May 2008 Archives

Idan Raichel

If you heard there was an artist in Israel whose grandparents were all Russian and whose first instrument was the accordion, Idan Raichel is probably not the first person who would pop into your head. On February 28, I had the incredible pleasure of meeting Idan (I think we're on a first-name basis at this point...after all, I did introduce myself to him as Ben) when the Idan Raichel Project performed for over 2,500 MASA participants in Jerusalem.

Before the concert, I wandered around backstage (it's good to be a VIP!) and poked my head into the room where the "Project" portion of the Idan Raichel Project was hanging out. I started up a conversation with the singers, including the beautiful Cabra Casey, which eventually led to a heated debate over where the best hummus spot in Israel is. It was decided that the best hummus is definitely in Yaffo (in Jaffa, the small, mostly Arab city just south of Tel Aviv), but a fierce debate broke out when most people chose Abu-Hassan as the best restaurant, while Casey tried to defend her choice of Humus Asli. You can rest assured that I will visit both eateries with a trustworthy food expert and come back with a full report.

After the incredible concert, I tried to set up a one-on-one interview with Idan but instead had to settle for sitting in on a Q&A session with MASA participants who were

Ben talks hummus with singers from the Idan Raichel Project.

Coming from Russian grandparents, Idan's first instrument was the accordion--which he describes as the "not-coolest instrument ever"--and he admits that he still remembers many of the old Red Army songs he learned as a youth. Luckily for the Israeli music world (The Idan Raichel Accordion Project just wouldn't have sounded the same), he picked up piano in high school and later found his true passion in music production.

Through his passion for music production and cultural music fusion, Idan has worked with an astounding range of artists, including Ethiopians, Arabs and Colombians, all of various ages ranging from just out of high school to 82 years old. In fact, over 70 artists appear on his two-volume Project CD. Despite such diverse backgrounds, Idan insists that "we don't really notice that we're different--we're all Israelis first. It's when we go outside of Israel that we become more aware of our differences."

Struck by this comment, I asked Idan how he felt about the Jewish Diaspora, particularly concerning the audience he just played for--all young Jews who decided to come to Israel for a semester or a year on a MASA program.

The Idan Raichel Project at a recent MASA concert in Israel.

Preaching aliyah, however, was not Idan's mantra. "It's easy for us here in Israel to say that anyone outside of Israel is only pretending to be Zionist if they do not come and live here, but in reality, keeping our Jewish and Zionist roots, as well as our political influences around the world, is incredibly important."

It was at about that moment that Idan's manager stepped in; Idan told us as he was leaving that he was going to Australia (the sixth continent he's performed on!) in two days to tour there for "a while." When I asked him what it's like to be on tour so often, Idan replied, "The truth is, I don't really like to travel, but I have nothing else to do."

Normally I try to write fun updates that deal less with the conflicts in Israel and more with everyday life. I try to portray amusing events and fun occurrences that highlight my time on Year Course and make it a truly special year. Today, however, I have to strike a more serious tone, and for the first time delve into the world of politics, war, fear and pain.

Israel is not a big country. It took all of 45 minutes to drive from where we live in Bat Yam to our destination in Sderot. Sderot is a town of about 19,000 people (about 5,000 fewer than lived there eight years ago) situated less than one kilometer (about half a mile) from the Gaza Strip in southwestern Israel. For the past seven years, it has been subjected to more than 8,000 rocket and mortar attacks.

Israel used to be a presence in Gaza, with both civilians living there and military patrols throughout. In 2005, Israel unilaterally withdrew all civilians and military from within the Gaza Strip. We spent the first part of our day visiting some of the civilians who were withdrawn (or as they prefer, "expelled") from the Gaza Strip by the Israeli government. Many of them are still living in temporary housing ("cara-villas") in communities that range from 20 to 500 families.

The community we visited, Nitzan, was one of the largest with about 500 families living there. Many of these families are still living in temporary housing because the Israeli government has yet to fully compensate them for the land they were forced to give up in Gaza. These people's homes were razed by the army after they left, but the buildings they left standing, including synagogues, greenhouses and community buildings, were burned, looted, desecrated--in the case of the synagogues--and utterly destroyed by Palestinians.

It was a great debate in Israel--and continues to be a bitter dispute--as to whether the unilateral withdrawal from Gaza was a good idea. Israel hoped that with some of its land free of Israeli interference, the Palestinians would begin to set up a national infrastructure, including joint ventures with the Israelis on things like factories, a power plant and other sources of income, jobs and economic viability. Instead, the Palestinians took Israel's leaving as a sign of weakness, and when Hamas ran in the 2005 elections as the ones who "kicked the Jews out of Gaza," they won an overwhelming majority of the votes in the Gaza Strip. This idea that violence works has created a dangerous precedent that continues to cause problems for Jews living in Israel.

Sderot is now a virtual ghost town. Though there are still 19,000 people living there, even on a beautiful sunny day you can count on two hands the people you see walking on the sidewalks outside. The fear these people are living every day is truly palpable on a quick tour around the town.

It is a miracle that there have still been less than 10 people killed by these rockets, despite the fact that they have averaged shooting three a day in recent weeks. Do we really need to wait until a full kindergarten classroom is hit by a rocket before we do anything?

I see only three alternatives to the policy of collective punishment, and none are particularly appealing. One is air strikes against the people responsible for these attacks. Israel already carries out attacks in Gaza, but only against people who are about to fire, or who have just fired, a Qassam missile or a mortar. The problem with carrying out attacks on either the supplies or the makers of these missiles is that they are located in civilian buildings.

The second option is a ground invasion of Gaza. Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005, and there is nothing Israel wants to do less than go back in. Unofficial intelligence estimates are that a ground invasion of Gaza could result in over 500 Israeli soldiers killed and over 1,000 wounded.

The third option is to uphold the status quo; to continue to hope that the rockets will miss and ignore the fact that they are getting larger and larger, stronger and stronger, and more and more accurate. But this option is not an option for the people living in Sderot. Something must be done; the world cannot, must not, remain silent.

Here are some things you can do to help Sderot:

--Go to sderotmedia.com and learn more about what's going on

--Send the above link to friends

--Contact your local Jewish federation to see if there's a special fund for Sderot; if not, set one up

--Lobby your congressmen and senators and alert them to what's going on in Sderot; if they already know, ask why nothing is being done to help

--Visit connectionsisrael.com and buy a gift basket for a Sderot family

--Simply raise awareness of the lives these people are living; they're just like you and me, except when a siren goes off, they only have 15 seconds to reach safety.

Ben Freed is a 19-year-old from Ann Arbor, Mich. He enjoys long walks on the beach, candle-lit dinners and Marvin Gaye music. He always abides by his credo of "Love, Peace and Zionism."