Ashamed to Admit
Are you ashamed to admit you're not across the big issues and events affecting Jews in Australia, Israel and around the Jewish world?
In this new podcast from online publication The Jewish Independent, Your Third Cousin Tami Sussman and TJI's Dashiel Lawrence tackle the week's 'Chewiest and Jewiest' topics.
Ashamed to Admit
Episode #25 Celebrating Mizrahi music, food, and heritage with Shai Shriki
For too long, the stories and culture of Mizrahi Jews – Jews from the Middle East, North Africa and Asia – have been unrecognised and unrepresented in Australia's Jewish community. Yet Mizrahi music, food, and culture have enriched Jewish traditions and cultural life for generations, weaving vibrant threads into the tapestry of Jewish identity – in Israel, Australia and Jewish communities worldwide. In a Mizrahi Heritage Month special, Tami and Dash meet Shai Shriki, a Jewish-Moroccan musician born in Israel who lives in the Northern Rivers of NSW, playing music and crafting the traditional instruments of his Mizrahi ancestors.
Relevant articles:
https://thejewishindependent.com.au/a-muslim-country-that-honours-its-jewish-heritage
https://thejewishindependent.com.au/a-new-incarnation-of-the-fake-jew-furphy
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Are you interested in issues affecting Jews in Australia, europe, the Middle East and North Africa? But a little bit ashamed that you're barely keeping up to date, that you just don't have enough prerequisite knowledge to hold your own family dinners.
Speaker 2:Well, you've come to the right place. I'm Nash Lawrence and in this podcast series, your third cousin, tammy Sussman, and I call on experts and each other to address all the ignorant questions that you might be a little ashamed to ask.
Speaker 1:Join us as we have a go at cutting through some seriously chewy and dewy topics.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Jewish Independent Podcast. A shame to admit. Hello everyone, I'm Dash Lawrence, executive Director here at the Jewish Independent.
Speaker 1:And I'm your group chat troll, Tammy Sussman. I blew up the family WhatsApp group chat. The other day.
Speaker 1:Dash, it's with my Mexican in-laws. All I asked was is the late matriarch's heritage Iraqi or Syrian? Someone responded yes. I said Syrian, thumbs up. Someone else responded the patriarch's parents mum Turkish, dad from Egypt. Someone else said no, matriarch's mum Lebanon and dad Iran. Then we get a hmm emoji. Then someone else weighs in All wrong Exclamation mark. My brother-in-law weighs in. Cousin Moy literally showed me your grandpa's passport. The matriarch's dad and place of birth is Iran. She was not born in Mexico. We get an actual photo of the passport. Then someone launches into an essay. It's in Spanish, I can't quite understand it. Then at some point it gets to. Why are we fighting about this? And someone says it's Tammy's fault and I respond it's always Tammy's fault. But the reason I asked that question, dash, is because it's Mizrahi, heritage Month.
Speaker 2:It is.
Speaker 1:And when I became aware of Mizrahi Heritage Month, I remembered that my own children, they, have Mizrahi ancestry and I was curious to know which specific countries that Mizrahi heritage related to. In doing so, I blew up the Mexican in-laws family WhatsApp chat. I apologise to all those family members listening.
Speaker 2:I'm not sure there was a Middle Eastern country left out of that. Pretty much every country in the Middle East was included in that debate, it's true, hey, that's fantastic. There's clearly a very rich history on your in-laws side of the family. I hope you get to the bottom of that one.
Speaker 1:I'll leave that to them. I'll just make the mess and then let them clean it up. Dash, if I'm being super honest, which I always try to be on this podcast, I'm ashamed to admit I wasn't aware of the term Mizrahi identities until quite recently, like embarrassingly recently. I went to Jewish day schools. For 12 years of my life I've lived in Jewish communities or adjacent to Jewish communities, had loads of Jewish friends, but I always thought that there were just two types of Jew there's the Ashkenazi Jew and then there's the Sephardi Jew. And I expressed this to a Mizrahi Jew a week ago and he told me not to beat myself up too much about it.
Speaker 2:I actually thought Mizrahi and Sephardic were interchangeable.
