Shabbat Music

This is a little strange, as I normally don't post on Shabbat.

We aren't particularly religious in the Orthodox sense and although we use the car, surf the net and listen to the TV; our Saturdays are reserved for family activities.

We spend a lot of our day reading and resting so when we turn on the TV we aren't in the mood to be mesmerised by a feature length film.

Instead, we often tune in to Channel 24 the Israeli music channel that plays only Israeli music. Unlike MTV it actually shows music videos almost non-stop and on Saturday they have, at least in our opinion, an excellent play list.

In the spirit of Channel 24, I will make my Saturday post about Israeli music.

When I first arrived in Israel, in 1988, there was a song on the radio that entranced me. It was both beautiful and a little sad and I just couldn't hear it enough.

In fact I heard it rarely as living near Kiriyat Shmona the airwaves were jam-packed with transmissions from Syria and Lebanon and frequently the reception from both Galei Zahal (army radio) and Reshet Gimel was so appalling I would give up and listen to cassettes.

Even when I did hear the tune on the radio my Hebrew was so non-existent I couldn't catch the name of either the song or the artists. As luck would have it the song was never played whenever there was a Hebrew speaker within listening distance.

The other day I was clicking round YouTube, tracing a rich vein of Israeli music I had recently discovered, when I came across some unexpected treasure.

Enjoy!