ImageName=chavaalberstein.jpg BandName= Alberstein, Chava ID: 36c417e5 Printed= May 2004 StoryBy= Jeff Royer PhotoBy: press photo When Israeli folk singer Chava Alberstein comes up in conversation, the phrase "her country's greatest singer" follows shortly. Over the span of 30 years, Alberstein, often likened musically to an Israeli version of Joan Baez, has given voice to the people of Israel in a way that both reflects the hopelessness of life amidst relentless violence and expresses an optimism that change can be affected and promises will be fulfilled. A friend of slain Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, she has devoted her career - all 54 albums of it - to the preservation of her culture, the pursuit of peace in the Middle East, and the bold examination of Israel's political situations.
Alberstein's most recent album, End of the Holiday (released January 2004 in America), is her first full collaboration with her husband, Nadav Levitan, a famous poet and filmmaker who provided a series of understated vignettes that give an insight into life in modern-day Tel Aviv.
Fly Magazine contacted the Israeli legend at her home outside of Tel Aviv to discuss her newest album and her upcoming U.S. tour, which will bring her through York later this month.
Fly: End of the Holiday is your 54th album. That's kind of staggering. Chava Alberstein: [laughs] I always feel a little bit guilty when that number comes out. I don't know why.
F: When you're working on your 54th album, how do you manage to keep things fresh for yourself?
CA: That's a good question. First of all, by not thinking about the 53 that came before. [laughs] That's the first thing. I don't go around like somebody carrying this treasure on his back and showing off. "This is what I have, this is what I have!" What's done is done. You go on. It's really a new album, a fresh album, and I don't feel like I'm carrying a burden.
F: Can you give me the abridged version of what the title is referring to? CA: End of the Holiday. I think everywhere - but in Israel especially, because the religious and the secular part of the people here is mixed together all the time - holidays are very religious. It's always really like a break from the routine of life. And then when the holiday ends, it comes with a very, very moody feeling almost like a depression. You can call it the symptom of Monday mornings, but it's much more than that. It's really going back to reality, to hard work, back from holiness to secularity. And that's why I like this name. It's an atmosphere of no illusions. F: You've always maintained a certain amount of optimism, even with the subjects that you're tackling. Do you think you're abandoning that in any way?
CA: No, not really. I think being realistic is not being pessimistic. And the things that I like about the poems here - I didn't write the text, it's my husband who wrote the text - the thing that I liked in them is he does not put himself in, he doesn't criticize [his subjects], he doesn't pity them. It's like painting a picture or taking a photograph of pieces of life. It depends from what point of view you look at it. If somebody is in a not very good situation, it can always be worse. Maybe one foreign worker has a very difficult life because he leaves his family, but for someone who couldn't find a job and send money to his family, maybe he envies this foreign worker that did. So it's not very subjective.
F: Is that polarity the idea that you wanted to communicate through all these little vignettes of life in Tel Aviv?
CA: Yeah. To communicate, and to remind myself that life is very fragile. Nobody promises us that we will live like this forever. I just wanted to go out of this circle of myself and ourselves - meaning Israelis and Jewish people - and look at other people, because, you know, we are not the only people in the world.
F: You're singing in Hebrew on this album, and you've sung in Yiddish on others. Do you think that hinders the way you're able to connect with audiences specifically here in America?
CA: Lately Yiddish is the language that is really fading out. People understand Yiddish by very magical intuition, not by a verbal way. They don't actually understand the words, but somehow there is a magic in this language, there is a music in this language. Many people think they understand exactly what you're saying. Singing for new audiences in different places gives me a very, very fresh feeling of beginning. To sing for people who don't understand and maybe never heard a song in Hebrew, it gives me a lot of energy and strength.
F: You've been called many times your country's greatest singer. How do you react to something like that? It just seems so unbelievably flattering ...
CA: Of course it's flattering. But again, I try to not take it too heavily and too seriously. Sometimes such a title can paralyze you artistically, because you think you must be good and nice to everybody. I try not to think about it and I go on and sing songs that I know not everybody will like, or maybe somebody will even get angry. And I don't hide my opinions, political and social opinions. It's better than being called the worst singer in your country. [laughs]
F: I think it's an interesting thing to look at, on one hand, people calling you Israel's greatest singer, and on the other, I've seen you in interviews talking about how you're still questioning your place in the world, that you're not even entirely comfortable with your identity as an Israeli.
CA: It's not easy, and especially when you are part of a very, very young country, 56 years old. Not many singers are one year older than their country. [laughs] It's a very, very difficult life all the time. We have a few months of quiet, and then again everything starts. We are really very tired of all this. It's like living under a volcano all the time, waiting for the volcano to erupt. It's very difficult, but I think in a way this is what keeps me going, being involved in what's going on, waiting for a change, fighting for a change.
It's not easy, but I think a lot of artists live like this. I do take my art very seriously. For me it's really, it's my life. I can even go further and say it's maybe like a religion for me, something I really believe in. So being an artist is for me not just entertaining people. It's also asking a lot of questions all the time, asking questions about yourself and about your country.
F: Tell me a little about what we can expect at the show coming up in York.
CA: I actually explain a lot in my shows about the songs. And in a way, it's a mixture of my private story of my family and of the country itself. I think it's like a little bit of a journey into real life and places that you don't often see, let's say, on CNN. And it's very interesting. It's a journey with the music and songs to meet a piece of life that I'm sure you don't meet very often, not on the radio, not on the television.