The new ensemble of “Shokolad, Menta, Mastik” (“Chocolate, mint, Bubblegum”) came apart. Pashanell wanted to feature Ofra as a soloist but composers weren’t willing to write songs for her. The best of names, from Mati Caspi to Uzi Chitman and Ehud Manor — nobody knew Ofra Haza yet. Nothing moved.
It was the beginning of 1979. “Ofra was chosen to perform in the movie ‘Shlager’ with ‘Hagashash Hachiver’ (‘The Pale Pathfinder’ – an Israeli entertainment group). They wanted Ofra, but the star, Tzvika Pick, was trying to leave her out”, says Bezalel. “Luckily, his choice, Ruthi Navon, was already in a process of becoming religious and lived abroad. They put Ofra through hell before they gave her the part. I read the script and I loved it, especially the texts which were written by Assi Dayan”.
“I played Polly’s daughter”, says Ofra. “In the movie they match me with a student from the Technion (a technological high studies institute in Haifa), a dry type. This guy bores me to death and in one of the scenes I burst at him and yell: ‘I want to dance’. He asks: ‘why, are you some kind of a bimbo whose head is between her legs?’, and I answer: ‘If my craving to dance means I’m a bimbo, so I’m a bimbo from wall to wall’. And here comes ‘Shir Hafrecha’ (‘The Bimbo Song’) which makes my breakthrough.
“I remember the film and the time of the shooting as a great time”, says Ofra. “I met the ‘Gashasim’ (‘Hagashash Hachiver’ – ‘The Pail Pathfinder’) there and I felt they put me into the lions’ pit. They were already big stars and I was only at the beginning of my career. They treated me as if I was their little daughter”.
The character played by Ofra in the movie, Dina, was that of a disco naughty girl, the exact opposite of what Ofra really was. She was still under the care of her religious parents. Therefore, she was afraid of their reaction once they saw her in the movie exposing her leg to the crotch. “I was a little afraid, because my parents were religious. I didn’t know how my father, who was very religious, would react. When he saw the movie we were very tense, but he surprised us all. After the scene his reaction was admirable. He said: ‘So what, what did you see? She has nice legs, doesn’t she?” Ofra’s father adds: “I don’t keep her in a box, I trust my education. And besides, this is what they want to see in the movies”.
“There were some who remarked about the word ‘Frecha’ (‘Bimbo’) used by the director and the writer of the song, Assi Dayan, but Ofra made the word sound noble, even though the radio didn’t want to broadcast the song at first”, says Bezalel.
“I loved ‘Shir Hafrecha’ (‘The Bimbo Song’) from the first moment I heard it, but I didn’t realize it would become such a big hit, because of the fears it wouldn’t be broadcast because of the slang”, said Ofra. “The popularity of the song with the audience was a shock. Five weeks at the top of the hit charts! Now the oriental audience [Jews who came from Arab or African countries] wouldn’t hear me without this song”.
The song turned out to be a big hit, being played many times on the radio, and the part of the movie in which she sings it was broadcast on T.V. “Galey Tzahal” (IDF radio broadcasts) forbade the song to be broadcast for many months, because it was considered too bold”. “Actually”, says Bezalel, “’Shir Hafrecha’ (‘The Bimbo Song’) did us a bad service. It’s unbelievable how the workers’ committees, the main source of invitations for performances at that time, were unanimously against the ‘Bimbo'”.
I didn’t feel like a star. In general, for everything that happens to me in life I thank God”, said Ofra.
The success of “Shlager” encouraged Pashanell to push Ofra into another main role in another movie, “Na’arat Haparvarim” (“The Suburban Girl”), by George Ovadia with Menachem Eini and Avner Dan. She played the role of Vered, a peddler who became blind by an accident in her childhood. Thanks to a donation from three good-hearted street loafers, she undergoes surgery and gains her eyesight again. After the surgery she meets a manager who helps her becoming a successful singer. “After ‘Shlager’ I had a desire to make more films”, said Ofra a few years later. “‘Na’arat Haparvarim’ (‘The Suburban Girl’) killed my desire. I don’t even want to remember it”.
