Defeatism, Plagiarism (sort of), Yankele Rotblit, et al.

Back in 1970, the Nahal Performing Troupe began singing the Yair Rosenbloom (composer) - Yaakov Rotblit (writer) tune "Shir L'Shalom", Song for Peace, and Moreleh Bar-On, then Chief Educational Office had it banned for a while (or maybe it was he who unbanned it). It was considered quite defeatist as you'll notice when reading the translation I managed to find (below). The period was the War of Attrition with Egypt.

Anyway, for a new theater production of a film, "The Troupe", which included the original song, Anat Gov, wife of Gidi Gov, wrote a new verse. Here's the translation:

Sing about peace,
And fill up the cemeteries,
Along the way to nowhere
With eyes that do not see
No one is in a hurry to die
The heavens can wait
All this is surely an error
For we are here to live
There are so many songs about tomorrow
But it is still overcast
It need be explained to them
That one cannot lie all the time to everyone
In our souls, inside, and slowly it takes from here
All of us want "forward" ("Kadima - i.e., Sharon/Olmert's party)
But there is nowhere to go.


The problem is, besides the recurrent defeatist theme (the Left also supports refusal to serve but Anat isn't that, heaven forbid, extremist) and crass politicizing, is that the songwriter is till alive and no one thought to ask him for permission to play around with his creative work.


Continuation:


Shir L'Shalom
Hebrew text by Ya'akov Rotblit

Singing English translation by Leonard Lehrman
for the musical setting by Yair Rozenbloom
Copyright 1995
as published by The Lehrman Family Newsletter, 1996
and Jewish Currents, Nov.-Dec. 2003

Even though the sun may rise,
no matter where or when,
Even prayer that death defies
can't bring us back again.
He whose candle was snuffed out
and came home in a sack
Neither bitter cry nor shout
can ever bring him back.
No one can revive the dead
that fell amid the strife.
No, neither songs of joy nor songs of victory
can bring us back to life.
Just sing a song of peace, of shalom,
and let it rend the air!
Better to sing a song of shalom
than murmuring a prayer.

Even though the sun may shine
and pierce the dark at dawn,
Don't look back! What's left behind
is buried, dead and gone.
Lift your eyes with hope once more.
Don't aim. Look up above.
Do not sing a song of war,
but sing a song of love.
Do not say, "It's just a dream
that we won't live to see."
It's not a dream. It's peace that we must work for now
'Til it's reality.
Just sing a song of peace, of shalom,
and let it rend the air!
Better to sing a song of shalom
than murmuring a prayer.

And as long as we're discussing Rotblit, here's his song from two years ago:

Land of Israel Song
Yankele Rotblit
(An extremely humble, non-rhyming translation by Imshin)

I gave my life to you and for you, Land of Israel /
Mists of purity filled my mind, I thought it was the Will of God /
The Jewish People, the Return to Zion, Coming Home, Oh Sweet Land of the Fathers /
Leave me alone now, I can’t be bothered for Mitzvas

I built towns in Samaria and I built villages in Judaea /
I built with Rabin and Peres and Meretz and with the Labor Party /
They always winked at me with one eye, the Zionist eye /
No Supreme Court and no B’Tzelem they told me – that’s the whole plan

Every member of every bankrupt kibbutz built on the ruins of an Arab village has become a bleeding heart liberal /
And I am the enemy of the people building a colonial empire on conquered land /
They want to see me walking in mourning in the ruins of my home /
And the poet from Sheikh Munis in Ramat Aviv will write to the New York Times about poetic justice

So much –
Jews hating Jew
Don’t know if to cry or be angry
Fire up the bulldozer Arik
Let’s start demolishing

Thirty years a man builds, he has a wife daughters sons grandchildren /
They grew up under the trees he planted, and they’re bringing up their children /
And he makes a garden and a little business, and life, thank God, is not bad /
Until some little leader in a tie with manicured fingers comes and tells him that the mission is over

