Tzippori Festival to mark stream restoration with music and more
Spring event over Passover break will bring together Jews and Arabs in lower Galilee for nature activities and performances by Ehud Banai and others
Jessica Steinberg, The Times of Israel's culture and lifestyles editor, covers the Sabra scene from south to north and back to the center
Meandering some 32 kilometers (20 miles), the Tzippori River, or Nahal Tzippori, links the outskirts of Israel’s northern metropolis of Haifa to the northern reaches of Israel’s largest Arab city, Nazareth.
Though more a trickle than a great gushing waterway in many places, the river, which was recently rehabilitated in a joint Environmental Protection Ministry and Agriculture Ministry project, will serve as the centerpiece of a spring music festival celebrating nature, hope and partnership for the lower Galilee.
The event — taking place from April 17 to 20, during the Passover break for schools — brings together all kinds of locals, including Jewish Israelis from the nearby communities and towns and Arabic-speaking Israelis from Nazareth and surrounding villages.
“The festival is an opportunity for us to make the voice of music heard as a factor that connects communities and cultures,” said Nabil Abboud Ashkar, artistic director of the Tzippori Festival and founder of Polyphony, the first classical music conservatory in Israel’s Arab community.
“We see the restored Nahal Tzippori as a meeting place that connects the residents of the Galilee, the Jews and the Arabs, an opportunity to get out of the concert halls into the wonderful Galilean nature that surrounds us,” he added.
The festival includes musical performances from the likes of Ehud Banai and the Galilean Jish band, opera soprano Nour Darwish with the Nizar Elkhater ensemble and musical guest Maya Belsitzman, and performances by the 35-member chamber group Galilee Orchestra, composed of Jewish and Arab musicians from Polyphony.
The four-day festival will also include performances by the Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company, guided walking tours, traditional Bedouin coffee ceremonies, a craft fair with goods made by local artisans, bike rides, foraging walks and basket-weaving workshops.
