Noa (Israeli Singer)

Achinoam Nini was born in June 1969 in Bat Yam, Israel, into a family of Yemenite Jewish ancestry.[8][9] When she was two years old, her family relocated to New York after her father received a scholarship connected to his studies in chemical engineering.[8][9] She grew up in the Bronx and Riverdale in a religious Jewish household and spent her formative years in that community.[8][9]

At 15, Nini met Asher Barak on a Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel trip; at 17, she left her family in the United States and returned to Israel on her own to be with him.[9] Barak later became her husband, a pediatrician, and the father of their three children.[9] Nini has described herself as largely self-taught musically: she said she learned to play her instruments without formal instruction, does not read musical notation, and relies on intuition and hard work.[9] She began writing and composing songs as a child and made her first professional recording at age 12, encouraged by her music teacher.[9]

She chose the international stage name Noa early in her career because it would be easier for audiences abroad to pronounce and would not create a barrier between her and listeners.[9] She has also said she does not see a meaningful difference between "Achinoam" in Israel and "Noa" internationally.[9] Her musical influences include 1960s singer-songwriters Paul Simon, Joni Mitchell, James Taylor, and Leonard Cohen, while her Yemenite roots have remained a consistent thread in her performances.[4]

After returning to Israel, Nini served for two years in the Israel Defense Forces' Northern Command entertainment troupe and then studied for one year at the Rimon School of Music.[9] At Rimon she met guitarist Gil Dor, then a member of the school's teaching staff, and the two began performing together.[1][9] Before their first formal concert, at the Jazz, Blues & Videotape Festival at Tzavta in July 1990, they played on an improvised stage at Tel Aviv's Cafe Kassit.[1][8] Their festival debut was enthusiastically received.[1]

Nini's debut album, Achinoam Nini and Gil Dor Live, was recorded at Tzavta on February 28, 1991, and released that year.[10] Running approximately 51 minutes, it included Hebrew songs alongside reworkings of songs by the Beatles and Madonna.[10][1] In 1993, following an appearance at that year's Israel Festival, she released Achinoam Nini and Gil Dor, featuring songs based on the work of Israeli poets Rachel and Leah Goldberg.[1] Gil Dor handled the arrangements and shared musical production with Nini, while Ze'ev Ullman was executive producer; the album sold well in Israel and abroad.[11][1]

The breakthrough in Nini's international career came with the 1994 album Noa, her first foreign recording, produced by jazz guitarist Pat Metheny.[1] Nini had met Metheny in 1987, when he gave a master class at Rimon; he later connected her with the American label Geffen, which signed her to a long-term contract.[8] The album did well in the United States and topped bestseller lists in France and Spain.[8] It included her rendition of Bach's "Ave Maria," for which she wrote new words.[1]

In 1994, Nini sang "Ave Maria" in St. Peter's Square before Pope John Paul II, using the original melody with her own personal, nonreligious lyrics unchanged.[9] She described the appearance as life-changing and said it introduced her to a vast international audience.[9] She was later invited to perform at the Vatican five times and was the first Israeli artist to perform there.[1][8]

In 1997, Nini performed a specially arranged program with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra that included some of her best-known songs, works by Leonard Bernstein and Israeli composer Sasha Argov, and the traditional Yemenite song "Yuma." The concert was released in 1998 as Achinoam Nini & the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra.[1]

A Hebrew Union College thesis analyzes Nini's 1998 melody for Rachel's 1928 poem "The Barren Woman/Uri" as an expression of the heartbreak of longing for a child, with imagery linked to the biblical figures Rachel and Hannah.[3] The same study dates "Let Us Keep Moving" to 1997, credits its words and melody to Nini and Dor, and interprets its recurring refrain as an Israeli coping mechanism amid the difficulties of everyday life.[3]

Nini has appeared at venues including Carnegie Hall, the White House, the Olympia in Paris, and the Vatican.[1][12] She has shared stages with Sting, Carlos Santana, Sheryl Crow, Stevie Wonder, Andrea Bocelli, and Mercedes Sosa.[8] She performed "Child of Man" with Stevie Wonder for a CBS television special, sang the theme song for Roberto Benigni's Academy Award-winning film Life Is Beautiful, contributed vocals to the James Bond film GoldenEye, and sang the title song for Luc Besson's Joan of Arc.[4][8]

Nini has said her concerts combine English and Hebrew and almost always include a song in Yemenite Arabic, which she describes as part of her identity.[13] Her 2019 album Letters to Bach was built around Bach's music, with lyrics she wrote after listening to hundreds of his pieces; Quincy Jones worked with her on the album, with Gil Dor responsible for the arrangements.[13]

