Lovely Rita, American star?
Everyone knows Rita, the longtime queen of Israeli song. But even she was surprised when a remake of one of her hits “Bo,” that she recorded in English a couple years ago suddenly began popping up on American Top 40 playlists over the last few months.
The buzz around the song – “Love Has Begun” – became so loud that US trade magazine New Music Weekly named Rita as ‘Top 40 Breakthrough Artist for 2009′ in its recently released list of winners.
“It’s funny and a bit weird. I didn’t expect it at all, it’s something I really didn’t think about,” Rita told The Jerusalem Post this week as she prepared to travel to the US for a series of shows next month.
The song was recorded at the behest of a longtime American friend of Rita’s, Florida-based attorney Arnold Beizer. From what I can gather, Beizer, the director of the US non-profit organization Let Freedom Ring which focuses attention on US veterans allegedly still being held in Vietnam, is also a Bible Codes scholar and involved in other activities.
He took Rita into a studio and recorded “Love Has Begun” and a cover of Bette Midler’s Wind Beneath My Wings” and brought them back to Florida where producer Carlo Pennizi remixed them and added more contemporary accompaniment.
Meanwhile, Rita had forgotten all about it, and was surprised in recent months to find out that the song, which appeared on an album of the same name that Beizer and Pennizi compiled with other singers, was charting in some radio station across the US.
Hot on the heels of her well-received performance in Jerusalem earlier this month for Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berloscuni, Rita’s headed for a short US tour, which begins March 13, and includes two shows in New York and one each in Philadelphia, Miami and Los Angeles.
Focusing on her latest album Remazim, Rita has performed the well-received show over 200 times in Israel and abroad. But this time in the US, interspersed with the expat Israelis, maybe there’ll be a few new American fans of Rita, who may not even know she’s Israeli.
Idan Raichel project salutes Jerusalem
Two years ago, Israel’s capital introduced the “Jerusalem Card” which provides discounts on a whole range of Jerusalem attractions – from restaurants and museums to music performances and even discounts on parking and taxis. We bought ours at the opening to the annual Hutzot HaYotzer arts and crafts festival for NIS 60 (around $16) and it’s paid for itself many times over.
Last night, the city decided to celebrate the card’s birthday with a festive concert featuring the Idan Raichel Project at Jerusalem’s International Congress Center. Card holders got in for only NIS 50 ($13) instead of the non-resident price of NIS 140 ($37). In an age when concerts by big names are going for hundreds of shekels, this was a can’t miss deal.
That, apparently, was what half the city seemed to think too. The concert was sold out within hours of tickets going on sale and the performance hall was packed.
Raichel is one of Israel’s most unique talents. Bursting onto the local music scene in 2002, he’s assembled an 11-piece band composed of performers from around the world that sings in Amharic, Spanish, Arabic, English and, of course, Hebrew. Flute, sax, oud and mandolin could all be heard, along with a unique percussion instrument that involved pouring water into buckets. It’s true world music…with a rock beat.
The crowd was a unique Jerusalem mix of young and old, completely covered up religious and scantily clad secular. It was encouraging to see the way that music can bring together an increasingly polarized population.
That may have been due in part to Raichel’s multi-cultural and pluralistic emphasis. He punctuated the 2 hour plus concert with anecdotes about the texts he uses for his songs, many of which come from Biblical sources and have double meanings – love stories about longing for God that at the same time year for a more physical partner.
Perhaps the most poignant moment came when Raichel recounted the band’s performance earlier this year for Martin Luther King Day with U.S. President Barack Obama in attendance. On his return to Israel, though, he received a call about several young children under the age of four dying from cancer. His father picked him up at the airport and they immediately drove to the hospital.
The concert in the U.S., by comparison, Raichel realized, was all “shtuyiot” (“unimportant” or “nonsense” in Hebrew). He then proceeded to play an emotional ballad that had the crowd alternately cheering and crying.
Our Jerusalem Card is due to expire soon. There’s no question that we’ll renew it.
You can watch a clip from the concert above or click this link.
