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Abraham was the father of Judaism, the founder of monotheism. His first wife Sarah bore his younger son, Isaak, and his second wife, Hagar, his elder son Ishmael. After a quarrel, Abraham drove Hagar away into the desert, and it was prophesied that Hagar's son would become the forefather of a great nation, which would be the Arabic people.

True that Sarah was Abraham's first wife, but because she remained childless for so long, she gave her handmaid, Hagar, to Abraham to bear a child in her place - thus Ishmael. When Sarah finally gave birth to Yitzchak, she was jealous of Hagar and Ishmael, and forced Abraham to send them away.

My Israeli mother has sure instincts when it comes to guessing the background of people from the Middle East. "He is a Moroccan Jew, he is an Iraqi, and she is a Yemenite, but from Aden, not from Sanaa. They are our cousins." By cousins, she means Arabs.
This has been my way of thinking since my earliest childhood. In my mother-tongue, Arab people are called "bnei dodim", the sons of the uncles. It sounds poetic, biblical and familiar. It also sounds patriarchal. (Why not the sons of the aunts or the daughter of the uncles?) It is even possible to connect this idea with sensuality, since "dodim" also means lover.
Why can't we then love the sons of those we love? We can't if we do not know them.The Israelis, with their Jewish origins and beliefs, hardly know their Arabian neighbours although they live just around the corner from each other.The Arabian "cousins" are illicit workers with a poor image. To the army they are simply "the enemy", and to the public at large they are "fundamentalists who would throw any Jew into the sea at the first possible opportunity". The more religious and Middle Eastern the origins, the more absolute the verdict will be.
Of course, there are variations on the theme. My own Israeli parents-in-law are a good example thereof. My mother-in-law is of Polish origin, a leftist, while at the same time has remained very religious. My father-in-law, on the other hand, has very conservative political views, but is almost an atheist. He tells the same story over and over again, a story that, to European ears, sounds like an evil fairy tale.
As a young boy, he was raised by an Arab who was like a nanny or a "big brother" to him. Years later when they talked politics, the Arab would say that on the day that all the Jews are thrown into the sea, he will personally cut the throats of my father-in-law and his family so they will not have to suffer so much. "For the Jews", my father-in-law would say, "there will never be peace with these people. They will always hate us". I make the argument that the French and the Germans have been the arch-enemies for hundreds of years, and yet now have become allies. This is completely rejected with the sentence "Arabs are not French". For me, though, the holocaust is evidence that also the so-called advanced civilizations can revert to barbarity overnight.
Without a doubt, a great deal of humiliation, hate, envy and thirst for revenge still persists on the side of our defeated Arabian cousins. However the Israelis cultivate a tactic that only makes the wounds deeper: contempt. Contempt played out over time and place. Contempt, disdain, arrogance and the belief that you are part of something better. This contempt for those of Middle Eastern descent is felt by Israelis of European heritage, not only towards the Arabs but also towards Israelis of Middle Eastern lineage.
For my own mother-in-law it was a very sore point that her children all married "black" partners, Jews of Egyptian, Iraqi, and in my case, half-Yemenite origin. I love her so much that I forgive her racism, but the thought that her grandchildren are not so blond and blue-eyed is sweet for me. That is the "revenge of the Middle East".
They are called "Mizrachim", Israelis from the East. This saying seems absurd, since Warsaw, for example, is situated much further east than Casablanca. "Mizrachi" also means oriental. For me, it seems far from the mark. There is indeed a Jewish community in Shanghai and Bombay, but these groups are not referred to by the term "Mizrachim". I call them "Arabian Jews", with all the respect and esteem I hold for the Arabic culture, and with the pride I feel belonging to this group on my mother's side.
