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8/2/2019 The Shrill Voice of Israel - Haaretz
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2/12 The shrill voice of Israel - Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News
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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
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Published 06:19 29.02.12 Latest update 06:19 29.02.12
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8/2/2019 The Shrill Voice of Israel - Haaretz
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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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