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Using Folklore to Bridge a Cultural Divide By RON PRICE
In August I was invited by the American Center, the U.S. State Department's cultural arm abroad, to conduct a series of seminars on American culture for a group of Jewish and Arab teachers in Jerusalem. I was there as a poet, to talk about literature—"the expert"—but what follows is a vision of hope I encountered that had nothing to do with expertise. It came from an immigrant poet, folklorist, and teacher who taught me a lesson in the primary color of blood.
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| Simon Lichman (Photo by Kate Irving) |
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I first met Simon Lichman years ago in Philadelphia, where he was a graduate student (he holds a Ph.D. in folklore from the University of Pennsylvania). Lichman, an internationally recognized activist, scholar, and poet, has lectured extensively on the use of folklore in multicultural education and co-existence work. I knew of his work with Jewish and Arab students, and wanted to see more, so he invited me to go with him to Ein Rafa, one of the Arab villages he has worked with for more than a decade."When I first came to the Muslim village of Ein Rafa," Lichman explained, "one of the Arab teachers asked: 'You've come here to do co-existence work. You know our history, and you still think it's going to work?' 'I know your history,' I said, 'and if we work together I can promise we'll make changes.' 'O.K.,' he said, 'let's see.' By the next year he was referring to the project as 'our project.' He had moved in his own thinking about the possibility of change, about what is possible."The phrase, "our history"—the violence that the teacher alluded to, the "situation," as it is often called—is not merely the historical mistrust that Lichman and his wife, Rivanna Miller, encounter when bringing together Jewish and Arab students. The history of that violence is also the daily circumstance of their lives, and the lives of their children. "Last February there were two suicide bus bombings near one of the schools we work with in our project," Lichman said. "The first killed the school's caretaker, Eli Tsfira. Three weeks later another killed a student, a boy named Benaya Zuckerman. My two daughters attend that school."Thirteen years ago Lichman and Miller established the Center for Creativity in Education and Cultural Heritage. The Center brings Muslim and Christian Arab schools together with Jewish schools, pairing specific grades from each. Classes initially focus on their own culture. Then through a series of joint activities, Arab and Jewish communities share their traditions. Parents, grandparents, and extended family are key educational resources brought into the process as tradition-bearers."We are all experts in our own childhood," Lichman said, "but not in the transmission of the details of that childhood and how it connects to a specific culture. Folklore helps us understand our relationship to the past, but more importantly it helps us understand how living traditions transpire through us into the future. We aren't bound to be victims of tradition, we can be the shapers of a living body of material that changes as we change, reflecting the needs of our own time."
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| Arab and Jewish children skipping rope together at the Nisui/Ein Rafa-Nequba School-Communities Program near Jerusalem. (Photo by Rivanna Miller) |
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"That's what folklore can do," Lichman continued. "It helps students to honor cultural aspects of their lives they often try to jettison in the interest of making themselves modern, being cool. It gives them the excuse they need to honor their home life—not because their parents or grandparents want it to be so, but because outsiders recognize its value. The transmission of this material in a school setting awakens children to a value they might not honor inside their families."The students learn about traditional games, wedding ceremonies, foodways. They learn about versions of behavior, variations between grandparents, parents, and children—about the things that bind them together, and how those things change through time. By the time Arab and Jewish students meet in paired classes to exchange traditions of jump rope rhymes, marbles, or hopscotch, or pickling vegetables and fruit, or religious practices, they are able to experience differences and similarities, rather than stereotyping, fearing, and demonizing what they don't understand.Lichman's intent is clear. "This is how students learn to listen to each other when they talk about the situation, and put a human face on the suffering rather than assign blame for the violence," he said. "This ability to listen is an antidote to extremist declarations made by those who have no knowledge of or relationship with people from 'the other side'—those who feel they have no stake in preserving and developing such relationships.""Our work must be seen in the context of a growing despondency within the country," Lichman explained. "We are trying to achieve a change in atmosphere, lessening fears and instilling hope, responsibility, and the feeling that each individual matters, be they child or adult. We approach our work with a sense of urgency, believing in the quiet dedication of those people, both within the Green Line [Israel's borders from 1949 until the 1967 Six Day War] and across it, who make a difference in their communities by changing the atmosphere around them. These teachers, parents, and grandparents stand against the intransigence that leads to violence and terror, showing their children that an intelligent peace and a just society, in which we take full responsibility for each other, is the only answer to the situation."
Although the Center is supported by the Israeli Ministry of Education, the U.S. and British Embassies in Israel, foundations, synagogues, and private individuals, that support is small enough that sometimes it doesn't cover the Center's operating expenses. Lichman is often on the road looking for other sources of funding, and last spring, that search brought him to the United States. Before leaving Israel, he told Benaya's father he would tell people about Benaya. "It seems to me you have a lot of work to do," his father replied. "Then he smiled," Lichman said, "meaning, 'I want to be part of that work.' "When I told Lichman I would write about his work in Israel, he kind of smiled too, and in the spirit of Benaya's father, said, "We have much to do."Ron Price is a member of the Liberal Arts Department, where he is poet-in-residence. He is the author of Surviving Brothers, A Crucible for the Left Hand, and A Small Song Called Ash From the Fire.
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