Spirituals in the Promised Land

October 23, 2004

Hello from Jerusalem,

It was a juxtaposition of image and setting! Did anyone else sense the the irony?

Last night I went to a concert of the Jerusalem Barbershop Chorus, a group of 10 men who sing, naturally, barbershop. One of them is a colleague from the Consulate, hence my attendance along with about 10 other officers. I could stop the story here because to my way of thinking this is a humorous, self-contained vignette. Even the name of the group: the Jerusalem Barbershop Chorus is so unlikely at least at first blush. Replace the word Jerusalem with Indianapolis, or Springfield, or Whereverville, U.S.A. and no one would notice but barbershop fans. But Jerusalem?


I am finding, after my two brief months here, that Israel and the United States have a lot in common. They both are nations largely made up of immigrants. Like the U.S., there is a wide variety of people here, a beautiful rainbow of skin colors, a miniature Babel of languages, and a delightful, fascinating array of face shapes, body sizes and types: clearly a plethora of peoples and cultures stirred together in this unique cauldron of a place.

Also, elements of U.S. history and Israel’s history are similar. Both lands were already inhabited before the new folks arrived. Both lands were settled by the new folks following, to one degree or another, a religious impetus. Both countries have worked their way to a fairly high level of affluence in the world. And maybe it’s just me but I think that there is a similar, fierce patriotic expression in both countries: national flags hung on the fronts of many houses or on cars, a strong sense of respect and gratitude for those who have given their lives to get the country this far (Israel has a Memorial Day equivalent and an Arlington Cemetery equivalent, for example). Both countries verbalize their ongoing support for men and women in uniform and show it, too, by picking up hitchhiking soldiers, sharing taxis (and paying the fare), and probably a lot more that I haven’t noticed yet.

There is also a similar, uh…shall I say, straight talking attitude among citizens of the two countries, but that’s another subject for another day.

Back to the performance: it was frustrating to hear barbershop sung in Hebrew, especially because they did the hand motions and facial expressions typical to barbershop groups. It was obvious the lyics were cute or funny, but I felt excluded from the joke I couldn’t understand. Thank goodness they only did a few that way. Most were in English. I suspect the audience was full of native English speakers who also were glad to hear songs in their native tongue. I will say when any of the singers in the Barbershop group spoke, their accents were very American. Same with the crowd’s accents I overheard during intermission.

The setting for the concert was a reformed synagogue in an affluent neighborhood where many expatriates, a few well-to-do Israeli Arabs but mostly upper middle-class Israeli Jews lived. I passed nice restaurants, boutique shops, and even a Dominos Pizza to get there. The ensemble had been together 20 years and it showed: they did a nice job. A fair amount of what they sang were American folk songs, sung with gusto, received by the audience with vigorous applause.  Hearing Liza Jane and songs like it stirred my love for my country. The fact that many of the singers were American-Israelis means they immigrated FROM the United States sometime in the last 20-30 years probably, and now are Israeli citizens. They are people who left a land with a vision and a mission to settle another land with a vision and a mission. As an American diplomat who issues visas to people who want to visit or become legal permanent residents of the U.S., the idea that Americans would leave America and take up citizenship elsewhere gives me pause.

I hope I’ve painted the picture well enough for you to be shaken, as I was, by this American Spiritual they sang. Here are the lyrics:

Deep River, my home is over Jordan,
Deep River, Lord,
I want to cross over into campground.
Oh don’t you want to go
To that gospel feast,
That promised land
Where all is peace.

My brain exploded with the connections and images this song, sung by these people in this place, triggered. Deep River, a spiritual, was originally sung by slaves brought from Africa to America. Their Jordan was the Ohio maybe, or perhaps another river to cross to get to the promised land of the North and freedom from bondage. The conflict in this region is a complex subject and I’m not taking sides. I will say that sometimes Israel is cast as an oppressor. Yet as this group of Israeli-American immigrants sang about the freedom of the Promised Land, and crossing over the River Jordan which was, in fact, only about a half hour drive from where they were singing, I couldn’t help but remember that for the greater part of U.S. history, like the descendants of those black slaves, many Jewish people were not treated fairly or equally. And why stop at American history? World history for the last almost 2,000 years is filled with the oppression of a stateless Jewish people.

Get it? These relatively new immigrants from yet another immigrant nation were singing a song first sung by people who were slaves in that same land of freedom. Those slaves were looking and hoping for their own freedom from the oppression they were under at the time. These immigrants, searching for a place to be free from oppression, can be seen, depending on who is doing the looking, as both oppressed and oppressors. And this jarring juxtaposition was happening in this country along the actual Jordan established as a free homeland for Jewish people dispersed around the world, which now and for the past 56 years of its existence has been sorting through and struggling with issues from equal rights to land, to water, to freedom of movement: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness all over again.

Enjoying this poignant and inspiring song about progressing toward a better life, toward freedom, toward the Promised Land, I felt a sense of hope. Somehow, even with our differences and petty squabbles we humans have managed to muddle through and get to where we are. In my own country there are still those who harbor attitudes of hate toward those who are different, and that’s bad. But I believe there is a great, grand majority of folks who are learning, who have learned to treat and regard all people with love and respect, as equal humans under a loving God. Listening to the words of this song about that place “where all is peace,” my sense is that most people, black, white, Israeli, Palestinian and more, are all searching for, moving toward that land. I wonder if milk and honey richness includes the wealth of differences we have and the hope that to a degree now and someday completely, we will live together in peace.

About literarylee

I sling words for a living. Always have, always will. Some have been interesting and fun; most not. These days, I write the fun words early in the morning before the adults are up and make me eat my Cream of Wheat.
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