Moishe House London - Joel - February

Yesterday the Tricycle Theatre, one tube stop down the Jubilee Line, gave the Royal Shakespeare Company a break from their show to put on a very special day of Muslim-Jewish artistic collaboration, organised by a group called Muju. Rachel and I were in the play, 'March', about a march (i.e. a demo) in London and all the different groups and people attending. I was cast as a thug ex-convict (as usual... it's always either hooligans or vulnerable rent boys with me) and frankly it was great being on stage again in a relatively normal play i.e. not interactive, off-the-wall radical Jewish weirdness (which - don't get me wrong - I love), especially at such a fantastic venue. Daniel did his rap performance poetry with a Muslim and Jewish poet upstairs in the studio and, all in all, the day provided some much-needed positivity between the Muslim and Jewish communities, when all the news from the Middle East seems gloomy right now. Just a creative, happy atmosphere.

Dialogue eh? Earlier this month I attended a vote at my university, where I'm doing my Masters, to discuss linking with an Israeli university, in addition to the Palestinian university we've been linked to for the past two years. Unfortunately the vote was defeated, 82-80, as they went for specific solidarity over, as far as I see it, building bridges and looking to the future. At almost every Israel/Palestine event I've been to, it's turned into each 'side' shouting at each other about their own victimhood. Contesting victimhood, no matter what the truth of the situation, will simply embed us all more.

On Monday we're having Eliyahu McLean and sufi Sheikh Bukhari from the Jerusalem Peacemakers speak at The House, sharing the spiritual approach to peacemaking they practice in the Holy Land.

Then, to bring this blog back to a theatrical theme, I leave for New York City for a month, where I'm doing a month's internship with Storahtelling, from Purim to Pesach. They've mentioned something to me about dressing up as Jesus and singing Monty Python, but I don't want to reveal too much - it sounds like I'll be revealing quite enough as it is...