It seems that your life was a policy mistake, you will be reimbursed /
This is what the nation wants, and this is what their president said /
A day of joy it will be, a joint celebration, a festive day for all nations /
Give out wine in the square, dance naked for peace

Don’t call it transfer, the copywriter will find you a clean word /
And the court will prove what this has got to do with human rights and civil rights and animal rights /
Because they hate me in the new left and in the old left and in the media and all the heads of finance /
They’ve taught the poor they have exploited that it’s the Jew from Hebron who is to blame

So much –
Jews hating Jews
The cup has passed over me
Fire up the bulldozer Arik
Let’s start demolishing

My shawl prayer is not all sky blue, it is blemished /
I have been involved in quite a few brawls, shepherds quarrels, beatings and threats /
Sticks, stones, Molotov cocktails, the odd gun here and there, oh the good days /
You may like to remind me who brought him here, and who gave them guns

If here and there I bent a rule, made a straight line into a circle /
Not for myself was I doing it, it was all for the People of Israel /
Even three years of Intifada, and daily murder on the roads /
Didn’t make a partner of me, we are not cried over

There is someone to blame for war, there is someone to blame for every soldier killed /
There is someone to blame for the credit companies lowering the credit rating /
The washing of hands of an occupation of every enlightened man /
All those walking in the dark cry: why is my light on?

So much –
Jews hating Jews
Tell me now you’re the boss
Fire up the bulldozer Arik
Let’s start demolishing

There’s a sea of madmen around, all manner of dangerous elements /
Even God doesn’t know what they believe in /
And strange weeds around and enthusiastic youths hanging out on the hills /
And all sorts of Rabbis and all kinds of saviors

No, you won’t see another Massada here and there will be no street fights /
This herd will go quietly to the slaughter, that’s how it usually happens /
Only a few dazed tens of thousands whose whole world has collapsed /
A new kind of absent while present, exiled in their own land

No one will hang a key round his neck for thirty years /
They’ll take the VCR along with the tape, recording the bitter tears /
Everything is upside down – look at the Hellenized left all holier than thou /
And we of the knitted yarmulkas will be the new bearers of the cross.

So much –
Jews hating Jews
I’m throwing away my yarmulka, I’m no longer a ‘doss’
Fire up the bulldozer Arik
Let’s start demolishing

Fire up the bulldozer Arik
Let’s start demolishing


And -
I figured you'd all appreciate this:-

The following opinion piece by leading Israeli novelist Aharon Megged appeared in the Jerusalem Post on 24 March 1996.

WORDS TO A WIMP
by AHARON MEGGED

(The writer is a leading Israeli novelist.) (Translated by Moshe Kohn)

(March 24) -- A few words to my leftist friends: After all the bad years of our ruling the territories, our accords with the Palestinians were and are an imperative, dictated by reality. They are inexorable. There is no way back.

You, the initiators of this move, naturally support it. And that's fine. But please, hold the serenades!

For 20 years I have been witness to the shameful sight of your singing, night after night, serenades beneath the window of the Palestinian sweetheart. But not only does she refuse to come out onto the balcony to lower a rope so you can climb up; not only does she decline to send as much as a kind smile your way; she sits there, ensconced in her room, mocking you.

As an Israeli Jew, I am ashamed.

There is no response to your overtures of love. None. During the years of occupation, with all their injustices and travails, this may have been understandable. But nothing has changed since Yitzhak Rabin extended his hand - true, most reluctantly - to Yasser Arafat on the White House lawn, or since we began withdrawing from the Palestinian population centers.

For nearly 30 years you have been singing songs of peace from every possible platform. Our finest singers and instrumentalists have been rendering peace with supreme devotion, with heart-warming, inspiring fervor.

There's no counting the number of mass peace rallies you convoked, the spontaneous peace demonstrations you organized, where "pure-dreaming youth... spun hopes of the Day-to-Come," many holding the Israeli flag in one hand and the PLO flag in the other, and with tear-filled eyes sang songs of love and peace to our brethren in Nablus, Gaza and Hebron.