In Israel, the expression, "Arabian Jews" shocks people. The Middle Eastern Jews are desperately trying to stand out from the Arabs, largely would say, because of their similarity to each other. Are they not, however, the hope, the connecting link of fraternization? A European would probably not recognize any difference between them. They are afraid of being confused with "the enemy". My mother never wanted to speak Arabic although it was her mother tongue. She understood every word (and she does) but she answered in Hebrew. She was ashamed to take her flat Middle Eastern bread to school for lunch when the others would eat sandwiches. She would want to disappear from the scene when her father picked her up from the school wearing Sarouel, traditional wideArab riding breeches. It was a repression of their own identity, and at the same time a wish to escape the Diaspora pattern and find a new, Israeli identity. Despised by the "white" Jews, full of complexes because of their "black" origin, they have desperately strived to get their slice of the Polish-German upper-class pie. In the last few years, a few have begun to recognize the value of their own culture and preserve, cherish and develop it. Middle Eastern music has won a place for itself with the public but unfortunately at a provincial standard. Where is the finest Arabic poetry, the finest Arabic music, the art of singing or improvisation at its very best?
My Yemenite mother has grown away from her roots. For forty years, she has lived in Europe. She loves Austrian culture and manners, but in her soul she has remained a Yemenite.
I stepped into the unknown when I began to work with Palestinian choirs. Although Nazareth is in Israeli territory, the inhabitants consider themselves Palestinian. With the greatest discretion and diplomacy, I tried to get closer to the people to convince them to work for the shared goal of peace. It was hard going and many refused. The choirs mostly function not as individual artists, but as a communal institution and are often politically non-dependent. The programme-manager of ORF; Austrian Television, Mrs. Katrin Zechner, conceived the project, and encouraged me to carry on. It was an advantage that I come from a neutral country. A couple of times I had to reassure them that the project had nothing to do with the fifty-year anniversary of the nation of Israel. The level of distrust was extremely high.
Was it by chance that all the refusals came from the Palestinian men's choirs and that in the end I found two female choir-directors as allies? One was Noha, from Jaffa, who founded the St.Anthony choir. The other was Katy from Nazareth with the wonderful Ensemble Ud al Nad. Women do not give birth with so much pain, only to send their children off to war. That purely pragmatic-biological reason would, in and of itself, be enough. With Collegium Tel Aviv under the direction of Avner Itai, I was able to bring Jews, Muslims and Christians together.I was overjoyed. I was so excited I couldn't sleep. It was the start of fulfilling my childhood dream of peace. A humble beginning perhaps, but a place to start. Now it is only a matter of keeping it going.
The encounter with the Palestinians moved me immensely. They were not strangers to me. I felt as if I knew them already. Their conduct and body language awakened trust in me. It reminded me of the many times in my childhood that I spent with my Yemenite grandparents. They came by foot from Yemen to the Holy Land in the 19th century, out of idealism, because of the dream of living in Zion. They spent most of their lives in Palestine, long before the founding of the Israeli nation. Their informal language was Arabic, before Hebrew was introduced as the official language. My grandmother could hardly speak Hebrew. If the language used defines the culture, they were Palestinians. They differed from the other Palestinians only by their religion, exactly as the Christian Palestinians differ from the Muslim Palestinians.The belief was strong and present, but never dictatorial. It was a delicate matter but not a scandal when my mother married an Austrian artist. On Saturday, "Shabbat", people were not allowed to use electricity, as a symbol of the day of rest, but despite that, we children were allowed to watch TV. And when the wife of the painter Ernst Fuchs came for a visit with bare legs and an extremely short mini-skirt, my grandfather said with humour that she had forgotten to put on her underwear. (My grandmother was veiled and always wore knee-length under garments.)
This image of religious tolerance has stayed with me. And I can imagine that the Muslim and Christian Palestinians were equally tolerant and still are. Religious dictatorship is not typical of the Middle Eastern culture. It is purely political.With this peace project, I have encountered anew the warm-hearted, intimate, Palestinian way of being, and I have realized with happiness how small the differences are. It could be expected that many Palestinians are descendants of Jews who were not driven out of the Holy Land by the Romans. This argument would bring "the enemy" even closer. However, the idea that a Jew could in this way be converted to a Muslim would be a provocation for many Palestinians and Israelis.
