Temple Emanu-El

Jewish/Arab band Sheva brings message of peace August-10-2005

By SIGALIT GAL
Special to The CJN

Reprinted by permission of Canadian Jewish News

Sheva’s members hail from the Galilee mountains.

After two sleepless nights flying from Israel to Montreal, the members of the band Sheva went onstage wearing long, traditional Bedouin gowns and white baggy pants. “Bonjour – salaam alaikum – welcome,” they said.

Probably most of the audience couldn’t understand their biblical Hebrew lyrics, taken from Psalms or the daily prayers, but by the group’s second song, it didn’t matter – as in Australia, the United States, Switzerland and Spain, the Sheva magic happened in Montreal. All around an outdoor stage at the recent jazz festival, people were packed in and moving their bodies to beats that came straight from the Galilee mountains.

More than just another world-music concert, it became a pro-Israeli campaign for peace… and for God.

Between songs, band members said to the audience, “Don’t believe CNN: Israel is not just wars. There’s a lot of celebrations there too… Israel is very interested in peace, we come from a place where there’s conflict but we refuse to be paralyzed with fear… Everything is God, everywhere, the essence of the human being is to be happy and to sing together…”

The crowd applauded as the band started into their finale, the number 1 hit Salaam, building from a quiet tribal chant to an ecstatic hymn : “May peace be on us and on everyone, over the whole world, salaam.”

Sheva was founded in 1996. Its members live in the Galilee mountains of northern Israel.

The group, all aged 30 to 40, includes Amir Paiss, Gil Ron Shama, Udi Ben-Knann, Avishai Bar-Natan, Moshe Ben-Ari, Lior Sholman, Yehonatan Oppenhiem and Ahmed Taher, an Israeli Arab. With Taher in the band, the group’s influences are Arab as well as Jewish.

The musicians in Sheva play many instruments, including traditional Arab percussion, African djambe, sarod, sitar, didgeridoo and drums.

The group’s fifth album, Sheva Live in Australia, will be released this summer.

Gal: How do you start creating your original music?

Shama: We usually meet in Achziev, one of the pastoral, amazing beaches in northern Israel, and just let it happen. Usually it starts from a single sound or a rhythm, then we add Bible quotations and take it from there. Everything we create together brings together many personal influences from Brazil, Egypt, Iraq, Yemen, and western music, all melting into each other and creating something new.

Ben-Ari: We’re a microcosm of Israeli society – everyone’s so different from each other, but somehow they all unite.

Gal: Do audiences in each country respond to you in different ways?

Shama: Sure, each has its own “opening process.” In some, the audience connect to our music, to the “vibes,” others, to the messages. But here in Montreal, they connected to everything. Looking out from the stage to all these people moving together, Africans, Israelis, Indians, Chinese, Canadians, was amazing.

Gal: Most of the time you are travelling. How is it spending so much time together?

Shama: I guess we are like gypsies or people who are wandering with a circus. We have our ups and downs, but we also have a very strong social code, which is very clear to all of us. We try to be very sensitive to one another, sometimes one of us can be very happy or very sad, or angry, like in every family.

Paiss: The fact that we all believe in God helps us a lot. We believe in values like giving respect to each other and to each place and culture where we are arriving. We say a blessing before we eat and also for a safe trip and before each performance we stand together in a circle, hug each other and say that we feel blessed with this friendship, love and inspiration. Each one of us went through this process of acknowledgment in God.

Gal: Is this the reason why you choose to use biblical texts?

Bar-Natan: Some musicians choose to sing about the bad things in life. We choose to talk about how it is important to believe in God. Through our music we wish to strengthen belief in God, be a better person and create a better world.

Paiss: We truly believe that through music we can change the world. We’re not the first ones to do it – think about John Lennon’s Imagine.

Bar-Natan: And remember the Bible story about the walls of Jericho that collapsed because of music. These vibrations and texts are something very physical and real.

Gal: Still, aren’t your messages of peace and love too naive?

Bar-Natan: We’re not ignoring the reality – we all grew up in Israel, some of us were in the army and saw our friends being wounded and getting killed. But we still believe that each of us has the power to change reality if we only look at it differently. If we believe in hope, in peace, it will happen. It’s like a person that wakes up in the morning and says, “Today it’s going to be a beautiful day.” It’s a choice you make.

Sholman: It can happen. For example, who can remember the wars between France and England?

Bar-Natan: We’re not just talking about it, we’re doing it too. After this tour, we’re going for three days of connecting with Palestinians, on an Israeli project called Soullha [“forgiveness” in Arabic]. We’ll tell them our opinions and hear theirs.

Ahmed and his family live in Acko [northern Israel], where Arabs and Jews are living together. Unlike his outgoing colleagues, he is quiet, very reserved, and always has a peaceful smile on his round face.

Gal: Does your being in Sheva create a challenge for you to face your community?

Taher: I have never had any problems, although when bad things happen in Israel, it’s hard, and there is stress.

Gal: As a Muslim, how does it feels singing biblical lyrics?

Taher: God is one, and belongs to everyone, it is written in the Qu’ran and in the Bible. Jews and Muslims have the same God, so really we talk about the same thing.

Gal: Did you ever have bad reactions from an audience?

Bar-Natan: We performed in many places where the Palestinians hear that we’re in town, and they come too. You feel that they’re suspicious, standing aside, usually close to the stage… but almost every time after the show they come and talk with us, and the barriers melt.

Taher: Even when you see these groups, you concentrate on the music, push yourself into it, forget the hostility, and then when you get this good reaction from the audience, it becomes a stronger, positive experience to all.