A Watershed in Retrospect (The Yom Kippur War Twenty Years On - RAK REKA No. 18)

Activity Ideas

The Social Impact of the War - Themesongs

Music and Drama Activity

For use with: The precis of Moni Alon's analysis, in Implications

Note: This activity is suitable for senior high upwards.

It should follow an activity presenting the events of the war at the Israeli level - and precede an activity about the peace process.

Outline:
A choral, dance or creative movement programme can be planned to dramatize mood and reactions in Israel to the Yom Kippur War [hope, lobbying, demonstrations versus materialism and alienation]. Moni Alon's ideas can be used to guide a discussion.

Themesongs:
http://www.israel-mfa.gov.il/mfa/go.asp?MFAH00tx0 and www.hebrewsongs.com

If the popular and children's songs of the early Aliyot reflected agricultural settlement and early industrialization in the state-to-be, then the songs of the late 60s and early 70s reflect a changing Israeli society and public opinion.

In 1967, the Six Day War songs focused on victories, comradeship, Jerusalem, spirituality and present peace. (Sharm el Sheikh, Yerushalayim Shel Zehav, etc.)

In 1973, they focus more assertively on the wish for peace, recall suffering and ask more questions. This can already be seen in Shir Lashalom, which was written before the Yom Kippur War and then adopted by the public, and renowned for becoming the song of the Peace camp after the performance on the night of Yitzhak Rabin's assassination (Nov. 4th 1995).

Questions and personal wishes can certainly be seen, albeit more lyrically in Lu Yehi. Part of the difference stems from the ideological outlooks of their composers.

Al Hadvash ve'al Ha'oketz is almost the antithesis of these sentiments – classically pastoral, optimistic, more up-beat.

To this group of songs, one may add those symbolizing the banalities and materialism of everyday life which appeared just before the war - portraying an increasingly centered society - and the somewhat later songs of other, essentially young, Israelis whose disorientation, protest, or disaffection led them to choose life abroad. (Yoshev be San Franciso..., Yoshev al Hagader...)

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