GIVEN THE heavy rainfall, it would not have been surprising if the audience at
the evening memorial for Yaffa Yarkoni at the National Library on the Hebrew
University’s Givat Ram campus would have been sparse. But in fact, a crowd was
already gathered by the staircase long before the advertised starting time. At
the National Library audiences are not allowed into the hall until around half
an hour prior to the event, nor are chairs provided for senior citizens to take
the weight off their feet while they’re waiting to go upstairs. And there were
quite a few very senior citizens, considering that many people were of Yarkoni’s
generation.
By the time the program got under way, the hall was
packed.
Prof. Edwin Seroussi announced that it was less of a memorial
tribute than a celebration of the fact that Yarkoni’s extensive personal archive
had been transferred to the National Library, with many of her personal effects
on display. Anecdotes about Yarkoni and her so-called feud with Shoshana Damari
were relayed by playwright and songwriter Dan Almagor and Army Radio’s music
guru Yoav Kutner. Some of Yarkoni’s most popular songs were sung by Adi Cohen,
aided by musicians and vocal harmonizers Shahar Ziv and Roi
Regev.
Although Cohen’s voice is not as deep and husky as that of
Yarkoni, she managed to retain the ambience of the songs, most of which were
featured in video clips of Yarkoni’s performances so the audience received both
interpretations. Kutner was angry at how Yarkoni had been betrayed by her own
colleagues prior to a scheduled tribute in her honor at the Mann Auditorium in
Tel Aviv. Yarkoni had seen a television news clip of Israeli soldiers rounding
up Palestinian prisoners and putting numbers on their hands so that they could
be easily identified. She was horrified, and in an interview with Army Radio,
said that she was shocked at the thought that the IDF would do such a thing. She
wondered aloud what had happened to the Jewish people – the people who had gone
through the Holocaust. How could they do something like this? Her comments were
immediately picked up, distorted, widely spread over the Internet and
subsequently the print media. The distortion was that she had compared the IDF
to Nazis. In fact, she had not mentioned the word Nazis, but the story became
embellished, and the distortion became perpetuated to the extent that
entertainers who had been lining up to appear on stage at the tribute concert
started to bow out until hardly anyone was left. Yarkoni, whose home had been
open to all of them, and whose hospitality was known to be boundless, was
devastated to be abandoned in this fashion. Her fans also deserted her, and even
reviled her.
Some time later, said Kutner, another tribute concert was
arranged, but on a much smaller scale. Yarkoni, who had given so much to the
nation, never quite recovered from what had been done to her, he said. This was
a perfect example of how to perpetuate a lie, said Kutner, whose remarks were
corroborated by Almagor. When speaking of both Yarkoni and Damari, Almagor said
that no matter how much glamor and glitter they displayed on stage, in private,
neither was a diva. Each was down-to-earth and did her own cooking and house
cleaning.
Once when he had come to Damari’s home, recalled Almagor, he
found her washing the floor, or as it’s referred to in the local vernacular,
doing sponja. “How can you, such a queen of song, lower yourself to do sponja?”
he had asked her. She replied: “The floor doesn’t know I’m a queen.”
■
THIS YEAR, more than any other, Purim – which coincides with International
Women’s Day – will be devoted more than usual to women’s issues and the
recognition of women’s contributions to society. This is in no small measure due
to what is perceived in the non-haredi community as the denigration of women by
certain extreme haredi elements. Today and tomorrow, Kehillat Moreshet Yisrael,
located at 3 Agron Street, will be celebrating Women’s Shabbat. The services
will be led entirely by women and will feature Torah-inspired sermons by Prof.
Alice Shalvi, the founder of the Israel Women’s Network, and Rachel Azaria, a
member of the Jerusalem City Council representing the Yerushalmim
faction.
■ CONGREGANTS AT the Beit Yisrael Congregation in Yemin Moshe
are due for a special treat this Shabbat, with services being led by Cantor
Naftali Wertheim of the Moscow Great Synagogue.
■ WAVES OF FREEDOM, the
documentary film based on the book by Murray Greenfield about American Mahal
(Mitnadvei Hutz La’aretz) volunteers who came to help in the mission to bring
Holocaust survivors to Israel and to fight in the War of Independence, has been
widely screened in Israel and is available on DVD. The film was made by Alan
Rosenthal, who specializes in making documentaries that relate to Jewish – or
specifically Israeli – themes. Such productions require an incredible amount of
research. Rosenthal will discuss this on Wednesday, March 14 in an address to
the Jerusalem Branch of the Jewish Historical Society of England. The lecture at
Beit Avi Chai, which is wheelchair accessible, will begin at 7:45 p.m.
■
WHILE THE majority of political leaders in Israel keep touting a two-state
solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, amateur historian, researcher and
author Tsvi Misinai – along with Prof.
Josef Ben Dak, an expert in
international security and chairman of Knowledge Planning Corporation, a
strategic multinational think tank, right-wing author and activist David
Ish-Shalom, an impressive array of academics and Jewish and Palestinian
religious and community lay leaders – are advocating one state based on
rapprochement, or what they call “engagement.”
In separate addresses at
Media Central last week to a group of media representatives who braved the
relentless rain, the trio outlined their proposal, which is rooted in genetics.
While relatively few Palestinians may be halachically Jewish, many are
genetically Jewish, and a surprisingly large number carry the priestly gene of
the kohanim.
■ EVEN THOUGH rapprochement between Israelis and
Palestinians at the government level has hit a stalemate, there has been
long-time coexistence at an interfaith level. Aside from regular meetings at
which information is shared about religious traditions, there are also retreats
in which Israelis and Palestinians coexist. Coming up is a joint retreat of the
Palestinian Peace Society of Hebron and the Interfaith Encounter Association,
whose members include Jews, Christians and Muslims. The retreat will take place
on March 22-23 at the Austrian Hospice in the Old City.
■ IF YOU’VE ever
wondered when seeing television clips of gala events taking place in hotels, why
there are so many screens or stands featuring the hotel logo, it’s because such
publicity often gives the organization whose event it is extra perks or a big
discount.
This even applies to one-on-one interviews. At a recent
conference at a luxury Jerusalem hotel, one of the prominent figures was being
interviewed by Channel 1, but the interview could not take place until the
hotel’s screens had been set in place behind him. The perk was that the hotel
supplied free cake, cookies, sandwiches and coffee throughout the morning to the
organization’s administration and press rooms.
Not all organizations want
to be part of such an arrangement.
In another Jerusalem luxury hotel in
which a non-Jewish organization has an annual large-scale reception, the PR of
the hotel stood just two or three meters ahead of the official receiving line to
welcome every guest in the name of the hotel. The organizers of the event were
very upset because they had neither asked for nor received any perks and had
paid full price without question.
The hotel was in fact encroaching on
their event.
In Tel Aviv, more than in Jerusalem, hotels go a step
further and ensure that the manager of the hotel is photographed greeting
international celebrities. Such photographs are, of course, circulated all over
the world and, if published, result in enormously valuable free publicity. Thus
it’s hardly surprising that the managers of Tel Aviv’s best hotels are in hot
pursuit of the organizers of the anticipated visit at the end of May by Madonna,
who will be launching her world tour from the Holy Land. Lady Gaga is due to
arrive in August to give a concert in Petah Tikva, and the rush to accommodate
her will be no less intense than that to serve the needs of Madonna.
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