Speaker 1:Well, if we want to get really specific about it, apparently the Sephardi Jews are the ones who come from Spain. So my Turkish family are Sephardi because they are from Spain, originally from the Holy Land, but then ended up in Spain, and they are the Sephardi Jews. And then the Mizrahi Jews are from Syria, lebanon generally considered Mizrahi due to their Middle Eastern origins and cultural practices. But they also do identify with Sephardic traditions because of the historical influence of Spanish Jewry on their religious practices customs liturgy Dash. Did you even know that there was such a thing as Mizrahi Heritage Month?
Speaker 2:No, I wasn't aware that this was a month that existed and that November was the month. But you know, I think it's a good thing because it's like just thinking here about Australia and the Australian Jewish community probably going to get this wrong. But I think it's around somewhere between 5% to 10% of the Australian Jewish community are said to have some Mizrahi or Sephardic heritage, so you're talking about a small slice of the community, but not an insignificant one. Yet there's not often been enough of an awareness and acknowledgement of the incredible rich culture, the music, the food, the particular traditions that go with this part of Jewish civilization.
Speaker 1:Dash do you think you might need to check the 88-page document from the JCA?
Speaker 2:It's not in there Really Because it wasn't a question asked in the census, much to the frustration of, I know, maya Samra, who is one of the few people that have spent a lot of time researching this part of the Australian Jewish population and community, and I know that Maya has long wanted there to be better statistics and numbers on this part of the Australian Jewish population. So it's really just an estimate they think I believe. Apologies, I've got this wrong, maya. It's somewhere within the 5,000 to 10,000 mark, but Maya is also a great advocate for the celebration of Mizrahi culture and he, among several other people, including Elana Benjamin, a Sydney journalist and cookbook author who hopefully we'll have on the pod in the not too distant future, have certainly been some of those people that have really been an advocate for this part of the community and really wanted to see the kind of spotlighting on these traditions and these rituals and these aspects of Jewish civilization.
Speaker 1:You said that you appreciate the fact that we have a Mizrahi Heritage Month. I don't know how I feel about it. It's kind of similar to having International Women's Day that some people can see it as a bit tokenistic or a bit of a band-aid. I think that platforming Mizrahi voices shouldn't be restricted to one month in November, and that's something that I think the Jewish Independent is making a genuine effort to do in Australia and that's something that we've been making an effort to do on this podcast. Last season we had George Ezra and Itai Flesher on the show spoke about their Iraqi heritage. However, we did think it would be remiss of us not to have a special Mizrahi episode, special Mizrahi episode, mizrahi or Mizrahi. You know, the Mexicans say Mizrachi.
Speaker 2:Oh right, okay, Yep, in keeping with mariachi.
Speaker 1:Well done, dash. I actually think that's one of your best, so we are going to have a special Mizrahi episode today.
Speaker 2:We are.
Speaker 1:And if you, dear listener, are feeling ashamed that you did not know that this was Mizrahi Heritage Month, no need to feel ashamed, because even today's guest did not know that it was Mizrahi Heritage Month, and he is a Mizrahi Jew. We'll get to his bio in a minute, but just a bit of background on Mizrahi Heritage Month Dash. Do you know how long it's been around for?
Speaker 2:I think we're coming up to the 10th anniversary this year.
Speaker 1:Did you know that off the top of your head or did you read that?
Speaker 2:Of course I'm just a walking chat, GPT.
Speaker 1:Mizrahi Heritage Month was established in 2014, when the Israeli Knesset designated November 30 as the annual national day of commemoration for the 850,000 Jewish refugees displaced from Arab countries and Iran in the 20th century. This initiative led to the broader recognition of November as Mizrahi Heritage Month, aiming to honour and celebrate the rich cultural heritage and contributions of Mizrahi Jews.
Speaker 2:And when it comes to cultural heritage and contributions, there's so many things you can think of Food, fashion, art, crafts, music and it's really music I think that we wanted to spotlight today. Our guest today is Shai Shrihi, a vocalist, wood player, guitar player, composer and writer of contemporary music. Guitar player, composer and writer of contemporary music. Shai believes that the unique sound of traditional instruments and songs can be a meeting and bridging place for people to live in harmony. He sings in Hebrew, in Arabic, in Spanish, together with the songs of Eastern Europe. Shai was born in Israel to a Jewish, moroccan family, but these days he lives in the northern rivers in the far north of New South Wales, where he surfs, plays music and makes traditional instruments.
Speaker 1:Shai was an absolute delight to interview. I was personally so surprised by his unique perspective. So we really hope that you enjoy our interview with Shai Shrieky. Shai Shrieky, thank you so much for joining us, thank you Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2:And a very happy Mizrahi Heritage Month to you, Shai.
