A handful of people
in Michigan are causing Muslims, Jews, and Christians to open their hearts
and minds.
"Semites Unite!" invented
Laurie White of Zaitouna, the sustained Arab-Jewish women's dialogue in
Ann Arbor, Michigan, featured in the front-page story of the July, 2003 Detroit
Jewish News.
"Refusing to be enemies," the
cover shouted, in advance of the story: Personal connections promote
understanding and support across the Arab-Israeli divide. You can
read it again, at:
http://detroit.jewish.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=542
Yesterday, Friday, March 26,
2004 the same journal's cover again hollered out to the huge Detroit community
of Jews, Palestinians, and others connected to the Middle East:
Children of Abraham:
Teen drama presents a common basis for living in peace
Premiering tonight, Saturday, in
Detroit, the 45-minute play by Muslim, Jewish, and Christian youth -- rich and
poor -- is the vision of just two inspired people -- the producer, peace
"activist Brenda Rosenberg ( wings4peacejewelry@comcast.net ), and Imam
Abdullah El-Amin, executive director of the Council of Islamic Organizations of
Michigan.
Their hopeful creativity comes not from
"resistance," but from "responsiveness" and the huge
capacity of human imagination about the future.
It started more than a year ago. Rosenberg asked
Imam El-Amim, "What do you think would really lead to peace between our
communities? He said: If our communities knew they had the same father,
Abraham, and knew the two sons buried their father together, that would be a
start.
Part of the project is a workbook that will allow
communities and schools to duplicate the process of recruiting, writing and
training Christian, Muslim and Jewish teens to present both the play and
post-production discussions.
The week's cover is at http://detroitjewishnews.com
, and you can read the story at:
http://detroit.jewish.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1312
The same day, yesterday, the Detroit Free Press published:
Read
the first line: "Sometimes tiny sparks trigger bombs; sometimes they
light candles."
What would it mean to light a candle where you
live -- move from resistance and preoccupation with enemies, to releasing
unprecedented creativity and responsiveness?
Instead of trying to kill the dinosaur, what if we use
our juices and energies to invent the gazelle?
-- L&L
Published in the Detroit Free Press -- Friday, March 26,
2004
and online at http://www.freep.com/news/religion/crumm26_20040326.htm
BY DAVID CRUMM
FREE PRESS COLUMNIST
Sometimes tiny sparks
trigger bombs; sometimes they light candles.
As stories about conflict and terrorism
explode on the front page each week, consider for a moment a different kind of
news story. It's about a local Muslim cleric who shared the spark of an idea
with a Jewish friend over lunch last year. In turn, the friend used that spark to kindle creative energy in dozens of teenagers,
religious leaders, theater professionals and university scholars.
At 8 p.m. Saturday, "The Children of
Abraham Project" will debut with a diverse troupe of young performers at
the Jewish Ensemble Theatre at Maple and Drake roads in West Bloomfield. This drama, written partly by Muslim, Jewish and Christian
kids, is expected to spark fresh dialogue across old barriers. From
the premiere, the project will expand into a series of performances across
Michigan, and perhaps across the United States, aided by the University of
Michigan's Arts of Citizenship program in Ann Arbor.
"This started with an idea I shared over lunch
with my friend Brenda Rosenberg," Imam Abdullah El Amin, head of the
Muslim Center in Detroit, said this week. "We were talking about all the
problems in the world that involve Muslims and Jews and Christians. And I said,
'If we would only remember that we all share the same father, Abraham, we might
find ways to bring our family back together again.' "
El Amin pointed to a passage in the Bible in which
Abraham's long-separated sons, Ishmael and Isaac, come together at Abraham's
death to bury their father. El Amin said to his friend, "We're tearing our
world apart today. Why can't we do what Ishmael and
Isaac did and come back together as a family?"
That set Rosenberg's mind churning over ways to help
Abraham's descendants reunite. A longtime peace activist, she even dreamed
about the fresh idea that night. "And in my dream, I saw Isaac and Ishmael
on a stage. I saw the idea for a children of Abraham project."
The project's core concept was to bring together
teenagers from all three faiths, ask them to share their life stories, weave
those stories into a play, then plan a short workshop to be held after the play to give audiences a chance to join in the
discussion that the kids start onstage.
Rick Sperling, head of the Mosaic Youth Theatre of
Detroit, joined the project as soon as Rosenberg described it to him.
"The play's subtitle says a lot: 'Muslim, Jewish
and Christian Teenagers Uniting for Peace in the Shadow of 9/11 and the Middle
East Conflict.' This project really is a trampoline to launch discussion in a
new way with people sitting in the theater," Sperling said. So, as dozens
of teenagers were recruited to work on the project, Sperling's theater hosted
their meetings and rehearsals.
The kids were excited, said Ariella Lis, a Jewish
teenager from Farmington Hills. "We were just
thirsting each week to learn all these new things from other kids in the group,"
she said.
Ann Arbor-based playwright Rachel Urist agreed to
spend several months weaving the kids' ideas into a script. She said, "What's going on in the world can seem so hopeless that
it was thrilling to be able to contribute to peace in such a concrete
way."
Detroit-based blues-and-folk musician Josh
White Jr. also joined the project and will help to lead the post-play
discussion Saturday. Volunteering his time was an easy choice, he said. "Anything that helps us realize we're one people, one
planet -- that's what I'm about," he said.
Soon, a host of community groups and the U-M program
were cosponsors, agreeing to help send the project into schools, theaters and
houses of worship over the next two years.
This week, El Amin chuckled as we talked about the
explosion of optimism that came from his tiny spark. "It just shows what can happen if we sit down together and look for
ideas on the positive side of life -- and latch onto what we find there with a
real passion," he said.
Seats are available for the Saturday show, but tickets must be purchased by 3
p.m. today by calling 248-788-2900. Admission is $20.
Producer Brenda Rosenberg can be reached at
248-594-1545 or wings4peacejewelry@comcast.net .
Rick Sperling gets e-mail at Rick@mosaicdetroit.org . He is
Founder and Executive Producer of Mosaic Youth Theatre of Detroit, at http://www.mosaicdetroit.org/
.