Music, Motherhood, and Advocacy: Understanding Kaley Halperin's Life in Israel

Di: 0:18

Welcome to Bodyholic with Di. This is part two of a very special series called Creative Echoes Women Navigating Conflict through Artistic Expression. We dive into the profound experiences of female artists in Israel amidst the ongoing conflict with Hamas. While I often discuss stress and trauma from a scientific perspective, the essence of this series lies in the genuine voices of those living through these challenging times. In a world where life in Israel and the experiences of Jews globally has become exceptionally challenging, we believe in the power of real, authentic narratives. Amidst the cacophony of male voices during wartime, we turn our attention to the voices of female artists, recognizing the cathartic and illuminating potential their stories hold.

Di: 1:22

Today's guest is Kaley Halperin. She is a spiritual leader, singer-songwriter and unwavering advocate for peace. Kaley's journey takes an even more point in turn as her husband serves in the reserves she engaged in the conflict against Hamas. He is in Gaza. Join us as we explore her perspective on spirituality, motherhood and the challenges she faces with resilience and grace amidst the adversity. A quick note before we begin. Kaley graciously took the time to talk to me while her baby boy was right by her side. He's the youngest of four, and so we welcome his sweet side notes and appreciate her sharing her story while coping with mothering alone. Kaylee Halperin, welcome to the podcast and thank you so much for being here today.

Kaley: 2:22

Thank you for having me.

Di: 2:25

Let me just give everybody a little bit of context and you're going to take it from there. Kaylee is joining us with a baby by her side and, if I'm not mistaken, your partner, your husband, is away in reserve duty. Am I correct?

Kaley: 2:46

Yes, yes, yes. Since the 7th of October.

Di: 2:54

And so the fact that she, that Kaley, has a second to just talk to us is a big deal. I'm going to let you give a little bit of an introduction about what you do and we'll take it from there, but I will just say that Kaylee's work is very, very soulful, very moving and very useful. Like it's, you combine your work also with. I believe you've worked with Muslims and collaborated with creating interconnectedness. That I personally found amazing, and I believe that everybody should just definitely check it out, especially this time. But I'll let you introduce yourself a little further.

Kaley: 3:53

Okay, hi, thank you for having me here. So I was born in the States. I came with my family to Israel when I was six years old and I grew up in a little town near Jerusalem, in the Judean desert, and I've been living in Yaffo Jaffa that's connected to Tel Aviv. It's a mixed neighborhood of Jews and Arabs. I've been living here for the last 10 years raising our four kids the fourth is chiming in the background. I'm a musician and I lead praying communities in Tel Aviv, yaffo and specifically one community once in a gurg here in Yaffo. Yes, I am.

Di: 5:07

That wraps it up for now. So I'm going to dive in. And because I also know that our clock is ticking a little bit, because you do have a small baby next to you, I do want to dive into a little bit of some store topics and I want to ask how the events of October 7th impacted your creative journey, and even if it's a matter of just stopping to create you know it's anything, wherever you come from, makes sense, and how did it meet you in your life and career?

Kaley: 6:02

Thank you. Well, the funny like funny, if you can put humor into this situation. The eve of October 6th was I had, the month of the Jewish holidays, of the Jewish New Year, and so on. For me are like a peak time of my activities.

Kaley: 6:27

I was producing a festival that had to do with the time of the year and I was performing a lot and doing workshops. I do prayer workshops and musical prayer workshops and that was really I was working very hard. I had the baby. I was like tagged to. Like my husband I've been in the reserve for the last month and a half but he usually works most of the time from home, so we would sort of like tag team on that. And I have another other kids that were just starting their school year and had to sort of learn how to do that, and some of them then they had vacation.

Kaley: 7:13

It was a very, very, very full time in my life and it was a. I remember it was like the Friday night before the seven in the morning we were eating at friends house and and she said don't worry, I know you're exhausted now, but just wait for the eight Sunday morning and things will start. You know you'll have a cool off time and you'll be able to recuperate. And that didn't happen and instead, like, my first reaction was shock, which I think the whole country was in, and also I didn't have my husband next to me to sort of talk about the shock. I sort of had to realize okay, now it's me with the four kids and I moved to live with my mother for the first two and a half weeks, which was a very good decision Because she was very strong, gave me a lot of support and especially because the kids had no school. So it made it bearable to sort of also feel my emotions and also give them a sort of bubble which, where she lives and where I grew up there, there isn't bomb scares.