Only with respect and tolerance is this kind of a dialogue possible. In our case, it is a musical dialogue through which we realize how much there is in common in Jewish, Christian and Muslim music and how much the Jewish-Middle Eastern sounds work as a connecting link, especially in the Jewish-Yemenite songs that remind one strongly, at least in their modes , of Gregorian choirs. The scales have much in common with the cantorial and Hassidic songs and Arabic -Muslim phrasing and cadence.This is a dialogue that is understandable not only in the Middle East, but everywhere. After all, the language of music is universal.
A connection between the three monotheistic religions can be found in the civilization of the Iberian Peninsula during the Middle Ages, ending in 1492 with the beginning of the Inquisition. Jews, Christians and Muslims shared a lively cultural exchange and lived with each other in harmony. There are intersections and parallels between the three monotheistic religions, not only in the field of music, but also in the historical incidents. The repertoire of the Israeli choir is a good example: European classical works, which, of course, include Christian music. J.S. Bach is part of the cultural heritage of the "Ashkenasies", European Jews who immigrated to Israel. The Israelis, who for example run the music schools, identify themselves with the liturgical music of Purcell, Monteverdi and Bach, in spite of the Christian Inquisition and Luther's antisemitism. I spent most of my childhood in Vienna where Christmas became a part of my life. Although I do not celebrate Christmas, it is always a special day for me.
There are also connections among the languages. Most of the Arabs who live in Israel speak Hebrew fluently. That way, they are up to date with what goes on in the Israeli media. They are free to profit from the way of living in western culture. It makes them different from Syrian and Egyptian Palestinians and possibly enriches them. On the other side, many European Jews do not speak Hebrew very well, let alone Arabic.
In life-style and food there are also similarities. In Israel, the Jews who have immigrated from Germany are called "Yekkes ". That comes from the past when they wore jackets and neat socks, even during the strongest summer heat. Today "Yekkes " do not were jackets anymore, but are still referred to that way, and are now known for their sense of order and punctuality. My Israeli husband, whose heritage is Russian-Polish, had, as a child, dumplings, potato mush and other heavy Slavic foods to eat, but today the Palestinian kitchen has completely found its way through, due to the climate. Falafel and tahina have become national foods of Israel. My mother-in-law uses more and more olive oil and harissa (a hot sauce) in her cooking, but her mother, an original of the Lodz ghetto in Poland, used to call coriander "Di verstunkene Petersilie", "the stinking parsley".
My heritage and my identity are already defined by my name alone. Timna means Yemen in Hebrew and is rather an unusual name even in Israel. Brauer is significant too, as it was the name on the passport that my Jewish-Russian grandfather, Simon Segal, bought in 1917 to escape to Austria during the revolution. Before He married my grandmother, and lived together with Adolf Hitler in a hostel for men. He was familiar with Hitler´s speeches as early as the twenties. In spite of that, he believed in the German culture and chose not to flee to America, a decision that cost him his life. In the thirties, there were many children baptized with the name of Adolf. As I am quite well-known as a singer in Austria, it is touching for me today when so many Austrian mothers call me to say that they have baptized their child Timna, and want to know what it means. It gives hope that today there is more openness towards the foreign and the unknown.
Auschwitz and the Queen of Sheeba are the two poles that have left their imprints on me, and while the following statement might be considered by many as naive, and by others as self-satisfied leftist, or betrayal, it is the true conclusion of my heritage: I want to love the sons of my uncles.
When Theodore Herzl ,the Viennese founder of Zionism, came to Palestine in the 19th century, he looked for a Jewish coachman who could bring him from the harbor of Jaffa to Jerusalem. The trip was extremely dangerous. There were bandits lurking everywhere who would tie you up and leave you in the cactus fields. He found a coachman, my Yemenite grandfather, Yechiel Dahabani, and a close friendship grew between the two men from these two worlds. So the journey comes full circle - rom Palestine, to Israel and back to Austria.

Timna Brauer, in Vienna, February 1999