Grapevine: In love with Lahav

Moshe Lahav’s repertoire, at least in his Mamilla Mall performances, was patriotically Jerusalem and national, and the audience just lapped it up.

By GREER FAY CASHMAN
Father and daughter at Mamilla mall 521 (photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem)
Father and daughter at Mamilla mall 521
(photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem)
■ THE LAST of the free Thursday night summer concerts in the Mamilla Mall, attracted a huge audience as usual, not only because it was the last performance of the season but because singer Moshe Lahav has a fantastic following. He has a coterie of middle-aged groupies – mostly male – who follow him around the country and help warm up the crowd. The minute he comes on stage, the audience becomes part of him and he becomes part of them. The mutual rapport is amazing, and they know all his songs even though, unlike some other singers, he doesn’t have a screen with the lyrics, nor does he hand out song sheets.
Among the Lahav regulars is a young man with Down syndrome, who is the most graceful dancer and who knows all of Lahav’s extensive repertoire by heart. Everyone who gets up to dance includes him in the circle or in the couples. For the better part of two hours, he becomes totally immersed in mainstream Jerusalem, and the expression of pure delight on his face is something that no amount of money could buy.
By and large Lahav’s repertoire, at least in his Mamilla Mall performances, is patriotically Jerusalem and national, and the audience just laps it up. Lahav sang for just over two hours without a break. At the end, his regular cronies came on stage dancing and singing as they held aloft a large national flag.
■ WITH JUST over two years to go until the next municipal elections, the haredi movers and shakers are looking for a suitable candidate who will appeal to both religious and secular Jerusalemites. One of the names proposed is that of Prof. Jonathan Halevy, the director of Shaare Zedek Medical Center.
Halevy, though religiously observant, is not haredi. However, Shaare Zedek operates along halachic guidelines, and Halevy does much to accommodate the needs of the haredi population.
On Saturdays, when he’s not on duty, Halevy is frequently asked to read the Torah portion of the week at various synagogues in the capital. It’s something he does extremely well, reading not too fast and not too slow but at a storyteller’s pace and with a storyteller’s intonation. He is popular in every congregation where he reads. He would probably make a very good teacher. He certainly does a good job as a hospital manager. How he would fare as a politician is anyone’s guess, but given his managerial experience, he would probably do well on that score too. Today he is disinclined to make a career change, but who knows what will happen a year or so from now when election campaigns start to seriously get under way.
■ ONE CAN’T help wondering whether CityPass is donating to projects in Haifa and Tel Aviv, considering that oft-repeated radio commercials individually feature Haifa Mayor Yona Yahav and Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai congratulating Jerusalem on being the first city in the country with a light rail system. Huldai concludes his message with the words “B’karov etzleinu” (which, loosely translated, means “Soon by us”).
Given what has transpired so far in Tel Aviv’s attempts to initiate a light rail system, it won’t be happening any time soon – perhaps in Huldai’s lifetime, but it’s fairly safe to say not while he’s in office.
■ WHEN KIBBUTZNIKS Amir Mahoul and his two young daughters Noga and Ma’ayan of Kibbutz Hulda near Rehovot and Mazkeret Batya came on an outing to Jerusalem last week, they didn’t expect to win any kind of lottery, so they were totally surprised when informed that they had lifetime of free access to the Israel Museum. It all came about because the head of the family decided that a visit to Jerusalem would be incomplete without a visit to the much-vaunted treasure house of the capital.
It just so happened that, together, father and daughters represented the millionth visitor to the museum since its reopening after renovations in July 2010. Museum director James Snyder, accompanied by Mayor Nir Barkat, presented the Mahouls with their lifetime subscription, which was one way to ensure that they would visit Jerusalem with greater frequency.