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    There is an old story about a student who gets a failing grade in every

    subject except for singing in which he earns "excellent." Upon seeing

    his son's report card, the father slaps the boy and asks angrily: "You

    get grades like this, but you still sing?"

    One could pose a similar question to the State of Israel.

    In its short life, this country has not found the time to solve any

    existential problems, but its citizens constantly give the highest ratings

    to song contests. The truth is that singing, which is so prominent in

    Israeli public life, is actually a good barometer of other facets of life in

    this country.

    Singing is first and foremost a personal act, sometimes even a totally

    private one. A person can get a great deal of enjoyment from singing in

    the shower. Not everysinger needs an

    audience. My parents

    relate that when I was a

    kid I would make my

    way from kindergarten

    to their house on the

    kibbutz, singing all the way. I remember that story every morning

    when my young son walks to kindergarten singing "Ruah, ruah,"

    ("wind, wind" ) a song performed by Israel's greatest singer, Arik

    Einstein. (The composer, Shalom Hanoch, one of the founders of Israeli

    rock and not a singer in the classical sense, later wrote that "children

    are the bridge to ourselves that time has granted us." ) But singing is

    very often more than the pursuit of an individual, and its significance

    often transcends that of the individual.

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    The shrill voice of Israel

    In its short life, this country has not found the time to solve any existentialproblems, but its citizens constantly give the highest ratings to song contests.

    By Uri Misgav

    0

    Opinion

    Mon, April 02, 2012 Nisan 10, 5772

    Home Print Edition Opinion

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    Published 06:19 29.02.12 Latest update 06:19 29.02.12

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    Members of the Palmach prestate underground would sing around the

    campfire, and when they hastily prepared the illegal immigrants on

    board the Exodus in 1947, they told them to arrive at the shores of

    British-controlled Palestine singing with all their might. Their singing

    was in the spirit of the Red Army and the partisans in occupied Europe

    - a collective song, like that of a choir.

    To this day, sing-alongs are still a popular Israeli national pastime.

    There have also been times this has gone beyond a cultural expression

    to become a form of real defiance, as in "We will not stop singing" - the

    name given to the first season of the Israeli television song contest,

    now known as "A star is born." An echo of this spirit can be found in a

    recent film clip of the foreign minister grabbing the microphone andkilling the national anthem from beginning to end. An amateur singer

    is allowed to sing off-key here and there, but when Avigdor Lieberman

    cannot hit even one note correctly during Hatikva this is a

    reverberating metaphor.

    In recent years, Israelis have also learned that singing, provided it is

    carried out by the female half of the world's population, can be a

    pretext for acts of madness. Soldiers and public figures leave

    ceremonies on that account while citing a new and dubious precept of

    Jewish religious law, and a rabbi who holds an official government

    position has declared that he prefers to face a firing squad rather than

    listen to women's voices. If only from this point of view, the amazing

    success of the TV program, "The Voice," is a welcome message: There,

    thank God, women are still allowed to open their mouths.

    However, that program has one fault that is so basic that it is amazing

    that none of the musicians involved in its production have noticed it.

    In its second and prolonged stage, the competitors compete against

    one another in a duet. In order to drive home the point, they are

    placed on a stage that looks like a boxing ring. But that is absurd.

    Singing together is not a confrontation that is decided by a knock-out

    its success is supposed to be based on harmony, interaction and

    coordination.

    The program's format was supposedly bought from a Dutch company,

    but there is something quintessentially Israeli about it - and something

    very depressing, too, in the festive renunciation of a multitude of

    voices and shared interests in favor of one loud and victorious voice

    above all the others. That is true of musical duets, but also with regard

    to solving conflicts and conducting diplomatic processes. It is the story

    of the lost honor of harmony.

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