Nostalgia Sunday – Netanyahu’s fixer upper
Filed under: General, History and Culture, Israeliness, Movies, Music, Nostalgia Sunday, Politics
The members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet went on a little trip today up to visit historic Tel Hai in the Galilee. Going on tiyul is quite common this season — dozens of people are hiking Shvil Yisrael, the Israel National Trail this month — but it’s unusual for members of Knesset to move en masse out of their comfort zone and into the periphery.
However, this was a special occasion. Today being the 90th anniversary of the battle at the Tel Hai compound — itself refurbished thanks to the efforts of The Society for Preservation of Israel Heritage Sites (SPIHS) — it was selected as an appropriate time and place for a cabinet meeting to approve a comprehensive plan, the largest ever, to “strengthen the national heritage infrastructures of the State of Israel”.
What is a national heritage infrastructure? As set out in Netanyahu’s plan (called TAMAR which in Hebrew is the acronym for “national heritage infrastructure”) it consists of about 150 “tangible/material cultural resources” (archaeological and historic sites) and “intangible/nonmaterial cultural resources” (archives and collections of literature, poetry, philosophy, arts, crafts, music and song, dance, theater, film, traditions, holidays, festivals, ceremonies, etc.) all in need of rehabilitation and/or enrichment. TAMAR will cost almost NIS 400 million, and will be funded by private donations to be matched by allocations from the budgets of 16 government ministries.
The list of sites — which is not yet finalized — includes 37 archaeological sites, 39 museums and collections, and 62 sites relating to Israel’s Jewish and Zionist heritage — many literally crumbling to bits, such as the magnificent painted ceiling in Jerusalem’s Meah Shearim Yeshiva. There are also 13 projects in the “intangible/nonmaterial” category that would restore cultural resources like the backlog of yet-uncatalogued movies still in cartons at the Israel Film Archive – as well as upgrade the archive building itself.
Two additional trails will be created in addition to Shvil Yisrael, promised Netanyahu, one a historic trail of archaeological sites from the biblical, Second Temple and other eras in the history of the Land of Israel, the other a trail tracing the places and events that gave rise to the modern-day State of Israel.
Netanyahu couldn’t have given a better example than this one: dowdy, dingy Independence Hall in Tel Aviv. “It is good that the city is open to the world and good that the city is alive and moving forward. But at 16 Rothschild Boulevard, there is a small auditorium in which the State of Israel was declared. There, David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first Prime Minister, declared the State of Israel.
“The hall is run-down. I am not saying that it is about to fall over but as far as the many young people and others, who flock to the street, to Rothschild Boulevard, are concerned, they do not know it. They do not visit it at all. And therefore, we will rehabilitate Independence Hall.”
The long-term payoff for TAMAR, say the plan’s authors, will be NIS 630 million in annual tourism revenue, job creation in the amount of 3,500 permanent positions plus 800 more during the 5-year period of the plan’s execution, and development of tourism to the Negev and Galilee regions. Later this week, the cabinet is due to approve the national transportation plan joining the Galilee and other regions to an accessible national transportation grid.
The cabinet also made a separate decision today on a new building for Israel’s National Library, funded by a donation from Yad Hanadiv (the Rothschild Foundation).
Karolina on my mind
Filed under: A New Reality, General, Israeliness, Music, Pop Culture, Profiles
When you think of Israel’s musical diversity and who the most fitting artist may be to exemplify it, Idan Raichel will likely come mind – with his multi-cultural band and his inspiring pastiche of Middle Eastern, new age, gospel and contemporary pop.
But a worthy contender is the Israeli ‘Earth mother’ – MC Karolina.
With her flowing rainbow clothes, distinctive hair, swaying motions, and evoceasily flow from Hebrew to English to Hebrew, she lays down a good-time groove and never lets go of it.
Audiences may already be familiar with Karolina without even knowing it – because she’s also the anchor of the acoustic jazz-folk vocal trio Habanot Nechama. The group, featuring singers Yael Deckelbaum and Dana Adini, recently returned from a triumphant tour of US and Canadian colleges and clubs, wowing the crowds with their bi-lingual vocal versatility.
Now Karolina – whose last name is Avratz and who was raised in Eilat – is back in Israel, enjoying solo success with her new album What Do I Do Now?, featuring the hit single “Happiness.”
