Music at PIpes' talk

[Judith R Cohen <judithc...>]

hi, if anyone wants to know more about the talk itself, ask me offlist.
This is just a brief observation on attempts to sing while waiting for
the doors to open. At York University in Toronto yesterday, Daniel
Pipes' talk had almost been cancelled by the COalition for Academic
Freedom (!), the student associations, and even the faculty association,
but it was held amid heavy duty security. 
WHile waiting outside, two groups were visible/audible. Those waiting to
go in - largely but certainly not all Jews - and those protesting it
from the "Academic Freedom" group. This group had loudspeakers, and
chanted "Shame on York" and "Israel, USA, how many kids did you kill
today". The Jewish studnens and a few faculty had no loudspeakers, and
no chants, but several spontaneous songs emerged. In every case, they
were about peace, but people kept trailing off, realizing that the other
group didn't understand Hebrew. So first they started singing, loudly,
the word "salaam" instead of "shalom", whenever it occured. FInally,
someone said "Let's try English" and began "Give Peace a Chance".
But , sad to say, among all those students of whatever background - no
one could get the tune and the words together (actually, musically, they
didn't do very well on even "Heveinu Shalom Aleikhem") and "Give peace a
chance" sputtered up and down and in and out, trailing off forlornly as
the doors were opened and we started inching through the security
system. Judith

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