JERUSALEM YOUTH CHOIR

MUSIC, A UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE

"Ambassadors of song and dialogue", summarizes their conductor Micah Hendler. Twenty-one boys and girls from East and West Jerusalem, Jews, Arabs - including a blind man, and even a German and a Chinese woman, temporary residents in this city -, all aged between 14 and 21, came to live, at the beginning of July, an intense moment, united by singing and dialogue. They were accompanied by four facilitators. These young people succeeded in consolidating their commitment through contact with each other.

They first went to Fribourg, where they were welcomed by the choir of Collège Saint-Michel, directed by Philippe Savoy. A very fruitful meeting, explains Savoy: "we often organize meetings between choirs, but we focus more on questions of performance, more oriented towards technical issues. We do not experience such conflicts and our singers find it more difficult to give themselves away. Here, I was impressed, for example, by the commitment and the choral quality of the young blind man. "Later in the day, in the aula of this traditional college, where we were warmly welcomed by its rector, Mr. Wider, the participants of the Jerusalem Choir tried to learn a few lessons about listening and dialogue, which have led, not without long secular conflicts, to Swiss federalism, "a system as complex as a clockwork mechanism" according to the speaker, Nicolas Schmitt, professor at the Swiss Institute of Federalism.

AN ENTHUSIASTIC PERFORMANCE

Two days after final rehearsals and in the space of two concerts held in less than 24 hours, first at the United Nations in Geneva at noon, then at St. Laurent Church in Lausanne in the evening, the Jerusalem Youth Choir managed to thrill the audience. It should be noted that they were all accommodated with host families in the Lausanne and Vevey regions, to whom the association's gratitude must be expressed. In the capital of the canton of Vaud, under the direction of the founder and conductor of the choir, Micah Hendler, they gave an enthusiastic performance for more than an hour and a half. Fiuna Seylan Ongen, president of Coexistences, reminded the church of St. Laurent how "unique this is. To my knowledge, there is no other choir that does work and performance where dialogue rises out of conflict. Singing is used here as a vehicle for meetings and gatherings conducive to discussion," he added, saying: "In Jerusalem, even if they meet in professional settings sometimes, people do not really dialogue about the conflict. The choir seeks to create a space in which its members would like a society that is based on empathy and equity." The testimonials collected by two of the protagonists of the 2019 edition of this singing tour in French-speaking Switzerland are also enriching: "The choir taught me patience and listening to others". His comrade continues: "after a year of work, everyone considers themselves brother and sister, a real family. We all love Micah Hendler, a really nice guy."

AN INTENSE EXPERIENCE

In his report recently received by Coexistences, Micah notes: "The stay brought the choir together by fully integrating all the singers. They concretely put into practice values on which they had worked hard, such as fairness and listening, and experienced a coexistence 24 hours a day, seven days a week, among themselves and with their Lausanne host families. "The week-long trip was their most intense experience of coexistence, they were housed in mixed pairs. The fact that they represented the choir in front of such important institutions as the United Nations also deepened their "esprit de corps", and underlined what binds them together above all else. The stay was a real success and they are all extremely motivated for the coming year".