Karolina’s musical diversity dates back to well before she founded her first band, Funset, in 2000 and began making inroads in Tel Aviv’s underground club and lounge scene.
Falling in with like-minded musicians in Tel Aviv, Karolina founded the Funset Sound System and created something she called a “Ragga Pumpkin” sound – a lively blend of reggae, soul and trip hop – which also featured in the name of the band’s 2005 debut album, Live Ragga Pumpkin.
The album resulted in an ACUM award (similar to an Israeli Grammy) for Karolina – for composition – with the prize citing her “original style, fresh and lively, and her diverse ability to write and to excite with a unique sound.” Another ACUM award – for Best New Song of 2007 – went her way for “So Far,” a track from the Habanot album of that year.
“I was a solo artist for many years before Habanot, so I have a strong identity coming in, as we all did,” she told me last week.
For her solo album, Karolina worked with collaborators Kutiman, who gained worldwide notoriety last year for his inventive YouTube musical mashup “Thru-You,” and Ronen Sabbo, one of the hottest DJs in Tel Aviv and one-fourth of the DJ crew Soulico.
For an authentic taste of contemporary music, Karolina will get you there… Here’s one of her songs, followed by the Habanot Nechama classic “So Far.”
An American Idol like an Israeli rose
Filed under: A New Reality, General, Israeliness, Movies, Music, Pop Culture, tv
I admit it – I’m an American Idol junkie. And watching the prelims last week (which are screened here on Saturday night, a few days after their US screening), our family’s ears perked up when we heard a contestant introduced as “Didi Ben Ami.”
“Gotta be Israeli,” my son said. But the young woman who came out and sang “Hey Jude” with a slightly southern twang, and delicately broke down while talking about her late best friend who inspired her to pursue music hardly appeared to be a Sabra.
However, since then, a look at her MySpace page as well as reports on the Web and news reports confirm that Ben Ami has an Israeli connection.
Her given name is ‘Vered Benami’, she’s aged 22, from Tennessee, and now living in LA and working as a waitress. On the American Idol Web site, she pronounces her name, first with an American accent and then with an Israeli one.
Her MySpace page explains that “Vered” means “rose” in Hebrew, and the page lists “faith that some day there will be peace in Israel.” According to Ynet, Benami was born in New York to a “family of Israelis.”
However, a number of Christian music web sites which list American Idol contestants with a connection to Christian music and values list Benami among them. So who know? Meanwhile, Benami has passed the first round of elimination on the way to securing the final 24 candidates to make the finals of the show. If she makes, she’ll join
Elliott Yamin, who placed third on the show’s fifth season, as an Israeli Idol. Yasmin has an American Jewish mother and an Israeli father.
Benami isn’t the only Israeli who’s floating around the show this year. Among the names touted to be replacing departing judge Simon Cowell next year is Guy Oseary, the Israeli-born LA music mogul and manager of Madonna.
Oseary is allegedly in the final pack of possible successors, along with Howard Stern, Jamie Foxx and former Sony music boss Tommy Mottola.
According to Ha’aretz, Jerusalem-born Oseary has made several guest appearances in TV and films such as blockbusters Charlie’s Angels and You Don’t Mess With the Zohan, and has also authored four books including Jews Who Rock, about Jews in the music industry.
If he is chosen, I wonder if we’ll start hearing some Cowell-like insults in Hebrew next year.
Subscribe
Subscribe to Israelity via email:
Social Media
Categories
- A New Reality
- Art
- Blogging
- Business
- coexistence
- Crime
- design
- education
- Entertainment
- Environment
- Food
- Foto Friday
- General
- health
- History and Culture
- Holidays
- Immigrant Moments
- Israeliness
- Life
- Medical Breakthroughs
- Movies
- Music
- News
- Nostalgia Sunday
- Picture of the Week
- Politics
- Pop Culture
- Profiles
- Religion
- Science
- Social Justice
- Sports
- Technology
- Travel
- tv
- War
The Face of Israel Today
-
About Israelity
Free newsletter
Stories from ISRAEL21c.orgPopular Posts