Shoshana Damari

Damari immigrated from Yemen to the Land of Israel with her family in the mid-1920s and grew up in Rishon LeZion.[2] Her earliest musical experiences were closely connected with her mother and the social and religious life of the Yemenite Jewish community.[2] As a child, she accompanied her mother to weddings and other celebrations, singing and playing percussion.[3][2] Her mother was also a poet and a mourner within the community, and Damari’s early repertoire included Yemenite Jewish traditional songs, piyyutim, and women’s songs.[5]

These childhood appearances preceded her formal theatrical and vocal training.[3] She began singing on radio at about fourteen and later studied acting and singing, while also appearing in theaters during her teenage years.[3] Her early broadcasts were on Kol Yerushalayim, and she gave her first solo concert at seventeen.[2] The combination of family celebrations, radio, and theatrical performance therefore formed the settings in which her singing first reached audiences beyond her immediate community.[3][2]

In 1936, Damari moved to Tel Aviv and joined the Shulamit troupe through her older brother Saadia, an actor and comedian.[5] Shulamit presented itself as an “Oriental Eretz-Israeli theatrical troupe” and was directed by Shlomo Ben-Menashe, who later became her husband and served as her artistic agent throughout her career.[5] Alongside her work with Shulamit, she appeared at other Yemenite community events and in the satirical theaters HaKomKom and HaMatate.[5] Her early professional activity thus included both community-based performance and the theatrical stages of the period.[5]

An August 1938 radio appearance featured Damari as a soloist singing Yemenite songs by the poet Shalom Shabazi.[5] Oud and drums supplied an Eastern-style accompaniment, placing the performance within the musical idiom of her early repertoire.[5] She also initially worked with the musician Nahum Nardi, but their collaboration ended abruptly, after which she found other accompanists and performance opportunities.[5] These early associations preceded the partnership with Moshe Wilensky that would become central to her public career.[5]

Damari’s breakthrough came at Li-La-Lo, the satirical theater where she appeared from its founding in 1944 through 1948.[5] She was involved in the company’s formation and appeared in its 1944 debut production, The Barber of Tel Aviv.[6] In that production she sang “Laylah ba-Gilboa” (“A Night on Mount Gilboa”).[6] Although the song did not become a hit, her richly textured voice and Yemenite-inflected tones distinguished her from her European-born fellow performers.[6]

In 1945, composer and pianist Moshe Wilensky and poet Nathan Alterman joined the theater and began writing songs for Damari that brought her broad public recognition.[5] Among the songs associated with her were “Kalaniyot,” “Ani MiTzfat,” “BeKarmei Teiman,” and “Miriam Bat Nissim.”[7] Wilensky composed many of her major hits, frequently setting words by Alterman.[7] His collaboration with Damari extended well beyond the theater: the two performed together in Israel and abroad, and their recordings became part of Israeli radio programming.[5]

“Kalaniyot” became Damari’s signature song after she performed it in Li-La-Lo’s second show, Ra’ayon beli La Lo.[6] Wilensky, who was born in Poland and studied at the Warsaw Academy of Music, incorporated Yemenite motifs into this and other songs written for her.[6] The song’s melody, Alterman’s words, and Damari’s performance established an association that remained central to her repertoire throughout her life.[2][8] At one performance, British soldiers surrounded Li-La-Lo and halted the show on suspicion that “Kalaniyot” targeted British paratroopers and the Mandatory government.[2]

Damari initially resisted singing “Kalaniyot” because she felt that its words did not speak to her.[8] The audience’s enthusiastic response changed her mind; an account of the first performance recalls that she sang it three times that evening.[8] She first recorded the song in 1948 and subsequently performed it at appearances both in Israel and abroad.[8] Her first record was released that same year, as her voice was becoming closely associated with performances surrounding the establishment of the State of Israel.[3]

Other songs in her repertoire included “Ha-Tander Nose’a” and “Tzarikh L’Tzaltzel Pa’amayim,” alongside the works most closely connected with her theatrical breakthrough.[9] Her strong alto and Yemenite intonation remained defining features as she moved from the satirical stage toward a wider recording and concert career.[3] The Wilensky partnership continued into the 1950s, including his radio program Pizmon va-Zemer (“Chorus and Song”).[6] Each episode included a song that he had written especially for Damari and that she performed; their hits included “Ha-Ro’ah ha-Ketanah min ha-Gai” (“The Little Shepherdess from the Valley”) and “Le-Or ha-Zikhronot” (“For the Memories”).[6]