Speaker 3:Is that a?
Speaker 2:thing, it is.
Speaker 1:It started in 2014.
Speaker 3:Wow, yeah Cool. That's very racist of you. Exactly Cool, that's very racist of you.
Speaker 1:Exactly.
Speaker 2:Shai, can you tell our audience who you are and where you and your family come from?
Speaker 3:Yes, so my name is Shai Shriki and I was born in Israel, in Haifa, to a Moroccan Jewish family. Both my parents were born in Casablanca in Morocco, and my grandparents come from other parts of Morocco but they ended up in Casablanca, actually in the same area, in the Malach, which is like the Jewish quarter of Casablanca and also like the. It's like the business center. You know the it's like the business center. You know it's like the market and the thing. It's called Malach because one of the main trades there was salt, and Malach in Hebrew as well, as you know, malach in Moroccan Arabic it's salt. That was kind of like the name of that area.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so it was amazing to go there and you know, see where my parents were born and they were like in these little streets and all the, the market still, you know very much alive and hustling and bustling, you know, and like full of people and shops, and so that's pretty cool. And my dad's family arrived in Israel in the mid 50s and and my dad was a kid, he was one of seven, and then my mom's family. They arrived to Israel much later, in 67. She's one of six and they all arrived to the same town in Israel.
Speaker 1:Why did they leave Morocco?
Speaker 3:Good question On my dad's side, after, know, after 48 and all that, and the country was formed and all the Jewish people from all over the world being called, you know, and it's something that, for them, traditionally, was something that they have been waiting for for 2000 years. So it wasn't like ideological, it was more like of a spiritual aspect of it, and it was like the time to come back to the promised land, you know, and come back to the original heritage of who we are as Jewish people and the land that we're indigenous to and all these aspects of being Jewish. They had great lives in Morocco. They had a house and they raised seven kids. Yeah, they just packed up everything and took seven kids.
Speaker 3:My grandmother's aunt was living with them and she lived till about 100 years old. Yeah, they moved from simple but beautiful life to a maabara, which is like a tin shed, you know, in a little eucalyptus grove, and, yeah, my grandfather came in and straight away extended and built a kitchen and brought chickens and, you know, made it happen, you know, and it was pretty amazing, wow.
Speaker 3:Yeah pretty challenging, you know, but it was the philosophy of like this is our time to populate again, to renew the language, to be the first Israelis to revive this Well, not the first, but some of the first, because there's been Jewish people there before 48 to revive that.
Speaker 1:It sounds like it was a spiritual calling or a yearning.
Speaker 3:In a way, it was because they were all Jewish religious, not like some Orthodox in this, but very traditional in their ways, and they were very much believers and trusting in that. You know, this is what they need to do now and just went for it. And they were the people that 2,000 years old promise is now is the time for it. It was a calling. It wasn't like, oh, let's move over there, there's a better future and a good job. It was complete opposite, you know.
Speaker 2:They actually had to go back a step or a few steps in life and we know now that many Mizrahim, like your family, experienced a lot of discrimination and marginalisation and economically the opportunities weren't there in the way that they had enjoyed from some of the countries and the places they'd come from. Was that your family's experience, Shai?
Speaker 3:Yes, you know, as a general thing, I guess, feeling of discriminations with jobs. But my family is not that kind of people to take it on. They just do what they do and they make something out of nothing and they're happy people. The challenges are the challenges of life, but the family is the core. You know, I very much, were brought up in that environment of like the family time and on the weekend, and you know my grandmothers would cook since Tuesday for Shabbat, you know that was the thing. You know there's a hundred people coming and the neighbors and the guests or whoever knocks on the door, they're all welcome, you know, and there's always enough food and abundance for everyone. And it was that kind of mentality, you know. So, in a way, even if the discrimination was there or some of them have maybe experienced it in one way or another, there was never talk about it or never like the energy of feeling lesser than anyone. You know, they just did what they do, they got the jobs that they could.
Speaker 3:We never had a feeling of like we're missing something or we're needing something. We knew that we don't have much money, but we do whatever we need to do and we as kids, you know we wouldn't really like to do and we as kids, you know we wouldn't really like ask for much really, but we would give him whatever we need and what we want. So there wasn't a lacking kind of mentality. We didn't feel poor, even in different difficult times and I know my parents had difficult times but it wasn't presented to us as kids and as a family. It was like we do our best with what we have and we are happy people and we party and we go to the beach and we have the family joining and eating together and singing songs and having a great time and laughing and telling stories and running around as kids, you know, and like wild and yeah.
