Israeli and Palestinian youths put on a concert together, hoping song is stronger than hate.
By TORI CHEIFETZHeartbeat music 88 224(photo credit: Tori Cheifetz)
'The mic is more powerful than the gun."
This was the tagline for Sunday night's peace concert, entitled Heartbeat of Jerusalem, at the city's YMCA; it showcased Israeli, Palestinian and joint Israeli-Palestinian bands, namely WhiteFlag, G-Town, Heartbeat and Sulha Youth.
Since January of this year, the members of Heartbeat, an ensemble band made up of 12 Arab and Jewish high school students from the Jerusalem area, have met weekly to hone their craft. At the same time, they integrated into their meetings a dialogue on the conflict with which they've grown up.
Sunday night's event was their first-ever public performance and the culmination of nine months' work.
The night started out with the producer of WhiteFlag, Mark Smulian, acknowledging the absence of half his band. "The show must go on," he said. "We play with who we can, when we can, where we can."
The seven-member band, which plays Israeli-Palestinian street fusion, is made up of four Israelis and three Gazans who, for obvious reasons, were not present.
After the performance by G-Town, an all-Palestinian hip-hop group, Heartbeat - the main attraction of the night - took the stage.
Aaron Shneyer, the creator of Heartbeat-The Jerusalem Youth Music Project, introduced his brainchild like a proud parent; he was both nervous and excited. In addition to praising his band members for all their hard work and commitment, Shneyer became the second person to acknowledge an absence that night - that of four of his band members. "Life gets in the way sometimes of the band," he admitted.
Heartbeat's set consisted of covers of popular songs as well as original songs composed by the band members themselves. In Shneyer's words, these songs are "a way the youth here have started to express themselves, rather than through violent means."
The show-stealing moment came with the last band to perform, Sulha Youth. After a set of original songs, lead guitarist Guy Gefen invited G-Town and Fouad Monayer, the percussionist for Heartbeat, onstage to do a joint rendition of Hadag Nahash's "Ma Na'aseh." The song was a crowd pleaser and helped to usher in the final number of the night.
Heartbeat ended the show with its oldest song, "Jerusalem," and invited all the other performers onstage. By the end of the number, a good portion of the audience was on its feet and onstage dancing and singing.
Shneyer, the organizer of the event and founder of Heartbeat, was the recipient of the US State Department's Fulbright award, as well as a grant from the American MTV.
When asked why he decided to come to Israel to pursue this project, Shneyer responded thoughtfully: "I came here to see if music has the power to bring people together to make change."
Instead of having a program of strictly regimented dialogue between band members, Shneyer prefers to let a large part of the discussion take place through songwriting. "This was a year of experimentation," he confessed, smiling.
The concert, sponsored by the US Consulate of Jerusalem, was dedicated to Abie Nathan, the founder of Voice of Peace Radio.
For more information on Heartbeat-the Jerusalem Youth Music Project, visit www.heartbeatjerusalem.org.
if(catID != 151){
var cont = `Take Israel home with the new Jerusalem Post Store
