Category Archive » Coexistence
Arab swimmer to represent Israel in EU championship
Jowan Qupty, who holds best Israeli result in 100m breaststroke, wins Swimming Association appeal demanding he be allowed to compete in EU Swimming Championship
Arab-Israeli swimmer Jowan Qupty will represent Israel in the European Swimming Championship. Qupty, 22, was originally denied a spot on the national team. He won a Swimmer’s Association appeal over the decision on Thursday.
According to the Swimming Association, Qupty’s participation in the competition depends on his achieving a better result in the 100m breaststroke than that of Imri Ganiel, who was chosen to compete in the event.
Qupty was excluded from the 100×4 mixed relay set to take place at the swimming championship in Debrecen, Hungary, in June, despite the fact that his result in the 100m breaststroke was better than Ganiel’s.
“We shouldn’t have had to deal with this situation to begin with, but the (Swimming Association) eventually came to the right decision. Justice was done. I’m going to win the competition which will hopefully bring us closer to the Olympics,” Qupty told Ynet after the ruling.
Attorney Eyal Yaffe who represented Qupty said: “Qupty will represent Israel in the best possible way. Every swimmer on that team deserves their spot and so does Jowan, who earned his place just like any other swimmer did. I’m positive he won’t disappoint the association in the competition.”
The saga came to an end on Thursday after the parties involved took part in a mediation session led by Sarah Frish and Ofir Katz who were asked to bring an end to the conflict ahead of Friday, due to it being the last day for the championship’s registration.
The two parties consisting of the Swimming Association’s legal team, Qupty and his attorney sat for three hours before coming to an agreement.
The association claimed that Qupty did not meet the criteria required in order to participate in the championship.
Qupty’s attorney countered the association’s claims by presenting evidence which showed that in other championships, swimmers who did not meet the required criteria still participated in the competition.
Yaffe further addressed Qupty’s result in the 100m breaststroke which is clearly better than that of Ganiel, who was picked to compete in the event. The evidence shown was intended to prove that the designated spot on the swim team should go to the better swimmer.
Source: Ynetnews.com
Israeli President Shimon Peres to foreign diplomats: Peace worth the price
At reception marking Israel’s 64th anniversary, president says gaps between Jewish state and Palestinians surmountable
Signing a peace agreement with the Palestinians would give Israel more time focus on building a better future for its children, President Shimon Peres told foreign diplomats who gathered at his official residence in Jerusalem on Thursday to mark the Jewish state’s 64th Independence Day.
Peres said achieving peace would not be easy, as both sides must be convinced that it would be worth the price. However, he added, the gaps between Israel and the Palestinians, as he sees them, are very small.
The president said Israel must continue to initiate steps that promote peace.
During the reception, the president also addressed the so-called Arab Spring. He said he hoped regional changes would be accompanied by the least amount of bloodshed possible.
As for the ongoing violence in Syria, Peres told the diplomats that Israel views massacres carried out anywhere in the world as unacceptable.
Source: Ynetnews.com
Secret freedom at Tel Aviv’s ‘Palestinian Queer Party’
Firmly in the closet at home, Palestinian gay pride flourishes once a month in an underground Israeli nightclub
Chiseled, scantily clad men danced onstage. Strobe lights flashed as the bass echoed. The smell of cologne wafted through the air. There were kisses — one on the right cheek, one on the left — and friendly embraces everywhere.
It could have been any Tel Aviv club, really, except it wasn’t. It was a Friday night and I was at my first Palestinian gay dance party in south Tel Aviv.
People greeted each other in Arabic: Kif inta? Shu ’jdid? The stereo wailed, inti ‘omri! — you are my life! — as the DJ played hit after hit by Egyptian and Lebanese pop stars Amr Diab, Nancy Ajram and Sherine. No Eyal Golan or Justin Timberlake here.
And there were drag queens, dressed to the nines in high heels and short skirts, with bows in their very long, very straightened hair.
Others covered their faces, or wore burka-like head veils.
This did not, however, stop them all from carousing together. One of the drag queens yelled at me to stop photographing — it could be dangerous for them if someone sees the pictures, I was told, because many of those at the party are still in the closet.
