The Passing of the Sabras

Internet Radio

…When Arik Einstein became the iconic Israeli entertainer, principally a song-writer-singer but also popular actor with no pretensions to creating another character on screen – by changing his speech pattern, using make-up and costumes to become someone else – in light comedies with his pal Uri Zohar with just the two of them being themselves on screen in some story about young Tel-Avivans in the 1950s and 60s, mirror images of how the young audience wanted to see themselves.

He had a lovely singing voice and his songs were always easy on the mind and heart and above all the ear. This was an Israel that had no counterpart to Elvis Presley, that white guy whose act was plagiarized from black entertainers in Negro nightclubs where the entertainer not only sang but moved his body is a sensual, even sexual manner in a long tradition of African dancing with roots in fertility ceremonies between men and women…