Gaza/Sderot Video Project

music during wartime“music during wartime”

This is a somber first post for me on Shemspeed, noting that for millions in Israel and Gaza 2009 will not begin happily. Missiles are reaching farther into Israel from the Strip, and the damage to Gaza is tremendous. Before this latest outbreak of violence, a European video documentary crew has been following the lives of people in Gaza and Sderot, and you can see all of their videos here: http://gaza-sderot.arte.tv/

It’s amazingly well done and there is no commentary, just the residents of Gaza and Sderot speaking for themselves as you follow their lives for a bit.

To keep it pertinent here, there are several videos on the project website dealing with musicians and performers on both sides and how the chaos affects their artistic lives. In a war zone, I don’t know how much solace music provides, but I can hardly imagine living without it. Khalaf Qassim and Avi Vaknin are both musicians.

This series was last updated on Dec. 23, and you can feel that the people in these clips on both sides felt something bad coming as the cease-fire ended. I hope they are safe. Please really listen to their stories, pass the video along, and pray for peace.

– Sam Balagan

(note: the image above was drawn by Okan Arabacioglu and first appeared in my Baltimore City Paper article on Iraqi music called Fables of the Reconstruction, linked here)

Share

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

You might also like