Art as a Bridge and Walls that Unite
As part of the April 2025 Israel/Palestine trip to learn from Women of Vision, (see The River AND the Sea #1 – When moving in circles you can’t take sides), women and men who lead with love and courageously work together against multiple barriers, the theme of bridges and walls wove throughout. It makes sense that these individuals were creating bridges, while there are also walls of division, such as the wall you see from the Walled Off Hotel in Bethlehem, West Bank. But there were also walls that unite.
During COVID, artist and peacemaker Kefaia Aiyati Masarwa, who is part of Women Wage peace as well as Women of Vision, helped solve unrest in Akko by participating and getting Arabs (her term) and Jews to participate in creating large murals on a wall in the city. As she relates, there was tension between Arabs and Jews in Akko, but in her neighborhood, because of painting on the wall together, as part of a series called the Wall of Tolerance, the neighbors got along. The physical task of painting together, on a wall, created bridges. Art as alchemy – this wall Kefaia speaks about became a bridge https://www.youtube.com/shorts/-PPntuHEXbQ
What can art do that words cannot? In terms of bringing together people in conflict, it is less emotional release than it is finding common ground. In Six Actors in Search of a Plot, a 2005 play by Muhammad Thaher (with a nod to Pirandello) and directed by Billy Yalowitz, Jewish and Palestinian Israeli actors and teachers at the time with Peace Child Israel were paired together to move through a birthing simulation process – and this movement together, through practicing being born through the seven cardinal movements of birthing, is what saved the play after much infighting. The play looked like it was going to end in production before ever reaching the stage, due to the actors fighting about the land – the very thing they, as leaders themselves in coexistence among young people at PCI, taught youth to address cooperatively. Moving together about birth created the common bond while the words of the play stimulated friction. What kind of art can create bridges instead of breaks?
Shira Golan is a well-known singer from Israel who sings for peace in Hebrew, Arabic and English – alone and with many Palestinian partners. Visiting her at her home, she sings the famous Rabbi Nachman song All the World’s a Very Narrow Bridge. The frailty of the bridge is possibly what makes it so important in peacemaking. We can never feel totally confident, yet, as in the song, (in which Shira inserts the Mourner’s Kaddish), we need to not be afraid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiiRGq5BHi8
As of this writing in October 2025, a fragile peace is upon the land between the river and the sea. What kind of bridges will be built, what kind of walls will unite or divide, who will step forward across the narrow bridge and find common ground?
