Rechavia Berman – GangstaYid

When news came earlier this week that a legendarily reclusive and utterly iconic Israeli singer, actor, comedian and all-around culture symbol would begin publishing a weekly newspaper column, I had one of these weird excited-trepidation moments. It could be really cool or really disappointing, and you find yourself immensely invested emotionally in hoping it won’t be the latter. A few days later, tonight, out of fucking nowhere, he had a heart attack and passed away. I am writing this as tears dry on my cheeks.

My entire Hebrew feed is in shock and mourning. Like someone tweeted, nobody can remember when everybody’s reaction to a news event was so uniform. (update: almost. But it’s like 90-95% which is unheard of). No cynicism, no snark, just degrees of sadness.

Arik Einstein (Jan. 3 1939 – Nov. 26 2013) was for many people, without hyperbole and with perfectly good reason, Israel encapsulated. He was the golden boy. A star with the most common touch and not a shred of pose. Effortlessly talented in basically every stagecraft but dancing. An iconic singer and songwriter, the star of Israel’s most iconic comedy film and first great comedy TV show; hell, dude was even a national high-jump and shot put champion in high school. The soundtrack of our lives for decades.

Although he wrote the lyrics to an astonishing number of universally loved Israeliana standards, his greatest talent was as a singer. Without any astonishing vocal range, he could effortlessly reach the pinnacles of delivery in a variety of styles, with pitch-perfect emotional touch. He could be a romantic crooner and a sneering rocker, a sly jester and a wide-eyes dreamer, and always someone you felt you knew, even after he lived reclusively for decades. He had #1 hit singles with lyrics by Israel’s national poets, Chaim Nachman Bialik and Nathan Alterman (among many others) and melodies by Israel’s top composers, and he had #1 hit singles with more “frivolous” pop and rock lyrics and arrangements, with nonsense songs and kiddie album songs. Not just #1 hit singles either – landmark songs that stand the test of time. We’re talking songs so iconic you can’t help but identify with even as you notice how “corny” the lyrics (mistakenly or not) seem. Songs that capture, in plain language but finely crafted, the essence of the Israeli (Jewish) experience.

Some will just have to start as soon as possible with the sociological deconstruction of it all (which is both unavoidable and necessary, just not right now, OK?), using the occasion to point out that Einstein really represented the more privileged side of Israel’s Jews. The white side. And that like Chuck D famously said about Elvis, there are neighborhoods where Einstein wasn’t that relevant at all.

Well, in response to that, before I offer you a quick overview of Einstein’s long and fruitful career, let me just offer a quick story from personal experience: My best friend in elementary school came from a pretty old-school Iraqi-Israeli home. His parents and their contemporary kin were born and raised in Baghdad spoke to each other mostly in Arabic and listened mostly to music in Arabic, which my friend was also into. He was the first to introduce me to quality old-school Israeli “Mizrachi” music, of which he had an impressive collection. In short, dude was heavily grounded in his Mizrachi heritage, ok? And yet, he also fucking LOVED Arik Einstein. And there are many like him. It is far from only European-descended Israelis who are in mourning right now.

Einstein covering The Beatles “Do You Want To Know A Secret” in Yemeni folk-song style

**

 In Israel, the “60’s” happened at a delay of close to a decade after the US and Europe. The 70’s were Israel’s breakout decade from the musty propriety of the WW2 generation, and Arik Einstein is undoubtedly the person you find at the largest number of seminal junctions in that period.

In 1956, in his senior year in high school, Aryeh Einstein, son of well-regarded stage actor Yaacov Einstein of the Ohel Theater, won the national championship in the high jump and the shot put. He was also a promising basketball star, and planned to spend his upcoming compulsory military service as a sports instructor. Short-sightedness, discovered in the pre-draft military checkups, put an end to that plan, and his father encouraged him to try out for one of the military music bands which at the time created most of what Israel had by way of pop music, featuring crews of fresh young talent managed by the biggest stars in the business. He was accepted to the Nachal band, following an audition by Chaim Topol (of “Fiddler On The Roof” fame) and future creative partner Uri Zohar, and the legend was born.

During his time in the military band he acquired the more hip and contemporary “Arik” handle instead of the more prim and proper”Aryeh”, and had several big hits which positioned him as a new star. Upon discharge in 1959 he immediately joined the entertainment scene in full effect on several fronts. He joined the “Sambatyon” satirical review and the “Scallion” (“Batzal Yarok”) pop band, made up of star ex-military-band members like himself. He immediately became an instant A-list, buzz-of-the-town success in both. Even a legendarily vicious theater critic wrote highly of his acting, and the radio couldn’t stop playing his hit songs.

