“For me, the microphone was the way I went out and the means of expression with which I reached people, while activating their feelings and thoughts and if possible, then with provocations,” said the super announcer Shirah Imber, who passed away today at the age of 79 after a long illness, in an interview.
By saying “provocations”, Imber did not ignore the wild image that stuck to her. However, long, long after her past comments will be forgotten, will remain – and will even be broadcast! – The masterful reading passages, which she left behind after decades of broadcasting on Kol Israel and which can now be heard on the nostalgic nightly broadcasts of Kol HaMuzika in the corporation.
She was named after her grandfather, Shmariahu Imber, brother of the poet Naftali Hertz Imber, author of “Hatikva”, that she grew up on juicy stories about his extraordinary character. “Today, compared to the past, at least 70 percent of the population does not know who the author of the national anthem was, when it is no less mind-boggling that there are teachers who do not know Hebrew properly,” stressed Imber, whose father, Yehiel, was a linguist who, according to her, knew 11 languages.
The family pedigree never restrained her. She said that she was thrown out of school for the first time already in the second grade on the charge of showing rudeness, after she dared to sing a song there that is not usually sung at such a young age. Since then she didn’t hold back and when she went after the army to study drama and language in Berkeley, California, she found herself at the center of the world of hippies, which made her an eternal flower girl.
“I was a complete hippie there,” repeated Imber, who then earned her living in nightclubs. “When I came to Rabbi Shlomo Karlibach’s synagogue in San Francisco, religious students from Israel attacked me because I was wearing pants. Karlibach not only protected me, but later, when he came to perform in Israel and I approached him backstage, he gave me a certain look and said – ‘You girl with the pants!”
Under the influence of the atmosphere of permissiveness that she absorbed in California, Imber appeared after her return to Israel in the musical “Hair” with all that implies. If at that time it was clear to her that she would be an actress, her participation in a radio acting course, at a time when sychitis were still broadcast, led her career to voiceover in Kol Israel.
The radio brought her back to Jerusalem, her hometown. There she is also an exemplary announcer in state ceremonies, such as the ceremony of lighting the independence beacons, and on the other hand, she said whatever was on her mind and without calculating in her broadcasts, which brought her more than once to suspensions and threats of dismissal.
She married the insurance expert, Dr. Shay Gadish, then divorced and the father of two sons, and gave birth to two daughters with him. They settled in a picturesque house in Ein Kerem, which they changed from the foundation to the tefahot. When I pointed out to her, darling of the left, that the vaulted house with the arches was originally Arabs, responded without embarrassment: “Politically, I am ready to return the house, when it is clear that I will not be an obstacle to peace.”
After being a bride, everything moved to modern and luxurious sheltered housing in Gani-Tikva. “After my sister died, I had to change places,” she explained when I visited her three years ago. “I couldn’t stay alone in the house we built in Ein Kerem. In the sheltered housing you can be with people and without – and there are lots of activities, when I participate in classes like creative writing and jewelry making. Now, with the experience I have, I’m opening an art reading class here.”
When asked if she didn’t miss the microphone, she replied: “I don’t, but they don’t take me anymore. In 2005, I took advantage of an opportunity to retire early from Kol Israel. After that, I hosted a talk show with listeners on Radio Jerusalem for four years until the owners changed and I was left out “.
Until seven years ago, she moderated the beacon ceremony with Aryeh Orgad. Regarding her annual appearance at Mount Herzl, she said: “The ceremony was legitimization for me despite being identified as a distinct leftist, which prevented me for a long time from presenting news on Voice of Israel, because I was afraid of saying what should not be said live. What is true is that I love the State of Israel very much – and I am sad and depressed Because of what is happening in it. After all, already in ’77, when Begin came to power, I said that we must start drinking the poisoned cup to the brim.”
Unlike many of her contemporaries in radio, Imber did not cross the lines to television. “It didn’t help that I was quite handsome at the time, since you either have it, or you don’t,” she commented in a tone of resignation.
In view of the medicines that sprouted from a table in the room, I asked Mira if the “disease” had changed her, who, according to her testimony, was addicted to the “Restless Young” series. “I calmed down a bit, I think,” she answered. “But whoever heard me on the radio, understood that calmness is not my strong point.”