The sounds of war

A month into the Gaza war, many Israeli artists have contributed to the long-standing tradition of boosting the country’s morale with a variety of songs dealing with different aspects of the events that traumatized and shocked the country.

Mizrahi pop vocalist Omer Adam released his contribution to underpinning the national spirit a couple of weeks ago, when he teamed up with veteran internationally renowned trance, electronic, progressive metal duo Infected Mushroom, to record “Dance Forever.”

It is a manifestly stirring song, written by Shai Horowitz – aka ShrekDiMC – designed to tug robustly on the heartstrings. It opens in a plaintive style but soon picks a head of steam as rapid electronic beats take over from the wistful opening stanzas.

That is a far cry from the material that came out of the War of Independence, like the anthemic “Shir Hare’ut” (“Song of Comradeship”), “Bab El Wad” or “Hen Efshar” (“It Is Possible”). That was back in the days when the collective, the “we”, governed the national psyche and took precedence over the needs and wishes of the individual. A somewhat clichéd English translation of the chorus includes such lines as: “But we shall remember them all, those with the forelock and the handsomeness, for a brotherhood such as this would never let our hearts forget.”

Compare that with ShrekDiMC’s more personal message: “There’s no way you’re leaving, how my heart is broken. Now all I have left is silence.” The Adam-Infected Mushrooms number clearly feeds off a very different mindset.

Morale and music

The evolution of language use also impacts heavily on the way performing artists go about their business today – that and street-level thought. “Winter 23,” by rapper Odea and Izzi, which came out on October 22 and has already accumulated more than 630,000 hits on YouTube, is a striking case in point.

The lyrics take a time warp perspective, looking back on Operation Swords of Iron and posing fundamental issues like the very existence of God, and wondering whether it was worth it to stay in Israel. That is something no one would have deigned to write about back in yesteryear Zionist consensus-fueled times.

Popular singer-songwriter Hanan Ben Ari also gets right down to it, with “Moledet” (“Homeland”), which he also uploaded to YouTube and is available with Hebrew and English subtitles, clearly aiming for as wide a viewership as possible and endeavoring to spread the word from here across the world.

Ben Ari’s emotive words ask searching questions about the state of the nation: “How long will you continue to bleed?” The lyrics dig into our military-musical ideological past, with a hopeful look for better things to come. “I sing you an old song. I remain faithful to you, forever, forever.”

But there is criticism in there too, along with the uplifting words. “Someone fell asleep on guard duty,” he states, but quickly follows that up with: “We will never break.”

“Ke’ev Shel Lochamim” (“The Pain of Warriors”), by the Revivo Project trio, led by singer-songwriter-arranger Reviv Ben Menachem, also spells out the emotional message in words of one syllable. Ben Menachem’s work stands out a little from the rest of the current war song crop, touching on post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) experienced by many IDF combat unit soldiers, and how that can impact relationships.

“You don’t know how much I tried to conceal from you all the nightmares, screams, and blood on the uniform. You don’t understand why I haven’t been me for a long time. Images from that night, tears, pain of warriors.” That is a highly personal and very human angle, the likes of the late Israel Prize laureate writer Haim Gouri, a military commander himself who wrote “Shir Re’ut,” or fellow Israel Prize recipient, “Hen Efshar” lyricist Haim Hefer, would not have expressed in so many words.

“Ten li Rega” (“Give Me A Moment”) is a collaborative effort written and produced by Tom Benoudiz, and features over 30 vocalists, of the young Mizrahi crowd, including Naor Cohen, Liav Morhi, David Ilay, Noga Dahari, and Korin Gamliel. The For the Unity of Israel Project also expresses feral emotion and touches on raw collective nerves. “What needed to happen for us to be united?” the lyrics ask. The song closes with: “God, have mercy on your people Israel, forever more.”

Retired radio music presenter Benny Dudkevitch is cognizant of the zeitgeist gap. “You couldn’t have songs like “Hayu Zemanim” (“There Were Times,” sung by Yaffa Yarkoni), today,” he says referencing a number by celebrated lyricist Hefer and composer Moshe Vilenski, created in the throes of the War of Independence.

“You can’t sing, today, songs like ‘Bab El Wad’ or ‘Hen Efshar’. They just wouldn’t go over well.” Even so, they make for pleasant listening on golden oldies radio shows.Some numbers came straight from the field of battle, literally. “Shlomo Artzi has a song called ‘Shir Chayal’ (‘Soldier Song’), which he scored and recorded after the Yom Kippur War,” Dudkevitch recalls. The lyrics were written by Capt. Nimrod Gaon, who fell in the 1973 war.

“Each war brought its own songs,” Dudkevitch continues. “There were songs by Hava Alberstein, of course, and, first and foremost, songs written by [preeminent Israel Prize recipient] Naomi Shemer. Probably the best known of the latter’s vast oeuvre is ‘Jerusalem of Gold.’ Originally written as a paean to Jerusalem ahead of 1967’s Independence Day, at the behest of then Jerusalem mayor Teddy Kollek, it gained in national significance, and took on a new pertinent stanza, after the war.

Seminal pop and rock radio show presenter Yoav Kutner says the transition from national ideological line-toeing to individual dissenting voices began quite some time ago. “Already in the Six Day War, alongside the euphoria songs, and songs that motivated people, personal songs started to emerge,” he says. There weren’t many of them, but the ones that made it through the waves of joy at the astounding military success hit home hard.

“There were some like [late singer-songwriter] Meir Ariel who sang ‘Jerusalem of Iron.’” That was a satirical take on Shemer’s song, which was lauded here and by global Jewry as a whole. Instead of a definitive celebration of the IDF’s victory and the taking of the Old City of Jerusalem, Ariel, a paratrooper who took part in the battle in Jerusalem, mentions the cost of the battle, closing with a wish for everlasting peace within the ancient city walls. Amen.