Einstein with the “Yarkon Bridge Trio”, “A Sign That You’re Young”, Mid 60’s. note the heavy French Chanson influence (in the arrangement of the trad Irish folk melody), which was big in Israel at the time.

A year after leaving the army he had a solo album, but his great successes of the early-to-middle 60’s were mostly as part of collaborative efforts ranging from large all-star review troupes to trios and duos. The list of acts and hits would mean little to those that don’t already know them, but suffice it to say it is a long list, and includes songs people born 20 and 30 years after this time still know and like.

In 1966 Einstein joins forces with a troubled musical and lyrical genius named Shmulik Kraus and his American-Jewish girlfriend, a stunning blonde with an angel’s voice named Josie Katz. With this lineup, titled “The High Windows” (a phrase equivalent to “high office” or “high places” in English), Arik began singing real pop music as the term is commonly understood in the West.

Like true rock legends, the High Windows managed to get into their share of controversies, with the religious segment of the population over “Yechezkel”, a trippy-party rendition of the biblical prophet Ezekiel, which included scandalous irreverent lines (for the time” like “Two angels he fondled and hugged / The Prohpet Ezekiel knew how to have fun”. Concurrently, they fearlessly got in the face of patriots and establishment herds everywhere over “Chocolate Soldier”, a mocking anti-war ballad, written by genius satiric playwright Chanoch Levin,  released at the height of post-Six-Day-War euphoria and militarism.

The Electric Ezekiel Acid Test

Chocolate Soldier

While touring with Kraus and Katz, Arik Einstein, who throughout his career managed to collaborate with a consistent succession of top-notch partners, meets the man he would be perhaps most associated with, musically at least – the father of Israeli rock music, Shalom Chanoch.

 **

In 1969 Einstein recorded the single “Prague”, written by Chanoch in protest of the Soviet crushing of the Czech revolution. That year he, his erstwhile boss in the military band Uri Zohar, Chanoch and many others (quite a few of whom are big household names in Israel to this day) informally form what would come to be known as “The Lool (chicken coop, and also a baby’s pen) Group.” Somewhat similar to the Merry Pranksters of San Francisco psychedelic era lore, many people later claimed to have been “in” the group (at the margins, which were sizable), only to have others claim they were just occasional hangers-on. Any claim to having been associated with the Lool Group is still strong currency in Israel, even if any credible claimants are collecting Social Security by now…

Prague. “To the dream-captured city, a heavy foreign shadow came / and the moon in red its kingdom stained”

But the core “Lool” group is undisputed, and the great star in the center of it was Einstein, alongside former military band boss Uri Zohar on one hand, and Shalom Chanoch on the other. The TV show the group put on early in the days of Israeli TV, mixing comedy with music, was what gave the group its name. The comedy ran from biting satire, like the still perfectly relateable “ALiyah (Immigrants)” skit, showing each wave of Jews arriving in their new country while the older inhabitants (starting with Arabs, of course) greet their arrival with apprehension, disapproval and the recurring, now iconic Arabic curse Ina’al din babur illi jabkum (literally “a curse on the ship that brought you. Figuratively, of course, that “ship can mean “womb”), to less politically charged zany silliness. The music mixed easy-listening, perfectly crafted ballads with ground-breaking (for Israel at the time) rock music.

The Immigrants. “Ahmad, Who are those? – The Jews. “A curse on the ship that brought them” […]  <b>”Pappi…?” – Ja? “Das is Palestina…?” – Ja! “But it’s all sand…?” – Nu, ve vill make ze desert bloom, dumkopf!</b>

In the comic bits he shared equal glory with Israel’s national funnyman of the time, Zohar; on the music end he shared the spotlight with Chanoch, who wrote the music and played the guitar and also sang; but only Einstein starred in both acts. When singing, he employed his full emotional range, from the romantic to the sly to the naïve and earnest, and to simple joy; alternately, he was displaying rare mimicry chops and comedic timing in the skits.

