Vox Humana Literary Journal

By Benjamin Rosendahl

All the life’s a stage and all the men and women merely players (Shakespeare: As You Like It)

Man is born as an actor – (…) he acts, pretends. (…) Even in his songs (Zohar Argov: Adam Sahkan)

The life and the music of Zohar Argov reflect the struggle of Mizrahim in Israel . He was one of the first Mizrahi voice in a society dominated by the Ashkenazi establishment. His success opened the door for a new brand of Israeli music: “musica mizrahit”. Today, many different ethnic voices can be heard in Israel (and not only music). Has he succeeded?

50 years ago, on July 9th, 1959, the Wadi Salib- neighbourhood on the outskirts of Haifa erupted in the first riots of Mizrahi Jews against the Ashkenazi establishment. While it didn’t take long to bring the events under control, a man who was 4 years, would shake up the establishment not long after. The man was Zohar Orkabi (later Argov), and his weapon were not stones but an unforgettable voice.

No one revolutionized Israeli music more than the “king”, as he is often referred to in Israel: He managed to transform “musica mizrahit” (Middle Eastern music) from a fringe movement to the center of Israeli culture and help revise the attitude of the Ashkenazi establishment towards the Mizrahim (North African Jews). The same radio stations that once boycotted his records, now regularly play musica mizrahit in general, and his songs in particular. His was the first Mizrahi voice to thunder on the airways. And because of this breakthrough, Mizrahim now enjoy a central role in Israeli music. Argov himself did not live to see this change: On November 6th, 1987, not yet 33, he was found dead in his prison cell in Rishon LeZion. An icon of Israeli culture took his own life by hanging himself with his bed sheet.

1950s: Mapai

Lonely, on the path to nothing, on the way to nowhere

(Zohar Argov, badad)

 
Zohar Argov was born to Yemenite parents as Zohar Orkabi on July 8th, 1955, in Shikun mizrakh, a very poor neighbourhood in Rishon LeTzion, Israel . His childhood resembled that of many Mizrahi youths: The family of ten lived in a two-bedroom apartment in this marginal neighborhood. Zohar, in order to keep the family afloat, dropped out of school at age 13 and took a job in construction.

During the 1950s and 1960s, Israeli politics were dominated by one party: Mapai (Mifleget Poalei Israel ( Israel ’s Workers’ Party). This party, led by Ben-Gurion, was the party of the Ashkenazi establishment. Mamlakhtiut, “stateshoodship”, was the word of the day, and all else was pushed aside. The establishment of the new nation encouraged a disdain for the diaspora (Shlilat Galut in Hebrew): Names were Hebraized (Orkabi became Argov), conversations in any language other than Hebrew were discouraged and music from foreign countries was looked down upon (especially music from the Middle East ). Prof. Sami Shalom-Chetrit, who immigrated to Israel from Morocco, remembers, how his parents’ records of musicians like Farid El-Atrash, Abd El-Halim, and Abd El-Wahib quietly disappeared from their living room and were replaced with Hebrew duets, trios and, of course, Lahakat Hazwayit (the army band).[1][1] The Lahakat Hazwayit represents the kind of music that the authorities approved of, and to a certain extent, imposed on Israeli listeners. This music was collective, with a strong emphasis on comradeship, nationalism, and militarism. If the theme of love appeared in these songs, it was ahawa mekudeshet be dam (“love sanctified by blood”, Yitzhak Rabin’s favourite song).And of course, this music was Ashkenazi, European: Regional instruments (oud, qanun etc.) never appeared in these songs, many of which were Hebrew translations of Eastern European folk songs (like Tumbalalaika). Hence, the Ashkenazi establishment that controlled and censured the state’s radio stations achieved a twofold effect: It strengthened its own political power and established a dichotomy between the state of Israel and its Arab neighbors. The Mizrahim were not represented here. The “Easterners” of their culture was considered non-European, foreign, and embarrassing. They were settled on the periphery of Israeli cities and consciousness.  If they wanted to listen to music from their own countries, they did so in the confines of their living room; and if they wanted to sing it, it was only in the context of religious ceremonies. Zohar Argov’s first listeners heard him and his style in Bar-Mitzwah-celebrations and the like (already the his nickname was Hasamir, the singer).  As Yehuda Shenhav showed in his study of the Iraqi Jewish community, ”the collective memory of a community was appropriated and transplanted into a different narrative – the Zionist narrative – which the Iraqi Jews played no part in creating.”[2] This all was about to change.

