"What happened in 1948?" Hussein asked 20 high school students sitting in a circle outside the school. In May, they went to Milton Academy, a private school near Boston, for Seminar Day. The two also founded a weekly Arab-Jewish relations dialogue group on campus, and they travel around the country, speaking at synagogues, community centers, and schools. The show was a lighthearted mix that included Arab and Israeli pop music, a cooking segment, a person of the week, and a frank discussion of Middle East current events. Then they became co-hosts of the weekly radio show Just Like You, which aired Thursday evenings from 7 to 8 on WBRS-FM during the school year. In their four years at Brandeis, Hussein and Bavly have talked and argued about these conflicts, delving into subjects so painful that it was a kind of therapy for them. Since the 1993 Oslo Accords between the Israelis and the Palestinians, the peace process has been slow, faltering over the status of Jerusalem, territory, and Palestinian prisoners and refugees. Gradually, they became friends with the courage to confront their stereotypes and wrestle with Mideast politics. They came together first as acquaintances who spoke a common language, Hebrew. Via very different paths, both young men ended up at Brandeis University, in Waltham. Hussein, 22, comes from a family of construction workers who lost all their land to Jews in the 1948 war. Bavly, 27, was an Israeli army commander and knew fellow soldiers killed by Arabs. In the Middle East, they lived 80 miles apart but grew up as sworn enemies, taught to hate, mistrust, or simply ignore each other. Hussein is a Palestinian, and Bavly is a Jew. Suddenly, he gets up and stands in front of you Suddenly, also he wants to be - like you exactly Their voices fade into the beat of their theme song, " Bediyuk Kamocha" ("Just Like You"), sung in Hebrew by Israeli rock singer Shalom Hanoch.Ī strange person is your enemy - just like you " Ma Hamatzav? Shu al-Akhbar? Wassssup?" Bavly says, moving from Hebrew to Arabic to English."Welcome to Just Like You!" they say together. " Al-Salam 'Alaykum," says Hussein, greeting his audience in Arabic. As they bend over their CDs, choosing music, they seem like typical college disc jockeys, except for their accents and the long, troubled histories that those accents represent.
They stand so close to each other that their shoulders touch. Michael Bavly sports tousled hair, jeans, and a T-shirt. As a funky beat fades in the background, they shout in unison, "You are listening to your one-and-only coexistence radio!"įorsan Hussein is impeccably dressed in a black turtleneck and jeans, with a small earring in his left ear. In the control room of the Brandeis University radio station, two young men stand eye to eye, speaking into the same microphone. Two Brandeis grads from Israel, one Palestinian and one Jew, are on a campaign to break down the walls of Mideastern prejudice. Mail can be sent to Letters to the Editor, The Boston Globe, P.O. Click here for past issues of the Globe Magazine, dating back to June 22, 1997
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