With Chanoch and others during this time (early-to-mid 70’s) Einstein was instrumental in Israel’s fledgling steps in rock music. His voice carries dozens of the key songs and charts the growth of the genre. If Einstein spent the 60’s as Israeli music’s naughty but nice standard golden boy, he spent the 70’s as its undisputed titan. Israel’s first full-fledged, multi-disciplinary rock star, with all the wild living, controversies and massive critical and commercial success that implies. He was our Fonzie and Lennon and McCartney and Springsteen all rolled into one. The dude most women would love to be with and most guys would love to be – and so cool and mellow underneath it all that most couldn’t even begrudge him any of it.

He spent most of the 60’s within the structures and rules of the Israeli music business. In the 70’s he rewrote them with almost every new album and venture. Every single year from 1969 to 1981 finds him contributing at least one song that was both huge at the time and still works today – often far more than just one. He collaborated with Chanoch early and late in the decade, and in between he worked with other crack composers and arrangers like Mickey Gavrielov, Shem-Tov Levi and the great guitarist Yitzhak “Churchill” Clepter, producing some of the seminal Israeli pop and rock anthems; from the raw and rambunctious “What Do You Do (when you get up in the morning) and “Turkish Coffee” jams (the latter a clever self referential parody about a hotshot songwriter with writer’s block) in 1970-71 to more polished, up-to-global-contemporary-standards work like 1983’s “Fragile” (with Clepter providing the tune and some classic licks).

What Do You Do When You Get Up In The Morning? The Same Things, But slow (1970)

“So drink some Turkish coffee and wake up, you’re the poet! Drink some Turkish coffee, it’s far out, cause if you won’t sing, who will?” (song 1971, clip 1974)

Fragile, 1983. Polished, globally up-to-date rock

Other bedrock singles include the optimistic anthem “You and I Will Change The World,” the introspective “Why Should I Take It To Heart” and “What’s With Me”, the stream-of-consciousness road-trip anthem “Drive Slowly” (which packs the entire Israeli experience into three stanzas and a chorus, replete with realizing you’re approaching the Gaza Strip and hoping nobody throws a grenade or something at you). Also from the period: the wide-eyed, proudly provincial at heart “San Fransisco On The Water,” describing a awe-filled pilgrimage to the West Coast, to all the sports and music and cinematic landmarks, only to find that it’s not as much fun without his lady, and that deep down he’d rather be home with his friends and homeland sights. That’s just a selection from the first-team all-star lineup of his repertoire. Seriously. We haven’t even touched on the great renditions of serious poetry in pop form – a sub-genre he helped pioneer and perfect, taking the highbrow top shelf of modern Hebrew poetry and endearing it to the masses in perfect pop/rock flavor.

You and I will change the world. They’ve said it before me, it doesn’t matter; you and I will change the world.

Drive Slowly. “And I’m thinking, pretty soon it’s Gaza, just don’t let a grenade fly, and blow us all to hell.”

“Sitting in San Francisco on the water, washing my eyes in the blues and greens […] watching Dr. J rip the nets, and Kareem Abdul Jabar touch the sky”

(The heavy sprinkling of sports metaphors above, by the way, is no coincidence, as the former champion athlete remained a passionate sports fan to his very last day. He was famously a staunch supporter of Hapoel Tel Aviv and a soccer, basketball, and track-and-field fanatic; In addition to all his many proven talents, Einstein had the memory and endless appetite for names, dates, stats and more to have filled in successfully for any sportscaster, has the opportunity ever come his way.)

 

In the 70’s Einstein also took part in some formative, defining chapters of Israeli cinema history (although his debut on the screen was much earlier, with a supporting role in 1964’s seminal Ashkenazee/Mizrachi, veterans vs immigrants comedy “Salah Shabbati”). In 1972 he starred in Uri Zohar’s beach-bum bittersweet comedy “Peeping Toms” (“Metzitzim”), which depicts the laid-back beachfront culture of Tel Aviv while following the misadventures of Eli the rock club singer (Einstein, playing a character who although married and a father, stereotypically never has a problem in hooking up the one-night stand) and his buddy, the slobbish, sexually frustrated and predatory lifeguard ‘Gutte’ (Zohar). The movie – initially a commercial and critical failure, but since rediscovered, re-evaluated and a massive cult classic to this day, with dozens of lines that have become part of the comedic vocabulary – would be the first of a trilogy, completed by “Big Eyes” (1974) and “Save The Lifeguard.” (1977).

