Israel (Album)

The record is cataloged as Israel, the official 25th anniversary commemorative album, written and narrated by Abba Eban, with a creation or release date of 1973 and Warner Bros. of Burbank, California, identified as the record company.[1] It was issued as a single 12-inch analog disc at 33⅓ rpm, cataloged as both a commercial recording and a book.[1] The narration is in English, while the songs are performed in Hebrew.[1]

Listed performers include Yaffa Yarkoni, Shuly Nathan, Aric Lavie, Ariel Brown, Edna Goren, and the Bar-Ilan Choir.[1] Production credits name Zeev Lewin as producer and Raphi Unger for editing and historical research.[1]

The album's program blends songs with archival recordings and speeches spanning Israel's founding era.[1] Documented content includes a radio broadcast from the final day of the British Mandate, David Ben-Gurion's address at the Declaration of Independence in Tel Aviv on May 14, 1948, and audio from the November 29, 1947 United Nations partition vote.[1] The catalog also lists recordings and interviews covering early statehood, immigration, the 1956 Sinai Campaign, and the 1967 Six-Day War.[1] Among the attributed Ben-Gurion recordings is the statement: "What we did we were bound to do if we were to survive."[1]

Several notable songs appear in the cataloged track listing. "Bab-el-Wad" is described as commemorating soldiers killed while attempting to relieve besieged Jerusalem.[1] "Yerushala'im shel Zahav" ("Jerusalem of Gold"), composed by Naomi Shemer, is listed as sung by Shuly Nathan.[1] The program also includes "Machar," described as a song of hope for a peaceful future, and "Nasser is waiting for Rabin," performed by Aric Lavie.[1] "He who was dreaming" is described as commemorating people killed during the Six-Day War.[1]

Among the album's more striking listed contents is a purported telephone conversation between Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser and Jordan's King Hussein, described in the catalog as recorded by Israeli intelligence officers during the 1967 war.[1] The catalog attributes this exchange to the recording: Nasser asks, "Shall we say it were the U.S. and Britain or only the U.S.?" and Hussein replies, "Let's say the U.S. and Britain."[1] The program also lists a song dedicated to Jerusalem from the Soviet Union, identified as an original tape smuggled out of the USSR.[1]

The contents additionally include statements representing multiple political perspectives, among them Egyptian wartime propaganda broadcasts, accounts by Israeli leaders of military operations, and Soviet Prime Minister Alexei Kosygin's 1967 criticism of Israeli actions. These are presented on the album as period documents rather than as independently verified claims.[1]

A separate album sharing thematic territory, Israel: Home of Hope, was released on 14 May 2008 to coincide with Israel's 60th anniversary.[2] Wienerworld produced it, and it was issued both on CD and digitally.[2] The Rabbi Sacks Legacy re-released it digitally on 25 April 2023 to mark Israel's 75th anniversary.[2]

The album contains 46 tracks combining Rabbi Sacks's narration with songs and other musical selections.[2] Its sequence moves through narrated chapters—including "The Jewish land of hope," "The longest exile," "The State is born," and "Seeking Peace"—interspersed with songs such as "Im Eshkachech," "Yerushalayim Shel Zahav," "Oseh Shalom Bimromav," and "Hatikvah."[2] Credited performers and composers include Shimon Craimer, Eli Gerstner and The Chevra, Shlomo Gronich and The Sheba Choir, Matisyahu, and Lionel Rosenfeld and The Shabbaton Choir.[2]

In his introduction, Sacks quotes Ben-Gurion's proclamation of the State of Israel on 14 May 1948 (5 Iyar 5708).[2] Sacks argues that Israel represents a Jewish "home of hope" and a collective affirmation of life in the aftermath of the Holocaust, describing the nation's existence and achievements as testimony to hope.[2] In his own words: "Israel is the Jewish home of hope, the place where our people was born in the age of Abraham and where, after the longest exile ever endured by a people, it was reborn in our time."[2] He also writes that, although Israel was built by human hands, it is impossible not to sense beneath its history "the hand of heaven."[2]

For Israel's 75th anniversary in 2023, the album was made available digitally alongside a new animated video and accompanying educational resources.[3] The Legacy describes the video as exploring the connection between Ezekiel's Vision of the Valley of Dry Bones and the creation of the State of Israel, with narration drawn from audio recorded by Sacks before his death.[3] The educational resource accompanying the rerelease was designed for middle- and high-school students.[3]

"Israel" is also the title of a song—not an album—on Morrissey's 11th solo record, Low in High School, which was scheduled for release on November 17, 2017.[4] The song is a six-minute closing track described as a rebuke of critics of the Jewish state.[4] The album also includes another Israel-related song, "The Girl From Tel Aviv Who Wouldn't Kneel," which Morrissey described as paying homage to a theatrical production based on the diaries of Etty Hillesum.[5]