There’s magic in music. And that magic was on display March 23 at the San Francisco Jewish Community Center, where 10 musicians — Jews, Muslims and Christians from Israel, Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinian territories — held an audience of more than 300 enthralled for more than two hours as they sang, played and danced.
Musaique: Music Without Boundaries is a “cooperation circle,” or member group, of the United Religions Initiative, an organization that started in San Francisco in 2000 and has now spread worldwide. Its mission is to bring people of different religions together to do daily acts of peace, justice and healing. There are now 542 interfaith cooperation circles in 79 countries, including two in San Francisco (the San Francisco Interfaith Council and the Interfaith Center in the Presidio), one in Marin County (the Marin Interfaith Council) and one in Contra Costa County (the Interfaith Council of Contra Costa).
Musaique is the brainchild of Israeli Lee Ziv and Jordanian Jamil Sarraj. They met at a URI conference in Amman, Jordan in 2008, and played together for the first time. Afterward Lee said, “We felt the magic, the magic of pure music, that melting of all the borders and walls. At the moment we dreamed this project, we saw the vision coming true.”
There are now 20 musicians in the group, which performs in Hebrew and Arabic. They have held peace-building workshops all over the Middle East and Europe. This was their first visit to the United States, and last week’s JCCSF performance, presented by the URI in partnership with the S.F.-based Koret Foundation, was their only public appearance.
With newspapers and the airwaves filled with stories of discord, fighting and disagreements, it was a treat to spend an evening listening to young people singing and talking about making a difference. It gives one hope.
Hope is exactly the mission of URI and its cooperation circles. Just look at the work of the local circles. The San Francisco Interfaith Council has sponsored a winter shelter program for 23 years, with meals provided by more than 30 local congregations, including Congregations Emanu-El and Sherith Israel in San Francisco. Both the Marin and Contra Costa councils sponsor similar programs. Synagogue members play prominent roles in all these activities and have from their beginning.
There’s lots of work to be done, people to be sheltered and fed, children to be educated. Musaique is a shining example of interfaith cooperation but it’s not the only one.
Why not volunteer with a local interfaith effort? You’ll meet new people, do important work and continue the mission of tikkun olam — repairing the world — so important to Judaism and the world.
Rita Semel is the executive vice chair of the San Francisco Interfaith Council and executive director emeritus of the Jewish Community Relations Council. For more on Musaique: Music Without Boundaries, visit www.musaique.org.