Resettling

 https://www.npr.org/2021/12/20/1064510598/afghanistan-music-institute-taliban-doha-portugal

 The story of the Kabul Conservatory students touches my heart. A couple of years ago, the conservatory was looking for a violin teacher, and I wrote to volunteer my services. But a few days after I sent the email, there was a bomb placed at the doorway of the school, and my application went unanswered.

But there is another reason why this story touches me. Over the past three years, four of my students, children of Eritrean refugees, have relocated abroad. In Sweden, Canada and Britain, these children and their mothers received refugee status and a path toward stability and acceptance, something denied them here by the government of Israel. For two of those students, I was able to arrange violin lessons in the Swedish town where they were resettled. Shortly after Betto and Yerus arrived in Oxelösund, Sweden, they received a call from the Oxelösund Conservatory inviting them to continue their violin studies. A strange country, a strange language, a land of endless sunshine and endless darkness - but one thing familiar - music. I spoke to them on Whatsapp after a few months, and they were already feeling at home.

Yerus playing "The Hiccup Song"

What it's all about

 Here is a Q&A I just did for Venn. Venn is new kind of real estate management company, that, besides renovating and renting out apartments, offers a range of community services. Venn provides me with a studio to teach violin, and has made its music room and adjoining courtyard available for two concerts. Venn interviewed me for their blog. This is an edited version of the interview.

1. Can you tell us a little about Elifelet?

Elifelet is a volunteer organization that serves the community of statusless children in Israel. These are the children of asylum seekers from Eritrea and Sudan and a few other countries, as well as the children of foreign workers, both legal and illegal, who have married and started families in Israel. The children were born in Israel, but are not recognized by the state as citizens, and have no legal status here. Consequently they have no health care, no government services except for schooling which is required by law. Elifelet provides these children with support and essential services that for other children here are a matter of course.

There are about 10,000 statusless children in Israel. About 7,000 live in Tel Aviv, most of them in the Shapira neighborhood.

Among our projects, we run an after-school program in two of the primary schools that serve the community. I teach violin to seven- to nine-year old kids enrolled in this program. Children who finish the first year of violin instruction continue at the Music Center of Tel Aviv-Yafo.

I have had many careers in my life, and I can say that teaching violin at Elifelet is by far the most satisfying work I have ever done. Music brings light into the lives of these children, and brings a dignity to them and their parents.

2. How do you think Elifelet helps foster a sense of belonging for the kids?

This is a hard question to answer, not because it is not clear that this has a tremendous impact, but because it is hard to put into words. From the first lessons, there is tremendous enthusiasm. I teach in groups of four to seven kids, which means I can teach only a small number of the school population. That means a trail of disappointed kids who can't join.

During the course of the year, what starts as a fun activity soon becomes a part of the students' personna. Their lesson becomes a focus of the week for them, and the violin becomes a source of pride and identity for them.

And not only for them. Their parents are deeply moved by their children's playing. I have visited the parents of all my second year students. They all want more. Can I teach brothers and sisters? Can I give more lessons? When will there be another concert? Music brings a dignity into their lives that has been denied them for years.

3. Why do you think this work is important in the community?

When you say "community", what do you mean - the community of asylum seekers and foreign laborers of Shapira, or the larger Shapira community, in all its diversity. For Shapira is a community in transition: there is the old, original population, comprising many Israelis of Bukharian ancestry, a religious Jewish community, the large influx of asylum seekers and foreign workers, and a growing "Yuppie" community of hip young Israelis driven south by the huge cost of housing and by the attraction of urban renewal projects. It is largely a commuity divided against itself, with a lot of mutual antagonism and bigotry, a community divided by class and wealth and ethnicity and race, a community which has at once been a magnet for progress and a dumping ground for Israel's unwanted.

So far, my work has been with the community of asylum seekers and foreign workers. But my aspiration is to reach out to the whole community - to use music as a bridge between Shapiran and Shapiran, to see children from the "Torah Kernel" playing in a community orchestra alongside the sons and daughters of Indians, Eritreans and Philippinos.

 

This month we kicked off our music project at Elifelet. Elifelet is an NGO serving the needs of statusless children in Israel - the children of asylum seekers from Eritrea and Sudan, and the children of foreign workers who have stayed in Israel legally or illegally, married, and started a family. I teach violin in an after school program in a south Tel Aviv primary school that serves these kids. Seven of our students that studied violin last year started their lessons at the Music Center of Tel Aviv-Jaffo, the municipal conservatory. 

We went from school to the conservatory in south Tel Aviv by public bus. The children met their teacher, Lior Grunwald, played for him, and registered as students. They had a long summer to forget everything, but things returned to them quickly, and the played well: Avigail (mother from Madagascar, father from Congo) played “Yerushalayim Shel Zahav”; Manut, whose parents are Sudanese refugees, played the Allegretto by Suzuki; Firel played “Na Man Aukar Mari,” a hymn she learned at the Indian church on Saturday services. 

 While the second year students were starting at the conservatory, we started a fresh group of beginners. About 20 children got their first lessons at the beginning of November. They learned how to hold the violin, the names of the strings, and they learned their first tune: “Pop Goes the Weasel”. 

 The new violinists are receiving lessons at the “Moadonit”, the after-school program run by Elifelet. The program, on the campus of the Keshet and Gvanim schools – segregated schools exclusively for the children of asylum seekers and other statusless children – offers about 250 children a hot meal, sports, art and drama, assistance with schoolwork, and, of course, music. This year we are greatly expanding our music program. Last year we offered only violin; this year, we will offer instruction in piano, guitar, percussion, ukulele, chorus, and rhythm class. Later this month, 16 volunteers will join us from the Talma Yellin High School for the Arts, and, in January, a group of students from the Rimon college of Jazz. We look forward to a fascinating and unique meeting between our children and these volunteers, that crosses cultural and class lines.

The Curse of Gesualdo

After a two year hiatus, I am returning to my blog. And, first of all, I want to tell you that I have published The Curse of Gesualdo: Music, Murder and Madness, an historical novel about the Renaissance composer who achieved fame and infamy, both for the remarkable, gut-wrenching music that he wrote, and for the violent and tragic life that he led. Gesualdo murdered his wife and his best friend because he believed they were having an affair; he was then so consumed by guilt that he had a servant whip him nightly until his death. He was bewitched by a woman whose spell made him impotent with any woman but herself. "I own him from the waist down", she said at her trial. "His wife shall have nothing but kisses." 

 My fictionalized biography brings life to Gesualdo, the twisted, obsessive genius, and to the people who surrounded him, people who loved and hated him, who were drawn to the fire of his passion yet repelled by his callous and repulsive nature. Rich with drama and passion, the book paints a vivid picture of murder, mystery, and music. “A rare insight into both the beauty of the music of the times and the sheer brutality, hypocrisy, and power of the sixteenth-century Catholic church… a fascinating and compelling story,” writes critic Grant Leishman of Readers’ Favorite. 

 The Curse of Gesualdo is my second novel. The Language of the Heart, the first novel, is a fictionalized biography of Ziryab, the leading musician of the Golden Age of Arabia. You can get the book at https://www.amazon.com/Curse-Gesualdo-Music-Murder-Madness-ebook/dp/B08F4GJFDP