Hope

After last time’s politically heavy songs, anger and dismay, I planned on trying to release some hopeful, optimistic covers on the 7th of October, one of them I was trying to record as the attack was beginning, a year ago. Come the 7th, I was mournful, grieving with whoever doesn’t consider the last year a “miracle filled blessing”, and it drained any notion I had of singing or translating songs, completely out of me.

Even now, with the attack on Iran looming and the retaliation expected to thwart any plans I might be making for the coming months (and there are lots of those) – I still can’t seem to hold on to the hope I had fought to preserve through the last year, and it keeps slipping away. Still, just as fake smiling and fake laughing might lead to feeling better, I decided to release these three translations & versions of hopeful songs that celebrate peace and optimism, hoping perhaps this wishful thinking might lead to a change in this awful, dystopian reality.

A while ago I came across the wikipedia for Israel’s national anthem – “HaTikvah” (The Hope). Realizing the people who wrote it, who heard it in the Zionist Congress in Basel, never got to see their dream realized, never got to see Jews founding a state and in the process saving countless Jewish folk from Arab states, Soviet Russia, Ethiopia, etc.. It made me very emotional. The fact that hope is baked into the core of the idea of being Jewish, that it sustains and helps us endure through a couple Millenia of persecution hit me deep.

The way this past year justifies the existence of Israel as a refuge state for all Jews should be clear and obvious to anyone who has a shred of moral clarity. And the fact that it’s validity is being brought to question is just a method with which racists and genocidal maniacs try to put Jews in danger and bring forth their demise should be just as obvious. 

At the same time, it’s also clear to me that with the way the current government is handling this war (and has been handling the country for the past 20 or so years) is severely anti-Zionist and anti-semitic, with obvious disregard for Jews living in and outside of Israel, only caring about their own dominance and control, and I hope that once this corrupt regime’s grip on power is diminished, we’ll be able to rebuild and reform stronger, better and wiser, for the betterment of all Jews (and in fact, all human beings) within and outside of Israel.

I was honored to be a small, barely significant part of the Hostage Families’ Ceremony at 7/10, by way of being asked by Aviv Geffen to translate his newest song about the current situation in Israel, and having it displayed scrolling next to him (and his original lyrics) on stage.

With this batch of songs I plan on taking a break from releasing translations and original songs on a (fairly) consistent matter, but I’m sure it won’t be long until I’m back at it.