Home > Blog > Arts & Culture > A Life-Changing Experience
How does one share coherent thoughts about a life-changing experience? That is what I keep asking myself after my recent trip to Israel with 59 other cantors as a part of the American Conference of Cantors Mission. The experiences over a week varied — political, cultural, and personal. Some incredible, some challenging. After seven days of the most extraordinary experience and witnessing the pain, beauty, resilience, and creativity in our beloved land of Israel, I find it hard to sift through the important points I want to share with you.
On Friday evening, July 12, Rabbi Miller interviewed me during services about my experience. Here, I’m focusing on the explosion of new art happening in Israel as a coping mechanism in response to the communal trauma of October 7. By art, I mean all mediums of art — music, visual arts, poetry, etc.
Survivors of October 7 noted that it was the unusual sounds that told them something different and wrong was happening. If we think of the soundscape in which we live our lives, we use the sounds around us as clues to the time and place in which we find ourselves. Sounds inform us as to where we are or what action we are undertaking. On October 7, Israelis woke to unfamiliar sounds — for many, sirens; for some, gunfire. They did not know exactly what was happening, but they knew something wasn’t right and it wasn’t just a drill.
In the immediate aftermath, as reality came crashing down, artists felt their creativity was stunted. On our mission, we heard over and over from musicians that they couldn’t bring themselves to sing, and if they had to, they didn’t want to be doing it. The same held true for artists in other mediums. This is not to say that music and art weren’t important, quite the contrary. After October 7, Israelis turned in large numbers to the music of their memorial days and Yom HaShoah to find comfort. These playlists are filled with music written after the ’67 and ‘73 wars, the Israeli classics if you will, because in it they find strength, resilience, and solidarity. They find messages of love for home and their country, messages of loss and sadness, and prayers for the safety and return of soldiers. Music became a coping mechanism for their emotions, a way to bond together, and a way to communicate their political thoughts. Memorial services, concerts, and protests became sing-a-longs, and as they did, Israel’s artists found their voices again, and healing in their creative passions.
There was an explosion of creativity with themes speaking to the large-scale call-up of army reserves or the call to fight for the return of the hostages. Art was dedicated to specific hostages or victims. Artists let their country know “it’s ok to cry.” Artists reminded Israelis they should be unified and at the same time, they can question their government and God.
Time and again we saw the creative process used to help survivors, soldiers, and police officers cope. A songwriting course at the Rimon School of Music allowed survivors to work through what they had lived through; an art exhibit at Anu: The Museum of the Jewish People that contained works of both survivors and victims of the attacks which aside from being powerful, brought comfort to the families knowing that a piece of their loved one would survive and be remembered; an evening of music and visual arts at Feel Beit, a house of arts and culture that exists on the dividing line between West and East Jerusalem and works to dissolve boundaries and create bridges and community between Jews and Arabs.
Feel Beit is dedicated to 100% truth, openness, and honesty. After October 7 they said there is a different path that can be taken together. They created open lunches for Israelis and Arabs to come together. They found the conversations were very difficult, not just because of the attack itself and subsequent war, but also because news sources for both sides are very different, and each would come with different information. But they persevered and members found community and friendship at Feel Beit. Woven between the visual, musical, and artistic presentations is plenty of time for people to just be and engage with each other. In the words of Riman Baraka, an Arab staff member of Feel Beit, “The current situation is a losing situation for everyone. It can’t be pro one side, otherwise everyone else loses. It must be a win-win which is working together for peace. If you are choosing one side, there are no winners.”
On our final day, as we were faced with leaving Israel but not understanding how to process and share all we had learned, we had sessions at Beit Avi Chai, a cultural center in Jerusalem. Here we spent time with Mishy Harman, the creator of Israel Story, a podcast (available in Hebrew and English) that tells the stories of ordinary Israelis. He shared with us how after October 7, their creative team used the podcast as a communal processing tool to share the stories of survivors in a wartime diaries series. Our final session was with Yonatan Blumenfeld, a screenwriter, theater creator, musician, and spoken word poet. He led a series of exercises allowing us to begin processing all we had witnessed. He summarized the time we spent with him, saying, “Art is a comfort and helps us to be less alone.”
Dr. Cochav Elkayam-Levy, an expert on international law, human rights, and feminist theories (more on her session another time, but look her up; she is amazing and doing very important work documenting war crimes of Hamas against women and children on October 7), told us, “We must use the tools we each have to make headway in this situation.” She was referring to something completely unrelated to the arts, yet I feel that statement is the perfect summary of the cultural explosion taking place in Israel. Through their craft, artists across the country are helping the community process, heal, find comfort, and move forward from the horrible attacks of October 7 and the war that continues.
