As the setting sun glints off Jerusalem’s golden Dome of the Rock, the voices of Israeli and Palestinian singers waft down from a balcony, a rare blending of worlds in this divided city.
“Sitting choosing sides, this conflict in our minds,” the teens croon. “I want to love you, I want to hate you.”
Momo, a 16-year-old from the Israeli settlement of Tekoa outside Jerusalem, coaxes out the lines like raw honey. She helped to write the song, based on the experience of fellow member Hamouda, who grew up in a Palestinian refugee camp.
But she almost never joined the band.
The night before their first practice last November, her sister’s friend was stabbed to death by a Palestinian. The tragedy and the funeral left her nauseous. But she had never really talked with Palestinians, and ultimately her desire to know what they thought overrode her fear. Her right-wing friends were shocked.
Through the band, which organizes field trips and facilitates dialog, she met a Palestinian girl who understood completely.
“I felt like we were coming from the exact same spot, but on opposite sides,” says Momo, who spoke on condition her full name not be used. “We’re so similar, and we can work together on this.”
Back in her messy Tekoa bedroom, she swings in a hammock chair and talks about her goals for the future. She wants to be able to walk outside Tekoa without fear. She wants to meet peers in the nearby Palestinian village, whose entrance is marked by a big red sign warning Israelis that it’s dangerous and against the law to enter. She wants to ask them about the wedding parties she hears; about how Israel treats them; and about where their hatred comes from.
“Maybe it doesn’t come from their parents saying something, maybe it comes from their experience,” she surmises.
My friend lives in that village – also called Tekoa – and I went to her wedding there, where I squeezed into a room with dozens of bright-eyed young girls, watching the bride dance with her new husband. I couldn’t have been more than a mile or two from Momo’s home, and yet it felt like a world away. And despite spending countless weekends with my Palestinian friend’s family, who welcomed me as one of their own and provided a home away from home, when tensions spiked I sometimes became wary of going there.
So while some cynics might say “just talking” doesn’t amount to anything, I couldn’t help but be impressed with this plucky Israeli teenager who, the day after such a difficult event, was willing to go meet Palestinians who were not friends, or even acquaintances, but complete strangers. I have rarely encountered that kind of courage and curiosity here.
Momo has also made an impression on her initially shocked friends. One of them, after hearing more about her new endeavor, later confided, “I’m really scared of Arabs, but … I really want to meet the people from your band.”
