Throughout the first few months of the intifada, Yehudit Ravitz kept quiet. But now the longtime Israeli singer has had enough of quiet.
“I feel like doing,” she said. “I feel like writing, singing, inventing.”
And performing before crowds, which she’ll do on Sunday, April 28 in Cupertino.
Independence Day celebrations in Israel may have been muted this year, but Ravitz expects that won’t be the case when she comes to the Bay Area. A top name in Israeli music for more than three decades, she will headline the Bay Area’s own Israel Independence Day celebration in a show at the Flint Center sponsored by the Consulate General of Israel.
While it’s understandable for those in Israel to tone down their festivities, she hopes Bay Area Jews and Israelis living here will not follow suit.
“I hope they come to the show and enjoy the music,” she said with a laugh. “That’s it, you know. It’s very simple. I am coming with my music.”
Understandably, convincing large numbers of Israelis to gather in one place for celebrations is difficult these days, though Ravitz did play to a crowd of roughly 10,000 at Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square for a somber show on Monday, the Israel Defense Force Memorial Day, Yom HaZikaron.
For Israel Independence Day, which took place Wednesday, a number of cities, towns and kibbutzim nixed celebrations, fearing terrorist attacks. In Hod Hasharon, the money earmarked for Yom HaAtzmaut went to hire guards for kindergarten classes. And, according to the Associated Press, several coastal cities have closed their beaches because they lacked the funds to hire armed guards.
“It’s OK not to celebrate. Because so many people were killed in the last year we don’t have to celebrate. We are Jewish people; we know how to suffer,” said Ravitz. “But what we have to do is to do, you know? To create, to be together, to look after each other. Things that are very modest.”
Ravitz recently played a benefit concert for the Jewish community of Amsterdam and experienced firsthand that pro-Israel activity is “not the trend” in Europe and elsewhere.
“The trend is now to not be pro-Israel, and we need it so,” the singer said in a phone interview from her Tel Aviv-area home. “We need some support because the public is really suffering from the shock of the situation and the great number of people who are dying every day here. We really need the empathy.”
A public show of support for Israel, even thousands of miles away in the Bay Area, goes a long way, Ravitz continued.
“It helps, because when you hear there was something pro-Israel, it’s so rare. It helps not only for public opinion but spiritually. It’s good to know people care and people are not only of a one-trick mind about Israel.”
This was a difficult Independence Day for Ravitz in particular because now, in a time of war, her 4-year-old daughter has finally become aware of the meaning behind Yom HaAtzmaut and the Israeli flag.
“I find myself wanting my daughter to be proud of her country, yes? She asked me to put the flag on our car, so I did it. I want to give her a sense of place, to belong,” said the singer, who lists Joni Mitchell and Chrissie Hynde as two of her favorite and most influential performers.
“And the strongest feeling I have is that I belong here. Maybe that is my patriotism. I belong here, from the cultural point of view. My culture is here.”