Story

She was known as the “songstress of the wars”, a tradition that began during her own IDF service and as I have later learned, a '“sobriquet that she detested.” I’ve read she was an aspiring voice for peace. And my father told me stories of how she traveled with the soldiers and appeared on bases to bring hope and lift spirits through song.

She was the middle child - my grandmother Tikva was the oldest and ‘Nani’ (Binyamin) was the youngest. My great grandparents Malka Alhassof and Avraham Abramov, each individually migrated from the Caucuses early in the 20th century and eventually met and married in Tel Aviv. My great grandfather ended up leaving and settled in South Africa.

My great grandmother Malka (whom I’m named after) raised the children alone and opened the Tslil coffee house in Givat Rambam, now known as Givatayim. Tslil is the Hebrew word for tune.

Binyamin, Tikva and Yaffa - all used to sing and play instruments to entertain the patrons of Tslil under their self-penned music group called Basmati.

I’ve read different stage and screen personalities, painters and sculptors and people involved with security came to Tslil. Unsubstantiated but loose in the wind is a story my grandmother recounted to my father - in the cafe, they sang, in the basement, meetings of some members of the Haganah.

Yaffa joined the Hagana and served in the Givati Brigade after the Declaration of Independence. During the War of Independence, she initially served as a wireless operator, and when things were quiet, the soldiers asked her to sing.

Poetically penned in The Jewish Chronicle, Singer who gave voice to a state, (11/2016), Norman Lebrecht writes, “What she sang did not just raise morale at the front and distract the worriers at the rear, it actively defined the values that became part of Israel's national lore. The sounds of Yaffa Yarkoni conjured ideals of self-sacrifice, austerity and a "purity of arms" that was the founding principle of the Israel Defence Forces.”

I’ve read she sang love songs to the soldiers to tango tunes that were popular at the time. I’ve read she loved the blues and she loved to sing ballads.

She recorded over 1,400 songs throughout her career - many songs invoke memories of a young growing Israel.

I grew up on some of these songs and stories.

In 1967, a young song writer named Naomi Shemer, penning the great the classic Yerushalyim Shel Zahav (Jerusalem of Gold). The Six-Day War erupted three weeks later. Shemer sang for the troops during the war. And added the final verse when the war ended.

In 1973, an unforgettable attack punctured the holiest day of the Jewish people - the day of Yom Kippur. What became one of the most famous and symbolic songs of its time and for generations to come, Shemer wrote Lu Yehi, May It Be.

A friend unearthed an archive video of Yaffa singing to the soldiers in the Sinai during the war.

One week later, on October 7, 2023, Israel suffered one of the most violent and sadistic terrorist attacks in history. A massacre that didn’t end on October 8th ; but a war that has seemed to have summoned an entire world of all generations.

No one wins in war.

But music makes us listen.

Our first song for The Yaffa Project Hen Efshar (It Is Possible) - sang after the War of Independence.

In the spirit of Yaffa and the legacies of so many treasured Israeli artists, we sing.

——

Shahar, Nathan. "Yaffa Yarkoni ." Shalvi/Hyman Encyclopedia of Jewish Women. 31 December 1999. Jewish Women's Archive. (Viewed on February 22, 2024) <http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/yarkoni-yaffa>

Cashman, Greer Fay. “Yaffa Yarkoni, Isarel’s Queen of Song dead at 86.” The Jerusalem Post, January 1, 2012.

Kershner, Isabel. “Yaffa Yarkoni, Who Sang for Israeli Soldiers, Dies at 86.” The New York Times, January 2, 2012.

Lebrecht, Norman . “Singer who gave voice to a state.” The Jewish Chronical. November 24, 2016 22:37