God gave this land to me…
These are the opening lines from the theme song of Otto Preminger’s epic film, Exodus (1960), based on the book by Leon Uris, chronicling those fateful events in the 1940s that culminated in the formation of the new state of Israel. The land mentioned in the lyrics is not just any piece of real estate. This is the Promised Land, the Land of Milk and Honey, to which Yahweh led Abraham and his people from Ur-of-the-Chaldees.
It is the same land that the psalmist pined for as an exile, a captive, in Babylon in the days of the prophet Nahum.
By the streams of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Sion.
Though there our captors asked us the lyrics of our songs,
And our despoilers urged us to be joyous: "Sing for us the songs of Sion!"
They were God’s chosen people but no other race in all of creation had undergone as many trials and tribulations through the ages as they had. They lost their homeland. They were dispersed all over the world. They were persecuted, and despised and tortured. They were confined in close communities. They were victims of organized massacres – pogroms. In ancient Egypt, they had been enslaved by the Pharaohs and forced to build their pyramids. In Nazi Germany, they were methodically gassed by the hundreds of thousands.
Let my people go.
The survivors of the Holocaust and the others who had found refuge in many parts of the world yearned to return to the land of their fathers – the land traversed by the rivers Jordan, Yorvon, Kishon and, yes, the stream of their psalmist, Zion. They streamed across the Mediterranean in boats, in greater and greater numbers, in a latter-day exodus and recover their homeland from the Palestinians, who had occupied the territory during their long exile. After a long, painful struggle, they established the State of Israel and applied for membership in the United Nations. It is this Pyrrhic victory that the Jewish state is celebrating this month of July.
And yet, even as the Israelis are marking their 54th Independence Day, the sounds of war have not been stilled. In disputed territories in the Left Bank and elsewhere, including Jerusalem, the Palestinians – followers of the prophet Mohammed – carry on the fight against the Israelis. Palestinian youths – fanatical young men and women – are waging war – a jihad – against an enemy that has stolen their land. They have carried out suicide bombings against their foe with tragic consequences – the deaths of innocent women and children. These acts of terrorism, such as those carried out with impunity by Osama bin Laden, the arch-terrorist, in the assaults in New York and Washington, D.C. on Sept. 11 of last year, cannot be dismissed without reprisals.
An eye for an eye,
A tooth for a tooth.
As the United States leads the UN in inviting the combatants to the negotiating table to discuss a ceasefire, the rest of the world watches a crisis that could escalate into a global conflagration.
In the meantime, the Embassy of Israel in the Philippines celebrated its Independence Day with a concert at the CCP Little Theater.
Praise him with timbrels and dance, praise him with string and pipe.
Praise him with sounding cymbals, praise him with clanging cymbals.
Let everything that has breath praise the Lord!
Percaduo is a unique two-man team of percussion players from Israel the likes of whom have never before been heard in our country. Manning a powerful arsenal of percussion instruments – bass drum, timpani, snare drum, tom-tom, octabans, high-hat and cymbals, gongs of various sizes, triangle, claves, xylophone, vibraphone, marimba, and tubular bells – the young musicians presented a program that showcased the timbres of the instruments.
Avner Dorman’s Udacrep Acubrad displays the sonorities of two keyboard instruments – percussion with definite pitch, which can therefore play melodies. The piece is based on Near Eastern homophony, its chordal structure sounding exotic to our ears more attuned to the music of the West.
No less exotic but definitely familiar is Maurice Ravel’s Alborada del gracioso. Thoroughly ingratiating was the Percaduo’s charming account of an artificially contrived Spain as represented by a jester’s aubade, music that greets the dawn. So lightly, so playfully do the players’ sticks fell on the keys that the listener was tempted to rise to his feet and dance a wild fandango.
After Andy Pape’s CaDance for II, the duo went baroque with Johann Sebastian Bach’s Prelude in a-minor. This work moves in a perpetuum mobile that displayed the virtuosity and expressive power of the percussionists, which were no less than awesome.
The last number is Minoru Miki’s Marimba Spiritual, a piece that displays the possibilities of the marimba and brings in as well the other instruments in short passages – a brief survey of the members of the percussion family. The performance of the Percaduo was of the highest order, one that absolutely merited a standing ovation, which their entranced audience could not by any means begrudge them.
Tomer Yariv and Adi Morag have trained intensively in art of the percussion. They have won prizes in international festivals. They have performed with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra with conductors Zubin Mehta, Genady Rozhestvensky and Giuseppe Sinopoli.
Billed with the Percaduo was Pinikpikan, a local group of talents which plays alternative music.
In her message, Israeli Ambassador Irit Ben-Abba declared: "Let this be a day on which we welcome the future with faith, fortitude, hope and peace."
To you, Madam Ambassador, and your valiant people: Shalom!