Hillel Hosts Music Collective

Heartbeat — a collective of young Israeli and Palestinian musicians — performed in the McCullough Social Space on Feb. 27 as a part of their 2014 U.S. tour. Through music, the group shared with audience members a message of mutual peace and understanding.

“I believe deeply that music holds incredible power to bring people together, to open us up to each other and to express ourselves in a powerful way,” said Heartbeat Founder and Executive Director Aaron Schneyer.

Heartbeat is based in Israel and was created by Schneyer in 2007 after he received a Fulbright-mtvU award. Since its inception, the organization has expanded into three chapters and worked with over a hundred musicians.

Heartbeat’s visit to the College was organized by Shelby Friedman ’16, who serves as the Israel Chair for Middlebury Hillel.

“I first heard about Heartbeat through [Associate Chaplain] Rabbi Ira Schiffer,” Friedman said in an interview. “From there, I reached out to them, and it turned out they were already planning a tour in New England.”

Friedman had been seeking a way to bring people together and create a more cooperative tone in conversations about Israel and Palestine — Heartbeat, she realized, could provide that.

“I think this show appeals to a lot of people,” Friedman said. “To Jewish students on campus, music lovers, people who are into conflict, people who are into music.”

The concert featured original songs performed in English, Arabic, and Hebrew. The group criticized the construction of the Israeli West Bank Barrier in “The Wall.” In “City Rising,” Heartbeat members sang, “Governments are like building walls while corporations take control.”

Throughout the show, band members shared messages about the current situation in Israel and Palestine.

“[Heartbeat] is dealing with this conflict in a way our elected officials are not,” said guitarist and vocalist Guy Gefen. “We are understanding together that this is conflict is for both [Israelis and Palestinians] to solve. It is for both of us to create peace together.”

Gefen is one of Heartbeat’s oldest members and joined when he was sixteen years old. A firm believer in peaceful resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Gefen was imprisoned for seven months after refusing to be a combat soldier in the Israeli Army.

“A lot of Israelis will attack me for standing up with the Palestinians,” Gefen said. “People think I’m a traitor for being with the enemy.”

On performing with “the enemy” for the first time, Gefen said, “It was empowering to use music to communicate with someone I don’t even share a language with.”

Music is Heartbeat’s tool for uniting people together and transforming conflict. The organization hopes to create a better, safer, and more just future not only for Israel and Palestine but also for the entire world.

“We try to make our instruments louder than the guns,” Shneyer said.