By Daphne Logan
To visit the grave of a famous Israeli, to hear about their contribution to the nation, to hear a song that they wrote—it’s a familiar experience to me, and something I’ve done with other organized trips to Israel. During our opening conference of Nachshon, we visited Trumpeldor Cemetery in Tel Aviv, and I was surprised that I had never actually been there. This cemetery hosts the resting places of many famous Israelis, including Haim Arlozoroff, Hayim Nahman Bialik, Meir Dizengoff, Ahad Ha’am, Shaul Tchernichovsky, and Max Nordau. One grave that we visited was of someone equally as famous, but less obviously a leader—Arik Einstein.
Arik Einstein is well known perhaps less so for having catalyzed change and more so for his ability to so accurately feel the pulse of Israeli society and to emulate that in his music. His leadership was not as active as was that of most of the individuals whose graves I have visited in Israel. Rather, he was able to consolidate his reflections on the Israeli psyche into musical expressions, and this music became both a unifying force, and a source of support for and validation of Israelis’ lived experiences.
As we stood by Einstein’s grave in Trumpeldor Cemetery, our tour guide, Jamie, played us the musical legend’s most famous song, Uf Gozal. It’s known to be a bit overplayed in Israel—it’s used at almost every type of “moving-up” experience imaginable—but initially, the song was intended to be a parent’s reflection on Israel’s mandatory draft. Sending a child off to Tzahal is an incredibly complex experience, and is unique to Israeli parents. Perhaps to detach the song’s lyrics from this particular experience is to do the song an injustice. However, when detached from this experience, the lyrics to Uf Gozal are quite versatile, and therefore the song has become a staple component of graduation ceremonies of all kinds, both within Israel and in Zionist Jewish communities around the world.
It is moving to be able to visit the grave of an incredible artist and to be able listen to the music he created even after he is gone. However, the impact of such a formative figure in Israeli society is felt much more sincerely in the ways in which his music continues to play an active role in the lives of Israelis. I was introduced to Arik Einstein almost four years ago. It was late July, and I was staying at a friend’s home in Ra’anana for Shabbat. Her mother told me that after Shabbat, she was going to a memorial for Arik Einstein in a nearby park, and that thousands of other Israelis would also be commemorating his music in the park that night. This woman, my friend’s mother, was quite critical of the Israeli government, yet she connected to the particularly Israeli music of Arik Einstein. He was an individual whose music played to shared experiences—Even a mother who is critical of Tzahal can feel the same messy layers of pride, anger, guilt, love, and fear as she watches her children draft.
Arik Einstein took varying facets of Israeli life and responded to them with music that was simple, but not simplistic. He is not known as a political leader, a commander in war, or as having held some other position in which his role as a leader would have been obvious. But through his music, Einstein was, and still is, a powerful force in Israeli society, and even in Diaspora Jewry.
