Artist to share personal stories of Israelis and Palestinians
March 1, 2010
Imagine two young mothers, each cradling a baby boy, at a pleasant neighborhood potluck dinner in California. They share a distant hometown. Surely they would enjoy meeting each other.
Perhaps not, if one is a Jewish woman from Israel and the other a Palestinian.
But these women bridged that painful gap, slowly and tentatively, fostering a friendship that produced a compelling one-woman performance called "A Land Twice Promised" by Israeli storyteller Noa Baum.
She will present "A Land Twice Promised" at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 10, in the Hamilton Center at the James R. Connor University Center at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater.
The performance is free and the public is invited.
Baum, one of the young mothers at the potluck, tells the personal story of their friendship and the stories of their mothers in her 70-minute performance.
Weaving together memories and stories, she creates a moving testimony, illuminating the complex and contradictory history and emotions that surround Jerusalem for both Israelis and Palestinians.
Baum said she hopes her UW-Whitewater performance of "A Land Twice Promised" attracts people willing to open their hearts to the stories behind the headlines from the Middle East.
"I'm a very passionate believer in personal narrative as a path to getting to know the 'other' and creating peace on the ground," she said.
She tells true stories of four women: a Palestinian who lived under Israeli occupation as a child and university student, an Israeli child who experienced the 1967 war, a young Palestinian mother who remembers that war, and a young Israeli woman who experienced the 1948 war and the loss of her brother.
Along the way, Baum puts a human face on the bitter complexities of history and war between Israelis and Palestinians.
Hearing the perspective of someone on the other side is a path toward making the concept of peace more tangible, Baum said. She offers storytelling as a way to help people move away from debate to hearing personal stories.
"I know it sounds very simplistic, but time and time again I see how it works, especially with young people," she said.
Baum's appearance at UW-Whitewater is sponsored by Dean Mary Pinkerton and the College of Letters and Sciences, the Languages and Literatures Department, the Women's Studies Department, the Jewish Student Organization, PEACE, the Muslim Student Organization, the Communication Department and the Social Work Department.
Andrea Musher, an associate professor of English, hopes Baum's performance will help people avoid oversimplifying a complex situation and choosing oppressors and victims.
"She's given dignity and respect to the story and she inhabits each character," Musher said. "She so beautifully embodies the complexities of gathering these multiple perspectives."
Baum does not offer a political solution to the Middle East situation.
"I don't know if art could change the politics of the world," she said. "If it could, if people actually listened to artists, we would be in a different place in our humanity and our world."
But she said she doesn't know how to live without hope.
"I do believe in the power of storytelling to create change," Baum said. "It opens the heart to listening to the 'other' and that is my intention with this show."
Her Web site is www.noabaum.com.