Madison Rafah Journal

Geneva Initiative Representatives Daniel Levy and Rafi Dajani

Wednesday, April 13, 2005, 12 noon – 1 pm
WORT 89.9 FM interview by Esty Dinur

Tuesday, April 19, 2005, 6 pm
UW-Madison Humanities Bldg, Rm 3650

The Geneva Initiative (GI) is a joint Israeli-Palestinian effort that suggests a detailed model for a peace agreement to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – proving that peace is possible, demonstrating that partners for peace DO exist and preparing public opinion and leadership to be accepting of the real compromises required.

Brit Tzedek is working to actively engage the hearts and minds of the American Jewish community in support of a negotiated, two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the "Spirit of Geneva". For more than two years, moderate Israeli and Palestinian politicians, security experts, grassroots leaders, and intellectuals met under the sponsorship of the Swiss government to negotiate a draft final status agreement that would satisfy the needs and conditions of each side.

Continuing where previous negotiations left off, the negotiators created a draft agreement that specifies every detail for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. While this extra-governmental agreement has no international legal standing, those who negotiated and signed the Geneva Accord include many recognized political and security leaders from both societies.

The Geneva Accord has been mailed to every address in Israel and printed in Arabic in large-circulation daily newspapers read by Palestinians. As Israelis and Palestinians are reflecting on the possible final resolution of their conflict, Brit Tzedek v'Shalom encourages Americans to do the same.

(Read on …)

A Partners for Peace presentation

Sunday, April 10, 2005 — 4 pm
Memorial United Church of Christ
5705 West Lacy Rd.
Fitchburg

Monday, April 11, 2005 — 7 pm
First Unitarian Society Meeting House
900 University Bay Dr.
Madison

Sponsored by the Madison-Rafah Sister City Project (MRSCP) , The Peace and Justice Committee of the First Unitarian Society, and Memorial United Church of Christ.

Michael Brown of Partners for Peace will introduce the three speakers. Partners for Peace can be contacted at partnersforpeace.org and partnersforpeace@yahoo.com.

Story Teller/Song Writer Claire Norelle

Tuesday, March 29, 2005 — 7:30 PM
Sauk Prairie High School Library
105 9th Street, Prairie du Sac

Claire will share stories, music and slides from the week she spent last year singing with children and youth in a Palestinian peace education project.

She will sing songs in several languages and show artwork related to her involvement with various movements for peace and social justice over the last twenty years.

Now based in Madison, Norelle has traveled, lived and played music in many parts of the world. She interviewed women songwriters in resistance to Pinochet's dictatorship in Chile in the 80's, studied political art and printmaking with Chicano artist Malaquias Montoya in the early 90's, and earned an M.Ed. in community education with a focus on educational approaches to racism, privilege, and power.

For the past 15 years she has performed widely for children and families and has recorded two albums of songs in many languages for children. Also, she has been involved in coordinating cultural projects in Madison. Norelle currently works as music coordinator for The Crossing, an ecumenical center on the UW-Madison campus with an emphasis on peace and justice issues. She performs for libraries, schools, memorial services and peace demonstrations.

(Read on …)

DeKoven Center
600 21st St.
Racine, Wisconsin
7:30 p.m.

The concert will feature musicians participating in the Heartland Seminar on Arabic Music. Solo and ensemble performances will highlight seminar faculty and participants.

The Heartland Seminar's faculty musicians are: Hicham Chami of Chicago on qanun, Hanna Khoury of Philadelphia on violin, Scott Marcus of Santa Barbara on ney, Naser Musa of Los Angeles on vocals, Karim Nagi Mohammed of Boston on percussion, and Kareem Roustom of Boston on 'ud. The seminar instructors will be joined by guest percussionist Hamid Alwan of Milwaukee.

Seminar participants are from the Midwestern states as well as California, Colorado, Virginia, and Massachusetts.

The Heartland Seminar is sponsored by Xauen Music, a Chicago-based organization dedicated to preserving the heritage of classical Arabic, Sephardic, Turkish, and Armenian music.

(Read on …)

WHA 970 AM
3 – 4 pm

Teddy Katz of will be on WHA 970 AM from 3-4 pm on Ben Merens' call-in show. Teddy is on a U.S. tour and although he is not coming to Madison (he's speaking in Milwaukee that evening) you can listen to him and call in to the show with your comments and questions. If you call in, be sure to thank Ben for putting this on the air and note that they seldom do this.

(Read on …)