A Story About Stories

Storyteller+Noa+Baum+performing+for+an+audience.

Storyteller Noa Baum performing for an audience.

Izzy Friedland, Reporter

Noa Baum is an Israeli storyteller who lives in Silver Spring, Md. She has performed in schools and other venues across the country, and in a few other countries, too. Many of her stories draw on her Israeli/Jewish heritage. More info at noabaum.com.

It was the ‘80s. An out-of-work actress took a job in a deprived Tel-Aviv neighborhood telling stories to schoolchildren. Nobody else wanted the job.

Fast-forward a few decades later, and Noa Baum is still telling stories.

The award-winning Israeli storyteller travels, sometimes internationally, performing everywhere from the Kennedy Center to universities like Stanford or Hebrew University (Jerusalem), as well as to inner-city schools and detention centers.

“To me, storytelling is the big connecter,” Baum said. “It’s the big, big connector between humans. It’s a way humans can connect with each other, to learn about each other.”

Baum’s stories, like her audience, can vary greatly. Her repertoire includes stories from Jewish folklore, other cultural legends and stories about growing up in Jerusalem and immigrating to America; nonetheless, her motivation for storytelling remains constant.

Not only can sharing a story connect the listeners, Baum says, but it can also be used to “build bridges between people,” and advocate for tolerance and understanding.

The storyteller runs interfaith workshops which allow members of communities who may otherwise never interact in everyday life to share their experiences and create a dialogue through storytelling. The goal is to teach people to use their joint familiarity of storytelling as a medium for bridging gaps between themselves and others.

Much of Baum’s philosophy towards her job is reflected in her stories; for example, one of her longest tales, “A Land Twice Promised,” follows her friendship with a Palestinian woman from the West Bank as the two try and understand each other’s respective backgrounds and perspectives.  

Beyond storytelling’s ability to foster understanding and empathy, much of Baum’s passion for the art comes from using it to understand herself. She describes storytelling as a “way of life.”

“It’s a very powerful tool for healing,” Baum said. “Many of the stories that I’ve created have been a huge source of healing for me in my life.”

In the ‘80s, an out-of-work actress took a job in a deprived Tel-Aviv neighborhood telling stories to schoolchildren. Nobody else wanted the job, but it was there that Noa Baum found her niche. And the rest is history—or, at least, her story.