Speaker 1:Were you aware of your Mizrahi heritage growing up, or was it just like a part of your life?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was aware of it, but not in a negative way, and also I come from the generation of the change. It was definitely alive. You know the whole.
Speaker 1:Mizrahi.
Speaker 3:Ashkenazi, all this kind of thing.
Speaker 1:A conflict. What do you mean? This kind of thing?
Speaker 3:No, not a conflict, but some kind of like the leftovers of this kind of separation. I was born in 79, so the generation before us it was like the ones that experienced it more than us and, if anything, it started becoming cool. So we were the generation of like flipping it to being cool because we're pretty cool.
Speaker 1:You are pretty cool.
Speaker 2:And also by this point, mizrahim constituted a much larger proportion of the Israeli population by the 1980s, whereas in the early years they were a smaller slice of the Israeli population. But I'm not quite sure what the figures were, but Israel was largely constituted by Mizrahim, and so things had shifted, hadn't they? By the time you were obviously coming of age, perhaps, for our listeners who aren't aware of Mizrahim culture, give us a bit of a sense of your experience of it and how it is different to the Ashkenazi culture that also sits side by side with Mizrahim in Israel.
Speaker 3:I think the main elements of any culture, whatever it is, usually lands on music, food and art. That's kind of like the generalization of what makes a culture. When you go traveling anywhere in the world, this will usually draw you in to go and be interested. And then you have the street cultures, you have the concerts, you have the amazing food, the restaurants, the upper class of that food, the family vibe of that food, you know, and like all these kind of things. So at a starting point I think that is kind of like what makes those different cultures in Israel kind of separate. So it starts with the food, you know, because every home will have a completely different story. Israel's melting pot is just like an amazing place for food period. Like we've traveled the world, we've seen places. I love, so many different kinds of food.
Speaker 2:What were your grandmothers, for instance, cooking you described before? On the Tuesday, they'd be preparing for Shabbat. What would they be cooking typically?
Speaker 3:So when you go into my family home, first of all they love the animals, Not in a vegan way, sorry.
Speaker 1:Sorry to all the vegans listening, yes, sorry vegans.
Speaker 3:I respect you a lot but, um, yeah, they would have quite a lot of. You know fish to start with, and then you know the chickens and then the beef and the lamb and you know all these kind of things and, um, there would be a lot of food that is like um, to use a simple, but it's just insane flavors. So you had the couscous. You know you had all the chicken with the couscous and it's usually with like a sweet kind of like sauce or spice. Yeah, no more like vegetables. You know like it would be carrots and pumpkins and it's all the sweet stuff. You know potato and then you know, within the spices, you'll have like the salt of course, and all that, the lemony bits, but like you will have the cinnamon, the nutmeg, cumin, turmeric.
Speaker 3:You know all these kind of things that like just explode, you know in your mouth, like just explode, you know in your mouth. And then all the different grains or you know like different kinds of lentils or beans or you know, but just insane combinations of flavors and slow cooks and quick and a hundred million salads. You know that were all in little dishes all around the big table, quite a wide range, and it was just amazing, you know to to have that privilege, to to have that kind of food every week. Every week every friday, every saturday, and then the leftovers on the monday and tuesday, and then whatever you know keeps on coming. You know meatballs in like tomato sauces and like just crazy amazing stuff. And with that, especially on my mom's side, um, there's the music.
Speaker 3:You know that everybody would like eat a lot and drink and you know drink alak and you know a bit of whiskey or whatever. And then you know sit there on the table and eat, and you know and pray and do this. You know the the rituals and you know sit there on the table and eat and you know pray and do this. You know the rituals and you know get all the prayers in and some will go to the synagogue and come back, and then we all sit together and then get the instruments out and start singing and playing. Now, that would be something.
Speaker 2:So music was there from the very start for you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, before I could walk, before anything, before I could see, probably, but I could hear. Before I was born. I could hear like all of us.