And there were thousands of candles kindled in the plazas, twinkling in the dark - long before the memorial candles after Rabin's murder - and all the tiny flickering lights softly whispered, "Peace. Peace. International brotherhood and peace. Make love, not war."

And there were peace plays in the theaters. And guilt-drenched peace films, and endless breast beating in the cinematheques. And thousands of outdoor signs and posters, and numberless car stickers all calling for "Peace, peace unto all, the near and far."

And the pathetic appeals to the brothers beyond the Green Line: Come, let's meet, let's talk peace and love, for surely you know how much we love you, are all for you, always at your side, ready to grant your every wish... because you are right and we are treacherous and guilty. Yes, our hearts go out to you - go out so much that when intifada rocks and knives come to mind, we recall those lines from Natan Alterman's poem, Joy of the Poor: "Like a bird winging to its nest/Your heart goes out to the knife..."

And what of the other side? Not during the more than two decades of occupation and oppression, but the past two years: Have you heard songs of fraternity and peace addressing the Israeli nation in Arabic?

Have you seen peace-proclaiming signs on Nablus rooftops, on Ramallah balconies?

Have you seen a single peace sticker on a car bearing the territories' blue license plates?

Has one single Palestinian raised the Israeli flag alongside the Palestine flag as a sign of friendship between our two nations, as you have done in your peace demonstrations?

Yes, we have seen Israeli flags in Tulkarm and Ramallah - carried to the town square for burning.

So hold the serenades. Please.

Peace is welcome; no question. Because our aim is to live with the Arabs of this land, the indigenous Arabs, side by side, without war, without bloodshed.

And we have always lived in hope for peace, from when the Prophets said "Nation shall not lift up sword against nation" through Ya'acov Rothblit's peace song.

But to sing love songs to one who turns you away, to one in whom your serenading evokes nothing but scorn, because to him your unrequited singing means you are a wimp, a weakling sans self- respect... To go on singing like that is disgraceful.

I could say: We've been there; 50 and 60 years ago, when we had a Zionist Socialist political party that sang endless love songs to the Soviet Union and world Communism - Hebrew words set to heart-rending Russian melodies. Its members begged for reciprocal love: We too are realizing the Communist ideal, they said. We are with you, heart and soul. We defend you against all slanderers, at home and abroad.

But what they reaped was contempt and hostility, not love.

If I were to characterize this as the typical behavior of the Diaspora Jew, I would be insulting many generations of proud Jews who remained loyal to their faith. They did not toady to their foes, only kept their distance from them - at least till the Emancipation in Germany. When that happened, things changed, and we started seeing this groveling and self-deprecation.

But here?

Now?

Living as we are in our own sovereign state, and not so weak that we must cower before those who hate us?

I hear that many of you, even now after the slaughters in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Ashkelon, have adopted the Christian tenet, "Love thine enemy" though he slay you - a tenet Christians never observed throughout the past two millennia.

If that's what you feel in your hearts - God be with you. I won't say anything against you. But don't turn it into a national slogan. It will be very difficult for us to fight, when it becomes necessary, under such a motto.

We aren't the first people in the world to conduct peace negotiations with people who were, or even still are, our enemies. It happened in South Africa between two populations fiercely antagonistic for three generations. Now it is happening between Britain and the Irish.

But the English, even the leftists, aren't singing love songs to the Irish Catholics. And Irish Catholics aren't mooning over the emerging peace with the British. The contacts are between leaders, official representatives, diplomats.

That is how it should have been here, too. Peace negotiations with enemies who have not ceased to be enemies, some, if not most of whom still dream that we will vanish off the face of this earth - such negotiations should be conducted in the driest manner possible, tight-lipped, vigilantly, by those whom the nation has mandated to do so.

Without fanfare. Without sycophantic cant. Without love songs to those who love you not.

Nowhere in the world is there anything like the one-sided excitement here about entering the imagined "Peace era." We are unique.

And as an Israeli Jew, I am offended.

Make peace, not love!

Without serenades.