At the end of May 1948, Damari traveled with Wilensky to the detention camps in Cyprus.[5] They went as emissaries of the Committee for the Cyprus Exiles, bringing news of the newly established country to the camp residents.[7] Their visit lasted six days and included performances in the camps, makeshift hospitals, and clinics.[7] Audiences numbered in the thousands and included people hearing Hebrew songs for the first time.[7] Damari’s repertoire on the visit included “HaBayta” and Yiddish songs that she had learned from the detainees.[5]

A survivor’s recollection of a Cyprus summer-camp performance describes detainees gathering on a soccer field around a stage.[10] The accompanist’s apparently damaged accordion failed to work, but Damari’s singing nevertheless made an enduring impression on the audience.[10] The account recalls that the melodies remained with listeners for years and that Damari later called the Cyprus performance the most emotional event of her career.[10] Her singing for Holocaust survivors in Hebrew and Yiddish formed part of her activity alongside performances for soldiers in combat areas before Israel’s establishment.[11]

Damari continued performing for troops from the 1948 War of Independence through the 1982 Lebanon War.[12] Such appearances could require travel over rough terrain in army jeeps rather than the arrangements of a conventional concert tour.[12] In 1982 she was taken by helicopter to the Golan, and she explained her choice of a red dress by saying that it allowed the troops to see her better.[12] These wartime performances became a recurring part of her public life and were later recalled in official tributes after her death.[3][12]

Her international career had begun in the late 1940s, including an appearance at New York’s Village Vanguard in 1947.[6] During the War of Independence she also traveled to the United States to raise money for the developing state.[13] Damari and Wilensky undertook several-month American trips in 1949 and 1951 as representatives of Israel.[5] Their appearances reached Jewish centers across the United States, including New York and Broadway, and met with considerable success among American Jewish communities.[7] In 1958, she was again sent as an Israeli representative for the country’s tenth-anniversary celebrations.[5]

In the decades that followed, Damari performed in Canada and Cuba as well as the United States.[6] Her American appearances during the 1960s and 1970s included Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center in New York.[6] Although closely identified with Yemenite roots and classic Israeli songs, she also sang in languages including Spanish and Yiddish.[6] Her recordings eventually numbered dozens of albums, while her concert work took her around the world during the two decades after her first film appearance in 1955.[2]

Damari’s international performances also brought her into contact with figures outside Israeli music, including Harry Belafonte.[1] She performed the Hebrew song “Laila, Laila” with him, extending her presentation of Hebrew repertoire to audiences abroad.[11] These engagements continued a pattern established in the early years of the state, when her overseas concerts presented Israeli song to Jewish communities and other international audiences.[5][1]

The demands of this career also affected her family life.[13] Letters discussed in a biographical account reveal that prolonged separation from her daughter Nava weighed heavily on her during her years based in New York.[13] The account describes loneliness, health and mental-health difficulties, and strenuous travel and performance schedules.[13] Her international success therefore coexisted with personal strain, particularly the separation from her daughter that accompanied extended periods of work abroad.[13]

Damari appeared in Hill 24 Doesn’t Answer in 1955 and B’ein Moledet in 1956.[9] In the former she played a Druze character, while the latter concerned Yemenite Jewry and portrayed her family’s immigration from Yemen.[1][9] B’ein Moledet, also known in English as Without a Homeland, was Israel’s first color film.[9] These screen appearances placed her among the performers participating in the country’s early film productions while she was also maintaining her singing career.[6][9]

In 1957 she starred in the Israeli operetta Shulamit, adapted especially for her.[9] This return to a leading theatrical role followed the drama training and satirical theater work through which she had first developed as a performer.[5][9] Her career thus encompassed acting as well as singing, from her teenage appearances in Tel Aviv to film and operetta during the 1950s.[3][9]

Damari’s repertoire changed over time from early performances centered on Yemenite songs to one dominated by Israeli popular songs written in the Western popular-music tradition of the period.[5] Her vocal delivery nevertheless retained an Eastern character, particularly in the preservation of the guttural Hebrew sounds ח and ע.[5] This pronunciation, together with her Yemenite intonation and strong alto, brought distinctive Middle Eastern musical qualities into mainstream Israeli culture during the state’s early years.[3][5] Her music combined Eastern and Western musical aesthetics rather than remaining confined to a single traditional repertoire.[2]

Her Yemenite background was also visible in her stage presentation, including dance traditions, costumes, and jewelry.[1] Beginning in the 1950s, as she traveled to the United States, she designed her own dresses and developed a theatrical wardrobe incorporating Eastern-inspired elements and Yemenite jewelry.[14] The clothing contributed to the imposing presence she created onstage despite her small stature.[14] Her public image therefore rested not only on her voice but also on a carefully developed visual style that accompanied her performances at home and abroad.[1][14]