In fact, a few people I met did not want to tell me their names or where they were from, or any detail that could link them to the fact that they were at the party. Hence, the names of people interviewed for this article have been changed to protect their identities, and the photos carefully selected.
The party is an anonymous safe haven. And that’s why it’s such a hit.
The group alQaws organizes the Palestinian Queer Party — its name for these monthly events. According to its website, alQaws works to “promote sexual and gender diversity in Palestinian society” throughout Israel and the Palestinian territories.
The monthly Arabic music extravaganza is meant to be a kind of free zone for Arab men and women to be gay — in their own culture, yet outside of society’s proscribed sexual and gender rules.
It’s inclusive, meaning fans of the community are welcome, and yet it’s discreet. It’s also a meet and greet and, for some, it may be their only outlet to gay culture in their otherwise straight lives.
Call it activism or pleasure seeking: The party celebrates both being Palestinian and being gay.
It started about 10 years ago, originally taking place in Jerusalem on weekday evenings, when some 40 or 50 Palestinian men from the area would gather. The organizers moved it to Tel Aviv about five years ago, and now hundreds show up each month. People travel from all over: Ramallah, East Jerusalem, small Arab villages in northern Israel, Yafo, everywhere. Those traveling from Ramallah have their own ways of getting into Israel – some of them with official permits, but most of them without. (For the purpose of this article, Israeli Palestinian-Arabs and Palestinians from the West Bank are grouped together — broadly, in terms of social culture — and not to achieve a political message.)
Some West Bank Palestinians request visitor permits to enter Israel, but the documents don’t always materialize. Often they need an Israeli to act as sponsor and even that won’t guarantee entry. The unofficial channels are still preferred.
Abbud, a young Palestinian man from outside Ramallah, smiled when I asked him how he got to Tel Aviv. “Oh, we have our ways,” he said, hinting that it was not the first time he’d made the voyage. I asked him how he planned to get home at the end of the night. “Getting out is easier than getting in,” he replied.
When I asked him if he thinks people come from Gaza, he laughed and said it’s too dangerous, but added that they would probably like to. There have been rumors of over a hundred gay Palestinians from Gaza who have crossed into Israel to live, to avoid persecution for their homosexuality. However, the move remains dangerous.
Yet crossing borders, it seems, is a minor hurdle compared to the challenges of daily life “back home,” living as a gay man in patriarchal Arab society, where tradition and family honor abound.
‘Faith and Fusion’ Promotes Cooking for Co-Existence
Kevork Alemian and Bonnie SternPic: Yulia Korolitsky
Non-profit organization, Chefs For Peace, and Hillel of Greater Toronto launched the inaugural ‘Faith and Fusion Culinary Event’ on March 12, 2012 at Miseastro Bistro in Toronto. James Beard once said, “Food is our common ground, a universal experience.” This unique event takes this belief to heart, bringing together Muslim and Jewish chefs from Israel to share traditional gourmet kosher and halal dishes.
Chefs For Peace founder, Kevork Alemian, and acclaimed food critic and author, Bonnie Stern, hosted ‘Faith and Fusion’. Five dishes were prepared and served by celebrity chefs Ibrahim Abuseir (The David Citadel Hotel in Jerusalem), Yossi Elad (Mackneyada in Jerusalem), Abderrahman Khallouk (Kara Mia in Toronto), Benny Cohen (Mideastro Bistro in Toronto), and Eran Marron (Marron Bistro in Toronto).
‘Faith and Fusion’s’ goal was to bring together food lovers from the Muslim and Jewish communities to share conversation and culturally-significant food, including lamb falafel balls, raviolo di tuna, Jerusalem artichoke soup (which I learned are not in fact artichokes at all), Moroccan tagine, chicken 3 peppers, and pavlova fruits with chocolate.
The wonderful evening ended with a Q&A with the hosts and chefs, encouraging further learning and discussion among the guests.
“One of the most effective ways to accomplish change, and eliminate stereotypes and ignorance on a global scale, is for each of us to come together as a community, united at the grassroots level with the express goal of positive communication and education amongst divergent cultures. What better way to start a peaceful and progressive dialogue, then to break bread and share a meal with our neighbours” says Shirin Ezekiel, Associate Executive Director of Hillel Toronto.