““George Ovadia is a gentle man who treated me very nicely, but the producer made it hard for me”, said Ofra. “They didn’t take care of anything and I wasn’t relaxed during the shooting. I played a blind girl with opened eyes. It’s funny they used my magazine cover pictures. All my pleas to remove them were useless. Now people ask me if it was a real story and if I was blind once”. “Afterwards I got many offers to play in movies”, says Ofra. “Some of them I rejected because there were nude scenes, and I am not even able to show up partially nude. I’ll never show up on the street with cleavage or with transparent clothing”.
In the same year Ofra participated in the Song Festival with the song “Al Ahavot Shelanu” (“About Our Loves”) and didn’t take first place. On the other hand, in the “Shirovision for Children” (a children’s song festival), which took place in Chanuka in December 1979, Ofra participated with the song “Flash Gordon”, and did win first place.
“Pashanell told me: ‘I don’t know what to do, nobody wants to write for her’”, says Bezalel. “It was at that moment I became obsessed again like in the days of the workshop. I said to myself: ‘If Pashanell, the greatest producer in the country, can’t promote Ofra, I’ll do it by myself’. I’m essentially a man of protest. It gives me the power to do things, and that’s what convinced me to make a big star out of Ofra at any price”. He decided to release Ofra from the contract with Pashanell and manage her career by himself.
“The rate of Ofra’s progress and development was huge”, says Gad Oron, a producer who worked with Pashanell. “Therefore, it was a great disappointment for us, when one day Bezalel came to speak with Pashanell and wanted to contract out of the agreement. It was an unpleasant conversation and Pashanell told him: ‘I want Ofra to tell me that face to face’. And then he went down to ‘Cafי Pinati’ (‘Pinati Cafי’ – a very famous coffee shop in Tel Aviv), where she was sitting and waiting for him in the cafי, and she came up to his office. I think she realized the extent of grief that she caused him, because he really brought her from one place to another, and on the other hand apparently her other chief manager, Bezalel, pulled in a different direction. She burst into tears. Pashanell called his secretary, took out all the copies of her contracts, gave her the contracts and this is how she went down from the office to ‘Cafe Pinati’ (‘Pinati Cafe’)”.
“Pashnell was very kindly willing to release Ofra from the contract we signed”, says Bezalel. “We were in a low mood. On the way home in the traffic lights I wrote her the song ‘Hageshem’ (‘The Rain’). In the following days I added ‘Shir Ahava Lachayal’ (‘A Love Song for the Soldier’), ‘Mummy’ and other songs”.
Ofra and Bezalel realized that the next step must be a new solo album, because they already had a few hits. And indeed, based on the songs from “Shlager” and “Na’arat Haparvarim (“Suburban Girl”), Ofra recorded in 1980 her first personal solo album called “About Our Loves” as a part of a new contract she signed with “Phonocall” records company. “A first personal solo album, a huge excitement” said Ofra. “It was a celebration at home, celebration in the neighborhood and celebration in my heart. It’s an album that is all mine and it felt great”.
“All of Ofra’s first Album was based on my songs and other pieces of songs that I begged she would be given”, says Bezalel.
And indeed, Ofra became a star: her first album had many hits like: “Shir Hafrecha” (“The Bimbo Song”), “Hageshem” (“The Rain”), “Shir Ahava Lachayal” (“A Love Song for the Soldier”), “Flash Gordon” etc. She won the title “Singer of the Year” by the radio stations “Galey Tzahal” (IDF radio broadcasts), “Reshet Gimel” (“3rd Network”) and by the newspapers “Yedi’ot Achronot” (“Latest News”) and “Ma’ariv”. The album sold 20,000 copies and won a gold album.
At the same year, Ofra participated again in the “Shirovision for Children” (a children’s songs festival) with the song “Simanim Shel Ohavim” (“Lovers’ Signs”) and won first place again.
In the same year she sent the song “Hu” (“He”) to the Kdam-Eurovision contest (Pre-Eurovision – a contest where a song is chosen to be sent to the Eurovision Song Contest), but the song was rejected. A few days later, Bezalel got a phone call, and Ofra was asked to compete with a song in the “Meditor” festival in Portugal as the Israeli representative. Ofra agreed and the name of the song was changed to “Tfila” (“Prayer”). At the same time she was also the Israeli representative in the “Teletrom” in Chile.
