Shir LaShalom


Shir LaShalom is a popular Israeli song that has become an anthem for the Israeli peace movement.

History

Shir LaShalom was written by Yaakov Rotblit and set to music by Yair Rosenblum. It was first performed in 1969 by the Infantry Ensemble of the Israel Defense Forces as part of its Sinai Infantry Outpost program, during the War of Attrition between Israel and Egypt. It featured the soloist Miri Aloni, who later became a celebrated folk singer and actor. Many of the other members of the ensemble who took part in the recording of the song went on to become well-known figures in the Israeli entertainment scene. Among them was Danny Sanderson, whose electric guitar solo opened the recording.
Rosenblum originally intended the song for the Israeli Navy Ensemble. He sent it to them from his home in London, with the stipulation that he arrange it himself. When the musical director of the Navy Ensemble, Benny Nagari, rejected that condition, Rosenblum passed the song on to the Nahal Infantry Ensemble, with which he had worked some time previously.

Form and Content

Both in its lyrics and its music, Shir LaShalom was influenced by the Anglo-American anti-war folk-rock songs of the 1960s.
The song expresses a yearning for peace. It mourns comrades who have fallen in battle, and claims to speak for the fallen. The lyrics take issue with the 'culture of bereavement', and with the glorification of war that allegedly exists in Israel. It calls on those who live on to strive for peace. In the line 'The purest of prayers will not bring us back', the lyrics seem to question the value of reciting the Kaddish prayer at the graveside. In a similar vein, they seem to confront an ethos that memorializes fallen soldiers: 'Let the sun penetrate through the flowers '. In the lines 'Lift your eyes in hope, not through sights', the song uses martial concepts in order to subvert those same concepts. The lyrics are critical of songs that appear to glorify the culture of war; for example, Natan Alterman's War of Independence era Magash HaKesef, and the songs Giv'at haTaḥmoshet and Balada laḤovesh from 1968. Instead, the lyrics ask us to sing of love: 'Sing a song to love, and not to wars'.
That line originally read שירו שיר לאהבה, ולא לניצחונות 'Sing a song to love and not to victories'. The original wording extolled peace and love over any tally of victories and conquests. Since the song was intended for a military ensemble, the head of the IDF education department at that time demanded that the line be removed. He argued that the performance of such a song by soldiers before an audience of other soldiers would be damaging to morale. In the end the IDF agreed to the replacement of the last word of the line, ניצחונות nitsakhonot 'victories' by מלחמות milkhamot 'wars', and the song was recorded and published in that revised form.
HebrewTransliterationTranslation
אל תגידו יום יבוא,
הביאו את היום!
כי לא חלום הוא.
ובכל הכיכרות,
הריעו לשלום!

al tagidu yom yavo
havi'u et hayom!
ki lo khalom hu.
uvekhol hakikarot,
hari'u lashalom!

Don't say the day will come,
Bring the day about!
For it is not a dream.
And in all the city squares,
Cheer for peace!

Both in its tempo and its lyrics the song is evocative of an anthem. Frequent use is made of Hebrew imperative plural forms, like הביאו havi'u 'bring!' and הריעו hari'u 'cheer!' in the last verse. These forms exhort those who hear them to be proactive in the quest for peace. That message, apparently influenced by the hippie counter-culture of the era in which it was written, struck a chord with a large segment of the Israeli population.

Reception

From the outset Shir LaShalom was divisive. Many identified with its message of peace, and some saw in it echoes of the Mt. Scopus Speech given by Yitzhak Rabin on accepting an Honorary Doctorate from Hebrew University. In that speech Rabin, who had been Chief of Staff during the Six Day War, had stressed the personal sacrifice both of those Israeli soldiers who fell in the war, in the great Israeli victory, as well as the price paid by the enemy.
However, this was also the period–in the wake of victory in the Six Day War and before the trauma of the Yom Kippur War–when 'Israeli assertiveness' by a portion of the Israeli public was at its peak. Many saw the song as defeatist, and regarded as blasphemous the song's criticism of the supposed 'culture of bereavement'. When the head of the IDF's Central Command in 1969, Rehavam Ze'evi, heard the song performed, he banned the ensemble from appearing in the zone under his command, as did the general in charge of the IDF's southern command, Ariel Sharon.
Over the years, the song became a kind of unofficial political anthem for the Israeli peace movement, particularly for Peace Now. It is sung at their meetings and public demonstrations, occasionally in an Arabic version as well. The left-wing Meretz party purchased exclusive rights to use Shir LaShalom in its 1996 election campaign from the composer and lyricist, and changed the first line of the song from 'Let the sun rise' into the party slogan 'Let Meretz rise'.
At the close of a peace rally on November 4, 1995, those on the podium–Miri Aloni, the groups Gevatron and Irusim, and the statesmen Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin–led the crowd in singing Shir LaShalom. Just after the rally ended, Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated. In his shirt pocket was found a page with the song's lyrics, stained with his blood.
Shir haShalom featured on the Rabin memorial album O Captain released in 2000, and is regularly sung at ceremonies commemorating Rabin's death. In a cross-media poll held in Israel's 50th anniversary year of 1998 to select Israel's Song of the Jubilee, Shir LaShalom placed third.