Kaley: 8:41

We weren't getting bombed so I'm not leaving and have to sort of deal with the running to the bombshell shirts. And then what would happen? I would find myself during the day I'd be sort of very consumed in like taking care of the kids and watching the news and like worrying about my husband, who was, like, would answer a text just once in a while. We got to talk like on the phone, maybe once every few days. And then at night, when everybody went to sleep and I couldn't, then I would start of thinking like what can I do? Like what can I? Oh, and then I'd have like these amazing ideas of initiatives, and then the morning would come and then I just couldn't follow through because because of reality and one of the, and then one night I remembered that I had a project that was supposed to. I was supposed to start after the holidays, on the 8th anyways, and and it was supposed to, the project was new lamentations and he would are called keynote, and there's like a tradition of sort of like prayer, like songs that talk about what was and what will be, and they're sort of also a way to grieve but also way to give meaning to things that happened in our history and this was a project that I thought about before the seven. I just felt deeply that we were in times like the Israeli community on all its level, was in great peril on many, many levels. And I felt, you know, our leaders are corrupt and we're not taking care of our poor and we are so conflicted with each other. We can't see each other as people, we see each other as groups and I thought this is the time to lament before it's too late.

Kaley: 11:24

And then the seventh happened and then I felt from my days war days what's going on? I said now's the time to record the lamentation that I wrote a year prior and I got my friend Akiva Segal, who leads fires and teaches Jewish prayer, and then a bunch of other people who just came and heard the call, and Amitayman was a recording artist, and Gili Shai, who did the video, and in a very short time we got together. I found, like in the times when I was overwhelmed, I was writing voices for the choir and then just the two meetings we had to practice together Like I didn't care. Usually when you record a song, you're like who's gonna hear it? What's gonna happen? How are we gonna roll out the single.

Kaley: 12:40

And this time it was just like I was just so immensely overwhelmed and so immensely grateful to be doing it, like there was a moment when we, the recording, recorded it in the Fuchsbiller Center, in a synagogue, beautiful synagogue, in Jerusalem, and the choir was sort of standing there and the lights were on in this romantic fashion and the microphones were hanging and I just like breathed it in and everybody was there, was this holy silence of creativity, of being in the creation, and I just like took a moment to be grateful that in this time I can be doing this with these people.

Di: 13:36

It sounds like pure meditation. Wow, yeah, I heard the song and I'm gonna link it to the podcast. That that's okay and I think it's.

Di: 13:57

This is exactly exactly one of those moments, one of those things where, when I decided that, from a, I'm a public health promoter and from this standpoint of wellbeing and wellness, I decided to specifically turn to female artists.

Di: 14:20

And it's so different from what I do on a regular basis because I think right now, when we're not in that post trauma, but we're like in it, we're really, really in it the sense of coping and the attempt to cope is, for a lot of us, impossible.

Di: 14:42

But then, when we have artists like yourself who create and who are able to create because not everybody is able to create at this point, and either way it all makes sense, whether you all the same dive into creation or you barely can get out of bed. So either one makes sense and anywhere in between, by hearing the female voice during the time of war, when really it's the male voice dominates, and also to hear the way you're coping and creating is actually, I think, soothing in a way, not only what you created, but also the tools that you use to cope and the fact that you're creating art through this time. Before we actually started the interview, you mentioned that you had a conversation before with a friend and about wellbeing and how you're doing, and you mentioned maybe you'll share a word or two about what you said, because I loved it.

Kaley: 16:12

Yeah. So I think it was one of the first weeks my friend a psychiatrist friend One of the first weeks a psychiatrist friend came to help me with something in the house and he was coming from volunteering with the people who were partying in the NOVA party the survivors from the massacre that happened there and he was asking me how was it? And I said as long as I'm in denial, then I'm okay. And at that point I hadn't talked with my husband in a week and I knew that he lives in Gaza fighting and he said that's great. That's great that you're in denial, because we're still in the trauma. A lot of my work is to get people out of their feelings and into doing, and the way to cope with these kinds of times is we learn always to feel our feelings. But in times of need we need to know how to have space for the feeling. We need to break down the shower or let it go. But there'll be time to feel our feelings and right now we need to be functioning.

Di: 17:48

Yeah, yeah. Can you maybe discuss specific lyrics or songs? You know I'm also. I was exposed to your collaboration with an Arab Muslim, I think, here in Jaffa. Both of us are in Jaffa, so maybe talk about the way you are able to collaborate, the place of peace that you really come from, and do you find it to be soothing at this point in time. Is it something that you still believe in, that you can still hold on to?

Kaley: 18:45

The collaboration with Saz the artist he grew up in Ramallah and then he's been living in Jaffa for the last couple of years happened after May 2021, where there was sort of an uprising in the clashes between the Arabs Israelis inside the mixed communities and the song sort of came from.