1970s: The beginning of the Mizrahi revolution

They are not nice boys: (Golda Meir, on the Israeli Black Panthers)

The years have passed by, but I will remember the days: (Zohar Argov, Kfar Awru Hashanim)

On July 9th, 1959, the Israeli police shot the wrong guy in the foot: The neighborhood was Wadi Salib, an abandoned Palestinian neighborhood on the outskirts of Haifa, now settled by Jews from North Africa . The victim (his name is still unknown) was a resident of Wadi Salib, accused of disrupting public order. The next day, after rumors erupted that he had died of his wounds (this, in fact, was false), the Mizrahi residents crossed the borders of their neighborhood: They marched towards Carmel and Hadar (two affluent Ashkenazi neighborhoods of Haifa ), threw stones, burned cars, and blocked roads. The main targets of their aggression, however, were Mapai-affiliated institutions (party headquarters, Histadrut offices etc.). The following day, the uproar reached other cities in Israel with Mizrahi concentrations, like Beer Shewa, Tiberias and Migdal HaEmek. Mapai, however, was able to water down the significance of these riots by dismissing them as petty struggles for the leadership of Likud Yehudei Zfon Africa (Union of North African Jews), David Ben Harush, the leader of the riots, was imprisoned and the events were soon forgotten. By 1962, the neighborhood was evacuated, and its population resettled. By 1971, the memory of the riots had almost completely faded. Then came the Pantherim Haskhorim (the Black Panthers).That year, Zohar Argov turned 16. One year away from his marriage, he was working in construction during the day and singing in clubs at night. While he and most Mizrahim in Rishon Letzion quietly accepted their fate, in Jerusalem’s Musrara neighborhood the foundation for the Mizrahi revolution was laid: On January 13th, 1971, the name Pantherim Haskhorim appeared for the first time in the newspaper Al Hamishmar: “We will be the Black Panthers of Israel”. And as Chetrit correctly states, “inspired by the American movement, the Israeli Black Panthers placed the issue of Mizrahi social struggle at the top of the Israeli internal agenda”[3]: The Pantherim Haskhorim demanded an equal distribution of resources as well as the acceptance of their narrative. The movement made its demands heard very quickly by the use of demonstrations, hunger strikes and direct action (like stealing bottles of milk from affluent neighborhoods and distributing them in the poor projects of Jerusalem . Often, this was accompanied with notes like these: “Milk is more important to poor children than to rich people’s cats.”) It soon spread out to all of Israel , developed a newspaper and founded a party. And the establishment could no loner ignore its demands. Golda Meir, prime minister at the time, decided to invite the Pantherim Haskhorim to her office. Her comment, “Hem lo bahurim nekhmadim” (they are not nice boys) highlighted the derogatory attitude of the establishment towards the working class Mizrahim. And no, they were not nice boys, not any more: They refused to accepts their secondary status as mere “Orientals” and exposed the hypocrisy of the establishment: “Many of our Ashkenazi brothers appear on our gates claiming to worry about the Sephardim, but that is just an outward pose, and things don’t look like this in reality” (The Sephardic Chief rabbi at that time, Ovadia Josef, in a speech on February 1st, 1973) Poor Mizrahim were looking for a voice, but did not find it in the Pantherim Haskhorim -as always happens in Israel, social issues are sidelined when the security of the state is under real or perceived threat. In the case of the Pantherim Haskhorim, who were already weakened by internal dispute, the 1973 Yom-Kippur-war was their coup de graîce. Politically, the victory of Menahem Begin’s Likud over Mapai in 1977, represented the triumph of the “second Israel ”, the underdogs. Ironically, the Mizrahi working class found their hero in the Polish-born Begin, whose policies did not end up benefiting them.

