Labour Exchange
Year: 1959, performed by: Joe Amar, the trigger: from events and Eddie Salib
Under the influence of the Wadi Salib events, which took place in 1959 and expressed its discrimination, members of the Mizrahi ethnic group were excluded from the establishment, Joe Amar wrote “Labor Office”. The song, partly in Moroccan (with authentic passages from the events) and partly in Hebrew, is considered by many to be the first anti-establishment protest song in Israel, in which the lines stand out: “I went to the labor office, he said to me: Where are you from? I said to him: From Morocco. He said to me: Get out of here, he said to me Get out of here. I went to a labor office, he told me: Where are you from? I told him: From Poland. Please come in, please come in.”
The song, seven and a half minutes long, is one of the first songs that introduced Andalusian music to the local audience. Amar’s intention was to express through the words in Moroccan the protest of the North African audience, while the words in Hebrew are directed towards the Israeli establishment.
“The story of the events of Wadi Salib shocked Joe, and he wrote the song out of true sympathy and heartache for the impossible situation that was prevailing in the country at the time,” says journalist Shaul Maizlish, a friend of Amar’s. “Joe told me how Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion was present one evening at his performance at the Bhima Theater and sat in the first row, and when he sang ‘Labor Office,’ Ben-Gurion moved uncomfortably and shrunk in his chair, especially in the line ‘I told him: From Poland. Come in. you are welcome'”.
“It’s a song that made a big noise, because it gave expression to North African Jewry, which was placed in a corner, did not advance and could not move forward. Joe admittedly got a job when he arrived in Israel, earned a living as a teacher and as a successful musician, but he saw himself and his work as a way to convey the difficulties of members of his congregation.”
Later the song became a classic, in a more limited version, and was also recorded by Zohar Argov and Eyal Golan.
A soldier of chocolate
Year: 1967, Execution: The High Windows, Trigger: The Six Day War
The High Windows Trio (Eric Einstein, Shmulik Kraus and Josie Katz) was sort of the Israeli answer to the band
The American Mamas and The Papas – harmonious pop with psychedelic elements and catchy melodies. In 1967 “The Windows” released their only and groundbreaking album, all of its songs became hits. One of them presented a perfect harmony and a light melody, but also a protest text that stirred quite a few ears in the country: “Soldier of Chocolate”.
The text, composed by Shmulik Kraus, was written by a young student at Tel Aviv University named Hanoch Levin, later one of our greatest playwrights, when he was only 22 years old. Levin published a satirical section called “Hanoch Levin’s Back Page” in the student newspaper “Dorvan”. In one of the sections he published a poem called “Soldier of Chocolate”, which expressed a stinging protest against the injustice of war and the military norms according to which the lives of young people are entrusted to cruel generals with a delusion of grandeur (“Left is right, right is left, the battalion goes and sings. Life is cumbersome, death is short . The whole battalion follows the rear of the major. The major also follows the path of every flesh”).
In the section itself, Levin published a much more poignant text than the one Krauss composed, since Krauss directed the chorus marches to the audience. The song, protesting against war of any kind, was published in the section as well as in the album of the high windows about two months before the outbreak of the Six Day War, but since it was published close to the war – it qualifies as a protest song against it.
Due to its proximity to the war and fear that it would demotivate the young soldiers, the song was banned from being broadcast on the radio. At that time he was seen as anti-militant and as a provocateur, especially after the publication of the names of the war dead. However, around the Yom Kippur War, the song was overwhelmingly adopted by peace seekers and war opponents.
I gave her my life
Year: 1974, Execution: Beehive, Trigger: Golda government policy
In 1974, the Beehive band was Israel’s answer to the Beatles: The Magnificent Seven who play, sing and laugh through experimental rock music combined with jazz and oriental with a lot of nonsense, wit and charisma. It was natural that the Broadcasting Authority chose her to represent us for the first time at the Eurovision held in Great Britain, under the name Poogy.
The song that the band chose to represent Israel with was “I gave her my life” – a typical Sanderson song (in collaboration with Alon Olarchik), which expresses political criticism under the guise of a love song. The criticism was leveled at the policies of the Golda Meir government, and one can find in it a call for the establishment of a Palestinian state: “One says that the sky is running out for him, when there is enough air for a state or two. Maybe we will get along after all, she wills, then we will prevail, she prevented any approach, this is what happened when …”.
