About the diverse Israeli culture. This blog focus on the positive diverse faces of Israel and is a political blog and it covers my personal taste in music, films, TV-shows and news.
The official so called Nakbah Day celebration took place in Stockholm at Sergels Torg on May 15th. Speakers from religious and leftist groups like Ung Vänster, Svenska Muslimer för Fred och Rättvisa, SSU and Palestinagrupperna and Swedish Ship To Gaza and even Judar för Israelisk-Palestinsk Fred participated on the initiative of this man. This year he spoke so nicely about coexistence in Palestine between jews and muslims as he introduced Dror Feiler from Ship To Gaza and the loudest (if not the only) voice of Judar för israelisk-palestinsk Fred. Later comments on the internet however reveals that the organizer had completely different opinion on jews that he seemed to have while introducing Dror Feiler. And those comments are more following in the same footsteps as his speech last year. As a speaker last years on the Nakbah Day he declared war on Israel and made a loud hate speech in arabic against jews.
The question is: Do other participants know that they take part in an organized manifestation together with someone who openly has called for war on Israel, who does not believe in making any agreement with jews?
From now on I will also start covering anti-israel incidents in Sweden when I find such things. You will see how these things are very much linked together.
The song name is Asor ("Forbidden"). But there is nothing forbidden going on in the video. Not in this country anyhow. Not in Israel.
This video has been around now for a while. Chen Aharoni is one of few israeli artists that still perform modern uptempo music and he has never fallen into the mizrahi field though he is mizrahi jew. I really think he deserves better success even internationally. Chen is a pop star for international release. On the other hand I am glad he sticks to hebrew because the language is so nice to listen to rather than English.
This video is not particularly interesting the way it is made but a cool thing is that a member of "Big Brother Israel" of 2012 is dancing with Chen in the video. Her name is Yana Yosef and her mother is a muslim. Kol ha Kavod to Chen for this video and this tune!
Ishtar Alabina and Kobi Peretz have just released their first music video together.
The words are in hebrew and arabic as their last song that went an international hit, Yachad ("Together") and for which they received an award for in New York for best duet at Big Apple Awards.
This new song is produced in the same typical mizrahi manner as Yachad and speaks of course of love.
I just wonder where you can find such a house in the desert as in this video? The house more let me think of a house in the Caribbean than in the Negev. The song is featured on Kobi Peretz album "Katuv Bashamaim"("Written in the Sky"). Ishtar is CURRENTLY working on releasing a new album for the world.
A psalm from the Book of songs gets a new life on the dance floor in Israel.
"If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning Let my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth, if I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy!"
"Om jag glömmer dig Jerusalem,
må min högra hand förlamas.Må min tunga fastna vid gommen om jag inte tänker på dig - om jag inte sätter Jerusalem högre än allt annat"
"אם אשכחך ירושליםתשכך ימיניתדבק לשוני
להיכיאם לא אצכרתכיאם
לא אעלה את ירושליםעל ראש שמחתי"
torsdag 10 maj 2012
Flo Rida vs SnoBeatz feat Hadas
As I love cover versions I just had to mention this newly released track
Here is an Israeli cover version of Flo Ridas hit "Good Feeling"
Ivri Lider is releasing a new solo single...mixing all the different faces of Israel.
Ivri Lider is also currently working with the TYP-band - that has electronic sound. The new single is more traditional Ivri Lider rock/pop.
fredag 4 maj 2012
Ishtar Alabina is soon releasing her first real music video with Kobi Peretz, the duet Zachiti which I blogged about before!
Something to look forward too
the duet is an uptempo song in arabic and hebrew
Muslim Israeli Arab singer sang last night in Jerusalem for Israel and praised and celebrated Independence Day, which was celebrated last night ... Maybe she sang this song that she has become famous for, once it was written in honor of Israeli victims of Islamist terror against Israel, and where she sing the "Shema Israel" ... N Q as her name became a national celebrity in Israel as she was the only Arab who took part in the TV show "Eyal Golan Kore Lach" and won the grand final.
Now a new israeli duo is turning the arabic-iranian-spanish hit HENNA into a hebrew hit.
Cheb Khaled, the king of raï,had a great success with the hit HENNA with Swedish-Iranian singer Cameron Cartio in the arab countries and Europe. Raï is northafrican music mixed with arabic and western music. Cheb Khaled has become very famous for his big hit "Aisha" that was covered in hebrew by israeli singer Haim Moshe previously
The israeli singers are Itzik Shamli and Oshri Abergel and the hebrew song title is "Layla", meaning "Night"...
The first nice report Swedish media has made in years from Israel.
The face-book activist Ronny Edrys initiative to peaceful relations to Iran got some attentions here in Swedish media. I think the posters are beutiful
Eyal Golan oriental show right now live from Tel Aviv. It reminds me of my Dudu Aharon show. Infact they actually performed duets with Dudu Aharon in tonights final show.
