HOW ARTISTS ARE COPING WITH OCT. 7 THROUGH SONG
ROBUST MUSIC SCENE EVOKES ISRAEL’S COURAGE AND BOTTOMLESS HOPE DESPITE TRIALS
Fifty-seven years ago, the Israeli singer/songwriter Naomi Shemer debuted Jerusalem of Gold. Three weeks later, when the Six-day War began, her unofficial anthem for the fledgling Jewish state became a rallying cry, as it fought and defeated a coalition of neighbouring Arab armies. To this day, Shemer’s tune remains one of the most popular Israeli compositions, evoking the country’s courage and bottomless hope through each of its trials and tribulations.
Israel’s cultural sector has matured since then. Today, its music scene is robust and eclectic. And just like Shemer in 1967, Israeli music has injected much-needed energy and catharsis into the beleaguered country ever since the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas, the ensuing war in Gaza and the ongoing torture of the hostages, whose fates remain, at best, unknown.
The diversity of Israeli music in the six months since the war began ranges from angsty hip-hop lamentations, to plaintive ballads, to nationalist war cries. One survivor from the Nova music festival, where so many were brutally murdered, has a hit retelling the story of that day from his point of view. Collectively, the growing post-oct. 7 playlist speaks to the fragile psyche of Israelis at this moment, and human need to sing during trying times.
A NUMBER OF OLDER ISRAELI CLASSICS HAVE RE-EMERGED. — YONI GOLDSTEIN
Along with all of the new songs, a number of older Israeli classics have reemerged. Over the past six months, I’ve found one song, Vehi Sheamda, to be particularly poignant. It evokes all of the hopes and fears of the Jewish people, and the ways in which we have historically confronted them through artistic expression. It is honest, bittersweet and confident at the same time.
Vehi Sheamda marries the text of a famous liturgical poem that Jews read each year at the Passover Seder with a melancholy melody that emerges into an anthemic chorus. Roughly translated, the lyrics mean: “That which helped our forefathers survive (i.e., God), also helps us survive today / Because it was not only once that someone tried to destroy us, but rather in every generation they try to destroy us / And God saves us from their hands.”
Vehi Sheamda was written in 2009 by Yonatan Razel, an ultra-orthodox pianist and composer, and later that year was named the song of the decade by an Israeli radio station. Practically the entire country knows it, as does much of the Jewish diaspora. You can find countless versions performed by some of the most famous Jewish artists on Spotify and Youtube, including Yaakov Shwekey, for whom Razel originally wrote the piece. These myriad versions diverge sonically, from simple, solitary piano accompaniments to massive, 30-plus-piece bigband productions, but they all carry the same energy and meaning.
Post-oct. 7, two particular versions stand out: the first was performed by popular Israeli artists Omer Adam and Ishay Ribo at the March for Israel rally in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 14, 2023; the second by Ribo and his five-piece band at Harvard University on Feb. 27. They are remarkable less for their sound (Ribo’s Harvard version, for example, can only be seen through shaky social media posts with low sound quality) than for their audiences.
In a video of the Washington performance, nearly 300,000 people of all ages and colours instinctively link arms as the song begins, and by the end of it, their voices drown out the performers on stage. At Harvard, it was a similarly powerful scene, although in that case, it was university students, who have been dealing with an increasingly hostile campus environment, swaying together and belting out the chorus at the top of their lungs.
At a time when artists in this part of the world face attempts to silence them simply for being Jewish or Zionist — including the cancellation of the Hamilton Jewish Film Festival over “security” concerns, a B.C. theatre’s decision to halt performances of The Runner and the numerous venues that have cancelled shows by Jewish-american performer Matisyahu — these recent performances of Vehi Sheamda tell a story of Jewish resilience even in the darkest of times.
I am not much for singing myself — not since my bar mitzvah anyways — but I do come from a long line of singers. My paternal grandfather was a cantor, my father an inveterate soloist of the Torah portions in synagogue. And in an unexpected way, I have joined their lineage since the latter passed away unexpectedly at the end of December.
For the past three-anda-half months, I have spent dawn and dusk every day at synagogue reciting Kaddish, the prayer Jewish mourners say for the first year after the passing of a close family member. Kaddish has its own, dirge-like melody, sung in unison by all mourners present, and I have taken great comfort in being a part of this choir of grief. Singing, even mournfully, has been therapeutic.
The old Jewish joke — “They tried to kill us. We survived. Let’s eat” — is perhaps best exemplified at Passover, which Jews celebrate this week. We might add to that adage, “Let’s sing.” After all, that’s what Jews do in times of trouble. This Passover, when Jews gather and chant Vehi Sheamda among family, friends and strangers alike, there will be a special resonance.
IT EVOKES ALL OF THE HOPES AND FEARS OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE.