"The Theater of Miracles"
Goffredo Buccini,
Corriere della Sera Newspaper
Arab and Jewish children on stage together to forge a truce across the
barricades.
BETHANY (West Bank) – KIBBUTZ SASA (Upper Galilee).
The little kibbutz theatre and the hospice in Bethany are separated by many
miles of highway, by Lake Tiberius and the Jordan Valley. And by the hate of the
second Intifada. And in the end, by History with a capital “H”. Angelica, Edna
in Hebrew, and Samar have spanned it all in an embrace that began two years ago
and has yet to loosen. Among the orchards and military turrets in northern
Israel, near the borders with Hezbollah’s Lebanon, in that small theatre called
“Arcobaleno” [Rainbow], Angelica Calò Livné teaches young Jews, Arabs,
Caucasians, Druze, Christians and Muslims to recite the lines of peace. At every
terrorist attack she prays: “My Lord, drive out hate, let us remain who we are.”
She says, “I had been looking for a Palestinian friend for a long time, someone
like me. I heard about her. One day I called her, and later we met. You have to
meet Samar too, she’s special.”
Submerged by a wild bunch of kids (she calls them “my children”) at the Jeel El
Amal orphanage in Bethany, which she inherited from her parents and expanded
into an even more defiant place of refuge - Lazarus Home – hiding even young
single mothers that Palestinian society would irredeemably damn, Samar Sahhar is
indeed special. She laughs, “Angelica became my friend, then my sister. God has
made us the same.”
This is the story of a friendship that is almost forbidden by the prevailing
political climate. It is a story with a small “s” of an Israeli woman and a
Palestinian woman, whom perhaps God did make identical but who appear almost to
be opposites: Angelica is minute and brimming with nervous energy, black curls
and long lashes that moisten at almost nothing. Samar is robust and unsinkable,
with short hair and arms like a champion of the faith. Only when you have looked
a little more closely do you see it in their eyes, that identical gaze. And then
you understand that when they call themselves “sisters” it is not just a manner
of speaking.
Last Wednesday they met in Rome at the Vittoria Theatre in front of six hundred
school kids from seven lyceums. But before the show began—the show that Angelica
is taking around Italy, “Beresheet, In the beginning”, with her eighteen very
young actors who dance in white masks and recite lines like “No place is safe!
There has to be a solution … some hope!”—Samar appeared on the stage. And
Angelica had not been expecting her. They embraced each other there in front of
the uncomprehending Roman kids. Then Samar said, “If the whole world could see
the Arcobaleno's theatre shows everyone would know that peace is truly
possible.” And then there was a deep hush that lasted three full minutes before
the students finally burst into applause.
But the small and determined story of Angelica and Samar is full of words. With
the words of Angelica, a 47-year-old who left Rome as a young girl to go live on
Sasa, one of the last Kibbutzim still keeping true to the original Socialist
ideals. She taught Batya and Nemi, Amal and Sharif and all the other pupils at
the theatre workshop that they can make a difference, “that weeping in front of
the television is not enough.” The idea behind “Beresheet”, those white masks
that fall to the stage floor “revealing the beauty of diversity” accompanied by
the songs of Noah (“it’s over, it’s all done, we will touch our dream”), came
from the children after six months with Angelica and Samar. “When I spoke for
the first time before the regional council of High Galilee, when I said that I
also wanted Arab children, they said, ‘Well, it’s a nice idea, but with the
Intifada … you know … politically it’s not the thing to do. Forget about the
Arabs.’ And I answered, ‘Either them or nothing.’ And it worked.” One of her
actors, Sharif Balut, a big Arab boy from the village of Fassouta, took the
script so seriously that he caused an outbreak of peace, real peace, between his
cohorts and the Jewish kids from Elkosh: “We were in a situation of gang
warfare. But I noticed Ofri over there at their barricade,” she tells, “and one
day he came to see me at the theatre. I went up to him and said, ‘Hello friend,
do you remember me?’ Yes, he did. And so we all made a ‘sulha’, which
means reconciliation both in Arabic and in Hebrew.”
