20 Timna Brauer Sings for Peace

'Voices for Peace', the project of Timna Brauer and Eli Meiri arrived in Or Akiva to give a concert. This excellent performance, which combines Moslem, Christian and Jewish music featuring choirs from Tel Aviv and Shfaram, has been traveling the world these past seven years and delivering the message of fraternity via music. There is something naïve and touching about this hope that music is capable of uniting peoples engaged in bloody conflict. I remember the excitement that gripped me on first hearing 'Zaman El-Salam' (Time for Peace) adapted by Yair Dalal for the special concert 'Shalom-Salam' which took place in Oslo in 1994 to commemorate the first anniversary of the Oslo Accord. What hope was contained in the words only partly understood of 'Zaman El-Salam'. What yearnings were heard in the Arab language, so musical, so beautiful. But it seems that the songs create this magic for only a short time.

On the stage we see two choirs, the Jewish one and the Arab one, singers intermingled. The Jews sing 'Allah Ya Mulana', the Arabs sing 'Avinu Malkenu', and all together they sing 'We Shall Overcome'. The audience is moved and for a moment it seems that this is sufficient to bring down the walls between us. However, the following morning reality stares us in the face again.

Timna Brauer is a wonderful singer. She is a Yemenite, an Israeli and an Austrian who studied in France, and perhaps all this helps explain her mastery command of different and varied styles, and makes it possible for her to feel at home in all of them. She has a unique voice and a personal mode of presentation that always contains playful jazz elements. It is fun to hear her and to hope with her that music is the voice of peace.