Saturday, March 13, 2010

Me and My Big Mouth

Earlier this evening, I attended the demonstration against segregated bus lines in Jerusalem.

Setting up

Demonstration 1

Demonstration 3

While everyone was still arriving, before the speakers began, the sound system was playing classic popular Israeli songs. After listening for some time, I realized that I hadn’t heard a single female vocalist. I approached one of the organizers and asked why no female vocalists were on the recording that they were playing. After all, this was a demonstration against forcing women to sit in the back of the bus... and the silencing of women’s voices is a subject close to my heart. “I’m religiously observant,” I told the organizer who spoke to me, “and I’m also a singer.”

“In that case, maybe we’ll have you sing ‘Ha-tikvah’ at the end of the demonstration,” she said.

And so it was. After the last speaker spoke, the emcee introduced me, and I got up onto the stage and led the crowd in our national anthem.

Me and my big mouth.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Comments are moderated. If you're a spammer, don't waste your keystrokes. If you're a real, honest-to-goodness commenter, welcome!