Amal Murkus
by Mitch Ritter and Shulamith Amar

She's Arab, Christian, and Communist. That's three strikes against Amal Murkus in her homeland of Israel. While the Galilean recording artist has made waves across the Mediterranean, her steadfast commitment to smashing stereotypes, even as she searches out paths of peaceful co-existence and socially equitable conflict resolution, has swung Murkus' career out of both the Israeli and Palestinian musical mainstreams.

Profiles by the BBC and various European radio broadcasting services, as well as by "Morning Edition" over National Public Radio, have generated a sustained buzz about Murkus' debut CD, titled simply Amal, which means "Hope" in Arabic. The disc remains elusive after being released by the small Highlights label in Moshav Udim, Israel. Every major Israeli label turned Murkus down, while a stubborn streak has kept her from signing overseas distribution deals with a number of trans-national record companies that have come calling.

Murkus recounted one of her earlier attempts to get the CD made. She'd already been championed by such leading lights on the Israeli music scene as David Broza, Yehudit Tamir, Shlomo Bar, Alon Oleartchik, and Amos Hadani. "I went to NMC (National Music Company), a major Israeli record label. They told me, 'It's difficult,' because I am singing in Arabic. 'We don't have enough of a market to sell such material,' they said." Most Arab countries boycott Israeli exports. "They confided to me that 'We are afraid of your text, because you might sing political songs. And which land are you singing about?' Such stupid questions!

"Then they came back and said, 'We have an idea. We will introduce you to an Egyptian producer. Maybe in Egypt they would like to produce your CD.' That hurt me because I was born in Israel, I live in Israel, I am a citizen of Israel, and I think this is within my rights to make my own CD in my own country, as other Israeli singers make their own CDs. So I started to be stubborn. I intended to make my CD just in Israel."

By this time the young Israeli pop star Zehava Ben had already made a tribute album to the late Egyptian global diva Oum Khaltoum, in Arabic, with orchestration and arrangements by Suhail Radwan. That CD was a huge commercial success. Yet, when Murkus went to NMC, the company heads Noga Tal and Moshe Murad told her with an apparent straight face that Arabic music could not succeed. "Yeah, she [Zehava Ben] is Jewish, singing Arabic, so it's a gimmick... it's fine. No problem," said Murkus. "That hurt a lot. But now that we've made the CD we wanted to make, on our own, we feel pretty good."