Less than a year later Ofra’s second album “Bo Nedaber” (“Let’s Talk”) was released, still at “Phonocall” record company. The album included material which Bezalel wrote and it also won a gold album. Many of the songs in the album turned into hits too: “Tfila” (“Prayer”), “Simanim Shel Ohavim” (“Lovers’ Signs”), etc. Ofra won the title: “Singer of the Year” again by “Yedi’ot Achronot” (“Latest News”), “Ma’ariv”, “Galey Tzahal” (IDF radio broadcasts) and “Reshet Gimel” (“3rd Network”). “Bo Nedaber” (“Let’s Talk”) also won a gold album.
Her two solo albums, although immature, presented Bezalel’s vision of Ofra as the ultimate consensus singer. The songs were short, melodic, meant for the whole family, and the songs’ topics appealed to all types of people without any religious, race or sex differences. The days of protest with the Hatikva Neighborhood Workshop Theater was changed 180 degrees in favor of endless sweetness and zero percent provocation.
At 1982 Ofra moved to the “Hed Arzi” record company, where she released her third solo album “Pituyim” (“Temptations”). Ofra also toured with a show carrying the name of the album in a musical production by Eldad Shrim. All of Ofra’s more hidden sides came to expression in this show. She sings there about faith, love and everyday hope. But at the same time her talents as an actress, a comedian, and an imitator are expressed too. Ofra learned how to stand on a stage in front of hundreds and thousands and speak straight to their hearts. The atmosphere was electrifying and the audience loved her. One of the critics said: “She has the charisma of virginity and beauty”. Up till then Ofra had only short performances, often with an encore.
“Now”, she says, “people who buy tickets will come to see me – an hour and a half of Ofra on the stage! Until today I have never thought it is possible to plan an evening based on two albums. Now, when I’m out with the third album, I have enough material to choose from. I know I won’t disappoint the hundreds of fans whom I appeal to and who wish to see me in a single night show”.
The album also came out with a number of hits: “Kol Yom Matchila Shana” (“Every Day a New Year Begins”), “Gavriel”, etc, and won a gold album. Ofra participated that year in the “Shirovision for Children” (a children’s songs festival) with the song “Malkat Haksamim” (“The Magic Queen”), and won first place again. The winning song was included in the album too. At the same year Ofra won the “Kinor David” (“David’s Violin”) prize. This time she won the title “Singer of the Year” by the whole press. “I sing for all the people”, said Ofra a short time after winning the title. “I don’t pretend to bring a modernistic style or change the world. I simply sing beautiful songs from my heart, and they appeal to every person. Today I feel that all the people in Israel are equal. I don’t feel discriminated against anymore, neither I nor my close friends from the neighborhood. On the contrary, the discrimination time seems to be over. At school I always felt equal among equals. Good, beautiful and successful. The problem then was with our image in the eyes of others. Today I am being compensated for that time”. At the same year Ofra also released “Ofra Haza Liyladim” (“Ofra Haza for Children”), an album which includes 30 of her renditions of famous children’s songs.
In that same year she was invited to take part in the Kdam-Erovision contest (Pre-Eurovision – a contest where a song is chosen to be sent to the Eurovision Song Contest) with the song “Romantica” (“Romance”), which was written by “Hakol Over Chabibi” (“Life Goes On, Buddy” – An Israeli threesome band), but Ofra refused. “I feel contented and happy with not doing this song”, she said afterwards. “From the beginning of my career – and this may be the secret of my success – I only did things that made me excited and I loved. This song was simply not me. And also the writer’s attitude not to allow any changes in it wasn’t acceptable to me. There were arguments about the production, but I made it clear that I’m nobody’s puppet. Next year I’ll try my luck again”.
But Ofra’s success in sales and performances didn’t prevent music editors on the radio to treat her with great reservation. Bezalel would come to the radio stations with her new songs, begging them to hear the songs, and was almost always rejected. “I don’t know why they don’t give me a chance”, Ofra admitted once. “Unfortunately I can’t say I’m being catered to by the radio, but I have no complaints. At the moment a song of mine reaches the chart, the listeners already grade it at the top and force the editors to play it. In other programs I’m not being discriminated against, but also not courted. Singers who didn’t win the title “Singer of the Year” are being played much more than I. When I finish working on a record and I sit near the radio and hope to hear it being played, I become disappointed and annoyed, but I don’t intend to fight. I don’t count on the radio and the radio doesn’t take me into account either”.