Founded in 2001, Chefs for Peace creates events for coexistence, always integrating the culinary arts. The organization believes that people separated by partisan circumstances can come together through a common interest in food and culinary experiences.
“With all the negative press coverage shown daily about the Middle East around the world, this small but significant action renews my faith that there are many, many people of different religions and cultures who are willing to present positive, promising dialogue and prove the general populations stereotypes to be gravely unfounded,” says Kirsti Stephenson, Director of PR and Special Events at Size Doesn’t Matter.
Chefs for Peace and Hillel of Greater Toronto are planning to make ‘Faith and Fusion’ an annual event.
For more information about Chefs For Peace and Hillel of Toronto, please visitwww.chefs4peace.com and www.hilleltoronto.org.
Source: Shalom Life
Arab singer captures Israeli hearts
Nissren Kader wins first place on popular television show hosted by Israeli singer Eyal Golan. Unlikely star manages to mesmerize Jews, Arabs through ‘Mizrahi’ songs
A young Arab woman who won a popular Israeli music competition has become an unlikely star, capturing hearts in a country where suspicion and hostility often mark relations between Arabs and the Jewish majority.
Nissren Kader recently won first place on “Eyal Golan is Calling You,” a popular television show hosted by one of Israel’s most successful entertainers. On the program, Golan as host chooses over the course of a 3-month-long competition the best performer of Mizrahi songs, the musical tradition of Middle Eastern Jews.
In winning the show, the 25-year-old Kader seems to have pulled off a difficult balancing act: She touched on the nostalgia that many first and second generation Mizrahis, or Jews of Middle Eastern origin, feel for their ancestral homelands, even though most proudly identify as Israeli. And by singing beautifully in Hebrew, she charmed her audience by showing that she too was moved by their cultural traditions.
“I am so proud: I’m the first Arab to win a Hebrew singing program,” said Kader, who is from the northern Israeli city of Haifa.
“I never imagined that they (Jews) would like me to the degree that they did. I’m an Arab citizen in a state that has troubles and disagreements between Jews and Arabs, and they saw something else,” she told The Associated Press. “They saw another side.”
Kader, who before competing on the show worked as a wedding singer in the Arab community, shared her win in late March with Maor Ashwal, a Jewish Israeli. The finals, on a cable TV music channel, were the second most-watched show on television that night, according to an economic magazine that publishes Israeli television ratings.
During the final, her audiences sang along, cheered and clapped to songs in Hebrew — and Arabic.
Israel’s Arab minority makes up about one-fifth of the population and occupies an uneasy place. They are citizens of a Jewish state who identify with their Palestinian brethren in the West Bank and Gaza. Arabs in Israel are generally poorer, less educated and complain of discrimination.
In recent years, Jewish and Arab politicians have used increasingly harsh rhetoric against each other, further polarizing relations.
Kader, for her part, has stirred up mixed feelings among Israelis. They marvel at the power of her voice, but are uncertain about how to deal with her Arab ethnicity.
“My friends criticized (host) Eyal Golan: ‘Why did you pick an Arab? You chose an enemy and let her win the show,’” said Moshe Alfassi, an Israeli of Moroccan descent who works with troubled youth. Alfassi, 27, said he found it strange to see an Arab woman singing Mizrahi music, but like many other Israelis, was quickly won over by her voice.
Eliyahu Haviv, a 70-year-old Iranian-born Israeli, said Kader deserved her victory, and shouldn’t be viewed through the prism of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He noted, as many Israelis did, that Kader sang in Hebrew to God to protect the people of Israel in a song that was originally written to commemorate slain Israeli soldiers.
“She sang our prayers, and I think it was very good because she sang them with emotion,” Haviv said. “I say yes, there are Arab terrorists, but this is something else. We need to be as one heart.”
“We are taught that in the house of Israel, there will be a prayer for all people,” said Eliyahu Dahan, 50, a Jerusalem bar owner. “That was her song.”
The popularity of Golan’s show also highlights just how far Mizrahi culture has come in Israeli society.