Tonight an arab woman was in the final...She, Nashreen Qadri won together with Maor Ashuel the honorable prize to record an oriental album... On the question what of her performances she liked best of her performances she told mako.co.il that it was the song "Sma Israel"
Here is her clip when she is singing that song:
Lyrics of the song:
"Shma (Hear) Israel my God, you're the omnipotent You gave me my life, you gave me everything
In my eyes a tear, the heart cries quietly And when the heart is quiet, the soul screams"
in the colors of the rainbow she decorates herself
Salama ya Salama
she opens her heart and sells love"
One of my favorite singers of last year and this year is a young female singer from Israel. Her name is Eti Biton. With her newly released album in Israel called "Chinese Proverb", she re-uses arabic pop melodies but adds completely new hebrew lyrics and life to the melodies. Her record companies way of totally legally lending melodies from arabic composers has caused controversy among some arabic composers claiming israelis are "stealing" the melodies...Unfortunatelly this is a sign of the backward racism towards israelis from nations surrounding Israel. Record companies can buy a composers melody from another record company which has bought rights to the songs from the original composer.
Anyway...the album has some great commercial hits like "Chinese Proverb", "My thief", "Your mother" and "Salama ya Salama" ...You who know the arabic original lyrics of "Salma ya Salama" performed by Dalida may think the lyrics are odd as the new lyrics tell the story of a prostitute instead of a love story....
The Queen of gipsy arabic songs, Ishtar is back in a lovely duet.
Her albums are as rare as her shows but I am sure you all heard her arabic/latino hits.("Alabina, "Salma Ya salama", "Vengan")
In 2009 she recorded the arabic/hebrew duet "Yahad" in duet with Israeli mizrahi singer Kobi Peretz, a duet which was awarded as 'Song Of The Year' at the Apple Music Awards in New York.
This year they are united again in arabic/hebrew duet Zachiti ("I won") included on Kobis new album. Kobi comes from Moroccan jewish family and the music runs in his blood. His father was a singer at the Moroccan king Hassan II court.
Hebrew male lyrics: "I Can not live one minute without love without love with you
I admit I have won
My heart says I was not mistaken
I want to tell you again so that you´ll understand
There is only one in my heart, believe it!
arabic female lyrics: ده حبيبي ده أيوا ايوا This is my beloved, yes he is كدة كدة في هواه انا دايبة I'm dissolved in his love like this الوعد اللي بيني وبينه خلوني اعيش وياه The promise between me & him, let me live with him
Male hebrew lyrics:
Only with you I feel the fire in my soul , my soul
Nothing will stop me when you're with me, my love
I thank God that I have won
My heart says I was not mistaken
I want to tell you again so that you'll understand
There is only one in my heart, believe it!
female arabic lyrics:
.... ننسى كلام الناس .... let's forget people's words ..... بحبنا عاشقين نفسي بس نتهنى الزمن ما بستنى لا لا I only wish to be happy Time doesn't wait, no it doesn't
Shimon Peres , the president of Israel is launching a facebook site to speak to Arabs in the world. To succeed to promote his facebooks site Shimon Peres, 89, joined the most played DJ in the countries of Arab Spring, Noy Alooshe, who is Israeli with Tunisian background .He created the Khaddaffi song that reached millions of Arabs during the war against Khadaffi. So here Peres goes techno...a cool way to reach out to the world for peace!
Totally fantastic feeling...The once unlikely combination of Israeli culture and Iranian melting together not many exspected I guess. Nevertheless it works and it works well.
Rita, israeli singer with origin also in pre-islamistic Iran has sold gold with her persian album "My Joys". A very limited numbers of shows have taken place and you may see parts of the live show here. The demand from abroad especially from Iran and Iranians in exile for Ritas music has increased sine the new album was released. As a result Rita has now updated her website so that people outside Israel may download her new album aswell. Rita is truely one of many bridges between Israel and those considered hostile to the Jewish Democratic State of Israel. And obviously the hostility Irans Ahmadinejad feels for Israel is apparently not met with the same feelings back from the multicultural melting pot that is the israeli people.
Amjad is an arab man trying his best to deliver a message of peace and coexistence between Arabs and Jews in Israel fighting prejudices on both the jewish side aswell as from the arab side of the society...and it creates some funny moments of laugh...
In this opening episode of the third season of the successful comedy Amjad gets a great idea how to deliver peace between arabs and jews...he will join Big Brother...pretending to be a jew...LINK above in grey
Arab Labor is a sitcom television series, produced in Israel. The series which premiered on Keshet Channel 2 in Israel in 2007 and on Link TV in the Fall of 2008, was created by Sayed Kashua and it was the most popular comedy drama show in Israel 2011! It is even said miss Hillary Clinton is a fan of the series!
The series (whose title in colloquial Hebrew carries the implication of “shoddy or second-rate work,”) focused on the family and work situations, of Amjad, a Palestinian journalist and Israeli citizen. Much of the comedy is derived from the paradox of Amjad's love-hate relationship with his Arab identity and his simultaneous wish to integrate comfortably into Israeli society.
(note the episodes are subtitled in arabic only - not in English)
Little is known about the Farhoud in Europe. But what took place there has happened so many times in the story of the middle east. But it surprised the indigenous people of Iraq who had lived there thousands of years before the arab population conquered and established itself in Iraq
This movie tells the story of the horrible Farhoud, the great massacre in 1941, seven years before Israel was even established and it continued for decades slowly slowly until the country was emptied of jewish presence...
the horrible thing is so few iraqies know today about what happened back then in the summer of 1941.
