World music aficionados among you may well be familiar with Natacha Atlas, the Arabic singer who combines her epic vocal range with driving, dub reggae influenced beats.

I discovered Atlas through her 1995 album, “Diaspora.” At the time, I wondered whether she might be Jewish as, on one of the songs, she moves effortlessly from Arabic to Ladino, the language spoken by the Jews of the Iberian peninsula. I also wondered whether she was consciously, even riskily, challenging Muslim theology on the question of the visibility (and audibility) of women; on “Dub Yalil,” the album’s most stunning track, Atlas’s soaring voice carries the Adhan, the call to prayer which rings from minarets five times each day, over a steady, echoing bass line.

Over the years, I came across descriptions of her as variously Egyptian or Jewish or Palestinian or even all of those at once. Last October, Bob from Brockley ran an interesting post which quoted Atlas saying, “I am a Muslim. With the Jewish thing, it’s one of those things where someone had a grudge against me and wanted to hurt me.” However, a commenter on the same post relayed that he had held telephone conversations with Atlas in which she had spoken of her desire “to explore her Jewish roots, but she didn’t seem to know how.”

Atlas is now exploring the musical aspects of those roots through her collaboration with Yasmin Levy, a Jerusalem-born singer in the Ladino tradition (you can listen to a sample of Levy’s sublime vocal talents here.) In yesterday’s edition of The National, an English-language newspaper published in Abu Dhabi, the two singers were the subject of a profile which contained the following extraordinary passages:

But there’s a problem, an issue that Atlas feels she needs to air: “Some Arabic artists wouldn’t even consider working with anyone Jewish.”

“You mean they wouldn’t work with an Israeli,” responds Levy, looking baffled and concerned. “No, Jewish,” says Atlas emphatically. “I’m really upset,” says Levy, her shock and distress clearly growing, the more this sinks in. “For me it is the Israeli and Arabic thing, I understand about that, but Jewish. Why? Now in this century?”

“It stems from the political thing with Israel,” says Atlas. “I think if that was sorted out then people would relax a lot more. It’s about the fact that Israel has got more tanks and they use them and the Palestinians are still just throwing stones and being battered.” Atlas has clearly taken a very deep breath before bringing up this issue – she later confides that she’s avoided discussing this with Levy up until now, for fear of upsetting her – and Levy, her eyes clouding over, her voice cracking, is visibly taken aback. What makes this even more powerful is its contrast with the strong, charming friendship which exists between the two. A friendship characterised by warmth and laughter. Yet here’s Levy struggling to get to grips with the way anti-Zionism can spill over into anti-Semitism. I try to put it in context, explaining how opposition to the violent extremes of Islam can expand to an irrational hatred of all Muslims and in the same way, opposition to the violent extremes of Israel can expand to an irrational hatred of all Jews. And all of it’s wrong.

“That’s exactly it,” agrees Atlas, “It’s irrational and more and more in the world, people are behaving irrationally, not just on a political or religious level, but on every other level. This is a scary time. I call it ‘The Second Dark Ages’. Look at the mentality of right wing Christians in the US. There’s a lot to get through, a lot to fight.” “In Israel, I hear so many bad things about Muslims and Palestinians,” says Levy. “This is the problem, we all think we’re better than someone else. It’s like ‘Jewish is better’ or ‘Muslim is better’ and it’s so stupid. We are all human beings.”

“There’s a lot of conditioning we need to redress,” reckons Atlas. “And that starts from very young. Kids are conditioned to think in that way and it’s difficult to challenge. We all get conditioned to behave in certain stereotypical ways on every level. Even in very basic relationships between men and women, the game playing. I’m constantly trying to check myself with that too. We all have so much more evolving to do.”

But Levy believes that history can give us hope. “I sing songs from the time that the Jews lived in peace with Muslims in Spain. The country that accepted the Jews after the expulsion from Spain 500 years ago was Turkey and the Ottoman Empire. There was a mutual respect between Muslims and Jews.” So would they consider recording together again? “I would love to do everything with you,” says Levy to Atlas. “But I realise how bad the situation is. I don’t want people to make your life hard.”

“It’s OK,” says Atlas, matter of factly. “It’s already done anyway, so whatever happens, happens now. I made my decision when I said yes, when we first met.” The interview over, the three of us leave together. Atlas apologises again for raising the anti-Semitism issue. Levy, although still clearly upset, says she understands and the two women stand outside the Barbican and hug amid its windswept concrete before going their separate ways.

There are many aspects of this exchange which stand out: the shock with which Levy greets the realization that antisemitism, rather than hostility to Israel, may lie at the root of all this; the groping character of Atlas’s own explanation - there is irrationality, there is prejudice, there is Israel’s military superiority - for why this is so; the overly rosy picture of Ottoman tolerance.

What we also encounter here, though, is the fact that Natacha Atlas, whose music is redolent of a Middle Eastern idyll, has allowed history to rudely interrupt by baldly stating that Arab antisemitism exists. Moreover, she is working with another artist who would clearly be a target of the cultural boycott - Levy is an Israeli and her coming tour includes a concert in Tel Aviv. Both freely express themselves in a newspaper published in an Arab Gulf state, where journalists are more prone to depicting antisemitism as a political fabrication, rather than a genuine phenomenon.

And that, as they say, is where the real story lies.