Kaley: 19:18

The song is called the Anayafo or Nyayafo, or. I am Jaffa, where we sort of bring the colorfulness of this place and the neighborhood and like I'm in very good relations with my neighbors from different ethnicities and different religions. But I have to say that the first month of the war I wasn't interested in my mind wasn't there. Like I'm in a what's up group of Jews and Arabs and like want to keep our communities free of, how you know, want to keep them safe and free from racism, but I felt like I wasn't available to sort of to feel the complex pain right now. I just needed to feel it was very, very survival. Like you feel I was attacked and now I need to. Of course, since then I've talked to many of my Arab friends in Jaffa and they, you know, are really against Hamas and what they're doing, not only what they did only to the Jews, but also what they do to their own population. They they're against the extreme Islamic views. I have to say that like I feel the story is very complex and the way to deal with all of our you know, our motion is a lot of compassion and I'll summarize my experience with this. The first was the first month I just couldn't think about, even like I had the thought should I? I should call my Arab friends, that I usually talk to them about these stuff, and my mother mind was like I'm not available for that now. Also, like physically, like I have the four kids that I have to take care of and I'm worrying about my husband and all of that, but also like it felt very primal that now is the time to look inward and not not not sort of create bridges. This isn't the time for bridges. And also I have friends that like their worldview shattered. This did not chatter my view. I grew up during the second into Fada. I had friends who studied with me, blow up on buses. I had a neighbor who worked in the neighboring Arab village and his coworker did a Lynch and him. So he sort of went one day to work and didn't come back because he was brutally murdered. So the idea that we have neighbors that want us dead is not new to me and that in a very cruel way. That's not new to me. And I feel that that also informs my the bridges that I create, because I know that the people that I talk to. This isn't their worldview, the fact that you know the there it's not equal.

Kaley: 23:17

I'm very, I was horrified, like everyone, but but also I understand the complexity and right at that moment I couldn't talk to my friend who has family in Gaza Because, to understand that, to sort of eradicate Hamas, because the way that they work in planting themselves inside civilian areas, that means that civilians will be killed and but for the greater good of the Palestinian people, hamas needs to be eradicated, and I couldn't hold that at that moment.

Kaley: 24:04

I can hold a lot of complexity, but at that moment I couldn't hold the complexity of talking to a friend who has family in Gaza and he's worried about them, while also understanding that my husband is now fighting for he's fighting for peace and the pictures of, not of the humanitarian crisis is a byproduct of the people that were in charge of them that use the money for war and not for life, and that and that sort of made it very hard for me to look anywhere that's outside of. Like my people and at the same time, I do live in Yaffo, I do have Arabs as neighbors, I do have conversations with them and and I felt very held I have neighbors that know that my husband is in reserve duty. I ask him about him all the time and if I'm okay and want to support me. So there's this very complex life that we're living, and, and, and, and I'm sure that I'll return to promote complexity.

Di: 25:36

I think you and I grew up around the same time and I relate very, very much to your world view and how incredibly complex the situation is and the. I also don't feel that my world view has been shattered and there are a lot of people around me who do, and there are two women who take care of my daughter in the kindergarten who are Arab Muslim. We have Arab Christians deep in our community and I have a close friend who's an Arab Muslim, who's also a client, and it is deeply complex and I also know the feeling of those first few weeks of yeah, I don't really want to talk to anyone about and just being like, kind of like what your conversation with your psychiatrist friend of just like focus. Just you've got to take one step after another and just focus on what you have to do.

Di: 27:09

And for me personally to hear you say that your world view has not been shattered and you've also been through a whole lot and you've seen things and experienced things. That really it's If you haven't, you can't really understand it. And still you think for peace and you create for peace and complexity and embrace it and I think the world of you for that. So thank you and I'm also not going to take up more of your time, unless you want to add anything, because I know that there's so much going on in your life at this very, very second. So if there's anything else you want to add, I'd love it, and if not, I'm just grateful.

Kaley: 28:08

Thank you so much for this platform. So talking about these stuff are important and to feel like someone who's lived this life and feels the same. I do want to say that, since I don't have a lot of night when I can leave the babies, but I have taken a babysitter once or twice and done like singing circles Actually predominantly women singing circles and they have been extremely healing for me and for the women around. They include a lot of conversation and sharing. I feel like that's what we need and any moment of connection has been. I feel like that gives me strength for another day and to walk the longer mile and to believe that in the long run, what's happening now will be, god willing, for the greater good.

Di: 29:24

And regarding the circles, do you promote them on a social media platform or if someone?

Kaley: 29:42

I have a closed WhatsApp group. I do have also a mailing list and I have my social media platforms. I actually haven't been very active lately.

Di: 29:57

Understandably.

Kaley: 29:58

Because I have a survival mode and a lot of times it's just a friend says there's this group happening, want to come tonight? My mother is coming to sleep over, so I know that I can leave the house. And then I said to a friend do you want to do a women's singing circle tonight? And she's like did you read my mind? I was just thinking about calling you and organizing that. So it's very local, sometimes it's someone else's home. But another friend also, who has been there, has been in reserve duty Since the 7th of October. We were like complaining to each other about just the situation we're living in and she's like maybe we'll do a women's singing circle at my place. And that happened a few days ago and was also very healing. So it's very non-commercial and I feel that that's also part of the magic of it.

Di: 31:05

Absolutely, absolutely, but I will link all the links, so people can be exposed to your work, to the podcast page, and thank you so much, kaylee, for joining me today. Thank you, thank you so much and thank you to the baby for allowing me.