem. Eight teenagers in jeans and trendy tops stand behind brown wooden desks. Above them is the whitewashed vaulted ceiling. Here in the basement of the Franciscan monastery, the narrow alleyways and crowds of people in the Old City seem far away. Only the voices of the choir can be heard. The song they are now rehearsing is called "Flowers."
Hania Sabbara, a Christian Palestinian, conducts the choir. The forty-year old woman is wearing white pants and a green blouse. Her hair is grey. She smiles and gesticulates constantly as she speaks. But when the topic turns to the mission of the music school, she immediately becomes serious. She has been here since the school was founded in 1995.
"Every possible community comes to Magnificat – our students belong to the various Christian denominations, they are Muslims and Jewish," tells Hania Sabbara. "Here, they receive the same classes, the same education, meet together in the choir, and they see that they are all similar."
Side-by-side
Hania Sabbara knows from her own experience why a music school such as the Magnificat Institute is so important. She grew up in a house not 200 metres away from the Franciscan monastery. Since childhood, Hania Sabbara could look out from the rooftop terrace to a view of the city wall and the church towers. From up here, it immediately becomes apparent that the Old City has at least one thing in abundance – religion. Churches, mosques, and synagogues are packed together into an area that is hardly larger than 30 football fields.
Everywhere from the golden Dome of the Rock to the two domes of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, crosses, stars of David, and crescent moons jut into the air. And sandwiched in-between live around 30,000 people – strictly divided according to religious affiliation. The Old City is made up of a Christian, a Jewish, an Armenian, and a Muslim quarter.
By contrast, one can see members of different ethnic groups at a violin lesson in the Magnificat Institute. The students today are David and Habib. There is little to differentiate the two in their outward appearance – one is ten and the other eleven years old, both have black hair and olive-brown skin. Habib wears a grey and white basketball gear and David has on a grey t-shirt and jeans. Both boys hold a violin in their hands.
Habib comes from a Christian Palestinian family, while David is an Armenian. Their teacher, Tania Beltzer, is Jewish. She looks forward to the weekly lesson in Magnificat. "The Old City is like a separate country within this country. In my daily life, I rarely meet with Palestinians, Armenians, or Greeks. They are very closed communities," says Tania. "That is why this school is so special. Here you get a glimpse into these communities and meet people that you would otherwise never have met or gotten to know well at all."
"Music connects people"
While their teacher is talking, David sets off for home. He won't be able to relax right yet – he still has to practice his violin. His father Haroud sits on the black leather sofa and watches his son. "There are not enough places in Jerusalem where young people can meet. That is why it is good that they can go to Magnificat", he says.
Haroud and his son are members of the city's almost 2,000 strong Armenian community. They mostly keep among themselves in the Armenian quarter of the capital. Haroud Aslanian wants something more for his son and this is why he sends him to the Magnificat Institute. "Music connects people and allows them to forget politics and religion, so that they can become a community."
David continues to practice his violin. He is a little too shy for an interview. The eleven-year-old hasn't decided if he'd rather be a professional musician or a pilot. In any case, his parents hope that the music school will help him to become an open-minded person.
Daniel Pelz
© Deutsche Welle/Qantara.de 2010
Translated from the German by John Bergeron
Editors: Klaus Gehrke/Marco Müller, Lewis Gropp/Qantara.de
Qantara.de
Jordi Savall and Montserrat Figueras
Jerusalem, City of Two Peaces
Jordi Savall and Montserrat Figueras, both world renowned specialists in early music, have produced an album that explores musical traditions from Jerusalem's various epochs: the Jewish, the Christian, the Arab and the Ottoman eras. Lewis Gropp introduces the intercultural musical project
The West-Eastern Divan Orchestra
Consoling Concertos
Daniel Barenboim is on tour with his Israeli-Arab orchestra in times of war. He regards it as an "independent republic" – and he has a message to pass on that is otherwise all but drowned out by the noise of the battlefield. By Sonja Zekri
Sephardi Singer Yasmin Levy
"In My Songs There Is No War"
Yasmin Levy believes that it is possible for Jews and Arabs to live a normal peaceful life together, even in Jerusalem. Stefan Franzen spoke to the 32-year-old singer, who sees herself as an ambassador for a multicultural metropolis
Dossier
Musical Worlds
The Islamic world and Europe are home to a longstanding independent, modern music scene that transcends belly dance and folk music clichés. In this dossier we present some of its most important figures, styles and encounters