Speaker 3:But yeah so that was something interesting because the first time I've experienced something that was quite a difference between the Ashkenazi and the. It just came to my mind when I was talking about playing music because we would play music in Shabbat. My mind when I was talking about playing music because we would play music in Shabbat. Now, the first time that I experienced the difference was my first partner. She was an Australian Jewish girl from Sydney, from Eastern suburbs.
Speaker 1:It wasn't me, was it?
Speaker 3:No, it wasn't you. No, okay, good yeah, it wasn't me, was it? No, it wasn't you.
Speaker 1:No, okay, good yeah.
Speaker 3:We were invited to a holiday for my ex-partner and they were religious and they made the sukkah and it was really beautiful and they invited all of us. And we come there and beautiful table full of food and you know, and we talk and we laugh and we sit in the sukkah and we do the prayers. And at some moment, you know, we talk and we laugh and we sit in the sukkah and we do the prayers. And at some moment, you know, I was like, oh yeah, ok, this is a good time for a song. So I went to the back room, grabbed my guitar or my oud. I don't remember what I had, but like, I grabbed it and I sat down and I was like, and they all went no, no, no, no, no.
Speaker 3:And I went wow, ok, what's happening? I didn't realize what was going on. So they explained to me that because it's a high holiday, which is like Shabbat, then they don't play the instruments.
Speaker 3:They just sing, they would clap, maybe, or they would just sing along with the voices, but they wouldn't use instruments. And it was a huge shock for me. I was like I respected that. I put a guitar straight away. I didn't know that because I'm not used to it. For us, we sing and play music anytime, you know, and it was really big and I think that it's something to do. Maybe correct me if I'm wrong, but it's something to do with the Ashkenazi Jews, orthodox or religious. You know they will not use instruments until the temple is being built. So it's some kind of like a known tradition that you don't play the instruments in Shabbat, like you don't drive a car and like you don't turn the light on or like cooking and all these kind of things. So it also comes within that until the temple will be built.
Speaker 1:I hadn't heard that, but that's a possibility.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so in your family do you play instruments in Shabbat?
Speaker 1:My family wasn't religious, so we were watching TV on Shabbat. I went to a modern Orthodox school in Australia in the eastern suburbs and, yes, we were taught that you could not play music on Shabbat.
Speaker 3:But you wouldn't get told why.
Speaker 1:I mean, they quite possibly did, and I wasn't a very good student. That's kind of how this podcast came to be Shai, okay, but from my understanding I thought it was through the prism of it's, because it's like work or the same reason why you? Don't write or drive. Did you break up that evening? When you got home, Were you like I can't be with someone whose family doesn't play music. No, not even close.
Speaker 3:We didn't break up because of that, but it was a big shock for me, yeah, and it was, um, something that was so in my root, it was rooted inside my soul. You know. It was something that was, uh, very intimate with who I am. I guess you know and like and and for me, not from an ego place, but it was like a place of like, oh, now we get the guitar out and we sing together and we celebrate and it's so natural. You know, it wasn't like, oh, look at me playing a song and I want to. It's got nothing to do with it. It kind of closed me. I remember the feeling of like being closed off.
Speaker 2:Shah, you mentioned two instruments earlier that were a central part of your early life and continue to play a central part of your life the guitar. And the second instrument is a wood, which is an instrument listeners may not have heard of.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so the wood, the little history lesson, is a string instrument. Shah's just going to retrieve the case for his oud, the traditional form of that oud, because this one is not, and I'll tell you the story of that in a second.
Speaker 2:Just to help the listener understand, it sort of almost looks like it's a big bowl that comes out.
Speaker 1:I would say it looks like half a cantaloupe, or Half a cantaloupe or half a pumpkin.
Speaker 3:So this is more like the traditional form of the instrument. The earliest artefact they found of that instrument is 5,000 years ago, so from around Mesopotamia time. So Mesopotamia was like this very big region you know of, like the whole of the Middle East you know, before it was divided to all the more modern kind of countries, you know Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Israel, and it probably went down to Jordan and all those other areas.
Speaker 3:You know they call it the cradle of humanity and what happened was it's been played for many, many years and been a part of Arabic music for thousands of years and possibly also in Jewish music and Hebrew music, like other instruments.