1983 was a crucial year in Ofra’s career. In that year the Eurovision Song Contest was about to take place in Munich, Germany. Ehud Manor felt a need that especially there, of all places, an Israeli representative should stand and sing the word “Chai” (“Alive”). “And it doesn’t matter how much ‘Chet’ (the eighth letter in the Hebrew Alphabet) it has got”, he said. He wrote the song “Chai” (“Alive”) and offered it to Yardena Arazi before the Kdam-Eurovision contest (Pre-Eurovision – a contest where a song is chosen to be sent to the Eurovision Song Contest), but Arazi refused to accept the song, claiming that she had already had a song, Shiru Shir Amen” (“Sing an Amen Song”). Manor turned to Ofra, who immediately agreed to sing it. At the very last minute Ofra recorded the song and submitted it to the committee. For the first time Ofra’s song was accepted. Beforehand the song “Hu” (“He” – which its name was changed to “Tfila” – “prayer”) and other songs which Ofra sent every year weren’t accepted for the contest. It was already the forth year in which she tried to enter the contest.
“I almost decided to give up. I said to myself: ‘You offer them so many times and they never take, so maybe they don’t want?’ Year after year I would send by Bezalel a song called “Amen Lamilim (“Amen to the Words”) and was always rejected from the start. We also sent ‘Tfila’ (‘Prayer’), but it wasn’t accepted either, until one morning Ehud Manor called Bezalel and asked him to come and hear a special song. The song appealed me from the beginning and I decided to try my luck”.
The Kdam-Eurovision (Pre-Eurovision) Song Contest took place in March. “The most exciting part was certainly the voting stage. It was hard to maintain one’s peace. At the performance, once you come up on the stage – it’s over, you start to sing and forget the rest. At the contest itself I didn’t feel weak at the knees, I wasn’t on the top of the world, but I felt a certain relief when everything ended well”, said Ofra. Indeed, everything ended well. Ofra won first place in the Kdam-Eurovision (Pre-Eurovision) contest, which took place on Jerusalem’s theater stage, with 73 points, and also won the right to represent Israel in the land of Germany with the song “Chai” (“Alive”).
Yardena Arazi came in second place, with only one point disparity. Some people claim that this contest started the fight between Ofra Haza and Yardena Arazi, and mainly between their fans, a fight which had been going on a few years, and which the press was glad to inflame. A year before, Avi Toledano, the composer of “Chai” (“Alive”), won the contest and also left Yardena Arazi behind in second place with only five points disparity.
After her winning in the contest, Ofra went up on the stage again to sing an encore. But the playback which was heard was that of… Yardena Arazi. The technicians thought that Arazi was the potential nominee for winning, and so they had to search at the last minute for the playback of “Chai” (“Alive”).
In that year Ofra recorded the song “Acharey Hachagim” (“After the Holidays”) in a duet with Avi Toledano. The song was written and composed especially for the yearly hit chart of “Galey Tzahal” (IDF radio broadcasts). She also participated in the “Shirovision for Children” (A children’s songs festival) with the song “Super Star” and won first place again.
The album “Chai” (“Alive”), which was released immediately after the Kdam-Eurovision (Pre-Eurovision), had huge sales. The album sold more than 43,000 copies and turned into Ofra’s first Platinum album. The album made hits like: “Chai” (“Alive”), “Super Star”, “Amen Lamilim” (“Amen to the words”) and “Balada Lamele’ch” (“A Ballad for the King”), a song Ofra used to sing in the days of the Hatikva Neighborhood Workshop Theater and which was revived.
It was Ofra’s journey to represent Israel at Eurovision which marked her turn from a popular singer admired mainly by teenagers to that of a national singer. The great success and the recognition of her as the leading singer in the country finally broke through the walls that the radio tried to put in her way, as well as the fear barriers on the part of leading writers to write her songs. The show “Pituyim” (“Temptations”) was running for six months and was crowned with “a great success”, according to what she said. Despite the success of the show, she had to cancel her performances schedule, because of the work pressure on new albums and the preparation for the Kdam-Eurovision (Pre- Eurovision). “The show gave me the feeling that the people of Israel truly love me”, said Ofra. “The fact that they come and buy tickets and fill halls so they can see Ofra Haza. Winning the Kdam-Eurovision (Pre-Eurovision) completed the good year that I had”.
