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Poetry Reading Hushes
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49

RIMY FFRRHARY 19 19R

Performers Stephanie Ozer and Hassan Nawash: A poetic monologue?

recent reading of Pal-
estinian and Israeli
poetry in Ann Arbor
was advertised as a dialogue
event in which the "pain and
hopes of both sides" would be
heard. "From Shards of
Broken Dreams to Fragments
of Hope" was the title of the
Feb. 7 reading at the
Kerrytown Concert Hall,
sponsored by Ann Arbor's
New Jewish Agenda and
several interfaith groups.
Stephanie Ozer, an
American Jew who performs
in various local musical and
theatrical productions, and
Hassan Nawash, a Palesti-
nian living in Detroit, read
from their own work and
selected poems from their
respective sides of the Israeli-
Palestinian conflict. The au-
dience of 75 filled the hall
and, according to organizers,
was a well-rounded group con-
sisting of Jews, Palestinians,
and people who were
members of neither group.
No other Jewish or Arab
groups were tapped to cospon-
sor the event because, Agen-
da organizers explained, they
were unable to help finance
the poetry reading.
Benjamin Ben Baruch, a
member of Ann Arbor New
Jewish Agenda's coordinating
committee and chairman of
its Middle East committee,
said he hoped the event
"would help everyone explore
the roots of everyone else's
pain. Culture," he continued,
"brings us above the level of
old, stale rhetoric we've been
using for years, which too
often has been narrow and
nationalistic."

However, in her introduc-
tion to the audience before
the poets' reading, Deborah
Ehrlich, an organizer of the
event, abandoned evenhand-
edness and stated: "Israelis
have seen their democracy
corrupted and the original
Zionist vision distorted
beyond recognition!'
Nawash and Ozer's poetry
was rich in images of Israeli
violence, identity cards,
massacres, "cultural rape,
blood anger. A line from a
poem Nawash read about
land confiscation entitled
"God is a Refugee," said: "If
you squeezed a loaf of bread,
my blood would flow from
your bread on your hands."
Most of the work Nawash
read was replete with
violence: "I eat the flesh of
my oppressor . . . beware of
my anger!' Another poem
went, "After they have burn-
ed my country and my youth,
how can they stop my poems
from becoming guns?" In his
poem on land expropriation,
Nawash declared: "Carry on
your excesses, injustices and
death . . . Round up the
schoolgirls, feed them to your
prison . . . We'll fight your
darkness!'

Ozer began by citing a por-
tion of Israel's Declaration of
Independence, which referred
to Israel's openness toward
minorities, to illustrate,
presumably, the distance she
perceives - between Israel's
promise and its contemporary
reality. Other works were
from popular songs,
newspaper articles and
figures far more political than
literary. A couple of Ozer's
poems expressed a deep
repugnance for war, such as a
song by Hannah Levin, which

