Art camp creates a vision of peace

Bar Rehani, one of 30 Israeli and Palestinian teens who were brought to Endicott College in Beverly for Artsbridge's inaugural camp. (JONATHAN WIGGS/GLOBE STAFF)

Second of two parts.

The two teenagers, one Israeli and one Palestinian, were angry. Children of the age-old Middle Eastern conflict, this time they were fighting to stay together.

Ten days into the inaugural session of Artsbridge, an Israeli-Palestinian summer camp held on the campus of Beverly's Endicott College, the staff had decided to reconfigure some partnerships in the film class. A few of the campers had no experience with cameras and editing equipment, and needed help.

But that meant splitting up two campers, Omri Rotem and Yazan Assad, who shared an aptitude for making videos. Fast friends upon arrival - one from Jerusalem, the other from Ramallah - they had big plans for their final project, and they were protesting the decision to separate them.

"You're destroying what Artsbridge is all about!" cried Rotem, a gangly, mischievous kid full of nervous energy, as he and his partner confronted camp founder Debbie Nathan on the rolling lawn of the campus.

When Nathan told the boys that the counselors had just suggested a compromise - the partners could complete their film project during elective time - Rotem grinned broadly. He threw an arm around his Palestinian friend's shoulder and whacked him playfully with a rolled-up piece of paper. Their work together would be Academy Award quality, he promised with a laugh.

The goal of Artsbridge, said Nathan, is not to solve the age-old Arab-Israeli strife with the artwork of 30 teenagers on American holiday.

"There will always be conflict," she said, sitting in her makeshift office in the Endicott Arts Center. "The idea is, how do you deal with it?"

In many ways, Artsbridge, which ended its first year with a celebratory gallery showing at Endicott earlier this month, is designed like any other summer camp. The students - 15 Palestinians and 15 Israelis - played games, like dodgeball. They did karaoke, scavenger hunts, tie-dying. They played Rock Band and took a field trip to Blue Man Group. They complained about being awakened too early.

But these young people, raised in fiercely sectarian neighborhoods from the West Bank to the Gaza Strip, were also asked to participate in dialogue sessions that were sometimes raw and emotional.

"We tried hard not to have preconceptions," said Nathan, a Swampscott artist and art therapist who oversaw a young staff from Israel, England, and from under her own roof (her son, David, was a counselor). Art classes in a variety of media - film, drawing, sculpture, computer arts - were taught by Endicott faculty members on summer break.

"What I'm seeing is the kids are really bonding, in a way I'd hoped but hadn't imagined," said Nathan, who spent four years living in Israel in the 1970s. "On Friday [of the first week], you could almost hear it click - what this model can achieve. From then on, it's been pretty spectacular."

In the hallway outside her office, one visiting counselor presented a chaperone with a box of organic cereal she had just bought at the store.

"The food here is too American for us," she explained. The women shared a laugh when they noticed the brand: Peace cereal.

Alone in one studio, creative partners Raghd Zaqout from Ramallah and Boaz Nelson-Levy from Jerusalem worked on clay models of their planned sculpture - two thick strands twisted together in a chainlike column. Shyly, they explained their project to Nathan as Israeli hip-hop thumped quietly from a portable CD player on the floor.

"I like the figure eight," said the director, noting one of the models. "Do you know the symbolism?"

"Eternity?" guessed Nelson-Levy.

"Yes. It's the yin and yang," she replied.

In the next room, several students worked individually and with partners on various 3D projects. One boy, wearing a brown fedora and a T-shirt that said "Knowledge Is Power, Power Corrupts" sat on the floor bending lengths of wire into a box-shaped figure.

"Ladies, we have a cage," he announced, sitting back to admire his work.

In the center of the room the students had hung various lengths of materials - bubble packing, tree branches, a garden hose - for a still-life drawing study. The impromptu sculpture hung low and spanned much of the room.

"I like leaving it there,' said Taylor Harnisch, an adjunct art teacher at Endicott. "The kids have to negotiate their way around the room."

Part of the plan, said Nathan, is to train the chaperones to bring the Artsbridge model back to Israel, so that students can experience it year-round. As far as opening the minds of the first-year campers, she said, so far, so good.

The success of the inaugural program was confirmed, she felt, when the group took a day trip on a whale watch. When the guide explained that the whales' fins were white but looked green because of the water's reflection, one camper let out a yelp of mock dismay. "Nooo!" he groaned. "No reflection!"

His peers laughed. They were collectively worn down by the constant encouragement to express their feelings, on their day off they just wanted to hang out. Together.

"To me," said Nathan, "that was a really good sign."