The Eurovision was supposed to take place at the end of April. During the preparations for the contest in Germany, Ofra and the rest of the Israeli group visited Dachau, the extermination camp of the Nazis. She met there a Jewish elderly couple from Israel who survived the holocaust. “Are you Ofra Haza?” asked the husband. “I was a prisoner in this concentration camp and today I came to visit here for the first time since I was released. We heard your song. On Saturday evening, when you’ll sing this song to all Europe, remember what you see now”. Ofra swore to think about them. Ofra and her group also visited the Olympic camp in Munich, where 11 of the Israeli sportsmen were assassinated during the Olympic games of 1972.
The Israeli song was considered to have excellent chances all along. On the day of the contest the Eurovision program had on its first page a picture of Ofra and her team with the explanation: “The Israelis are considered to have the best chances to win”. Also in the local papers Yugoslavia and Israel were considered to be the only strong candidates.
The night before the contest one of the members of the Israeli delegation said with confidence: “I’m telling you: We are going to win!” The press cameramen swarmed around Ofra as spokesman and she herself, like a true star, irradiated kindness and peacefulness. “The feeling is good”, she said. “Of course I sleep well at night, although it is more comfortable at home”. Her appearance in the evening before the contest was glamorous yet casual: full make up, her hair done faultlessly, jeans and grey shirt with golden shoes and heels.
The Eurovision contest took place on April 23rd. The Israeli song was number 16 among the 20 songs that took part. In the contest Ofra won second place with a disparity of only 6 points from first place. The Israeli judges gave 12 points to the contestant song from Luxemburg by the singer Korin Herms, whose producer was the Israeli Chayim Saban. And that’s how Ofra lost to Korin. “When the vote counting was over and I realized we were in second place with six points disparity, I checked Ofra’s reaction”, said Avi Toledano, the composer of “Chai” (“Alive”), “I already prepared myself to encourage her and tell her it wasn’t so bad, but in the end she was the one who encouraged all the others. It was not an act. Ofra didn’t know how to fake a response. She really accepted this with a complete peace of mind. One could only be jealous of her peacefulness”. After the contest Ofra said: “It’s a wonderful feeling – I was a little afraid I would get fifth or sixth place”.
“Ofra represented us with honor”, said the Hazas in the Hatikva neighborhood, very excited and proud of her achievement. The family was gathered for hours in front of the T.V. In the Hatikva neighborhood there wasn’t a living soul outside. In the Haza household the hearts were beating fast. Journalists who tried to join the family were asked politely to let the family spend the tense hours alone. “We want to be with ourselves, to break down freely”, they explained. They acclaimed Ofra’s singing with cheers and enthusiastic applause, and when she finished, all the family was full of joy.
Immediately after her return from Eurovision Ofra released the album “Shirey Moledet” (“Homeland Songs”), an album full of her innovations to Hebrew classics, and even the toughest critics gave up. Selling of over 40,000 copies, “Shirey Moledet” (“Homeland Song”) became the first album of Ofra’s which garnered consensus between the audience and the critiques.
“It’s surprising”, said Ofra, “but just after Eurovision I realized that this music wouldn’t take me anywhere, and therefore we decided, Bezalel and me, to record “Shirey Moledet” (“Homeland Song”). The dream began beforehand, but the rendition was because of this”.
Ofra always used to sing these songs to herself and in performances. Her musical heritage is based a great deal on such songs as “Yad Anuga” (“A Delicate Hand”), “Zemer Nuge” (“A Sad Song”), “Yesh Li Gan” (“I have a Garden”), and “Etz Harimon” (“The Pomegranate Tree”). The record expressed Ofra’s ability in musical genres that weren’t considered to be hers before. To the younger generation among her listeners and fans, a generation who didn’t know these kind of homeland songs (which were considered to die out before they were even born), this record was considered a discovery. It was like many of its songs were newly born.
In that year Ofra won again, for the fourth year in a row, the title “Singer of the Year”. In the same year she also published the album “A collection of hits, including the Hatikva Neighborhood Workshop Theater with the soloist Micha’el Sinu’ani”, which included songs of Ofra with the workshop. The album didn’t have much success.
