By Meir Ariel

מודה אני 
לפניך ולך 
על כל החסד והאמת והטובה והרעה והטובה 
שעשית עמדי 
ועם ביתי 
ועם קרובי וידידי ועם בני עמי 
ועם ארצי ועם כל העולם והאדם 
אשר בראת 

בלאט חרש חרש 
אט אט טופפות 
עתידות עתידות לקראתנו 
ואת מחייכת אלי מתוך השינה 
יהיה לנו טוב טוב מטוב טוב מאוד
זה מתחיל כבר בבוקר בבוקר 
את צוחקת אלי 
מתוך מתוך השינה

I am thankful in front of you
For all the grace and the truth
And the good and the bad and the good
That you did for my people and my home
And for my close ones and relatives
And the people and my land 
And for all the world and all humanity
That you created 

Slowly, silently
The future is creeping towards us
And you are smiling at me from your sleep
It’ll get better for us, very good, better than good
It’s started already, morning to morning
And you are laughing towards me 
From your sleep.

מודה אני

The making of the modern state of Israel was a miracle. This platitude doesn’t belong exclusively to right-wing Israeli politicians, it belongs to me too. 

But maybe it’s too late. Maybe it’s ruined, doomed to fail. 

Even so, it was still a hell of a story. 

Above, Leah Rabin (center), sister of former Israel Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin attends a memorial service in his honor with Dalia Rabin, his widow (left). The third verse is about Rabin, who may have been Israel’s best chance, but was murdered by a Jewish extremist in 1995.

I can’t say we’ve made it
We’ve still got work to do 
I can’t say we’ve got it all 
But minimum wage is what we’re used to. 

Take a look around
At the beachside cities and sun-drenched towns 
At the stories who are walking round
Take a look around
 The forest and the freeway
So much newer than the rest
The ruins of two temples made
Maybe cursed and maybe blessed

Take a look around 
At the buildings built up and the buildings burnt down 
At the pie in the sky and the facts on the ground
Just take a look around

They’re still clapping on the plane
You ever seen the desert when it rains
The waters run like a flood

I can’t say we’ll save it 
We may be too far gone
The one who tried to right this ship
Watches from the great beyond
 Take a look around 
At the friends and foes above the ground
This is the hand we’ve been dealt now
Take a look around

They’re still killing in his name
Gotta douse that holy flame 
But it burns in the blood

I can’t say I’ll shake it
This place weighs heavy on my chest 
 If they try to break it
Well this isn’t the first test
Take a look around 
At this dusty home I’ve found 
At the stories who are walking round
 Take a look around

They’re still clapping on the plane
They’re still killing in his name 
They’re still living day to day…

Take A Look Around

One night in the summer of 2016, I stood in the Mahane Yehuda market in downtown Jerusalem which transforms into a open air nightclub at night with bars lining the stalls where spices, fish, and vegetables are sold during the day. I watched everyone dancing to Omar Souleyman, smoking rolled cigarettes, eating sunflower seeds and olives, laughing at friends, savoring their beers because the next one is too expensive, and then I went home to write this.

If I have to go
If I have to go
Maybe it’s family
Maybe a war
If I have to go 

What’ll you keep?
What’ll I take? 
What’ll we save 
For next time around

I’ll take your tongue
We’ll save our dreams for the next set of golden years 
You’ll keep that little piece of me that quivers when the plane touches down

If you have to change 
If you have to change 
From the dream that once was
Do it without me  I won’t help you fall 
If you have to change

But if you plead I stay 
If you plead I stay
To fix the dream that once was 
Show me you mean it 
I’ll give my all 
If you plead I stay

Will you still dance? 
Will you still drink
To the early hours of dawn
Everything remains here
It’s just a few years
But will you still dance? 

If I have to go
If I have to go  If I have to go

If I Have To Go

On February 1, 2003, the spaceship Columbia exploded. Among the 7 who died on board was the first Israeli astronaut, Ilan Ramon. 

Israel was obsessed with Ramon’s association with the mission, and he reciprocated by carrying the Jewish people on his shoulders with him into space. Ramon, the child of a mother who survived Auschwitz and a father who fled Nazi Germany before the Holocaust, was not religious, but consulted with a rabbi about how to keep kosher in space while he was orbiting the earth, representing the Jewish state. 

