“Jerusalem” She sang is like a prayer, never for the audience

…

“If one more person shows me their prisoner number, I will punch a holocaust survivor.” I didn’t mean it, not even close, but hoped that somehow it would explain how helpless I felt. The situation was too much for me to handle. The sins of our fathers had been transferred to me, and I felt treated unfairly. It made me angry and so sad.

I was born in 1963, eighteen years after the end of World War II. How could anybody hold me accountable for the nazi crimes, and the wrongdoing of the Germans and Austrians?

“Please, get me out here.” My mind was made up, the next morning I would beg the company I worked for to cancel my assignment. I had been sent to Jerusalem to work as a translator and had felt so much excitement to visit the city and the country, but after a few days, I didn’t want to stay a day longer in Israel. I hated everything. The people, the history, my involvement -all of it. I was unhappy and furious. I had been sent to this country to work, instead, I felt under attack.

A Jewish woman, who looked very familiar, had heard my senseless rant. “Stand tall,” she said in English.

I have met two or three breathtakingly beautiful women in my life, and she was one of them. Regardless, the message she gave me made no sense.

“I am from Austria,” I explained, “Everywhere I go when they find out where I am from, they show me the number the Nazis tattooed into their forearms.” I was outraged by the unfairness I had experienced so far. I wasn’t responsible for the crimes of the Nazis. For heaven’s sake, my own grandfather had been a political prisoner in Auschwitz -twice. According to my grandmother, he had a number tattooed on his chest and had to wear a red triangle on his prison uniform, the sign for political prisoners. His crime: Refusing the Hitler Greeting.

The beautiful woman then answered in German, street German she explained to me later. “Don’t make complicated sentences or I will be lost,” she laughed.

“Perhaps you feel guilty deep down?”

When she spoke my native language I recognized her. I had seen her on TV back home. She was a Jewish singer, quite famous for her German ballads. My grandmother had loved her and her music.

“You are Dahlia Lavi.” It wasn’t a question, but a statement. She nodded.

“You are approachable, you have guilt written all over you. Stand tall,” she said again.

“I am tall,” I mumbled and she laughed again. “I noticed.”

She didn’t need a translator. She spoke six or seven languages herself. We stayed in the same hotel and over the next days I got to know her better and I understood what she was trying to tell me. Slowly I shook the guilt feeling off. There wasn’t anything I needed to feel guilty for. My grandmother was half-Jewish, she had spent years in hiding during WWII. The mountains my grandpa knew so well, hid her perfectly.

“So you are Jewish?” Someone asked me when I talked about my family and I shrugged my shoulders. Are you Jewish just because one of your forefathers was?

“No, I am not,” I truthfully stated. “I am not practicing any religion.”

Not many people in Israel understood my statement, but Dahlia did. She smiled when she heard my answer.

She, like me, believed in the universe. In an interview later on she stated, “I believe in the energies within this universe. I believe that there is a system that we just don’t understand. I believe in invisible forces that guide us when we listen and don’t when we are open. I believe in something that exists beyond human comprehension. We don’t know what it is. We give it so many names and everyone claims that his god or power is the right one. I don’t think so.”

She asked me to stand tall, and it had nothing to do with my size.

“I am standing very upright, in a metaphorical sense. I create an energy around me that simply does not allow others to overstep my boundaries.” At first, it didn’t make sense, but later on, I practiced it myself.

Body language is a beautiful thing when you use it rightfully and honestly.

I noticed that I had tried to be invisible in the midst of Holocaust survivors and I had signaled guilt way before they approached me. The moment I stood tall(er), the conversations changed. I could share my family’s story and was heard as well. We listened to each other. They understood, I understood. History had been unkind and brutal to many of us.

Dahlia Lavi! When I read about her passing a couple of years ago, I stopped what I was doing and played some of her songs. Our paths crossed a few times. Like me, she traveled almost all over the world. Like me, she tried to understand why people kill each other and why most wars take place because of religious beliefs. We both believed that people are basically the same -everywhere.

I remember her so well.

Dahlia Lavi wanted to be a dancer, but her beauty stood out and she was discovered quickly. Many of you have probably seen her in movies with Kirk Douglas and Dean Martin. An unforgettable beauty but so much more.

Daliah Lavi was born in Haifa and grew up in Shawe Zion, a village more commune than kibbutz, on Israel’s Mediterranean coast. Her mother was German, her father Russian, both were Jewish. Dahlia learned German as a kid. “I come from a small village in Israel, where all the people came from Germany. I learned German as a child – my grandmother, my mother came from Germany.”

Her family left Germany and fled to Israel.

When Daliah Lavi was 17 or 18 years old, she worked as a model. A film producer discovered a photo of her in a shop in Tel Aviv and she got a leading role in a movie. She played a dancer, of all things, because she had to break off her dance training early.

It was the beginning of an international career as an actress. Thanks to her quick understanding and talent for languages, she got roles in Sweden, France, Germany, Italy, and Hollywood. She played alongside Gerd Fröbe (another great one I will never forget), Yul Brunner, Lex Barker, Curd Jürgens (“The Norman Wardrobe”), Dean Martin, Woody Allen and many more.

Funny enough, Daliah Lavi herself did not think much of the films she played in. In 1971, when she was 29, she dropped out. Something else had turned out, another groundbreaking coincidence. At the end of the 1960s, as a guest on a television show by the Israeli musical star and actor Chaim Topol, Daliah Lavi sang some Hebrew songs and promptly got her first record deal.

Of all the countries in the world, she chose Germany for her singing career, which in my eyes didn’t make any sense.

“Why Germany?” I wanted to know.

“For me, the concerts in Germany are fantastic. I am able to get in touch with the young people. And these young people are not to blame for the Holocaust, neither are you.”

She looked at it quite differently, like a mission. A young girl, born in Israel, who comes to Germany to stand proudly and confidently on a stage! A young girl, born in Israel, who comes to Germany to meet young people so openly.

And the elderly?

She never tried to reach them, because it was too late for that.

Dahlia’s greatest wish was peace in Israel. “My biggest dream is that I will live to see peace with our neighbors.”

Sadly, her dream did not come true.

I will never forget her. She made me stand up tall and upright.

“Jerusalem” is a song on her first record. “I sing it like a prayer for me, never for the audience.”

…

I got to know the people in Israel (aside from tourism). Lots of great people -and despite their bad history, they are connected to Germany.

May not only Daliah but also Israel and Palestine find peace!