Listen to the "Other's" Story!

On Stage In Jerusalem, Jewish And Arab Audiences Hear The Other Side Of The Story – In Their Own Language

By Ilene Prusher
In The Christian Science Monitor
October 5, 2007

The characters: six Jerusalemites. The setting: the embattled city claimed by both Israelis and Palestinians. The point: to get people listening to narratives they didn't think they wanted to hear.

Jerusalem Stories is a series of dramatic monologues that are being performed in Jewish and Arab parts of the city, in Hebrew and in Arabic, with the aim of challenging audiences to empathize with the other side – or the "enemy," as many here would say.

On stage are stories representative of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to the point of being cliché: A Palestinian man expresses anger over the Israeli army's killing of his nephew, an Israeli mother grieves for her teenage son killed in a Palestinian attack.

But the stories are told in a way that cuts through prejudice and hate. Director of Jerusalem Stories, Carol Grosman, chose two Israeli actors to do all six parts for Hebrew-speaking audiences to bring them face-to-face with the narratives in their own language. Palestinian actors performed for Arab audiences in their mother tongue.

It's having the intended effect, says Mohammad Thaher, the project's Palestinian director. "The issue is that for the first time ever, they're seeing something that is about the suffering of the [other] side, and it's a shock for them. People like to hear something about their own suffering and they're not used to getting beyond that. Suddenly they feel for the other, and sometimes it makes people a little bit angry."

The Jerusalem Stories project, which includes performances as well as educational programs and workshops aimed at fostering better understanding between Israelis and Palestinians, is the labor of several years of work by Ms. Grosman, an American who came to Jerusalem and decided to use her background in drama and storytelling as a way to get people to start really listening to the other side.

After collecting some 70 in-depth profiles of people who live in Jerusalem and recording the story of how the conflict affects them, Grosman chose six that seemed to capture some of the most essential and painful elements of life here – and largely, how they cope with the suffering they endure at the hands of the "other."

The debut series of performances in East and West Jerusalem has proven powerful and phenomenal. Now Grosman and Mr. Thaher are deciding where to take the show next. High on the list: Israeli and Palestinian schools, international audiences, and perhaps in the US, where Grosman studied storytelling as a tool of conflict resolution.

It's a journey, she says, that began 15 years ago when she attended a conflict resolution program in Jerusalem. "I saw how exposing audiences to real people and their narratives just opens them up, and their horizons widen," she explains. "So I started to play with getting groups together to tell their narratives." This included bringing together Jewish and African-American groups in the US, as well as groups of young Bosnians and Croats at the Seeds of Peace camp in Maine.

The journey led her to do a master's degree in conflict resolution at Eastern Mennonite University in Virginia – hardly a typical path for a Jewish girl. An Orthodox rabbi, she says, recommended she study there.

"The Mennonites talk about, 'Let's have a listen and learn.' The value of humility is very strong," she explains. "The attitude is, I need to listen, I need to learn. It's a humble stance."
The approach she took was to get people to avoid encouraging people to talk about politics or their opinions, at least in a direct sense.

"When people start telling opinions, they clash. The personal story is a safe passage through the minefield. Opinions tend to create more conflict," she explains in a discussion in her small Jerusalem apartment, which is filled with pieces of the set of the previous night's performance. The accompanying multimedia exhibit, shown between changes of actors, includes evocative black-and-white portraits of Jerusalemites taken by photographer Lloyd Wolf.

"We have a vicarious experience in our imagination: We can see the street, we can see a young boy selling gum. Imagining is something very powerful," Grosman explains. "When you have an imagined life experience of the 'enemy other,' it's a powerful form of communication. It gets past defenses that people have. Often, when we hear a story, we identify with the narrator."

For that reason, the performances are currently done either entirely in Hebrew or entirely in Arabic – which means that so far, it doesn't bring people together.

"It seemed to me that we wanted to do this in native languages, so that we would not just attract the usual people who are left-wing or tolerant," she says. "We know that there are people who support Hamas who were at the performances in East Jerusalem." But at the same time, she says, it's brought criticism from people wondering why a project aimed at building understanding is keeping people in separate spaces.

"People have criticized us, saying 'Why aren't you bringing them together?' I say, there's a need to sit separately and hear it in your native language and feel safe," she says. "We're trying to attract people who aren't comfortable sitting together [as Israelis and Palestinians]. We're already pushing them with what they hear."

Eventually, says Thaher, the Palestinian director, they plan to have joint audiences to get people talking afterward.

The three-hour program includes an hour of facilitated discussion groups after viewing the performance, in which plenty of sparks have been flying – even in the all-Arab or all-Jewish audiences.

Thaher says that Palestinian audiences sometimes express resentment at being made to feel sympathy for the Israeli side, saying that the stories were slanted. Israeli audiences complain of the exact same thing, saying that the Palestinian stories were more compelling.

"But we think there is a balance," he says.