To Israelis, Ramon showed that in just one generation, the Jewish people could go from the depths of the Nazi death camps to the heights of space.

He was carrying with him a copy of a sketch done by a boy named Petr Gint who perished in Auschwitz. Gint was something of a prodigy who wrote stories, painted and sketched incredible works of art before he died at the age of 16. 

Gint's work has been preserved at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem. Israel plans to name its new airport slated to open this year after Ramon.

He took a little boy to the moon 
He took a little boy to the moon 
Drawn in pencil in a darkened room
On one of a thousand afternoons
He took a little boy to the moon

Stood on craters, held hands, walked around
Stood on craters, held hands, walked around
When you’re so high you can’t hear no sounds 
Like the wheels of history spinning round
Stood on craters, held hands, walked around

The astronaut wore a flag patch on his arm
The astronaut wore a flag patch on his arm
The little boy wore a yellow star 
And was sent away in a cattle car 
The astronaut wore a flag patch on his arm

The little boy said your mother was good to me 
The little boy said your mother was good to me 
She kissed my face as I slipped away
Said she always would remember my name
The little boy said your mother was good to me 

The little boy wouldn’t let him go
The little boy wouldn’t let him go 
The little boy tugged on his hand 
Said stay with me, oh if you can
The little boy didn’t let him go 

He took a little boy to the moon

For Petr and Ilan

Meir Ariel was an Israeli singer-songwriter often referred to as the Israeli Bob Dylan, although perhaps the Israeli Townes Van Zandt is a more apt description. A supremely talented lyricist, Ariel shot himself in the foot at every turn and didn’t ever enjoy the fame in life that he found in death. He fought in the Six Day War (and the Yom Kippur and First Lebanon Wars), and arguably his most famous song was a parody of a nationalistic song circulating in 1967 called Jerusalem of Gold, sung by Naomi Shemer. Ariel’s version was called Jerusalem of Iron, and speaks of the horrors he saw fighting in the city

In Shemer’s version the chorus is “Jerusalem of gold, and of bronze and of light” In Ariel’s: “Jerusalem of iron, and of lead and of darkness,” 

He died in 1999 of a tick bite. He was 57. On his Gravestone at Kibbutz Mishmarot is a line from one of his songs: “יצאתי לשאוף קצת רוח” - The word for “spirit” in Hebrew is the same as “wind.” It translates “I stepped out to breathe a little wind/spirit.” 

In English, the name Meir Ariel can be translated to The One Who Shines, The Lion of God. Above, he sits in his sukkah during the Jewish holiday of Sukkot with an accordion, far left. 

An Israeli winery put out a series of Meir Ariel wines a few years ago that featured his sketches on the label. I wrote this on a hot July night, after polishing off a bottle.

With a head of curls and every few years a helmet
You looked like Dylan before you knew who he was
Green-eyed boy picking cotton
Not knowing why your song had made such a fuss

In a tent somewhere in Suez City 
With a paperback Hemingway and cigarettes 
Drinking sliced apple tea in the darkness
You wrote another one that gave a voice to the quiet rest

And I’m drinking Meir’s wine and it’s a hot summer evening
And it’s taken some time to take in all of this
And I’m not saying I know just what he was singing 
But for now I’m doing fine, I’m drinking Meir’s wine

The snows were falling somewhere north of Sidon 
And you got the call they needed you, who else?
So off came the tefillin and the tallis
And up went the notebook on the shelf

And I’m drinking Meir’s wine and it’s a hot summer evening
And it’s taken some time to take in all of this
And I’m not saying I know just what he was singing 
But for now I’m doing fine, I’m drinking Meir’s wine

With a head of curls under a kippah
Twenty years too young for a hospital bed
You had a cortisone shot and said goodbye to Tirza
Then they took you back to Mishmarot

יצאתי לשאוף קצת רוח
יצאתי לשאוף קצת רוח
יצאתי לשאוף קצת רוח

The One Who Shines, The Lion Of God

By Anais Mitchell.

Why do we build the wall, my children, my children?
Why do we build the wall?

Why do we build the wall?
We build the wall to keep us free
That’s why we build the wall
We build the wall to keep us free

How does the wall keep us free, my children, my children?
How does the wall keep us free?

