Children of War

Hatred, onstage and uncensored, through the eyes of Arab and Jewish children.

by Bruce Schimmel

What a difference a stage makes. Thirty years ago, native Philadelphian Melisse Lewine-Boskovich was a minor player in New York's Jewish Defense League (JDL), a controversial activist group notorious for its violence. Today, at 51, she directs Peace Child Israel, which brings together Arab and Jewish Israeli teens and lets them act out their differences on the stage.

At the moment, from the gloomy look on her face, it's clear these young actors — as they say in theater — are dying. "This thing needs to be cut," growls Boskovich in a voice that cuts through a clamor of Hebrew and Arabic. Despite the heat, she's dressed entirely in black, save for her trademark cowboy boots tipped with metal.

In this small community theater in a predominately Arab section of Tel Aviv, it's a distinctly divided audience. Half are classmates from a Jewish school, the other from an Arab school. But despite missed cues and flubbed lines, both sides loudly cheer their peers; they are the real raves Boskovich seeks.

Israel today is like America's segregated South 50 years ago. Except here, most people on both sides say they want to live apart. "In the eyes of some of each side's tribe," says Boskovich, "these kids are traitors." That these children found the courage to appear here, says Boskovich, makes them leading players for peace on a larger stage. "I don't care what their grandparents, their parents, or anyone else has told them," she says. "Once they've cooperated in a creative process, put on a show like this, and gotten so intimately together, thinking that the other side, the other culture, the other nation is an unbearable monster is no longer an option."

Peace Child Israel (PCI) is a quarter-million-dollar nonprofit that is currently guiding seven groups of 24 children — half each from neighboring Arab and Jewish schools — through a two-year theater program. Their work culminates in performances authored by the children. Everything is done in both Arabic and Hebrew since Arab and Jewish children mostly don't know each other's language. Each group works with both a theater director and a psychologist.

According to Boskovich, Peace Child's mission of repairing Israel's social fabric has become far more difficult since its founding in 1988. "Seventeen years ago, you didn't have to give them shrinks to do this kind of work." Now, she says, the atmosphere has become more "radioactive."

When Boskovich took over PCI in 1998, the children did "a lot of Romeo and Juliet programs, and there was more humor. When I got here, Monica Lewinsky showed up in one of the shows. Now we have suicide martyrs."

About three years ago, as Israel started building walls to keep out terrorists, walls also appeared onstage. In today's performance, called On the Other Side, a six-foot wall dominates the set. The story is set in a city divided because of an argument between some girls.

The show ends with a talent contest that includes, curiously, such classic American kid songs like "76 Trombones" and "Zippity Doo Dah" translated into Arabic and Hebrew.

This particular play ends on a positive note, but that isn't always so, says Boskovich. She insists she won't censor the children's stories, wherever they go.

Boskovich remembers another group after news of a suicide bombing. "On the Jewish side, everyone got upset, but the Arab kids had a party," recalls Boskovich. " They wanted the Jewish kids to understand why they're not so sad about a terrorist bombing.

"A week away from another show, the Arab kids put in a scene where Palestinians in Gaza are killed, and the Jewish children went crazy. They said, "How can you be so mean, when we were so nice to you?'"

But the Arab children held fast. "You can't censor," says Boskovich, "but you have to be smart."

So Boskovich put the Jewish kids in a room and videotaped their discussion. "Then we put the video into the show. It took more processing, more discussion, more frames, but censoring is something which I won't do."

Boskovich understands firsthand how theater can heal. She got a masters in theater from Villanova University after her own foray into violence in her JDL days in the early '70s. "I just hope there's a statute of limitations," she says.

After the show, about a dozen children gather around a table for a meal. They're serving each other out of great bowls of hummus, salad and olives. I can't understand a thing, but clearly they're jabbering happily, as translators frantically try to keep up. An Arab girl motions me to join them. I smile back, but decline: this meal is for them to make and share.

Peace Child Israel will bring a group of Arab and Jewish children to Philadelphia in January 2006. For more information: www.mideastweb.org/peacechild.

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