 

Shortly after completing work on “Save The Lifeguard”, Einstein’s best friend Uri Zohar completed a process of becoming a devout orthodox Jew and quit show-business. Zohar and his wife were joined in this extremely sharp life-change by Einstein’s wife, Alona, who took the couple’s two daughters with her to Jerusalem reclusive ultra-orthodox Me’a She’arim neighborhood. Einstein responded with a touching ballad of longing for his departed friend and collaborator, “Hu Chazar Bitshuva” (roughly “He Got Religion”). Many years later, Einstein’s two daughters would marry Zohar’s two sons.

 

In 1980 Einstein released the album “Armed With Spectacles”, more than half of which consists of massive, time-tested, groove-approved best-of-worthy hits. This was the height of Einstein’s rock star period, and the hard living and drinking was beginning to take an evident toll. Arik dragged through the album’s packed concert tour, in Israel and Europe, with evident lack of zeal, and eventually simply refused to take part in the second, US leg of the tour. After one last show in late 1981 at the ancient amphitheater in Caesaria, Einstein announced his retirement from live music.

 

The wild-living star was discovering he had successfully sown his wild oats and was tired of staying in the fast lane and having all eyes on him all the time, whether he was in the mood or not; by the middle of the decade he was singing, with wry self-aware defiance, “I like to be at home… with the tea and lemon and the old books… with the same lover and same habits.” Not that this attitude came as a complete shock. Einstein always had a strong private streak, indignant at media prying. He penned not one but both of Israeli rock’s most memorable anti-paparazzi/gossip songs. “They Wrote About Him In The Paper” back in the Lool days and the vitriolic “My Little Journalist” in the Eighties.

Some people people climb mountains (“Yeah?”), some people skydive (“You don’t say..”), some people ride horses, (“uh huh…”) and some hike cross country. But me? I like to be at home […] with the same lover and same habits”

This settling down, with long time partner Sima Eliyahu (costar in “Metzizim” and other productions and mother of his younger daughter and son), didn’t diminish his studio output, however. He delivered a steady, reliable album a year through 1989, with each one adding to his awesome repertoire of true classics – even the children’s album “I Was A Child Once” he released in 1989. This period is defined by Einstein’s infallible taste in material and supporting cast, and flits effortlessly between nonsense pop, a burst of rock here and there, and heavy poetry with painstaking melodic arrangements.

 

After a four-year hiatus followed by yet another children’s album, Einstein resumed recording, his pace going down to around an album every two years, with some years seeing consecutive albums and sometimes a two or three year drought. Since the mid-eighties, Einstein has enjoyed grand patriarch status, if fading relevance, in Israel’s music scene. But almost every new album was highly listenable, very well produced, and most still contained a diamond or two, quirky like 1990’s single released for the World Cup, which consists of nothing but names of famous players, or touching like some of his latter-day joint work with Chanoch (Muskat, 1999), or collaborations with much younger rock stars like Peter Roth of rock band Monica Sex and others. He was well past his great days, but we were as thankful for those, and for whatever he felt like keeping on giving. Like a revered grandfather to millions of Israelis.

If you know your soccer, you can follow this “Hebrew” song

 

**

 

He seemed fine, dammit – as much a we could know about someone so intensely private. There had been news at times of less-than-perfect health (he was in his seventies, and had drank and ingested his share of stuff back in the day), but nobody (including those close to him, it is now reported) knew him to be seriously ill. He had just announced that newspaper column, promising himself and the readers not to be preachy and treacly, to keep it real and only write if he has something to say. Now, just like that, he’s gone.

 

True, not at 27 like too many legends but rather almost at triple that age; we’ve been blessed with a long chunk of Arik Einstein’s romantic, lyrical, comical and always ineffable stylings. But it still came out of nowhere, the way many other giants of music and popular culture were snatched away. Tomorrow, the Hebrew web will be full of eulogies and summaries, some of which will piss me off and some which will move me to tears. There will be lists and playlists top ten lists and separate articles devoted to the many stops and stages he charmingly skipped his way across. For the past few hours (it is now 3:04 am here) a candlelight vigil is being held at Ichilov Hospital where he died, in an outpouring of spontaneous grief the likes of which were last seen in the secular Israel when PM Rabin was murdered, 19 years ago. A massive Israeli symbol has passed. This day will be a milestone in the timeline of Israeli culture for many decades to come.

My personal favorite Arik song, an odd one for a fire-brand lefty – “Shulamit” (The Shulamit to whom this love song is addressed is the land, personified in feminine form) – a very nationalist, sensuous, almost liturgical poem of love for the land. “If the man surrenders before the sword, know he has no eternal love / but should he rise alone against a thousand, know that he is sworn to Shulamit”