On December 23, 2023, Dr. Rev. Munther Isaac of the Lutheran Evangelical Church in Bethelem, Palestine delivered a powerful sermon, now referred to as ‘Jesus Lies Under the Rubble’. He has kindly given us permission to make use of his words and we’ve done that today in hopes of sending a message to the world: We all need to speak out together to end the genocide.
Please share this video far and wide. Let us know about its impact in your community.
We would like to extend our deep gratitude to Rev. Ralph W Howe and the Beloved Community of Brattleboro, Vermont for use of their space, equipment and piano. This video features Dan DeWalt playing piano and Vidhi Salla reading. It was filmed, recorded and mixed by Joel Eisenkramer, Root Cellar Sound, with video editing by Michael Hanish. Additional footage was used courtesy of Yusuf elMbayed, North Gaza.
We originally called for submissions to add voices to the piece, but only ended up using them in the last section; thank you to all who submitted recordings to be used in this video.
For additional queries related to the video, contact Dan DeWalt at 1dandewalt@gmail.com – DeWaltMusic.com
The compositions on this recording are all spontaneous. My score is the world we live in. The result is my emotional and musical interpretation of the forces that course through the planet: war and violence, greed and poverty, arrogance and colonialism, consumerism and vapidity, racism and genocide, patriotism and scoundrelism, as well as the obscured inner layers of beauty and fortitude, hope and goodwill, and increasing solidarity among the oppressed.
Each of the sixteen compositions took on its shape as I played; as it sounded the music informed my fingers and led the way through a narrative until a conclusion presented itself.
“Never Again?” is the opening song in the Gaza Suite. “Never again” is a statement of determination and intent that has become the universal reaction to the holocaust perpetrated by Nazi Germany on the Jews, Roma, homosexuals, communists and other perceived enemies of the Reich in the mid 20th century.
How tragic is it that the main victims of that violence and murder are themselves now perpetuating the same crimes of violence and extermination against the civilian population of Gaza, who have had the temerity to resist the taking of their homeland and culture by the Israeli state, backed by the U.S. and its western allies?
As generational trauma can be passed down from the parent to the child, so too can the people of entire nations, as generations are bombarded with indoctrination and compulsory military service, find themselves traumatized into a state of fear and intolerance. As Zionist leaders have worked to achieve their goal or ridding Palestine of the Palestinians in order to create a wholly Jewish state, they have had to take away their population’s capacity for empathy; they have had to convince Israelis that not only must the Palestinians be replaced, but they must also no longer be seen as valid human beings, in order to deserve the punishment that the Israeli state has decided to mete out to them.