“This is a very political song, and not by chance,” said Sanderson in the past. “We were the first to actually propose the idea that became the Oslo Accords. No one noticed it in real time.”
The song came in seventh place in the competition, but in Israel it was a resounding success and was chosen as the song of the year.
Waiting for the Messiah
Year: 1985, execution: Shalom Hanoch, the trigger: the fall of the stock market and the economic crisis
The theme song from Shalom Hanoch’s fifth album was written in the atmosphere of the consequences of the First Lebanon War and the economic crisis that prevailed in the country in the eighties with the stock market crash.
The inspiration for writing the song was born when Hanoch moved into a rented apartment with his partner at the time, Dafna Armoni, on Madina Square in Tel Aviv. Upon entering the apartment, the two felt that it was not suitable for their needs, and when Hanoch asked the owner of the apartment to cancel the contract and leave the apartment – his request was rejected. This event led him to write the song.
“The situation in Israel kept getting worse, especially when I started working on the record,” Hanoch told “Maariv” in 1985. “It seems very natural to me to touch on things that upset me, that bothered me. In principle, the Fronkel was blown up by the Lebanon war and the people who ruled here at the time. Too much pissed me off. The demagoguery flying here seemed really dangerous to me. I felt that the business in this country is starting to go backwards, that destruction is starting to be created, that depression is starting to dominate everywhere. That this nation is guided by people who lead it astray.”
“I was angry with the public, which allowed people of an unacceptable level to lead it. I was angry that they worshiped stupid demagogues, all they were interested in was posing on television. They got attached to someone and made him great at a time when they should have demanded a maximum of reliability, truth, responsibility, moral and intellectual level from him “.
“We lived in a crazy country, and the first person who had to go home was Begin himself. But he only realized when he reached his great fall to the ground. In my eyes, there is nothing more terrible than people who make easy decisions about our lives in the name of democracy. I was angry and I will be angry a lot more about the great loss of the war. There is no atonement and no forgiveness for that.”
Some phrases from the song have become an integral part of Israeli slang, such as “Messiah does not come, Messiah does not call either” and “The public is stupid, so the public pays.” The economic crisis following the bank share regulation affair brought many families to loss and despair (“The stock market fell, people jump from the roof”), and the last stanza of the song was inspired by the then Finance Minister Yoram Eridor’s denial of the crisis when he claimed in the “Matt” edition that the public is the one to blame for the loss of their money.
The song protested the opacity of the establishment and described in detail and in a poignant, sharp and critical manner the conduct of the government and the public, carried the silent voices that were too desperate to shout, and redefined Hanoch’s work, both in the song and in the entire album (and those that follow).
which country
Year: 1986, Execution: Eli Luzon, The Trigger: Begin’s government policy and the economic crisis
“Izu Medina” is undoubtedly the first song that comes to mind when talking about protest songs. It was also the song that launched Eli Luzon’s career. Not a bad achievement for a debut song.
The song created by Luzon with his friend Yoni Roa attacked the establishment elite, criticized the performance of Knesset members and government ministers and their adherence to the chair at the expense of ideology, and also dealt with the cost of living, high inflation and severe unemployment.
“When Yuni and I wrote ‘Izu Medina’ there were no social problems between a man and his friend. One would help the other. If you were stuck, I would accompany you,” Luzon explains. “We wrote ‘Izu Medina’ on a napkin in Atari Square before a concert. We played it to Moshe Ben Mosh, who produced the album. ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘the melody is very beautiful, but the lyrics are not good , because they can kill you. It’s too daring.’ I told him: ‘I’m still anonymous, I have nowhere to go down. If it doesn’t work – nothing happened.’ I only have somewhere to climb. I wasn’t afraid because I had nothing to fear. I told the whole truth. I was new and young, and the song caught on like wildfire. The fact is that even today, 37 years later, it is still relevant and topical.”