How does the wall keep us free?
The wall keeps out the enemy
And we build the wall to keep us free
That’s why we build the wall
We build the wall to keep us free

Who do we call the enemy, my children, my children?
Who do we call the enemy?

Who do we call the enemy?
The enemy is poverty
And the wall keeps out the enemy
And we build the wall to keep us free
That’s why we build the wall
We build the wall to keep us free
 
Because we have and they have not, my children, my children
Because they want what we have got

Because we have and they have not
Because they want what we have got
The enemy is poverty
And the wall keeps out the enemy
And we build the wall to keep us free
That’s why we build the wall
We build the wall to keep us free

What do we have that they should want, my children, my children?
What do we have that they should want?

What do we have that they should want?
We have a wall to work upon
We have work and they have none
And our work is never done
My children, my children
And the war is never won
The enemy is poverty
And the wall keeps out the enemy
And we build the wall to keep us free
That’s why we build the wall
We build the wall to keep us free
We build the wall to keep us free

Why We Build The Wall

This was the hardest song to write on the record, which may have something to do with why it’s the shortest as well. 

I wholeheartedly disagree with the settlement movement in Israel and think it threatens the survival of the country as a Jewish and democratic state. 

However, there are those who believe them to be pioneers, the new Zionists. This is a song through the eyes of a settler, in an (unfortunately) imagined withdrawal of settlers from the West Bank.

My namesake walked these dusty hills
So to these hills I came. 
I saw nobody living here 
I cannot hear your blame

We kicked and screamed in Sinai 
This time it will be worse
10,000 raged in Gush Katif 
Now hear my wicked curse:

Come what will 
Come what won’t 
 The peace you know will rot

You’ve come to take my godly home
My orchard and my flock 
But I’m a phoenix here and I won’t be  
So easily brushed off…

Abraham's Song

My apartment in Jerusalem was directly across from the Old City, perched on what is called the Green Line, which marks the territory acquired by Israel during the Six Day War in 1967. To the west of the Green Line is West Jerusalem - Israel proper, and to the east is what is widely considered to be Occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank.  

And let me tell you, you see it all living on the seam between Arab East Jerusalem and Jewish West Jerusalem. You hear gunshots from terrorist attacks, you see dead terrorists in the public park adjacent to the walls of the Old City. You are late to work because a car has plowed into your light rail station, aiming to run down people going about their daily business. You’re not allowed to leave the Damascus Gate of the Old City after getting coffee with friends because there has been a stabbing attack and they’re still searching for the perpetrator. You see the massive police horses used for crowd control feeding in the empty lot across the street. 

You see the Jerusalem Day parade, where thousands of religious nationalists wearing Israeli flags go pouring into the Damascus Gate. Every year, the Palestinians who live and work inside the Old City have to close their shops and take shelter inside their homes. “Death to Arabs!” the high-schoolers chant. And “Muhammad’s a son of a whore!” as they bang on doors as they storm towards the Western Wall. 

And then on Friday afternoon, the Muslims have returned home after their prayers at the Temple Mount inside the Old City. Observant Jews are headed to grocery shop and to synagogue to begin the 25 hour sabbath during which they don’t drive, turn on lights, or use their cell phones. On Friday afternoon, finally, it all goes quiet.

Above is the Damascus Gate, cleared out except for police in the aftermath of a stabbing attack in 2017.

Out my window heard them coming
The horses and the helpers
The “Don’t question the orders!”
The two more years then done 

The morning broke with stone dust
From punishing the lawless 
The tear gas spray, the bullets saved 
Couple spared a couple spent

Here on the seam, here in between 
I’ll be the first to know 
The seam line is the frontline 
When Vesuvius will blow

Out my window heard them coming
The blind the poor the faithful 
The “Learn the rules obey Him”
The maybe this is wrong 
  Out my window heard them coming
The spurned who hold the power 
The wrapped in flags and flowers 
The “We’re here for it all!”

Here on the seam, here in between 
I’ll be the first to know 
The seam line is the frontline 
When Vesuvius will blow

Out my window they’ve stopped coming 
It’s Friday, they’re doing something 
A cigarette, a moral debt  I closed my blinds and slept

Horses And Helpers

In early 2015, I found out what it was like to fall in love with a new city and a new person far away from home and everything familiar. The “top of the ancient hill,” mentioned in the third verse is Jerusalem’s Mount of Olives, a massive millennia-old cemetery, pictured.