Find Your Voice

Dear Church Family:

It is wild here. People, people, people -- the Old City is shoulder to shoulder. It is Succoth, the Festival of Booths, for our Jewish friends, and Ramadan for their Muslim cousins.

Succoth is the time in the year when the way-out-there fringe of the Christian Zionist movement come to Jerusalem as well. Scary bunch, this bunch, and I'm not exaggerating -- not even a little.

These are the folks who believe that the land belongs to the Jewish people, which you might believe as well, but these folks believe that Israel ought to be allowed to do whatever necessary to drive out the ungodly Palestinians -- men, women and children.

In fact, they believe that if Israel is allowed to drive out the ungodly, and then if Israel is allowed to build the 3rd Temple, then Christ would return. Of course, according to Christian Zionism, when Jesus does return it will not be especially good for the Jewish people, but let's take one thing at a time. First, let's hasten Jesus' return, and then we'll let Jesus deliver the bad news to his own people. (If Jesus was still in the grave, he'd be rolling over in it. But the tomb is empty -- thank God!)

I'm standing on the street near where we live and these Christian Zionists are marching around the Old City. There are soldiers everywhere, and I mean everywhere. The soldiers have their backs to the marchers and are facing the people on the walkway across the street. Some of the marchers are armed as well. I learned later that they borrow the guns from Jewish folks and carry them around for a week or so. How sick is this? About as sick as sick gets, and that's the point I'm trying to make. Not all the crazies in the world are of one stripe!

Anyway, I'm standing next to a woman who is holding the hand of a little boy, maybe about 3 or 4. Both are watching this parade of Christians -- carrying crosses, and signs declaring their support of Israel, glaring at the Palestinians, shouting to heaven, calling down fire and brimestone -- and this little guy starts to cry. I kid you not. I hear him before I see him. He starts to cry. He's scared.

You too? I don't know what we are to do. Really, I don't. But we can start by at least acknowledging that we stand against attitudes so prevalent in the world that do not represent the mind of Christ Jesus. We can start there.

We can find a voice to speak against the idea that the world is filled with good guys and bad guys and that you can tell one from the other by their religion or color or ethnicity or gender or whatever.

Do you know who this little kid was looking at? Me. He was looking at me. The people on the street looked to him a lot like me! And here I was standing right next to him. Scared him. Scared me. The thought that we might be mistaken for one of them, scares you too, doesn't it?

Me too.

You too? I don't know what we are to do. Really, I don't. But we can start by at least acknowledging that we stand against attitudes so prevalent in the world that do not represent the mind of Christ Jesus. We can start there.

We can find a voice to speak against the idea that the world is filled with good guys and bad guys and that you can tell one from the other by their religion or color or ethnicity or gender or whatever.

Do you know who this little kid was looking at? Me. He was looking at me. The people on the street looked to him a lot like me!

And here I was standing right next to him. Scared him. Scared me. The thought that we might be mistaken for one of them, scares you too, doesn't it?

Find your voice!

love you,

marlin and marcella vis [from Vis's Journal, http://www.marlinsallyvis.typepad.com/]

A Soldier Breaks the Silence

(With thanks to Martin O. Marty [Context, October, 2007, Part A) for passing this on to his journal readers)

Man in the mirror
Reporter Steven Erlanger:

“Michael Manekin, 27, is the director of Breaking the Silence, a group of former Israeli combat soldiers and some current reservists, shocked at their own misconduct and that of others, who have gathered to collect their stories and to bear witness.

Since 2004 the group has collected testimonies from nearly 400 soldiers (available in English at www.shovrimshtika.org/index_e.asp).

“At a recent talk and discussion session, one man stood up and said Mr. Manekin and his friends were hurting Israel, especially its image abroad, in order to salve their own consciences. Many in the audience nodded in agreement. Tall and dignified, about 45, the man said that he, too, has served in the West Bank, ‘and I’m proud of what I did there to defend Israelis.’ It is crucial to intimidate people at checkpoints, he said, his voice shaking a little, ‘because we are so few there, and they are so many.’ Then he said: ‘These people are not like us! They come up to our faces and they lie to us!’

“That was enough for Uriel Simon, 77, a professor emeritus of biblical studies at Bar-Ilan University and a noted religious dove. ‘As for liars,’ Mr. Simon said, then paused. ‘My father was a liar. My grandfather was a liar. How else did we cross lines to get into this country? We stayed alive by lying. We lied to the Russians, we lied to the Germans, we lied to the British! We lied for survival!’ As for the Palestinians, he said: ‘Of course they lie! Everyone lies at a checkpoint! We lied at checkpoints, too.’

“Everyone is afraid of mirrors, Mr. Simon said. ‘We hate the mirror. We don’t want to look at
ourselves. We don’t like photographs of us—we say, “Oh, that’s not a very good likeness.” We want to be much nicer than we are. But there are also prophets who are mirrors, who are not afraid of kings and generals. The prophet says, “You are ugly,” and we don’t want to hear it, but we have to look at the mirror honestly, without fear.’ ”
—New York Times (nytimes.com), 3/23/07