// essays //
Fall 2006
Singing in Belgrade
Hannah Assadi
It is difficult to describe the heaviness of Belgrade. It hangs, pressing down upon the city at dusk when the people are tossed in at the rush of day's end, when they move with such a distant and detached resolve that they could be sleepwalkers. Sometimes in the morning, hoards of crows hover over the skies of the city, dipping in flight above the roofs of the crowded cafes. Although the espresso drinkers are oblivious, pulling drowsily on their cigarettes, in those moments it always seems as though Belgrade is about to be swallowed whole by the frantic flutter of black wings in one violent shriek.
Perhaps I just project this heaviness onto the Balkan city, a city I only visited for ten days. My own "strange" identity—born to a Jewish mother and a Palestinian father—was once the inspiration for a blindly idealistic worldview but now seems only to be a constant and cumbersome reminder of the persistence of conflict, both in the Middle East and elsewhere. The tragedy of the recent conflicts in former Yugoslavia was that they broke out rather unexpectedly amidst peoples who lived together for fifty years in relative peace. For fifty years the difference between Bosniak, Croat, and Serb was rarely spoken about; there was a time when coexistence was not only possible, but actually successful in this region. So in Belgrade, the former capital of a shattered multiethnic Yugoslavia and now the capital of a nearly ethnically homogenous nation-state, how could a group of Jews and Palestinians find the strength to come together and discuss coexistence? In the midst of that war-torn land, how could we even flirt with the possibility of future peace in the Middle East?
One night at dinner, in a cobblestone street quarter in the heart of Belgrade, where the restaurant patios are hushed in the glow of candle light, where the gypsy musicians play Serbian folk songs so loudly beer spills out of glasses, I found myself crying. For the first time in three years, I cried not out of a desperate resignation to the persistence of this conflict but, truly, out of hope.
As our group sat down for dinner, we quickly engaged in shallow conversation on whether the people were hotter in Kosovo or Serbia, whether we were rooting for Italy or France in the World Cup—anything that would keep us far away from the day's heavy discussion. The particular melancholy breeze that only touches the skin on summer nights, and the reflection of candlelight on our faces, allowed the memories of civilian deaths in Jenin and friends lost in suicide bombings to leave us.
Nothing said could have disclosed our connection to that other conflict. For all anyone knew, we were typical American teenagers, invading the restaurant with our raucous chatter about what club we would go to that night—Freestyler? Or maybe that one with that waitress with the American boyfriend?—when suddenly a group of gypsy musicians encircled our table. Defying our protests ("we have no money; come back later") they began to play Hava Nagila. At first we all quieted down and some of the Jewish students chuckled in amused embarrassment. But the gypsy musicians just kept on playing and after a few moments, the Palestinian students began to belt out the words so loudly that one would have thought that they were the Jews and the Jews were the Palestinians. Their singing got so passionate; their infectious energy wrapped and sealed our table so tightly that it became for a moment impenetrable. For a moment that world, the world of Belgrade, the world where the Israeli is the enemy of the Palestinian, the world where conflict seems never-ending, passed away and we all sang and clapped and danced in our seats until we laughed, and laughed so hard that our laughter verged on tears. When the song ended and the gypsy musicians backed away from the table, everyone erupted in cheers and claps, dug in their pockets for spare dinars, and begged for them to play more. "The Beatles!" Everyone wanted the Beatles.
When the song ended, I couldn't speak or cheer. I tried to hide in my corner of the table, choking back the first tear that fell to my nose and then the next, until I was sobbing uncontrollably and laughing between my sobs. Everyone turned to me in bewilderment, and one of the gypsy musicians with a warm face came to me with his guitar and began to serenade me with an old Serbian love song, telling me in broken English, "that no guy was worth it." But I wasn't crying for love, I was crying because at that moment, our little table lit by candlelight on a cobblestone road in the heart of Belgrade—our table of strange Semites, of Jews and Palestinian—sang their hearts out to Hava Nagila together. Singing at that table as if we were one people, even in the middle of a broken and war-torn capital, felt inexplicably natural in all of its irony. There was never anything so right as some crazy Jewish and Palestinian kids bringing some relief to those heavy streets of the capital of the former Yugoslavia.