In 2009, Nini and Mira Awad represented Israel at the Eurovision Song Contest in Moscow, finishing 16th with 53 points.[7] Nini had proposed pairing with Awad.[6] Their entry, "There Must Be Another Way," also known in Hebrew as "Einayich," was performed in English, Hebrew, and Arabic.[7] The contest was reported to have reached more than 450 million viewers.[14] A 2009 audio disc of the same name included songs in English, Hebrew, and Arabic, among them "Faith in the Light" and "Dance of Hope."[15]

Nini has served as a goodwill ambassador to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization.[2] In 2022, she performed the Life Is Beautiful theme song with Israeli students at a Rome event honoring projects addressing the UN Sustainable Development Goals.[2] Her other public initiatives include involvement in the Presidential Climate Forum, Reefs of Hope—a coral-reef preservation project in the Gulf of Aqaba near Eilat—and Noa's Ark, a foundation using art and culture for social-change projects.[14]

Nini has described the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin on November 4, 1995, as the turning point that began her intensive peace activism.[4][16] She performed at the Tel Aviv peace rally and finished singing only minutes before Rabin was shot.[9][16] She later said that if Rabin could pay the highest price with his life, she could devote her time and energy—and accept costs to her career—to speaking out for peace.[9] In March 1999, she sang for President Bill Clinton at a White House event honoring Rabin.[4]

Nini and Gil Dor have frequently collaborated with Arab and Palestinian artists and participated in forums on the role of art in advancing Middle East peace.[14] Nini has described her international public role as a mission to present what she calls "the other voice" of Israel.[16] She has publicly identified as a Zionist and said she has never tried to hide her Israeli identity, considering representing Israel abroad an honor.[13] In a 2024 interview, she said: "Some people no longer believe peace is the way, but I believe it's the only way."[14]

In 2012, Nini performed at an alternative Memorial Day ceremony for bereaved Jewish and Palestinian families, organized by the Israeli-Palestinian group Combatants for Peace.[17] She described the ceremony as marked by "unity, understanding, empathy, and especially peace."[17]

Across her recordings with Dor, Nini has helped bring canonical Hebrew poetry into popular and concert settings. Their 1993 album drew on Rachel and Leah Goldberg, while her 1998 setting of Rachel's "The Barren Woman/Uri" connected a modern melody to biblical imagery involving Rachel and Hannah.[3][1] Her performances also preserve a Yemenite strand, from "Yuma" with the Israel Philharmonic to the Yemenite Arabic song she says she includes in nearly every concert.[1][13]

Her international profile has made her a visible Israeli cultural representative. She has said she performs abroad explicitly as an Israeli and considers representing Israel an honor, while her work with Awad and other Arab and Palestinian artists has tied that representation to coexistence and peace advocacy.[14][13] This combination has brought both acclaim and recurring political controversy, making music and public engagement equally central to assessments of her career.

Nini's activism has repeatedly drawn public controversy in Israel and abroad. The 2009 Eurovision pairing with Mira Awad was politically contested from the outset: a group of Arab artists, including Israeli and Palestinian figures, sent Awad an open letter urging her to withdraw, arguing that the Israeli government was exploiting the singers to project an image of Jewish-Arab coexistence during the Gaza war.[6] Nini responded that the performance was an opportunity to send a message of peace, saying: "Some people will see an Arab girl who looks Jewish and a Jewish girl who looks Arab, which is what we are. Maybe it will open some people's minds."[6] The two singers also withdrew from a Tel Aviv fundraiser intended to raise money for medical equipment and supplies for Gazan victims of Operation Cast Lead, saying the hostility toward them was too great.[18]

In 2012, a Facebook group calling for a boycott of Nini attracted more than 3,500 members in response to her appearance at the alternative Memorial Day ceremony; she objected to what she called a distortion of the event.[17]

In 2016, the Jewish National Fund of Canada withdrew its sponsorship of a Vancouver Yom Ha'atzmaut event featuring Nini amid disputes over claims that she supported the BDS movement.[19] Nini said she was "absolutely and completely against" BDS; the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver said reports that she promoted BDS were incorrect, and the Jerusalem Post deleted an earlier article and apologized for confusion.[19] Nevertheless, JNF Canada stated that its decision reflected the entertainer's views and its own organizational mandate.[19]

In 2021, during Tel Aviv celebrations following Benjamin Netanyahu's departure as prime minister, Nini improvised a song that referred to him as "Haman," the villain of the Book of Esther.[20] The remark drew criticism across the political spectrum. She initially said she would not retract it, then apologized, saying she wished "to erase the word that came out of my mouth from the protocols" and was sorry "to the large public that was hurt."[20]

Nini's 1994 Vatican performance also drew criticism in Israel, though it was praised abroad.[9] Hebrew Union College has identified her among entertainers it describes as "Arab Jews," while noting that the broader label is controversial to some in the context of current tensions.[21] These episodes reflect the complexity of Nini's position as an artist seeking to bridge divides while operating in a charged political environment.