| "The Land Twice Promised" Heart of the Beast Theatre “In this production, storyteller Noa Baum, an Israeli, creates a moving testimony illuminating the complex and contradictory history and emotions that surround Jerusalem for Israelis and Palestinians alike.” So states the introduction to Baum’s biography. Below is one person’s review of her story given at Heart of the Beast Theater recently. |
War. Fear. Wrenching loss. War from one generation to the next. Unending war. War that devastates human lives on both sides of the guns. War that leaves no room for understanding, only hatred. And yet . . . and yet . . . .
Noa Baum, Israeli storyteller, recounts her improbable friendship with
Jumana, a Palestinian woman, while they were both living in California. After
they meet accidentally, and over a period of time, they begin to tell one
another their stories, hauntingly alike, but on opposite sides of a great
political and cultural divide. This, even though, as Baum points out in her story, ‘We are cousins, you
know. Abraham is ancestor to us both through his sons Ishmael and Isaac.
Ishmael’s children are Arabs. Isaac’s are the Jews.”
In the course of their stories, both women, portrayed by Baum, recall their childhoods, always laced with war. Baum weaves in their mothers’ tales, each describing in vivid language their memories of wars: the whine that bombs make as they approach; the shaking buildings; how they try to walk through the rubble when it’s all over; what this does to hearts and minds, especially those of children.
Listeners feel the fear, hear and understand the hatred on both sides. The same soldiers that represent security to Baum strike fear in the heart of Jamana, her family, friends and neighbors. We come to see why it is so difficult to take sides in this conflict. Both women and their families have suffered greatly. It is in the telling of their stories, and in deep listening, that understanding, and later love, overarching everything, finally comes.
In one of the final scenes, both women are on telephones on opposite coasts in a quick succession of time. “Jamana, did you hear? Tanks have rolled into. . . .” “What have you heard?” “Nao, another suicide bomber! How can they do this terrible thing?” “Jamana. . .Nao. . . . Hearts touch across 2000 miles of this land while guns continue to sound another 2000 miles away. Will it ever end?
That is the question the audience is left with, and there is no immediate answer. The fact is, though, that one Israeli and one Palestinian, both women, both wounded, have stepped beyond fear to tell their stories to one another. That made all the difference. This may seem a small thing, only a seed, but because of it the rest of us are given hope. Maybe things could change. Maybe we could tell our own stories to those we consider our enemies. Maybe we could listen to theirs. Maybe there could be peace. Peace for all the world. We leave the theater with the seed of this hope planted in our hearts.
Baum’s words: “Building trust took many years. We spent hours arguing and disagreeing, struggling with the voices we grew up with, the narratives we believed were The Truth. We learned that a little compassion can go a long way. It is my sincere hope that (this story) will encourage you to seek out ‘the other’ and listen to their story.”
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