Speaker 3:But there's a beautiful story that in the year 711, a musician he was an Iraqi musician that traveled through North Africa and got all the way to Morocco and then crossed Gibraltar into Spain, which Spain was Moorish, you know, under like a Muslim rule in Andalusia, in Spain, and he brought the oud with him. So he introduced that instrument to Europe and Europe already had, like you know, classical music and all sorts of other things. So if you look at it, it's got no frets, like a guitar usually has frets, so this one is a fretless instrument. Like a violin usually have frets, so this one is a fretless instrument. Like a violin. They actually introduced the frets on it and could play Western music on that, which later on became like the lute and all the instruments coming out of the lute and the Baroque music and all these kind of things, and then the mandolins and many, many different forms of these instruments, which later on became a guitar. So the guitar is an evolution of this oud, and the oud is kind of like the grandmother of the guitar.
Speaker 1:So the guitar is racist, the guitar is young, okay.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the people are racist.
Speaker 2:The oud was there in your family from the early stage. As I understand, your grandfather was a very successful, respected singer and oud player in Morocco.
Speaker 3:Yes, so I grew up with it all my life, you know, I listened to it all my life and, yeah, when you're a young teenager, you don't really feel like playing these instruments. These are old people, music, you know. So all you want to do is rock and roll and have loud amplifiers and distortion pedals.
Speaker 1:So that's what I did.
Speaker 3:But came around and there was like a big movement in the mid-90s in Israel, process of like.
Speaker 3:Rabin and Arafat and all these, like time in Israel it was like a really big time of the peace movement. And then Sheva started releasing music in 97. And then the beginning of the Second Intifada and all that, and we all went back to the roots, you know, and like started playing this music again. You know, that was still in my home the whole time, but I didn't pick it up yet, really, you know. So then I did and just created the whole fusion between the guitar and the oud and many other instruments like this.
Speaker 3:Now, if I can, I'd like to share a cool story with you, and I do woodwork and art and I really love it. And in 2016, which was years after playing a lot of you know, like loud music on stages and stuff like that which, like the oud, doesn't take very well on stage, it becomes this feedback machine and you've got to eq it and adjust it so much that the sound is lost a lot of the times so I decided I need an electric oud, and all the electric ouds that were out there were not the sound that I was looking for, so I designed one
Speaker 3:and went to a friend that is a really good instrument maker that he's been teaching me for years you know how to do it. I actually spoke to him today after a long time and I showed him the design and said, oh man, can you build this for me? And he said, no, you build it you. You already know how to do this. You just I'll be here for you and you've got all the tools and everything and and you build it. So I made it and it was like a combination between you know the stories of my grandparents from my dad's side and the story of my grandfather, my grandparents from my mom's side of the craftsmanship, and the story of my grandfather, my grandparents from my mom's side, of the craftsmanship and the mastery. They were masters of the craftsmanship and I have a lot of uncles that do amazing things sculptures and painting and metal work and woodwork and all these kind of things and my mom's side, they're all musicians. They play the flutes, the percussion, the oud, the singing, the clapping, the dancing, all that and I fused all this energy and heritage into this oud that is behind me and it's been with me since 2016 and really went through the test of what an instrument is Because you travel with it, you put it on airplanes, you chuck it in the car, in the van, and then you plug it in and it's got a great sound. Every time Small little setups or a house concert or Woodford stage, you know, with lots of people, or festivals, weddings, private functions it just plugs in and just plays beautifully.
Speaker 3:So this rosette here in the middle, it's something that takes me about six hours to make and it's all carved by hand and all that. So when I made this design, I thought, okay, I'm going to be sitting on this for a few hours cutting, like you know, and like focused. So I better have an intention with it. And I thought what would be my intention? What would I want these instruments to project every time I play it? I combined Hebrew and Arabic together and they say shalom, salam. So the Hebrew readers will be able to read it and the Arabic readers will be able to read it, and the Arabic readers will be able to read it even if they don't read in Hebrew or Arabic.
Speaker 3:So they're constantly merged into the center here and then there's like all these infinity signs all the way around and then like little inlays of turquoise, which is like water, because this is a desert instrument. So it's kind of like the oasis in the desert when you reach that beautiful area of water and and the landscape become dislike, like in the movies, you know, with the palm trees and the day and the figs, and then all around the infinity and the and the Oasis, there's all these love hearts with flowers around it and it's all carved love hearts with flowers around it and it's all carved, you know, by hand. So I know that it's quite a cliche, but it turned out to be peace and infinite love. So it's the peace and the infinity, and then the love hearts and I realized cliche or not, you know, slogan or not like that's what I want my instrument to project at any time, because it's the essence of what we want and what we actually all need.
