ירושלים של זהב ( Yerushalayim shel zahav )
אויר הרים צלול כיין
וריח אורנים
נישא ברוח הערביים
עם קול פעמונים.
ובתרדמת אילן ואבן
שבויה בחלומה
העיר אשר בדד יושבת
ובליבה חומה
ירושלים של זהב
ושל נחושת ושל אור
הלא לכל שירייך
אני כינור...
חזרנו אל בורות המים
לשוק ולכיכר
שופר קורא בהר הבית
בעיר העתיקה.
ובמערות אשר בסלע
אלפי שמשות זורחות
נשוב נרד אל ים המלח
בדרך יריחו.
אך בבואי היום לשיר לך
ולך לקשור כתרים
קטונתי מצעיר בנייך
ומאחרון המשוררים.
כי שמך צורב את השפתיים
כנשיקת שרף
אם אשכחך ירושלים
אשר כולה זהב
ירושלים של זהב...
Jerusalem of Gold
The mountain air is clear as wine
And the scent of pines
Is carried on the breeze of twilight
With the sound of bells.
And in the slumber of tree and stone
Captured in her dream
The city that sits solitary
And in its midst is a wall.
Jerusalem of gold,
and of bronze, and of light
Behold I am a violin
for all your songs.
We have returned to the cisterns
To the market and to the market-place
A ram’s horn (shofar) calls out
(i.e. is being heard) on the Temple Mount
In the Old City.
And in the caves in the mountain
Thousands of suns shine -
We will once again descend to the Dead Sea
By way of Jericho!
Jerusalem of gold,
and of bronze and of light
Behold I am a violin for all your songs.
But as I come to sing to you today,
And to adorn crowns to you (i.e. to tell your praise)
I am the smallest of the youngest
of your children (i.e. the least worthy of doing so)
And of the last poet (i.e. of all the poets born).
For your name scorches the lips
Like the kiss of a seraph
If I forget thee, Jerusalem,
Which is all gold…
Jerusalem of gold, and of bronze, and of light
Behold I am a violin for all your songs.
"Jerusalem of Gold" (Hebrew: ירושלים של זהב, Yerushalayim Shel Zahav) is an Israeli song written byNaomi Shemer. It is also the unofficial national anthem of Israel, often contrasted with the secularHatikva. The original song described the Jewish people's 2,000-year longing to return to Jerusalem; Shemer added a final verse after the Six-Day War to celebrate Jerusalem's re-unification, when Israel had conquered East Jerusalem after this part of the city had been under Jordanian control for 19 years.
History
Naomi Shemer wrote the original song for the Israeli Song Festival (it was not in competition but had been commissioned by the Mayor, Teddy Kollek), held on 15 May 1967, the night after Israel's nineteenth Independence Day. She chose the then-unknown Shuli Nathan to sing the song.
Some of the song's melody is based on a Basque lullaby, Pello Joxepe (Pello is a typical basque name, but it can also mean Foolish Joseph), composed by Juan Francisco Petriarena 'Xenpelar' (1835–1869). Shemer heard a rendition by singer/songwriter Paco Ibáñez, who visited Israel in 1962 and performed the song to a group that included Shemer and Nehama Hendel. She later acknowledged hearing Hendel perform Pello Joxepe in the mid-1960s, and that she had unconsciously based some of the melody on the lullaby. Shemer felt very bad when she found that it was similar to Pello Joxepe, but when Ibáñez was asked how he felt about the issue, he replied he was "glad it helped in some way", and that he was not angry, nor did he perceive it as plagiarism.
At that time, the Old City was still controlled by the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and under its sovereignty rule. Jews had been banned from the Old City and the rest of Jerusalem east of it, losing their homes and possessions and becoming refugees. All Jews were barred from either returning or entering the areas under Jordanian control, and many holy sites were desecrated and damaged during that period Only three weeks after the song was published, the Six-Day War broke out, and the song became a morale-boosting battle cry of the Israel Defense Forces. Shemer herself sang it for the troops before the war and the festival, making them among the first in the world to hear it.
On 7 June, the IDF wrested eastern Jerusalem and the Old City from the Jordanians. When Shemer heard the paratroopers singing "Jerusalem of Gold" at the Western Wall, she wrote the final verse, countering the phrases of lamentation in the second verse. The line about shofars sounding from the Temple Mount is a reference to an event that actually took place on that day.
Themes
Many of the lyrics refer to traditional Jewish poetry and themes, particularly dealing with exile and longing for Jerusalem. "Jerusalem of Gold" is a reference to a special piece of jewelry mentioned in a famous Talmudic legend about Rabbi Akiva; "To all your songs, I am a lyre" is a reference "Zion ha-lo Tish'ali", one of the "Songs to Zion" by Rabbi Yehuda Halevi: "I cry out like the jackals when I think of their grief; but, dreaming of the end of their captivity, I am like a harp for your songs.