Everyone I’ve ever known 
Lives far across a sea
My brave new world can be old and cold 
But you struck a chord in me

Dad’s time, it’s six AM
He’s shaking off the sleep 
Here, the sun’s going down 
The rays are falling at your feet
The rays are falling at your feet

We passed the homes and the orange groves 
To the top of that ancient hill
The marble graves that lay below
Are always being filled

Dad’s time, it’s six AM
He’s shaking off the sleep 
Here, the sun’s going down 
The rays are falling at your feet
The rays are falling at your feet

I don’t know what the answers are
I don’t know if you’ll stay 
I don’t know when the top will blow
We have to live it come what may

Four feet pad on the cobbled stones
Two bodies swim in the sea
One more drink, then we’ll head into town 
In this city I’ve found peace

Brave New World

When the British controlled Palestine from 1917-1948, to appease the Arab majority, there were often limits on Jewish immigration.  In 1939, the Holocaust began, and millions of Jews were trying to find a way out of Europe.  

In response to this British policy, Zionist groups began to organize ships for illegal immigration that brought European Jews to Palestine. These journeys became known as the Aliyah Bet. New ships were too expensive for these groups to purchase so they settled for leaky second-hand boats from North America and Europe that were barely sea-worthy. But even so, these boats were given a second life, a renewal that was then passed onto the passengers aboard.

Above is a photo of the Exodus 1947, one of the ships used during the Aliyah Bet (It had served both the British Royal Navy and the US Navy during World War Two. When it fought for the Americans, it was known as the USS President Warfield. The Hebrew writing says “Exit [from] Europe 1947.) This ship in particular carried 4,515 passengers, mostly Holocaust survivors. The British intercepted the ship and sent it right back to Europe. First to France, where the passengers refused to disembark, and then to a Displaced Persons camp in Germany (the irony). This didn’t stop the would-be illegal immigrants from trying to emigrate, and by May 1948, when Israel came into existence, most of them were already in the country.

She used to sail the Mighty Mississippi
Splashed through southern brown waters just like me
Then she got old, a little rust on the hull 
And they brought her back in from the sea

Come forty-four they didn’t want her no more
They sold her and shipped her away 
To the wild Middle East 
Had work there at least 
Bringin’ a new group every few days
Takin’ em home to stay

Give me your hand tell me your plans
With a bowl and a spoon you’ll make do
Now don’t make a sound, the British are around 
They’re lookin’ for me cause they don’t want you.

Come forty-four they didn’t want her no more
They sold her and shipped you away 
To the wild Middle East 
Had work there at least 
Bringin’ a new group every few days
Takin’ em home to stay

Now I’ll leave you here, on these shores nothing’s clear 
Except the skies and the waters you crave
But I was renewed and you can be too 
Find a new wife a new home a new name 

Come forty-four they didn’t want you no more
They sold you and shipped you away 
To the wild Middle East 
You had work there at least 
Bringin’ a new group every few days
Takin’ em home to stay

Exodus

On April 11, 1909, while modern day Israel was still being administered by the British, a group of 60 Jewish families gathered on the dunes outside of the ancient port city of Jaffa with the intention of founding a new city. To decide on how to split up the plots of land, 120 shells were picked out of the sand - 60 light shells and 60 dark shells - with a family’s name written on the light shells and the plot numbers written on the dark ones. Each light shell was paired with a dark one and in this way each family received a plot of land, which became the city of Tel Aviv.

There were dunes
Dunes in the sand 
Turned into buildings
By hard working hands

Sixty shells
Numbered and named
Put in the sand
For families to claim 

Then came the streetlights
Then came the war
Then came half a million 
To the sands of these shores

There were dreamers 
And some who had to go
When your friends turn on you
You can’t stay anymore

So they came 
In their suits and their shawls
Some with trunks and families
Some with nothing at all

Then came the buses
Then came the bombs
Then came the righteous
Then came the wrongs

But when you come from shells
You can be swept back to sea
Dunes to Tel Aviv

Ben Fisher

Popular tracks