Noa in conversation with Rabbi Dan Moskovitz at Temple Sholom Oct. 30. <\/i>(screenshot)<\/i><\/p>\n
Israeli singer\/songwriter and peace activist Achinoam Nini (Noa) was in British Columbia recently to do a Vipassana meditation. While here, she stopped at Temple Sholom Oct. 30 for a conversation with Rabbi Dan Moskovitz (which is on YouTube) and at Congregation Emanu-El Nov. 4 for a talk with Rabbi Harry Brechner.<\/p>\n
Noa was born in Israel in 1969. She\u2019s the fifth generation of her family in Israel, their presence dating back to the mid-1800s. They immigrated from Yemen.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey came because they were persecuted at the time and they came to the only place they knew, that their heart drew them to, and that was Jerusalem and the Kinneret,\u201d she said. \u201cThat was the two places. They walked across the desert and took boats and were smuggled by Bedouins. It\u2019s a very dramatic story, how the family made it to the Holy Land.\u201d<\/p>\n
Noa\u2019s father got a scholarship to study at the University of Rochester, so she spent the first couple of years of her life in Rochester, NY.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I went into first grade, my family moved to the Bronx, NY. My dad was now doing his PhD in Columbia University. And my parents decided to send my brother and I to yeshivah\u2026. I was the only dark-skinned kid in the school, the only Israeli kid in the school, the only family that didn\u2019t live in something that looked like a mansion.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cMy way of dealing was in two ways,\u201d said Noa. \u201cFirst, fortunately, I was a gifted student, so I had a scholarship to school that helped my parents\u2026. And music. I started writing songs at a very young age\u2026. I was interested in physics and mathematics, I loved history. I wanted to go to Harvard and do a PhD in physics and history, but that didn\u2019t happen, obviously. Music \u2026 chose me.\u201d<\/p>\n At age 17, on a summer vacation in Israel, Noa met a soldier on leave.<\/p>\n \u201cI went back home,\u201d she said. \u201cI told my parents, I\u2019m making aliyah. I said, you raised me to be a Zionist. We love Israel. I want to live in Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n To this day, Noa is married to that man (Asher Barak, now a medical specialist and entrepreneur), and they have three children, two of whom are in the Israel Defence Forces, one in service, the other in the reserves.<\/p>\n Noa did her army service in a military entertainment unit, then started her music career. While at the Rimon School of Music, she met Gil Dor, who was one of her teachers. \u201cHe\u2019s an extraordinary and amazing, brilliant musician and we\u2019ve been working together now for 34 years,\u201d said Noa.<\/p>\n They caught the attention of guitarist Pat Metheny, who produced Noa\u2019s first album and brought it to David Geffen, who then signed Noa at Geffen Records.<\/p>\n \u201cI started performing abroad and foreign journalists started asking me my opinion about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and I\u2019m like, I\u2019m an artist, I don\u2019t speak about things like that, don\u2019t ask me questions like that.\u201d<\/p>\n But she didn\u2019t feel good about not responding. \u201cAnd so, I started learning more and reading more and I became more and more depressed,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd then came Yitzchak Rabin and he started talking about peace. And I was like, yes, this is great!\u201d<\/p>\n A believer in the Oslo Accords, Noa was the only leading Israeli musician to agree to perform at the peace rally where Rabin was murdered.<\/p>\n \u201cI saw Rabin and I hugged him \u2026 and I walked down the stairs. Ten minutes later, he walked down the stairs and was killed\u2026. I remember the rush and the cry and everybody running, and panic, and myself running and pushing to see what had happened,\u201d Noa shared. \u201cIt was a trauma. I haven\u2019t recovered, absolutely not. I haven\u2019t recovered \u2013 and neither has Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n At that moment, said Noa, \u201cI said, OK, well, if this guy just paid with his life for our future, the future of Israel, the future of my children, then I, too, can do something. And then, maybe, I\u2019ll pay a price and that\u2019ll be OK because it\u2019s the right thing to do. And that\u2019s when I started becoming an activist for peace.\u201d<\/p>\n There were two other life-changing events for Noa in the 1990s. She was invited to sing at the Vatican for Pope John Paul II and she was asked to write the lyrics and sing the theme song of the film Life is Beautiful (La Vita e Bella)<\/i>, which won an Oscar.