When Middle Eastern Jews fled en masse to Israel in the years following the Jewish state’s establishment in 1948, they encountered a European Jewish establishment that regarded them, and their cultures, as inferior and threatening because they resembled their Arab enemies.
That included Mizrahi music, which was seen as lowbrow — a stigma that still lingers. The music ranges from soaring liturgical chants to cheesy pop that is indistinguishable from top-40 tunes in the Arab world. In an echo of that Arabic heritage, many Mizrahi Jews enjoy classic Arabic songs — tunes that Kader belted out to the delight of the audience in the studio for the show’s final.
Her victory is part of a small but growing trend of Arab artists and entertainers rising to prominence.
One of the country’s most popular sitcoms is a comedic satire about an Israeli-Arab journalist trying to fit into Jewish society whose attempts frequently backfire. The program is written by Sayed Kashua, an award-winning Arab writer.
All but one of Israel’s soccer league teams have Arab players, including the season’s top scorer, Ahmed Saba.
Israeli entertainer Golan said he faced criticism for his choice, but said Kader’s talent couldn’t be ignored. He is currently producing an album for her.
It will likely have Mizrahi and Arabic music on it, and Golan believes Israeli Jews are ready to hear it.
“There will always be those who will jump up and say, how did you pick an Arab?” Golan told the AP.
But, he said, “I didn’t do a political program. In the end, what wins is the songs, and not whether she’s an Arab or a Jew.”
Source: Ynetnews.com
VIDEO: Israelis, Palestinians pursue peace at model UN
Over 500 Jewish, Arab teens try to settle decades-old conflict in Israel-Mideast model UN. ‘There is hope,’ one student says
Israeli and Palestinian peace negotiators have rarely spoken to each other during the last three years, but that didn’t stop a group of Jewish and Arab teenagers from trying to settle the decades-old conflict.
More than 500 students gathered last month in Even Yehuda, a Tel Aviv suburb, for the Israel-Middle East Model United Nations. The conference capped six months of meetings by the group’s “conflict resolution committee” to analyze the dispute that has shaped their lives.
They didn’t resolve it, but many said they understand the other side better now.
“I always dreamed of changing. I never liked the situation we’re in,” said Lisa Rahamim-Flam, a teenager from central Israel.
While high school students around the world participate in model United Nations conferences, many attending the Israeli version had first-hand experience with conflict.
Rahamim-Flam comes from a small village that lost three teenagers in a 1996 Palestinian suicide bombing. Outside the grounds of the conference’s meeting place at American International School, the signs pointing to nearby bomb shelters provided a clear reminder that this is the volatile Middle East.
The mock conference included a Security Council and several committees, including disarmament, human rights and territorial disputes.
Most of the participants were Israeli Jews and Arab citizens of Israel, who make up about one-fifth of the country’s population. They complain of discrimination by the Jewish majority and tend to identify with their Palestinian brethren in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Beyond the political debates, students said they found that personal contact with “the other side” brought down walls that typify relations between Arabs and Jews.
Shrouk Badir, 18, from the West Bank village of Battir was the only Palestinian on the committee. Badir went to great lengths to win a scholarship to the American school in Israel and gain personal exposure to Israeli society and culture.
“There is hope,” she said. “There’s got to be some sort of solution.”
Working together
Badir said she wanted to break down Israeli stereotypes about Palestinians. “There are people who are open-minded from the other side,” she said. “They’re not all terrorists.”
After months of debating, the last committee session ended in hugs and tears.
In one emotional moment, American student Jessica Fordon turned to a teary-eyed Badir. “Palestinians, I feel, they get kind of a bad rap, but from now on I will have a very, very open mind when I meet Palestinians,” she said.
Badir and Rahamir-Flam became close, as did Shaya Schloss, and Orthodox Jew from the Israeli town of Beit Shemesh, and Reem Shaheen, a Muslim girl from Nazareth in northern Israel.
Many participants acknowledged their core beliefs haven’t changed. But they said they are more open-minded and will use the skills they’ve learned to create bridges between Jews and Arabs.
In a reflection of the real world, a decision was made not to come up with a final peace resolution. Instead,
the students created a YouTube video called “iWish Conflict Resolution 2012″ and pledged keep working together through youth groups and volunteer work.
Source: Ynetnews.com