"Go straight, then turn right at the first street after the third traffic circle," are the kind of instructions given to a visitor to Shfaram trying to get around the city center. Traffic circles are scattered throughout this city: They are not piazzas in the Italian sense nor are they the traffic circles typical of suburbs, banal alternatives to traffic lights intended to blur the urbanism and instill a tranquil, pastoral aura. No, each of the circles of Shfaram - Shefar-'Amr, in Arabic - has its unique feel. They are an urban celebration on their own, and while traveling up and down the hills on which the city is built, each encounter with them provides a different kind of surprise.
At the end of that street, the first one after the third roundabout, is Shfaram's municipal Payis Center, lit up like a monument. How strange that name is in an Arab city! The very use of a the Hebrew equivalent of the letter "p," a sound which does not exist in Arabic, immediately makes it clear who is in control here and who has the power to provide or not provide the local population with communal buildings - not to mention the random acronyms and uncertainty inherent in the name "Payis," which means one big lottery.
"From birth to old age, everyone wins the lottery," is the way the national lottery presents its original worldview in ads, "like a thread that runs through a citizen's life, so Mifal Hapayis accompanies Israel's citizens from their birth until they reach the golden age."
So too Mifal Hapayis is also present throughout the lives of Shfaram residents, and its center is where the recently finished Ayam al-Oud (Oud Days ) Music Festival, organized and produced by the Beit Almusica municipal conservatory took place. Currently there is not a single auditorium worthy of the name in all of Israel's Arab communities, a real concert hall where a festival can be organized, and in the absence of any option, they use the alternative.
The Mifal Hapayis auditorium's complete inappropriateness for hosting concerts: the haphazard positioning of the lighting and amps, the limited number of seats, which are actually school-type chairs, and the narrow stage are however forgotten given the excitement and festive atmosphere that prevailed everywhere. Extra chairs were provided for the hundreds who filled the hall, from young children - where they came from was ascertained later on - to teenagers and adults, all of whom streamed in to listen to the evening program: two Arabic music ensembles, including musicians from Shfaram, Jerusalem and the Galilee.
The local performers rounded out the program, which included performances by two of the biggest names in the Arab world: the singer Aicha Redouane from Morocco and the members of the acclaimed International trio from Turkey: the innovative kanun player, Aytac Dogan; Ismail Tuncbilek, who has developed electronic folk instruments and Omar Arslan on percussion. Also performing were graduates of the Edward Said National Conservatory of Music.
Educational elementThe festival is not an unusual event in the Israeli music scene: From the Israel Festival southward, there are dozens of festivals here each year - of contemporary music, liturgical music, jazz and baroque, Mostly Mozart and Maestro, the Music Festival and Music in the Desert, but a music festival amid a Palestinian-Arab population inside Israel?
If the Jewish majority is being choked by a shortage of budgets and sighing over the shortage of public funding for music festivals, what will the Arabs, who receive crumbs of crumbs from the dietetic budget allocations, say? And still, Amer Nakhleh, Beit Almusica's director, managed to put together an international festival that was also held in the neighboring cities of Haifa and Nazareth. He himself, with tasteful remarks instilled with rare artistic and social devotion, and an oud and bouzouki performance as part of the first ensemble performing that evening, opened the concert.
The educational element of the Oud Days festival became apparent in this part of the concert, whose performers were students, graduates and teachers from the conservatory. The Mifal Hapayis auditorium was filled with the sounds of classical Arab music on the oud, violin, contrabass, percussion, kanun and bouzouki: Umm Kulthum songs, wonderfully performed by Riham Hamadi, who sang in the conservatory choir and has now become a solo performer, with the young student Jerais Nazar on percussion and Tony Barhoum, a young, virtuoso kanun player who won prizes in Israel (grants from the America-Israel Cultural Foundation ) and in the Marcel Khalife Arabic music competition, and by the violinist and composer Akram Abd al-Fatah, one of whose works was also performed.
"The festival is a significant educational and musical statement," says Nakhleh after the concert. "Firstly because of the local elements, and also the guests from the Arab world. Today, not many are willing to come here, especially not from Egypt and Turkey, for fear of a boycott. But when they come, we here feel as if we exist, that there is a channel for our culture, that there are reciprocal ties with artists from across the Middle East who are interested and come, and they in turn invite us.
Welcome accomplishment
"This kind of festival, which has considerable support from the Shfaram municipality [Mayor Nahed Khazem opened the evening with a short, supportive speech] and this takes us to new places and new challenges, and proves to us that it is okay to dream, that developing musical culture is something that is possible, and that our culture is worthy of equal standing and more support in Israel. Musicians such as the Turks and Aicha start to realize that there is a Palestinian population here that is part of the culture. They start to notice the complex reality here, and there's a sense that the festival has a role in this process, and eventually they will see us as part of the culture. Inside Israel, the minuscule budget indicates that there is no institutional intention to develop it, that there is no news."
From a handful of students around eight years ago when it opened, the first Arab conservatory has grown and now has 400 students, plus another 100 youth at risk and in dire financial straits who cannot pay for their studies and rely on grants provided by the conservatory - mostly funded by donations from individuals and funds.
"They are the children you saw at the concert" says Nakhleh, "children from Tamra and Iblin, from the surrounding communities and from Shfaram, who come to study with us - the demand is huge. This is our project, to set up a school for children in distress within the music school. Today only those with means can afford the cost of their children's music studies, and it is important to us that there is no status issue. This issue is being overseen by social workers and welfare officials who monitor the children and the impact of music studies on their lives. Who funds it? Entrepreneurs who are crazy about the idea, people who fight with all their might to realize this vision - in the end, it's just a small number of students relative to the great potential. Many of these children had never in their lives seen a concert hall before this evening."
Nakhleh says that the connection with Ramallah and the Palestinians in the territories is natural: "Some of our students play in the Palestinian orchestra, while at the same time perform at conferences and conservatories in the Jewish sector, and are highly praised in both places. The most important aspect: Everywhere Arab children perform professionally has an impact and that is a great and welcome accomplishment. It is image-changing, although occasionally confusing: There is still a way to go before the suspicion of both sides dissipates. The musical quality is what will enable a dialogue among equals between Jews and Arabs, not from a sense of inferiority and not under the label of 'coexistence,' but out of recognition and closer cultural ties through the music."
The second part of the concert featured a young singer, Woroud Jubran, performing a series of old and new classic Arab folk songs with a Western influence - crowd pleasers from Asmahan's "Toyour" with vocals influenced by Mozart's "The Magic Flute" wonderfully performed by Jubran in way that dazzled the audience, to Abdel Halim Hafez's songs and recent songs that sent the audience out into the chilly night smiling and humming.