<\/p>\n Among her many achievements, Noa represented Israel in the Eurovision Song Contest in 2009. She did so with Palestinian-Israeli singer\/songwriter Mira Awad. \u201cI wrote a song called \u2018There Must Be Another Way,\u2019 and we sang it in English, Hebrew and Arabic,\u201d said Noa. \u201cIt made a lot of waves around the world and I have to say that, until today, it is taught in schools around the world.\u201d<\/p>\n She related a story about that experience.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cMira, her mother is from Bulgaria and her father is Palestinian. She\u2019s quite fair-skinned, with green eyes. My family is from Yemen\u2026. I\u2019m an Arabic Jew. And so, when we sat in front of media, I remember there was one day where they had BBC Iran, they had Al Jazeera, they had all kinds of media\u2026. All the Arab media immediately came up to me in Arabic and to her in English, [assuming] she\u2019s the Jew. And so, I told them, you see, that is the role of art \u2013 our role is to shake you up a little. You think you understand everything. Maybe you don\u2019t. Maybe there\u2019s another way of looking at it…. You can\u2019t think that you understand everything about everything. No, it\u2019s not black and white. And that\u2019s, of course, very relevant to where we are today.\u201d<\/p>\n That said, there has been progress towards peace, she contended.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a huge polemic about whether there should be or there shouldn\u2019t be a Palestinian state,\u201d she admitted, \u201cbut there is a conversation being had about it\u2026. In the past, it was not even talked about at all. It was underground.\u201d<\/p>\n She also pointed to the many organizations that work with and\/or are staffed by Arabs and Jews. Noa is on the boards of the Arava Institute and the Umm el-Fahem Museum of Art, for example. She\u2019s also involved with the Parents Circle – Families Forum.<\/p>\n \u201cThe world in general is not a great place for people who believe in peace right now,\u201d she acknowledged. \u201cI think that we are under attack by forces, if you like, forces of darkness from everywhere. But, like I always say, that\u2019s not reason enough not to continue raising the voice\u2026. I believe in peace. I don\u2019t see any other way to live. Has the peace camp changed? It has transformed in many ways.\u201d<\/p>\n She gave the example of a WhatsApp group called Voices of Solidarity. She said a lot of young people are doing things \u2013 \u201cit\u2019s either art, it\u2019s underground theatre, it\u2019s alternative music.\u201d She mentioned the organization Standing Together.<\/p>\n \u201cYitzhak Rabin, when he started talking to [Yasser] Arafat, the terrorist, everyone was like, what, no way, forget it. Seventy-five percent of the Israeli public were against any kind of interaction with Palestinians but then he came [along] with his charisma and his leadership and his integrity and his honesty and his track record, and he started saying, we\u2019re going to be doing this and this is the right thing and this is for Israel\u2019s future, for our children, we\u2019ve made enough wars\u2026. And then, it was like a month later, the entire public opinion, it shifted towards being positive about the chances for peace.\u201d<\/p>\n That could happen again. A change in circumstances, a particular leader\u2019s personality, the right timing, she said.<\/p>\n For Noa, Israel is in a worse situation now than immediately after Oct. 7.<\/p>\n \u201cThe hostage situation \u2026 is a nightmare beyond words. I go every week, sometimes I go twice a week, three times a week, to stand with them [the families and others calling for the hostages to be brought home]…. They\u2019re desperate. I don\u2019t know how they are still sane\u2026. And the fact that that their children are still there [in Gaza], that they haven\u2019t been brought back, that not everything has been done to bring them back, is not anything that Israel will ever recover from.\u201d<\/p>\n She is appalled that the government is still in power.<\/p>\n \u201cNot only did they not resign,\u201d she said, \u201cthey then turned around to blame everybody that saved Israel, including Brothers and Sisters in Arms, including all the organizations that volunteered, [and] to blame the hostage families for daring to want their children back…. It\u2019s beyond words.