Meyer, Gabriel 1947- (Gabriel Ray Henry Meyer)

PERSONAL:

Born May 29, 1947, in Argentina; son of Marshall Meyer (conservative rabbi) and Naomi Meyer.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Los Angeles, CA. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Journalist. National Catholic Register, correspondent, 1990—; Metatron: Ritual Theater Collective, cofounder, 1994; Sulha Peace Project, cofounder and director, 2001—. Member of the band Amen.

MEMBER:

Ruskin Art Club (president), Keats-Shelley-Byron Memorial Association (Rome, Italy).

AWARDS, HONORS:

Awards for coverage of first Palestinian intifada, Catholic Press Association, 1989.

WRITINGS:

The Gospel of Joseph, Crossroad Publishing (New York, NY), 1994.

In the Shade of the Terebinth: Tales of a Night Journey, Forest of Peace Publishing (Leavenworth, KS), 1994.

(With Elizabeth Snyder) A Ride on the Political Merry-go-round, Silverton Books (Los Angeles, CA), 1996.

War and Faith in Sudan, with photographs by James Nicholls, William B. Eerdmans Publishing (Grand Rapids, MI), 2005.

OTHER

(Screenwriter and narrator) The Hidden Gift: War and Faith in Sudan, directed by David Tlapek, Eternal Word Television Network, 2001.

Contributor to periodicals, including National Catholic Register. Contributor of poems to the Los Angeles Literary Review.

SIDELIGHTS:

Journalist, poet, and musician Gabriel Meyer is the son of outspoken human rights activist and conservative rabbi Marshall Meyer. Born in Argentina on May 29, 1947, Gabriel Meyer has taken his father's vision to a new level through the formation of activist groups seeking peaceful solutions and dialogue, specifically toward reconciliation between Palestinians and Israelis. He is a member of the band Amen, composed of like-minded musicians from other professional groups that perform music inspired by their mutual desire for peace.

During the 1980s, Meyer lived in Jerusalem's Muslim Quarter as a journalist. His reports of the 1989 Palestinian intifada—the violent Palestinian uprising against Israeli rule that took place throughout Gaza, East Jerusalem, and the West Bank—won several Catholic Press Association awards. During that time he traveled throughout the Middle East, especially in Egypt and Turkey. He reported on conditions affecting the ethnic and religious minorities of the region and lived for a year in the Sinai desert. In 1990, Meyer began working for the National Catholic Register as a reporter assigned to Yugoslavia and was an eyewitness to the civil war that erupted there. He visited many areas of the Balkans during the Bosnian war, reporting on the politics surrounding aid to the area and the painful issues surrounding war orphans. He was in Sarajevo when the war finally ended in October 1995 and was nominated for several journalism awards for his reporting during that time.

In 1994, during his assignment in the Balkans, he cofounded the Metatron Ritual Theater Collective, a multinational and multicultural group of peace activists whose mission, according to the group's Web site, is "to generate healing for Abraham's Children through art, faith and the basic root myths of the Middle East." In 2003 Meyer cofounded the Sulha Peace Project with fellow peace activist Elias Jabbour. Sulha is a Middle Eastern tradition of meditation and conflict resolution, and the Sulha Peace Project sponsors a yearly gathering promoting coexistence, especially among Israeli and Palestinian youth. It grew from a group of 150 during the second intifada to a gathering of thousands in just a few years, with the goal of preparing the people of the Middle East for a time of peace.

In 1997, he met and interviewed human rights activist Bishop Macram Max Gassis of Sudan and traveled with him into war-torn areas of the country. Meyer visited Sudan several times to work on a documentary film about Bishop Gassis's work in the Nuba Mountains in central Sudan during the country's civil war and what was happening to the Nuba, the Dinka, and other tribes overlooked by foreign media as their lands, culture, and people were destroyed by government forces. Meyer wrote and narrated the film, titled The Hidden Gift: War and Faith in Sudan, which premiered at the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles and at the National Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC in the summer of 2001.

The Hidden Gift received overwhelming media attention and brought the war in the Sudan to much greater public awareness. Meyer's visits to the Sudan and his work on the film inspired the essays for his book War and Faith in Sudan. In it Meyer describes the attacks of government-sponsored militants on civilians and the destruction and devastation visited on their culture, as well as their homes. Enhanced by James Nicholls's moving photographs, the book had a powerful impact on reviewers.

Christopher D. Ringwald, writing for the National Catholic Reporter, declared that War and Faith in Sudan "presents a refreshing if still painful snapshot of one people and region in Sudan…. The author's touching insights and revelations are often engaging." Reviewing the book for Church History, Peter P. Garretson took an academic approach, calling the book "gracefully written" and "a very useful, general summary of the contemporary situation…. Overall the book provides a needed spotlight on the role of slavery and its impact on the Nuba and also deals interestingly with the role of gender. More importantly, the book as a whole begins to redress an imbalance in publications on the Sudan." David Morse, reviewing War and Faith in Sudan for his Web site, praised the book's content and style. He said it was "a thoughtful book" and "the work of an insightful and seasoned author, capable of broad analysis and lyrical description of the land and its people."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, July 1, 1994, John Shreffer, review of The Gospel of Joseph, p. 1923; October 1, 1998, Ray Olson, review of The Gospel of Joseph, p. 293.

Church History, March, 2007, Peter P. Garretson, review of War and Faith in Sudan, p. 225.

Journal of Peace Research, March, 2007, Ole Magnus Theisen, review of War and Faith in Sudan, pp. 250-251.

National Catholic Reporter, March 10, 2006, "Understanding the History of the Nuba People," p. 17.

Town Hall Journal, August, 2006, "An Interview with Gabriel Meyer," p. 4.

ONLINE

Cal Performances, University of California, Berkeley Web site,http://www.calperfs.berkeley.edu/ (March 20, 2004), "The Spirit of Fès" concert program and author profile.

Christian Solidarity Worldwide,http://www.cswusa.com/ (November 1, 2001), "The Hidden Gift Goes Global on EWTN."

David Morse Web site,http://david-morse.com/ (August 4, 2008), review of War and Faith in Sudan.

Jewcy,http://www.jewcy.com/ (April 3, 2008), Roi Ben-Yehuda, "Solving the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict through Song: An Interview with Gabriel Meyer."

Metatron: Ritual Theater Collective Web site,http://www.metasulha.org/ (August 4, 2008), author profile.

UCLA International Institute,http://www.international.ucla.edu/ (November 9, 2006), author profile.