"Until Friday afternoon we were really stressed, we did not know if we would be able to fill the hall, there was a problem, there was opposition to the show. Women served, you know how it is ...".
On a daily basis, Sam is again the general manager of the Hagar Association in the Negev, which is best known as the operator of the bilingual school in Be'er Sheva. Mrs. Umm Kultoum's show ", in a surprising location - the cultural hall of the Rahat Lottery.
I met with again to find out why the Hagar Association started producing shows, and the intricacies of the mediators between the characters and letters of two neighboring cultures, similar and so different.
"The Hagar school has existed since 2008, we started in kindergarten and today there are already 360 children from early childhood to sixth grade. The idea was to build a common life and a collaborative space through education. Over the years we realized that to influence Israeli society as a whole, education is not enough. The journey to togetherness, also beyond the walls of the school. We started by creating a Jewish-Arab Scout tribe, the first of its kind. Two years ago there were less than ten, today there are already 72 children. And that's good, but we wanted to expand it even more, so we understood Can create a connection between people in this field of culture.
"People meet every day in the public space and at work, but at the end of the day they come home to talk to themselves in front of the screen. We have to get out of these bubbles and find the thing that makes us human, and that's culture and that is music. "Eran Tsalgov and the Bedouin poet Sa'ad Abu Ghanem, at the Writers' House in Be'er Sheva."
Everything is good and beautiful, I say, but why Umm Kultoum in Rahat?
"Because Umm Kultoum is a hit in Arab society, as well as in Jewish society. It is a Mediterranean classic. We initially considered doing the show in Be'er Sheva, but then we thought it might be better to put it on the new Rahat Hall of Culture. The garage or buy a sack of flour, but also to consume culture. "
"Mrs. Umm Kulthum's show" at the Mifal HaPais Rahat Hall of Culture, Photo: Itai Illuz, Hagar Association
The day before the performance, the Islamic movement almost canceled the show for the organization - it turns out that they also have a significant problem with women's singing.
"Luckily for us, the mayor of Rahat, Faiz Abu Sahiban, who is also from the Islamic movement, declared that Rahat is a pluralistic city and recommended coming, and from that moment on ticket sales skyrocketed," says Sam. ".
Apparently, even a generation that did not know Pharaoh and Nasser does not need to refresh the memory of who Umm Kultoum is.
From Herzir to Frequency, her character wanders on hipster shirts, fulfilled in the parody clumsiness of Judgment, and Umm Kultoum curls have become part of the Israeli soundtrack.
Many can easily hum the tune hook of "Inta Omri".
Whether from the original, whether from the performance of Aris Sun, Berry Sakharof, or as a cultural reference from Micha Sheetrit's poem.
Umm Kultoum has become a cultural symbol over the years, but a symbol that has been removed and repressed, and it has been somewhat forgotten that this is also an anti-Israel singer - and not just in her statements.
Before the Six Day War, she sang "Returning by Force," as a sign of the direction of the cannon barrels toward Israel.
About a year after the war she sang the poem of the Syrian poet Nizar Kabani "I now have a gun, take me to Palestine".
She was not content with making an artistic contribution to the struggle in the State of Israel.
In the museum dedicated to her in Cairo, you can see letters of thanks and appreciation received by Kulthum - nicknamed the "East Star" - for the large donations she made from her own money to arm the Egyptian army from the 1950s until after the Yom Kippur War.
On the other hand, the works of the Alkavi brothers, Elmasri Pepper, Kurgi Pepper, Yosef Zarur, Munir Murad, Lila Murad, Zohra Alfasia and Habiba the Mighty Mask - all Jewish singers who starred in the Arab singing world - are less known to the general public.
Maybe it's worth getting to know them in tribute shows too?
"This is a complex question that you raise," says Sam.
Sam Shuv, CEO of the Hagar Association in the Negev, Photo: Itai Illuz, Hagar Association
"It is true that there is usually a greater response from Jews to hear about the Nakba than from Arabs on Zionist symbols, on the other hand it bothers me less.
One can look back and say it was wrong, but it still hurts a lot for the losers who live the loss every day.
Every year on Holocaust Remembrance Day I travel to Mea Shearim, to a synagogue dedicated to Shtetel, where my ancestors came from and their family was murdered, and I say Kaddish there.
I do not compare, but from this essay I can understand the emotional intensity of the loss and destruction, and I look at their experience as it is, without coming to them with the demands of 'Let's meet in the middle, you will meet on Memorial Day and I will recognize the Nakba'.
I do not demand that anyone change his identity. "
I appreciate the ability to hold such a complex position, but sometimes, I remark to Sam, it seems that in these tight-hugging encounters, one expects a one-way movement, in which the Jews are stolen from nothingness, in some enthusiastic orientalism, while to create a substantive encounter - one must also speak On the nationalist sides in her work.
Why, I wonder, is there not even a one-night cultural evening, with compositions by Uri Zvi Greenberg, at the Rahat Hall of Culture?
"This is parallel to the problem of bilingualism in Israel. An Arab needs Hebrew to survive in the Israeli economy, a Jew does not. For him it is a nice addition. We are trying to change that. Nevertheless, there is an issue of the hegemony of the Hebrew language and Jewish culture , Eastern and Mediterranean, although it is a part of all of us. This is also the source culture of a significant part of the Jewish citizens of Israel from the Islamic countries. Therefore it is important for us to do more activities from such societies and mediators. Plans expand this to a multitude of areas, with the goal being to promote life and sacrifice through culture.
"My goal is not to change people through culture, but for people to be stronger in their identity and therefore open to developing rather from understanding their own culture and that of others. I want children who come out of our frameworks to be sophisticated human beings We will take the bilingual children from a young age to a synagogue and a mosque, so that the Jewish child will not be afraid of the mosque and the Arab children who touched the Torah will know what Judaism is.
"I believe that the better we sew this fabric of a common society, with the understanding of what it means to live together in the Negev and in Israel, we will deepen the insight that we are dependent on each other. And with a little luck and a lot of cultural action, To Uri Zvi Greenberg, and not missile wars and the Iron Dome. "
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