Musical madness in Israel

July 25, 2009 - 8:18 PM by David

Kfar Vradim - using Beethoven as a musical weapon (Photo: Eldad Gershgoren-Ynet)

From my yard in Ma’aleh Adumim, you can hear the mezzuin call from nearby Azzariya clear as a bell. And on the weekends when wedding take place on a nightly basis, the sounds of fireworks and sometimes celebratory shotgun blasts fill the air.

I’m used to it and it blends into the background noise to the point that I don’t even hear it most of the time. But visitors will often comment on the exotic moments of cacaphony.

The residents of Kfar Vradim, a community in the North, apparently haven’t gotten used to their neighbors and their accompanying sounds. According to Ynet, the residents have taken a novel approach to combat the noise emanating from the weddings in nearby Arab villages.

They’ve decided to ‘bombard’ them with classical music – specifically Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Mozart’s Requiem and Puccini’s opera Tosca. Kfar Vradim’s musical reaction followed numerous failed attempts to engage in dialogue with Tarshiha residents. The decision was finally made to set up powerful loud speakers playing classical music for several hours.

“I’ve lost all patience” said one Kfar Vradim resident. “At 11:01 pm I call the police in order to complain. I’m one of the regular callers. Our bedroom faces Tarshiha and it is just impossible to sleep with this noise. Some days you can hardly sit in the backyard. The level of disturbance changes according to the wind directionl; sometimes it feels as thought the band is literally in our backyard. The noise is just awful.”

Complaints are received from within the Arab village too. One Tahrshiha resident said this week: “We hear weddings from all directions. It’s very disturbing. Christians hold their weddings inside banquet halls, but Bedouins celebrate in their own yards, and the noise is a nuisance not just to their neighborhood but to the entire area.”

With all due respect to weddings, people have to get up for work in the morning,” she said.

Members of the Kfar Vradim local council are planning to meet with village dignitaries this week to attempt to solve the problem and to tell them that Kfar Vradim residents respect their neighbors’ right to celebrate.

“On the other hand we have here a reasonably sized population which should not be forced to become an active participant in these celebrations. It’s very disturbing, even in the early evening hours,” a source close to the local council said, adding that local officials have not been approached by their Arab neighbors following the classic music “performance.”

If Beethoven doesn’t work, perhaps a sonata by Metallica will do the trick.

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