Beyond “Kalaniyot,” Damari’s repertoire included “Rachel, Rachel,” “Kita Almonit,” “Mul Har Sinai,” and “Im Ninalu.”[12] These songs sat alongside her earlier theatrical material, radio collaborations, and later recordings, giving her a body of work that extended across several periods of Israeli popular music.[5][12] Across a career spanning more than six decades, she recorded over one thousand songs while retaining the vocal characteristics that had distinguished her earliest public appearances.[2][15]

A long break from recording new material ended in 1987 with “Lashir Itakh,” a duet with Boaz Sharabi written by Ehud Manor.[5][9] The collaboration marked a revival in Damari’s career and brought her into a new phase of recording alongside younger or later-established performers.[6][9] The song had been written especially for her, and her partnership with Sharabi became one of the notable associations of her later years.[5]

In 1988 she released the album Or, with musical production and arrangements by Matti Caspi.[9] Naomi Shemer wrote and composed the title song, which became a major success.[5][9] That same year Damari received the Israel Prize for her contribution to Israeli vocal music.[3] She also toured the United States and Canada with recorded accompaniment, continuing the North American performing activity that had begun decades earlier.[5]

Her later work included appearances and recordings with Yaffa Yarkoni and Matti Caspi.[6] Although she performed less frequently as time passed, she recorded songs written for her by Dudu Barak, Haim Keinan, Dov Seltzer, and Idan Raichel, among others.[5] The pattern of collaboration that had begun with Wilensky therefore continued in a later repertoire created specifically for her voice.[5] Occasional stage appearances remained part of her life even as the pace of performance diminished.[3][5]

Further honors recognized the duration and influence of her career.[12] In 1995 the Israel Composers and Publishers Association presented her with its Lifetime Achievement Award.[12] She also received an honorary doctorate from the Weizmann Institute.[12] These distinctions followed the Israel Prize and accompanied a period in which she remained active through selected recordings, collaborations, and major public appearances.[5][12]

In 2005, Damari sang two songs on Idan Raichel’s album MiMa’amakim and participated in the accompanying show.[5] The recordings were “Aleh Nisa BaRuach” and “Ha’er Et Einav.”[4] She and Raichel were preparing a joint performance when she died the following February.[4] Her contribution to the album placed her final recording work within a collaboration far removed in time from Li-La-Lo, while continuing her practice of interpreting songs written for her by contemporary Israeli musicians.[5][4]

Damari died of pneumonia in a Tel Aviv hospital on February 14, 2006, and was buried at the old Trumpeldor Cemetery.[3][2] Friends gathered around her hospital bed and quietly sang “Kalaniyot,” the song that had remained inseparable from her career since her theatrical breakthrough.[16] At her funeral memorial, thousands waited to pass her coffin, and the closing performance of “Kalaniyot” showed Damari herself singing on a large video screen.[15] The song thus figured in both the intimate farewell at her bedside and the public remembrance that followed.[16][15]

President Moshe Katsav called Damari one of the prominent, revered pioneers of Hebrew song and said her life and achievements formed a chapter in the history of the Jewish people and the State of Israel in the second half of the twentieth century.[15] He also called her “the voice of Israel.”[15] Singer Nissim Grama said she gave the Yemenite community great pride in its roots and culture.[15] These tributes connected her individual achievements with both Israeli national culture and the community whose musical traditions had shaped her childhood.[15]

A joint statement from the Knesset and Beit Hanassi declared: “Her voice unified the whole nation and spread optimism and hope.”[3] The Defense Ministry recalled her performances for soldiers during Israel’s wars and said that her voice and songs would continue to reverberate in their ears.[3] Her Yemenite roots were reflected in her songs, accent, costumes, and jewelry, while her performances for soldiers connected her public image to Israel’s wars.[3][1]

The epithet “the queen of Hebrew song” captured the stature she attained through her distinctive singing and long public career.[5] Her retention of Yemenite pronunciation within a predominantly Israeli popular repertoire was an important part of that musical identity.[5] She brought Middle Eastern vocal qualities into the mainstream at a formative period in Israeli culture, while her partnerships with Wilensky, Alterman, Shemer, Sharabi, Caspi, and Raichel connected her with successive generations of songwriters and performers.[3][5]

Her reputation also extended beyond Israel.[17] Among American Jews, she belonged to a group of veteran Israeli popular artists more widely recognized than performers of Israeli Mediterranean music; her style, like that of Yehoram Gaon, was associated with an older tradition of popular singing.[17] This recognition followed decades of appearances in Jewish centers, major concert halls, and anniversary celebrations abroad.[5][6] From her mother’s wedding performances to international stages and her final recordings, Damari’s career maintained a visible connection between Yemenite Jewish musical inheritance and the evolving repertoire of Hebrew song.[5][1]