Dotan (71), divorced in a relationship, mother of a daughter, grandmother of two granddaughters, who lives in Ramat Gan, is better known for her career as a singer. Among other things, she appeared in 1973 at the singer’s festival with the song “Give us a hand and we’ll go” which was a great success. She was born as Irit Ben-Benyamin (“named after my grandfather, who perished in the Holocaust”), grew up in Haifa, and already at the age of 15 began performing for tourists accompanying herself on the guitar. In the army, she served in the Northern Command Group alongside Yigal Bashan, Wave bears, Edna Lev and others. After the liberation, when she was a student, an affair developed between her and the one who served alongside her and was the commander of the band – Uncle Dotan. “I left school and moved in with him in Tel Aviv. After two months we were already married,” she recalls.
“Today I understand that I lived in a man’s world, both in terms of worldview and in terms of the house I grew up in and the education I received. They didn’t hear about women’s careers back then.”
So how did you get to the “Donna Ideale” contest?
“In the ‘Lasha’ system, which organized the competition in Israel, it was decided that year that the contestants would be musicians, so they contacted me, singers Michal Tal andRuthy Navon and to other female musicians, and they asked us to participate. The competition took place after the Yom Kippur War, so there was no special evening. We were invited, we performed in song, we were interviewed by the judges, and we were tested according to the competition’s criteria: cooking, arranging flowers, arranging a table and making a cocktail.”
Today it would not happen.
“Today I understand that I lived in a man’s world, both in terms of world view and in terms of the house I grew up in and the education I received. They didn’t hear about women’s careers back then.”
Do you remember the photos for the gate?
“The filming took place before I flew to the competition in Italy. The night before I had a performance, and in the morning I didn’t have the energy to go to the hairdresser, so I overlapped myself and this is the result.”
Four years after that competition, Irit gave birth to her daughter, Michal. A year later she and Dodo Dotan divorced. She continued to sing and perform. When she was 40 years old, Dotan says, difficult memories from her early childhood began to emerge, which made her realize that a family member had sexually abused her for a long period of time. Dotan was previously interviewed extensively on the subject, and today she says: “It is a trauma that I carry with me and it is also the reason why my career was cut short. When I was young, I denied and repressed. When the injury started to show its signs, I could no longer perform.”
“All kinds of things. For two years, for example, I was a postman. Later I married the architect Roni Maayan and worked with him in his office. We divorced after 20 years. Today I work as a rehabilitation instructor, teach voice development, participate in a project called ‘Shir a-Shir’ to compose songs poets and occasionally performs. Happily, my voice remains the same as before.”
And how did you deal with the trauma?
“It wasn’t until I turned 50 that I approached a suitable treatment center for treatment. Later I volunteered at the 1202 hotline, the assistance center for victims and victims of sexual assault, and I also staged an autobiographical show in which I conveyed feminist messages. From ‘Donna Ideale’,” she says with a smile, “I became a radical feminist.”