Belgrade and its crazy gypsy musicians somehow spoke to us that night, and we heard them, singing like hell back. You see, I'm not ready for coexistence to be a dead dream of the past, or for those of us who believe in it to end up like sleepwalkers, unable to cope with the aftermath of however much destruction we are still capable of, toward our "enemy" and toward ourselves. I don't want to have to surrender to that absurdity. I don't want that heaviness to hang in the air of Jerusalem when this conflict is finally over.
Perhaps I just project this heaviness onto the Balkan city, a city I only visited for ten days. My own "strange" identity—born to a Jewish mother and a Palestinian father—was once the inspiration for a blindly idealistic worldview but now seems only to be a constant and cumbersome reminder of the persistence of conflict, both in the Middle East and elsewhere. The tragedy of the recent conflicts in former Yugoslavia was that they broke out rather unexpectedly amidst peoples who lived together for fifty years in relative peace. For fifty years the difference between Bosniak, Croat, and Serb was rarely spoken about; there was a time when coexistence was not only possible, but actually successful in this region. So in Belgrade, the former capital of a shattered multiethnic Yugoslavia and now the capital of a nearly ethnically homogenous nation-state, how could a group of Jews and Palestinians find the strength to come together and discuss coexistence? In the midst of that war-torn land, how could we even flirt with the possibility of future peace in the Middle East?
One night at dinner, in a cobblestone street quarter in the heart of Belgrade, where the restaurant patios are hushed in the glow of candle light, where the gypsy musicians play Serbian folk songs so loudly beer spills out of glasses, I found myself crying. For the first time in three years, I cried not out of a desperate resignation to the persistence of this conflict but, truly, out of hope.
As our group sat down for dinner, we quickly engaged in shallow conversation on whether the people were hotter in Kosovo or Serbia, whether we were rooting for Italy or France in the World Cup—anything that would keep us far away from the day's heavy discussion. The particular melancholy breeze that only touches the skin on summer nights, and the reflection of candlelight on our faces, allowed the memories of civilian deaths in Jenin and friends lost in suicide bombings to leave us.
Nothing said could have disclosed our connection to that other conflict. For all anyone knew, we were typical American teenagers, invading the restaurant with our raucous chatter about what club we would go to that night—Freestyler? Or maybe that one with that waitress with the American boyfriend?—when suddenly a group of gypsy musicians encircled our table. Defying our protests ("we have no money; come back later") they began to play Hava Nagila. At first we all quieted down and some of the Jewish students chuckled in amused embarrassment. But the gypsy musicians just kept on playing and after a few moments, the Palestinian students began to belt out the words so loudly that one would have thought that they were the Jews and the Jews were the Palestinians. Their singing got so passionate; their infectious energy wrapped and sealed our table so tightly that it became for a moment impenetrable. For a moment that world, the world of Belgrade, the world where the Israeli is the enemy of the Palestinian, the world where conflict seems never-ending, passed away and we all sang and clapped and danced in our seats until we laughed, and laughed so hard that our laughter verged on tears. When the song ended and the gypsy musicians backed away from the table, everyone erupted in cheers and claps, dug in their pockets for spare dinars, and begged for them to play more. "The Beatles!" Everyone wanted the Beatles.
When the song ended, I couldn't speak or cheer. I tried to hide in my corner of the table, choking back the first tear that fell to my nose and then the next, until I was sobbing uncontrollably and laughing between my sobs. Everyone turned to me in bewilderment, and one of the gypsy musicians with a warm face came to me with his guitar and began to serenade me with an old Serbian love song, telling me in broken English, "that no guy was worth it." But I wasn't crying for love, I was crying because at that moment, our little table lit by candlelight on a cobblestone road in the heart of Belgrade—our table of strange Semites, of Jews and Palestinian—sang their hearts out to Hava Nagila together. Singing at that table as if we were one people, even in the middle of a broken and war-torn capital, felt inexplicably natural in all of its irony. There was never anything so right as some crazy Jewish and Palestinian kids bringing some relief to those heavy streets of the capital of the former Yugoslavia.
Belgrade and its crazy gypsy musicians somehow spoke to us that night, and we heard them, singing like hell back. You see, I'm not ready for coexistence to be a dead dream of the past, or for those of us who believe in it to end up like sleepwalkers, unable to cope with the aftermath of however much destruction we are still capable of, toward our "enemy" and toward ourselves. I don't want to have to surrender to that absurdity. I don't want that heaviness to hang in the air of Jerusalem when this conflict is finally over.
// HANNAH ASSADI (CC '09) is a Columbia College junior majoring in MEALAC.