\u201d<\/p>\n She advised diaspora Jews to distance themselves from the government: \u201cseparate the Israeli government from the Israeli people, it\u2019s not the same thing,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you are going to look at a lot of consistent polls, you\u2019ll see that people \u2013 even people that voted for the present government \u2013 feel betrayed by what the government has eventually done. They don\u2019t understand how the government is not taking responsibility. They don\u2019t understand how the dictatorship coup keeps moving forward when we\u2019re in such a stressful situation. They don\u2019t understand how our relationship with the entire world has come to a complete collapse under the auspices of this government. The Israeli government right now is the enemy of the Israeli people. And you can say that\u2026. We support the Israeli people, we support the country of Israel, but we do not support the government of Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n She warned of the dangers extremists pose in any country, and asked people to \u201cstrengthen the moderates in civil society in any way you can.\u201d<\/p>\n She added, \u201cThroughout history, countries have fallen into terrible situations of leadership. Italy, my favourite country in the world after Israel, became a fascist country at some point, with Mussolini, and there was Franco [in Spain] and there were other people, other countries that came into [similar] situations. Does that delegitimize the country? No. It means that a certain combination of events led to the fact that a country was now held hostage by leadership that did not work in her benefit. That is what is happening right now to Israel, and we have to work through it together with the help of our friends, and you are our friends.\u201d<\/p>\n Noa doesn\u2019t just fault the Israeli government. \u201cIn my opinion,\u201d she said, \u201ceverybody in the region is to blame for the horrible situation we\u2019re in. Nobody made the efforts. The leadership did not make efforts to make peace, not Israeli leadership, definitely not Palestinian leadership.\u201d<\/p>\n She believes Israel had to defend itself after Oct. 7.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat were we supposed to do? Sit around [twiddling our thumbs] while our kids were being massacred and our women were being raped? Yes, Israel needed to go in. The war was legitimate. But \u2013 it was legitimate to the extent that there was a plan. There needs to be a plan. Say, we have to fight, but now, let\u2019s see, we\u2019ve attacked, we\u2019ve retaliated, we\u2019ve done this, we\u2019ve shown that, we\u2019re there for our people. But we have to bring the hostages back\u2026. Second, we have to see, who are our allies? We\u2019re a small country, we\u2019re nine million people \u2013 whoa, we want to attack the entire world? No. Who are our allies? Who are our friends? How can we start progressing towards a solution to this? Not endless warfare. Who are the people that want to talk to us? The UAE, the Saudis, the Americans, the Europeans, let\u2019s reach out to them. This is what the Israeli government should have done immediately.\u201d<\/p>\n While acknowledging that Israel needs a strong army, Noa said, \u201cat the same time, parallel institutions need to come in and do their job, the diplomatic job, to reach out to our friends \u2026 and make sure that Israel is secure. Our security will come with peace, only with peace, and we have to look at this as an opportunity to make peace. And are there partners? There are.\u201d<\/p>\n She said, \u201cAs a woman who lives in Israel, loves Israel and sends her kids to the army\u2026. We need to be able to look forward to a time when we will not be sending our children to the army. Is it possible? Yes.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Noa in conversation with Rabbi Dan Moskovitz at Temple Sholom Oct. 30. (screenshot) Israeli singer\/songwriter and peace activist Achinoam Nini (Noa) was in British Columbia recently to do a Vipassana meditation. While here, she stopped at Temple Sholom Oct. 30 for a conversation with Rabbi Dan Moskovitz (which is on YouTube) and at Congregation Emanu-El […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":45451,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[5343,4330,22729,3036,5362,22725,2721,3597,1774,23635],"class_list":["post-45450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","tag-achinoam-nini","tag-israel","tag-israel-hamas-war","tag-music","tag-noa","tag-oct-7","tag-peace","tag-politics","tag-terrorism","tag-two-state-soloution"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45450"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45450\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}