She sang of love and of land and was known as the Queen of Hebrew music. Five years ago this Valentine’s Day, the unique voice that ushered in a country’s birth and carried it through adolescence went silent.
On Monday, on the fifth anniversary of her death, I visited Shoshana Damari’s grave in Tel Aviv’s famous Trumpledor cemetery. I came bearing “kalaniyot” (red poppies), the flowers she famously sang of in the 1940s. I was not her only visitor, nor the only one bearing such a bud.
Shai is a 34 year-old singer-slash-student. He told me Damari’s voice reminded him of an Israel he heard of while growing up, one very different than the Israel he currently lives in. It was an Israel where parents and children listened to the same music, where wars were fought knowing many young men might not return, where lyrics spoke of a pride and love for country and few questioned how to express that sentiment.
On stage, Damari’s presence could be compared to Umm Kulthum. Like the Arab icon, Damari bore a confidence that few women of her generation could emulate. Such a legend was Damari that in the 1980s, another famous Israeli musician, Boaz Sharabi, composed a song whose lyrics essentially spoke of his dream to sing with her. In “Lashir Itach” (To Sing With You), Sharabi did just that.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUIcWyCPTXA[/youtube]
He did it again in a haunting tribute to the icon following her death.
You could imagine my surprise a few years ago when in the duty free shop of Mexico City’s airport I heard a Damari song. “Ada’in Kan” (Still Here) was sampled by the globally-renowned Israeli DJ Offer Nissim. The resonance of Damari’s voice could not be mistaken, but how peculiar that it served as the foundation for seven minutes of intensive nightclub beats. Partygoers around the world (and apparently some duty free shoppers) were hearing Damari’s magic without even knowing it. Thinking back on it, I realize what an awesome modern interpretation of Zionism that mixture represented: Israel-the-child meeting Israel-the-adult. Here was a world famous DJ – “one of ours” – paying homage to a vocal legend – again, “one of ours” – as a product exported to the world. Old and new, with a “Made in Israel” stamp all over it.
Damari was born in Yemen in 1923. One year later, her family escaped anti-Semitic persecution by immigrating to British Mandate Palestine. They were Zionists who believed that as Jews they had nowhere else to go. And in 1948, the powerful vocal chords of a youthful Shoshana Damari’s gave hope to troops fighting for independence. The Zionism-of-then spoke of a homeland where Jews lived not as pockets of minorities, but as a collective majority. It dreamed of a country that is like others, but Jewish in character.
I was reminded of this distinction during a recent episode of Israeli Big Brother. No, I do not watch it regularly, and having lived in the both the UK and the US, frankly I had had enough of it. But in this particular episode, the women in the Israeli Big Brother house were lighting Friday night (Shabbat) candles. I was the only one watching who was struck by this minor act. I realized: this was a “Big Brother” like others, but Jewish in character.
Half a decade after Damari’s death, I could not help but wonder what happened to that Zionism.
It is not difficult to hijack a term, and “Zionism” has fallen victim to just that. In a region so frequently discussed in the international media, everyone seems keen to ignore the prevailing gray terminology. “Arab” now refers only to Muslims and Christians (and sometimes even Druze and Bedouin) from the region, though Damari’s family in Yemen clearly would have been Arab Jews. So too would many Jewish friends of mine whose parents – from Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, etc, – still speak Arabic at home. Thus, phrases such as “Jews versus Arabs” simplify a storyline, but essentially steal words and assign them to black and white scenarios. The same has been done with “Israeli.” It is synonymous with someone who is Jewish and living in (or having originated from) the State of Israel. But twenty percent of “Israelis” are not Jewish. The word has been stolen from them.
Over the past few decades, “Zionism” became equated with expansion beyond the boundaries of the modern State of Israel to those of the Biblical Land of Israel (often referred to as “Greater Israel.”) But at its core, Zionism was not about growth or settlement. Zionism was about a state for the Jewish people. Zionism was about the right of Jews to live as a collective people, just like the other nations of the world. Zionism was about the freedom of the Jewish people to define their own destiny, to not simply be a part of someone else’s.
Those who fault original mid-20th century Zionism say it came at the expense of others, namely the Arabs (Muslim and Christian) living on the land. The same people often say that they have no problem with a Jewish homeland, in theory. But the usually qualify the claim: the Jewish State should not have been established in Palestine. (I always thought it funny that such critics were okay with making Zionism the problem of another people, like the Ugandans. It always reminds me of 1930s early Nazi rhetoric: we don’t want to kill the Jews, we just want them to leave and become someone else’s problem.) The argument goes: Europe felt remorse following the Holocaust and then gave the Jews a chunk of land in the Middle East. But the truth is Zionism in its original form should have been welcomed and embraced by liberal thinkers. As UCLA Hillel chaplain and Sociology professor, Rabbi Chaim Siedler-Feller argues, the ideals of Zionism are not that different from those of other liberal causes, like affirmative action: a group of people who have been systematically oppressed are proactively given a boost, an advantage that knowingly comes at the expense of others, but with the hopes of righting a wrong.
But from there, the term went downhill. The UN’s infamous “Zionism equals racism” resolution singled out the Jewish people and dismissed their just cause for a homeland with a lazy catchphrase. And Zionism became the only nationalist movement ever subjected to such a branding.
Modern Zionism is struggling for an identity. A recent campaign launched in the US called “Take Back Zionism” is attempting to merge a people’s old cause with a modern reality. But it will fail if ignores facts of the ground. Recently, I met a 20-something self-described “freelance Israeli ambassador.” She told me she travels the world “promoting Israel’s image beyond the conflict.” I responded by telling her that her job will become a lot easier when Israel actually manages to get beyond the conflict.
Transforming Israel’s image from a land of milk and honey to a land of microchips and cafes is fine. But convincing young, hip American students to wear t-shirts advertising their Zionist pride without educating them about the realities on the ground is irresponsible, to say the least, and even worse, dangerous. It makes them ill-prepared tools of propaganda, not modern Zionists. Israelis and Jews in the Diaspora must be aware of the shortfalls of Zionism and the problems of modern Israel. Ignoring the occupation of a people does not make their occupation go away. And not arming modern Zionists with a real sense of Zionism – good and bad – will hardly give them the ammunition to truly take back the cause.
As Jews, Zionism is what we have. It is ours to fix, it is ours to defend, and it is ours to lose. Damari’s lyrics should remind of us of that: “And again we are together like years before. Still here. Still here.”