Naomi Shemer

About

Shemer was born on Kvuzat Kinneret, and grew up overlooking the shores of the Sea of Galilee. Many of her songs recreate the landscape that was such a part of her youth and reflect her love of the topography and scenery of Eretz Yisrael. She took piano lessons at an early age and continued her music studies in Jerusalem at the Rubin Academy of Music. Later, she returned to the kibbutz to teach rhythm and to write children's songs. Shemer eventually moved to Tel Aviv, where in 1956 she wrote the words to the musical Hamesh-Hamesh (Five-Five), first performed by the IDF Central Command entertainment troupe and later by Haohel Theater.

At this time, she married her first husband, the actor Gideon Shemer, father of her daughter Lali. In 1957, she wrote the words to the first show of the Batzal Yarok troupe. Among the songs she wrote for the troupe was Zamar Noded (Wandering Troubadour). The song Hoopa Hey, which she wrote for the IDF Central Command entertainment troupe won an international song contest in Italy in 1960. In 1963, she wrote Hurshat Haecalyptus (The Eucalyptus Grove) for a musical marking the jubilee of Kibbutz Kinneret.

Shemer’s music linked the ordinary to the festive, the landscapes of Lake Kinneret to the White City of Tel Aviv, her own biography to the history of Israel between war and peace. Shemer’s longing for the landscapes in which she grew up wove itself flawlessly into her ability to listen to new tones and unexpected voices. The connection to childhood gave many of her songs a charm and innocence. At her best she was able to balance all of her loves and write songs that sketched the tension between past and present without attempting to resolve that tension too glibly.

Of the songs Shemer wrote about the Yom Kippur War, the most popular became “Lu Yehi” (“Let it Be”) which began as a translation of the Beatles’ song by that name and evolved into an independent hit. This and other songs, many of which have been published in books of her music, have made Shemer’s songs arguably the most-sung in the 1960’s to the 1980’s.

After Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated in 1995, Shemer translated American poet Walt Whitman's "O Captain! My Captain!" into Hebrew, put it to music and dedicated it to Rabin's memory.

Her last composition, written in the last years of her life when she was suffering from cancer, was a tribute to Israeli astronaut Col. Ilan Ramon, who died in the space shuttle Columbia explosion in 2003.

For her immense contribution to Israeli music, Shemer was awarded the Israel Prize and Jerusalem Prize in 1983.

Shemer was laid to rest at Kibbutz Kinneret on June 26, 2004.

In 2005, Shemer was voted the 6th-greatest Israeli of all time in an online poll conducted by an Israeli newspaper.