Had Gadia
Year: 1989, execution: Chava Elberstein, the trigger: the first intifada
At the end of the 1980s, a number of protest songs about the first intifada were released: Ehud Banai released “Arab at Hatih”; Norit Galron sings “After us the flood”; C. Heyman scorched the heart with “shooting and crying”; And Eva Alberstein took the protest one step further and recorded for her album “London” “Had Gedia”, the traditional Armenian poem sung on Seder night, which became a protest song against the occupation.
Alberstein fell in love with the Italian adaptation of the song by the Italian singer Angelo Brandoardi called ll Fiera Dell’est (“At the Fair of the East”) based on “Had Gedia”, and decided to record her own Hebrew version, based on his Italian version.
Shira begins with a Hebrew translation of all the verses of the poem, except for the last one, in which God kills the angel of death. In its place, stanzas were added in which Alberstein asks: “How long will the cycle of terror continue? When will this madness end? I was once a lamb and a capricorn, today I am a tiger and a predatory wolf. I was already a dove and I was a deer, today I don’t know who I am.”
The song caused an uproar and was banned from broadcasting on Kol Israel, for the same reason that the “rape song” sung by Ehud Banai and Mezi Cohen in the musical “Mami” and against the occupation was also banned. Perhaps because of this, “Had Gadia” became one of the most identified with Alberstein.
face of the country
Year: 1990, execution: Tislam, the trigger: the smelly exercise
At the same time as the song “So why do I have politics now?” of Mashina, who scolded Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir (“Shamir and Parsley meet in the dark to resolve the current situation”), the band Tislem, in its first reunion since its disbandment, recorded a new song that Yair Nitsani wrote and all the band members composed. “The face of the state” not only stung, but also kicked: “He looks out over the landscape to the country he loved, so what if on the way he lied and stole, his face is reflected in the window in the corner – his face is the face of the state.”
The song was inspired by what was called “the smelly exercise” – Shimon Peres’ attempt to establish a narrow ultra-Orthodox government headed by him and overthrow the second national unity government led by Yitzhak Shamir. The song, which talks about a cynical politician-businessman who deals with his personal advancement at the expense of the public good, became a hit from the first moment and took a place in the canon of political protest songs.
“When I wrote it, I didn’t believe that his words would be more relevant today than in the past,” Nitzani told me. “It was written about corruption and cynical politicians with the smelly exercise in the background, but today it sounds naive compared to what is happening in politics.”
leather leather
Year: 2000, execution: Aviv Gefen, the trigger: the difficult situation in Israel
Throughout his extensive career, Aviv Gefen created quite a few protest songs (the kicker of which is “I Hate”), but one of the most mainstream and beloved of them is “Ori Oor”, which was intended to express the moods of the people at that time. Gefen speaks in the song about the intense love for the homeland, and on the other hand the fatigue, laxity and the need to receive love from it, especially after it became a difficult place and a country with many difficulties and troubles (“There is not even a small corner to be happy in it”).
He wants to love the motherland, but the political problems do not allow him to do so. “The song was written when I was watching the news on TV, and the sorrow and pain that came out of the screen penetrated my soul,” said Geffen in a radio interview. “I was once offered close to NIS 2 million by the Likud so that the song would lead their campaign in the elections – but I refused.”
Originally, by the way, the lyrics of the song in the chorus were “Skins of skin, skins of skin, a dark homeland”, but with the encouragement of his friends and commercial considerations, Gefen replaced the word “dark” with “beloved” and turned it into one of his biggest hits.
The sticker song
Year: 2004, Execution: The Snake Fish, Trigger: Rabin’s murder
Hadeg Nahash is a distinct protest band, and “The Sticker Song” is undoubtedly the greatest anthem in this field. The story of the song begins with stickers collected by the writer and poet David Grossman following Rabin’s murder. After collecting about 120 stickers, he composed words for a rap song. When the members of the Snake Fish entered the picture following a meeting between Grossman and the lead singer of the band Shannon Street, they added more stickers.
In the song, extreme words such as “exterminate”, “kill” and “exterminate” are used to protest the ease of using militant words. It includes stickers of right-wing, left-wing, religious, militant political opinions as well as social stickers.
The song, which was a huge hit, gave the band the title of “Band of the Year” and won several charts the title of “Greatest Protest Song in Israel”. He also made history: it was the first Israeli hip-hop song that was the most played in the media in Israel.