Speaker 3:We need peaceful time within ourselves and our environment, our families, our partners, our neighborhood, our town, our country, our planet, our neighborhood, our town, our country, our planet. It's something that we all really want in our hearts to be in peace and an infinite love is something that we constantly need to feel and feed. So it's something that when we lack, we are closed off or it's something that we actually reach out for and when we have it, it just washes us with this. You know, it makes us step into who we are truly, because we feel loved and we feel appreciated and heard and everything that comes with it. But it comes from this basic element and feeling of love. So I decided that Peace and Infinite Love would be the. Every note that comes out of this instrument would project that, if there's listeners or not, but it will keep projecting it, even when I sit by myself.
Speaker 2:Shah. It's beautiful sentiment and it really is very rare to find in this time, this polarized age, an artist that puts that at the centre of their music and their creation. I'm aware that particularly in the last 12 months, you've faced some pretty nasty anti-Israel and some would even say anti-Semitic sentiments, sadly, from people in your part of Australia and other places that you've been touring In the wake of the October 7th attacks and people seeing you as an Israeli and labelling you all kinds of things that don't at all accord with who you are and what you do in the world. I'm just interested how you've been navigating those difficult moments how you've been navigating those difficult moments.
Speaker 3:So in the bigger picture, I got only a handful of anti-Semitic behavior from people that I believe that are just maybe lacking something in their world and need to be heard without judgment. That's my feeling, and I was a part of a beautiful event with Aziz Abusara that I was invited to be a part of and it was amazing to me to share a bit of music and a bit of words. You know, and Aziz has been speaking around the world and I love his work and I really, really appreciate him as a person.
Speaker 1:Who's Aziz sorry.
Speaker 2:I'll just fill in for the listeners. Last year, shai participated in a conversation with a Palestinian peacemaker, aziz Abu Sara, who came to Australia, and also there was a concert that you've been facilitating recently, shai.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So to go on tour or like a few events with a Palestinian peace activist, you know as an Israeli, was something that got a bit of heat because it was very fresh. It was in November, after the 7th of October it was super fresh. So I got that heat from Israelis as well, from friends that were novel survivors or people that really went through something horrible, horrific, horrific, horrific and they couldn't really compute that. That's what I'm doing now, even though they would be like people that usually would be for peace and stuff like that. But now it's time of war and it didn't work for them.
Speaker 3:The time doing peace things in the middle of war when this horrible thing just happened. It was hard to receive and a lot of the people that call slogan I believe they come from their good heart to contribute to the situation. They don't like seeing babies killed in Gaza, and that's mostly of what you get in the news and you get bombarded with it daily on social media and all these kind of things. So when you see that all day long, that's not cool, you know. Unfortunately, you don't see the full picture, which is like the whole of the north of Israel getting bombed constantly, the Israeli soldiers that are being killed and all the villages and the surrounding Gaza that have been bombed for years and years, and years, and years and years.
Speaker 3:You know, daily, weekly, whatever it is. All the time. When I speak to people about that, they go what are you talking about? And I go yeah, it's been going on for a year. My family, my sister, lives seven kilometers from the Lebanese border. I get their messages daily on our WhatsApp group the family WhatsApp group a few times a day. Missiles and all that. There's a miracle that Israel has this technology to protect itself. It's an absolute miracle. If we didn't have that, many people would have been dead already because there was so much attack that is happening from the other side, so much attack that is happening from the other side. Now to point the finger and blame the terror groups or the Israeli government, I believe, from my little point of view, that we only contribute to the soup of war and blame.
Speaker 1:It's not productive.
Speaker 3:It's not productive and it's not going to take us anywhere. It's only going to take us to quiet times. And the next word because that's how it's been. So I'm not saying that there's no problem. There's a huge problem and we cannot ignore the problems, but we can bring them up in a conversation to see what kind of solutions we can actually get out of this. A lot of the people that are actually talking about it are quiet people that are not going on social media and say you know, on social media you see a lot of like blame or poor me, look at me. This is what we're experiencing. If everything has a place and I appreciate anyone's posts and this I just don't see that to be my way and I don't see that to be productive from my point of view.
Speaker 2:How have you chosen to respond in your everyday life and when you face some of the discrimination that you have?