Culturally, though, a new Mizrahi voice finally surfaced: It was the voice of Zohar Argov. After a short imprisonment, Argov decided to become a musician. He appeared in different underground clubs, like Piano Bar ‘77 in Rehovot, and Moadon Habarvas in Yafo. Soon enough, he was a local celebrity. One of the reasons for his popularity was his willingness to employ Middle Eastern musical forms like the muwal (free rhythm introduction), lazima (vocal phrases followed by short instrumental responses) and, of course, the nasal voice. Distinctive Middle Eastern instruments such as bozouki, oud, and qanun were used in tandem with standard rock instrumentation. But it wasn’t only the music that was different: Zohar Argov’s lyrics were personal and touched on themes like love and loneliness (Badad, “Loneliness”, was one of his biggest hits). There was not even a hint of the militaristic and nationalistic themes of the music that the Ashkenazi supported. Instead, he often used the underprivileged as the subject of his songs, be it an old Bedouin (Bedouin Saken) or a gipsy (Mamash Marei Nehedar). He expressed the new Mizrahi confidence, when the motive for an entire album was his parents’ home, Yemen (kerem hatejmanim, “the vineyards of the Yemenites”). The theme song of that album (cerem hatejmanim) represented a Zionist sacrilege: Instead of shlilat hagalut (the negation of the Diaspora), he spoke of Ahawat Tejman (the love to Yemen ). It was a victory of the East: Musica mizrahit was the Israeli equivalent of the African-American civil rights slogan: “Black is beautiful”. Soon enough, the first tapes were released: Meir Reuveni, of the Reuveni brothers (the only producer of Musica mizrahit at that time) remembers listening to Zohar Argov’s first demo tape and saying: “Finally, I found the master that I was looking for all those years”[4] Argov’s first album, Elianor, was an immediate success. Reuveni recalls that the tapes were sold faster than they were delivered[5] and had to be sold at the entrance of the shop. A new notion was born, that of musica hakassetot (tape music) — unlike mainstream music, that was produced on records. Even the manager of the music section of Kol Israel, the state’s public radio station, referred to it as such. However, he refused to play this musica hakassetot , “due to the low level of the texts, music and accompaniment.”[6] But even he couldn’t halt the success of musica mizrahit: The clubs, when Argov appeared, were sold out. And so were his tapes. The music of Zohar Argov could be heard coming out of almost every shop at the Tahana Merkazit (central bus station) of Tel Aviv (and in the poor neighborhoods that surrounded it). A subculture was born. Then, in 1982, came the festival of Mizrahi music: Zohar Argov sang -and won with- his seminal song, Ha-Perah BeGani (“The Flower in My Garden”). The song incorporated all of the aforementioned components of musica mizrakhit, especially his use of muwal. This piece was critical to the development of Israeli music in general and musica mizrakhit in particular: It was not only an instant success in Mizrahi communities, but also in the Israeli mainstream — state radio started to play the song, and soon enough musica mizrakhit was heard everywhere. Asher Reuveni (the other Reuveni brother) divides the status of musica mizrakhit in “before Ha-Perah BeGani” and “after Ha-Perah BeGani” [7]. Argov, who was until then ignored by the mainstream Israeli media, was frequently requested for interviews, and soon earned the nickname Hamelekh (the king). He produced 10 records in 5 years, and set the stage for the success of other Mizrahi singers. His rise to stardom was accomplished. And just like the other king (Elvis Presley), the downfall soon followed: A drug addiction forced him into many rehab centers and prison cells. It was in one if these prison cell that he took his won life on November 6th, 1987.

Today: Between commerce and corruption

And today? Zohar Argov’s music is widely distributed and played at every mainstream radio station. No radio or television station would dare boycott musica mizrakhit: Instead, it has become a common TV format on prime time television. And interestingly enough, all the winners of cohav nolad (the Israeli version of “American idol”), were Mizrahim (one of them winning with a cover version of a Zohar Argov song, yam shel dm’aot). Argov also opened the door for other ethnic minorities: Idan Reicher, who features Ethiopian singers and their music, is but one example.

From Arab rap to Russian rock music, Israeli society expresses various voices and identities. All of this started with a working class Israeli who wasn’t willing to give up the sound of muwal he had heard from his Yemenite parents. However, all of this is considered “ethnic music”: Music shops still sell musica mizrahit in different sections than “Israeli music”. And while it is openly sold and played (already an achievement!), political and/or social lyrics are highly discouraged. As soon as the discrimination of Mizrahim (or other ethnic minorities) is mentioned, the establishment complains that “the ethnic genie came out of the bottle”. This led to the commercialization of musica mizrahit, and to self-censorship. Still, many Ashkenazim don’t regard it as legitimate: For example, the late Tommy Lapid asked after listening to a song by the Mizrahi singer Amir Benajun whether “…we occupied Tulkarem or maybe Tulkarem occupied us.” There is still a long way to go. Or as Zohar Argov said: Ad matai, elohai? (G-d, UNTIL WHEN?)

[1]http://www.kedma.co.il/Publication/ZoarArgov/
[2]http://www.arts.mcgill.ca/MEPP/PRRN/PAPERS/shenhav1.htm
[3]http://www.authorsden.com/visit/viewwork.asp?id=12092
[4]http://www.speedy.co.il/zohar/korot/korot-2.htm
[5]Ibid
[6] http://www.kedma.co.il/Panterim/Chronika.htm
[7]http://www.speedy.co.il/zohar/korot/korot-5.htm