New video: Music students get called into Jerusalem children’s hospital

Foster Beyers says:

I recently took a group of students from Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota to Israel and Palestine. I believe we were the first American orchestra to play in the West Bank. We did concerts in Bethlehem, East Jerusalem and Ramallah. We also spent a morning playing for patients at a hospital in Jerusalem, Augusta Victoria Hospital on the Mount of Olives. This is the only hospital where Palestinians are able to receive kidney dialysis and chemotherapy. This hospital has a very different situation from the one portrayed above. They are many millions of dollars in the red due to a cessation of aid funding from the USA to the Palestinian Authority (who reimburses the hospital for the care of palestinian patients) If this hospital is unable to continue to provide care, there will be a whole different humanitarian crisis from the ones portrayed on the news. It is so easily avoidable if Americans everywhere could urge their members of congress to resume humanitarian aid to Palestine.

In our twelve days in the Holy Land, we were able to play for thousands of school children at Lutheran Schools in the West Bank, many of whom had never seen an orchestra before. We also collaborated with students from the Edward Said Conservatory of Music. This institution is doing incredible work to give musical training to Palestinian students who may not otherwise have an opportunity. The students we collaborated with were passionate and skilled. They deserve to live in a place of peace and safety. They are very much on our minds during this awful period.