Speaker 3:My personal way was that I actually cancelled all my gigs this year and I had to go through my own healing being available for my family and speak to my family in Israel and being available to my community here and helping out with some of the events.
Speaker 3:I went into a shutdown, but I had to sometimes be stronger than that and sometimes let it all shut down so I would just record music, I surf, I would go to my workshop and make dust and get into the tools and stuff like that, um and make art and um. These are my tools for healing. Generally speaking, you know, it's like it's what I do for a living, but it's also my, my journey as a human being and it's my go-to, for this is how I maintain my mental ability to stay in a good place, and there was one or two that I could not cancel because otherwise it would be putting people in their strange positions and also that's how I make a living. So it was a you know necessary, and then the rest of the time was just home time and when I see somebody on Facebook or Instagram or on the street or somebody that you know would go into that like you know, head to head, head to head or like I see.
Speaker 3:You know, I would make a post or comment and there will be like stuff written and all these kind of things on the attack. Yeah, on the attack.
Speaker 3:I usually just go to private if it's someone especially well, only when it's somebody that I know really, but like I wouldn't. I wouldn't react to any of it on my threads or my or stuff that I read. But I would actually spend hours with people on the phone to have conversation or-face, and it's been amazing. It's been incredible. Every time that I've engaged in that way, there was a conversation, there was room for listening, there was even if there's no understanding or eye-to-eye, at least there's a good exchange. Eye to eye, at least there's a good exchange and you know that there's a human sitting in front of you and is being heard and also listened. And that's where it lies. You know you want to fight, fight. Leave me out of it. I don't want to be a part of it. I'm not interested, I don't have energy for it. I don't need to be right, I don't need to be wrong, I don't need to prove something to anyone. I believe that our path is already our path and we just need to look for the cracks of light, and that's my journey. You know I look for this crack. Go to that light. Even if somebody is not seeing eye to eye, at least we are in a good place. We can hug at the end of it and go both ways and take from the conversation whatever we took. You know, that is my position and the message for me. If I had to put a message out, there is like to have more tolerance for that.
Speaker 3:I think that right now, when everything is so hot, softening and trying to find more information, find out the big picture and speaking to people of all kinds of sides is a better way than saying what you have to say from your perspective or sometimes limited information. Information For us it goes down as we grew up there. We were raised there, our family is there. We understand the subcultural meaning of it. If you are not from there, you cannot understand. I will not go into other cultures and tell them what I think they should be doing. We don't understand the intricacies and the nuances of what a language holds or what everyday life subcultural things hold. It's deep and it's like you don't get that in the news, you only get it on the streets and you get it through the years of living there beautiful and thank you for sharing because I know that you know it's still pretty raw for you thanks guys, thank you for sharing because I know that you know it's still pretty raw for you.
Speaker 1:Thanks, guys, Thank you, that's it for another week You've been listening to A Shame to Admit, with me Tammy Sussman and executive director of the Jewish Independent, dr Dashiell Lawrence. This episode was mixed and edited by Nick King, with theme music at the top by Donovan Jenks. If you like the podcast, leave a positive review, tell your people about it or encourage your third cousin's cousin to sponsor an episode or two.
Speaker 2:You can tell us what you're ashamed to admit?
Speaker 1:Or what you're not ashamed to admit. But you really should be ashamed to admit.
Speaker 2:Via the contact form on the Jewish Independent website or by emailing ashamed at thejewishindependentcomau. And what better way than closing out this week's episode than the sound of traditional Mizrahi music. This is the Israeli band Yemen Blues playing their song Jati Mahi Bati, performed around 10 years ago in the back streets of the city of Jerusalem for the online project Indie City. In the song, you can hear the traditional sounds of Mizrahi instruments, including the oud.
Speaker 1:As always. Thanks for your support and look out for us next week. Bye.
Speaker 3:Bye, do it nice pretty good pretty good
Speaker 1:cultural appropriation much I am Ashkenazi, though, so am I allowed to make that noise? Oh, definitely allowed.
Speaker 3:The more we use each other's cultural thing, the more we are open to it, the more we spread out. I don't like the separation. These are not sacred cows, these are to be shared.
Speaker 1:Okay, cool, thank you. 10 out of 10 from me. Iskameen Allah, lala Allah, lala Allah. Iskamini bin ragas, mahalil Iskamini, khaliq al-baaba, jamahin badiha la tabamna ya ilalana Wal kalama al-haliha mashhuli.
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