Samar and Angelica have filled two years of friendship. Their first meeting was
in East Jerusalem, their second at the Weeping Wall. Together they toured
schools and universities in Italy, won awards and participated in debates with
titles such as “Two Women’s Quest”. But it is not always easy. At the University
of Bari someone snapped, “Who are you trying to kid? One friendship is not going
to stop the war.” They have a little story for people like that: “A man sees a
little bird lying on its back. ‘Why are you lying there like that?’ he asks the
bird. And the bird answers, ‘I heard that God is going to make the sky fall
today; I am trying to protect the Earth.’ The man laughs, “Are you kidding?
You’re going to try to save the Earth with your tiny little claws?’ And the bird
responds, “I am doing all that I can!’”
Goffredo Buccini
A statement by Edna Angelica Calò Livné
Education is hope. It is the last hope for the world’s survival. The education
of our children, our own education. A few days ago I was with a group of old
friends. We meet every year from all over Israel and we go walking for miles
over rocks and through forests to get better acquainted with this small land,
and through our dialog with nature our bond becomes stronger.
It seemed that nothing could darken the spirit of these unstoppable sabre,
extraordinarily tanned all year round from working in the open air. It was
unthinkable that the bitterness and incredulity at the situation in Israel could
cast even for a minute a shadow of troubles across their eyes too. During the
outing, during our climbs up the many rocks in the Wadi Daraje desert near the
Dead Sea, I hardly recognized my long-time friends, this group of wonderful,
deeply human people who, 25 years ago, at Misgav Am, a kibbutz on the border
with Lebanon, freed 11 three-year-old children from two terrorists who had taken
them hostage.
As we walked between two immense majestic rock walls I told them about my
travels in Italy and around the rest of the world with Samar Sahhar, my
Palestinian friend, director of an orphanage in Bethany. I talked to them about
our efforts for peace and the warmth with which we were received wherever we
went to tell about our educational experience.
Avi, an agronomist, interrupted me, “It’s very nice to hear your stories about
your theatre project with Arab and Jewish kids and your efforts to bring them
closer together, but my dear friend there’s nothing to be done for it: they, the
Arabs, want us dead, they don’t want us here in Israel, they have no intention
of living side by side with us! There will never be peace with the Palestinians.
No dialog will ever be possible with these people. I know you want it dearly but
it is an impossible dream!”
They are 45-year-old men whom I met when they were boys, when they were as old
as my son is now. Fathers without a future, who build houses and families to
whom they can promise nothing. A heated, painful discussion ensued, an argument
among people who feel betrayed. I realize that I cannot let myself be overcome
by the sadness, by the events, by images of attacks and of barriers. I realize
that they need to hear my voice, a voice that was once also their own but that
they lost because they did not have my fortune of believing deeply in the
inestimable value and power of education, the fortune of knowing that I bore the
responsibility of a generation to bring up.
“So why stay here?” I asked, “Why be so deeply attached to this land? Why teach
our children to know every single stone? We have the duty to hope, to continue
to seek a way to live together with them, with the people who live on the other
side of the barrier. To convince them and convince ourselves that it is
possible. To find a way to raise their kids and ours normally! We have to do
what we can! And we have to start with education, ours and theirs. We are doing
it and we will go on doing it; we cannot give up. We alone can teach these
people the courage to love life, the secret of the industriousness that creates
work, bread, hope!”
My voice echoed as if pleading with my listeners not to give up—please, not
them! “But Galilee today is the cradle of Hamas…” says Hanoch. “I know, I live
in Galilee but the Arabs of Fassouta and Jish are part of our lives there. And
lots of them are looking for serenity just as we are. Life, when you get right
down and live it, is a lot less complicated than it seems when you just talk
about it!”
When it came time to say good-bye to Amos, the most disenchanted of all, Amos,
with his past full of stories, someone who knows the Arabs well from having
worked with them and lived with them, he hugged me and gave me his own sort of
blessing… “Keep on doing what you’re doing, we need lots more like you who still
believe…”
And I send on to you this blessing, this prayer, this urgency: believe! And the
prophecy will fulfil itself! It will!
Edna Angelica Calò Livnè
Kibbutz Sasa - Upper Galilee
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