I am sad today, my favorite Israeli singer Arik Einstein
(1939—2013) died suddenly yesterday morning. He wasn’t only loved by me, he was
immensely popular. But since he was a highly private person and his family
asked for a quiet funeral, I didn’t expect that an official state funeral would
close down the streets of Tel Aviv.
Moreover, I couldn’t imagine that our
prime minister Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu would appear at the funeral and
claim Arik Einstein as his own. This was a hit below the belt--please let Arik
RIP. I wish my last memory of the beloved singer could remain untarnished by an
image of Bibi Netanyahu making yet another speech.
Actually this is a good place to start because everything
about Arik Einstein was the exact opposite of Netanyau. Arik Einstein was a
very talented man who wanted to be left alone, to maintain his privacy and to
do the things that he loved quietly and outside of the limelight. Netanyahu is
an intelligent man who cannot survive without constant attention and demands
plenty of recognition for everything that he does.
Privacy is not a concept that Netanyahu appreciates; his
rise to the top has only been possible thanks to television: like a sunflower
he basked and flourished in its light. Since his days as the Israeli ambassador
to the United Nations (1984 to 1988) when he “perfected his technique,” he has
not missed an opportunity to be seen in public or to speak on television.
In contrast, in the early 80s Arik Einstein, by then already
a successful and highly acclaimed singer and actor, stopped appearing in
public. However, he never ceased working
and continued to make music and record. He had a special talent to attract and
discover quality musicians and to bring out their special qualities. He
collaborated with a large number of musicians and sang their songs in a
beautiful clear baritone voice. His
clean and unaffected voice has become a symbol to everything which was honest
about Israel, a voice of yearning for better and simpler days.
Arik Einstein changed
the music scene in Israel for the better but never took any credit for it.
He even refused to accept the most
prestigious award in Israel, the "Israel Prize.”
In an extrovert and noisy nation like ours, it is
incomprehensible how such a private person who has stayed home for more than 30
years could become a national symbol and a cultural hero. This quality of not tooting one's own horn
but just doing the job quietly and professionally, even meticously, is also not
a common Israeli trait. At the funeral someone said that every one of us has
his/her own Arik. I feel that this could
be part of the answer. We would like to
believe that we are a little better than we really are, and
that within us we have some of the humility, professionalism and
integrity that Arik had.
It helped that Arik was good looking, witty and graceful,
and since he withdrew from the public eye so long ago, he never grew old. In
our hearts he remained the Israeli Peter
Pan -- forever fresh, handsome and young.
As for Bibi, unlike Dorian Gray, this fine looking man did
age publicly in front of our eyes and his faults have become increasingly
prominent - one of the unfortunate effects of over exposure.
Still since he took the time to be at the funeral and to
speak about Arik, perhaps it could be an opportunity for Netanyahu to learn
from this cultural hero a lesson about integrity. If such reflection does take
place, I wouldn’t even mind to have my last memory of Arik Einstein mixed with an image of Bibi.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U58uKBDtZyo
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