The poem is woven with mournful Biblical references to the destruction of Jerusalem and subsequent exile of the Jewish people. "The city that sits alone" is from the first verse of the Book of Lamentations; the first word after the first chorus, איכה (the lament "How?") is its Hebrew name. "If I forget thee Jerusalem" is a quote from Psalm 137, i.e. "By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down and wept, when we remembered Zion." This contrasts with the joyous return from exile in the fourth verse.
Other versions
Many artists recorded their own versions for the song.
- The late Israeli singer Ofra Haza sang one of the most popular versions of the song at Pa'amonei HaYovel (Bells of the Jubilee), Israel's 50th Anniversary celebration in 1998.
- A version was part of the soundtrack of Schindler's List, orchestrated by the film composer John Williams.The song features prominently at the end of the film, with the exception of the Israeli release, when the remaining Jews leave the camp and walk over the hill in the direction of a nearby town. (Initial Israeli audiences were amused by the use of this song, due to it being written over 22 years after the Holocaust and being totally unrelated to the subject of the film. Following this, it was replaced with Hannah Szenes's song Eli, Eli for Israeli showings.)
- Klaus Meine, vocalist of the popular rock band Scorpions, recorded a cover of the song together with Israeli Liel Kolet.
- The Greek singer Demis Roussos recorded a version of the song as well, though he changed the verse melody considerably.
- The jam band Phish also performs the song on tour and recorded a rendition of the song on the 1994 album "Hoist".
- Brazilian singer-songwriter Roberto Carlos covered the Portuguese version of the song in 2011, and even sang a verse and the chorus in the original Hebrew.
- French singer-songwriter Hélène Ségara covered the French version of the song, in the album Mon Pays C'est La Terre released in 2008, with the verse and the chorus in the original Hebrew.
The song has been translated loosely into many languages. It was chosen as the "Song of the Year" in Israel in 1967 and "Song of the Jubilee" in Israel's 50th Independence Day in 1998.
The song is the corps song of the La Crosse, Wisconsin Blue Stars Drum and Bugle Corps. The corps sings it before every competition.
Uses
The song is featured in the 1993 American film Schindler's List and plays near the end of the film. This caused some controversy in Israel, as the song (which was written in 1967) is widely considered an informal anthem of the Israeli victory in the Six-Day War. In Israeli prints of the film the song was replaced with Halikha LeKesariya ("A Walk to Caesarea") by Hannah Szenes, a World War II resistance fighter.
Naomi Shemer Lifted Jerusalem of Gold' Melody From Basque Folk Song
A few days before her death last June, songwriter, poet and Israel Prize laureate Naomi Shemer confessed to a friend that she had based the melody to her renowned song from 1967, "Jerusalem of Gold," on a Basque lullaby.
Shemer told composer Gil Aldema that she had used the Basque lullaby unwittingly and that when she realized what she had done, she panicked. "I consider the entire affair a regrettable work accident - so regrettable that it may be the reason for me taking ill," she wrote to Aldema, another Israel Prize laureate who initiated the composition of the song. "You are the only person in the world - besides my family - who should know the truth about `Jerusalem of Gold,' and here is the truth," Shemer wrote.
In 1967, Aldema asked Shemer to write a song for that year's song festival, and Shemer came up with "Jerusalem of Gold," named after a piece of jewelry given by Rabbi Akiva to his wife, Rachel. The song was first heard at the song festival in Jerusalem on the night after Independence Day, and immediately enchanted its listeners - thanks, in part, to its rendition by Shuli Natan, a then unknown singer who Shemer insisted was the one best suited to singing the song.
In her letter to Aldema, Shemer wrote that she had heard the Basque lullaby sung by a friend, Nehama Hendel, in the mid-1960s. "Apparently, at one of these meetings, Nehama sang the well-known Basque lullaby to me, and it went in one ear and out the other," Shemer wrote.
"In the winter of 1967, when I was working on the writing of `Jerusalem of Gold,' the song must have creeped into me unwittingly," she wrote. "I also didn't know that an invisible hand dictated changes in the original to me. ... It turns out that someone protected me and provided me with my eight notes that grant me the rights to my version of the folk song. But all this was done, as I said, unwittingly."
Three weeks after the song festival, the Six-Day War broke out, and the paratroopers who reached the Old City of Jerusalem sang the song on the Temple Mount and alongside the Western Wall. From that moment onward, "Jerusalem of Gold" became something of a national anthem and Shemer's most famous song.
After the war, Shemer added another verse that begins with the words: "We have returned to the water cisterns..."
Over the years, Shemer was frequently asked if she had used the Basque song, but always angrily denied doing so. At the end of her letter to Aldema, she wrote, "My only comfort is that I tell myself that perhaps it is a tune of the Anusim [Spanish or Portuguese Jews who were forced to convert and kept Jewish practices in secret, called by the insulting term Marranos by the Christians] and all I did was restore past glory. Now you, Gil, know the truth, and I permit you to publish it."
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