At the end of 1983 Ofra started writing a column in “Ma’ariv” (an Israeli newspaper) by the name “Accord Nosaf” (“Another Accord”). In the column she wrote about things that happened to her, about state and religious affairs, about conflicts between communities etc. She also used to write about things that occupied the people of Hatikva neighborhood. The column was published every Friday in the public section of “Ma’ariv”, beside other columns of Knesset members and public figures. “They turned to me from ‘Ma’ariv’”, says Ofra. “I had never written in my life and I thought it was worth trying. People that didn’t believe I was capable of writing sent me letters, they thought I was frivolous. The truth is I like it. I don’t feel well when I don’t see my column in the Friday paper”. She wrote the column until 1985.
At that time Ofra was also a sports writer in a sports magazine called “Chadshot Sport” (“Sports News”). “It was great, it was fun. I was in many of the games and I yelled and screamed. I tried not to go if I had performance at night, so I would’t ruin my night, but I really enjoyed this experience. I covered soccer until the magazine was closed” Because of her success, Ofra shot a special program for television named “Me’erev Ad Shachar” (“From Dusk to Dawn”). The program was broadcast at the end of Independence Day and had a collection of Ofra’s songs from all of her albums at different shooting locations: the “Coliseum” club, the seaside of Jaffa, a television studio, etc. The program was broadcast on Israeli T.V. and won great acclaim.
In 1984 Ofra moved to a modest villa which was built in Yahud from the money she earned from her performances and the sales of her albums. The villa was built near Bezalel’s villa. Years later she described moving to the house in Yahud as one of the most important decisions of her life. “This house is a symbol of hard toil, because I built it with my own hands in hard work. I can be and live in every place in the world, but my small house in Yahud symbolizes for me my upbringing with labor and hard work. I love going back to it more than anything in the world”. Ofra’s car was parked under the shed at the entrance. A paved pathway led from an iron brown gate to the living room. Inside the entrance to the house there was a chest of drawers with a mirror, a perfume bottle and cream, and near them were brown wooden stairs which led to the bedroom on the second floor. To the right of the entrance was the kitchen. It was equipped with all the accessories typical of a modern kitchen: a huge refrigerator, an oven, cupboards, white ceramic tiles and a stove. There was also a dinner table which had a white lace table cloth laid on it. Everything was polished like it came out of a commercial. The kitchen was shipshape. There were no dishes in the sink. “I don’t like to leave a dirty sink”, says Ofra. The most useful thing in the kitchen was the microwave, according to Ofra.
The living room, in front of the kitchen, was covered with a pink carpet of soft hair from wall to wall. A whole wall in the living room was dedicated to her gold and platinum albums, which were framed with massive brown wooden frames. There was no place even for a picture. At the corner of the living room there were engraved wooden chests and on them were flowered marble slabs. A ceramic lamp and vases were laid on them. In the vases were flowers that Ofra picked in the garden. A stereo was placed on the carpet. The loudspeakers were located on brown plywood stools. On the wall hung a poster of the naked legs of a dancer in a dance posture. Under it was written “Pirouette”. Next to the stereo was a modest collection of records. On the side of the living room, in front of the gold albums, there were sofas upholstered in a bright whitish-brown color. Above them was a curtain made of thin cloth with golden embroidery. On the sofas there were “chins” pillows in soft pastoral colors: orange, pink, purple, light blue. A thin metal grating and plastic blinds separated the living room from the garden, where there was a set of table and white chairs. The garden was well groomed, with many roses and other flowers. The corner of spearmint was Ofra’s small private spot. The grass was welltrimmed; the gardener was responsible for that. Whoever wanted to peek at the grass closely would encounter Azit’s barks – a frightening female wolf dog.
Ofra was already 25, beautiful, economically established, famous – and without any boyfriend known in public. The questions about a companion, if there was one and when the wedding would take place, became an integral part of her meetings with the media that annoyed her. “It made her mad”, said Michal Ratzabi, Ofra’s friend. “About the companionship matter, the media embittered her life. They wouldn’t accept her will to keep this part of her life to herself”. “It hurts her very much”, adds Bezalel. “She would finish working on a new album, would come to an interview about music and songs, and instead, she had to deal again and again with interrogations about her personal life, mainly to deal with the questions if she had a boyfriend and if she intended to get married”.
At that time rumors had started to spread about the cancer that Ofra supposedly had. The rumors spread quickly and were followed by elaborate explanations. People “saw” Ofra with an amputated leg, or bald headed because of chemotherapy and irradiation. “I remember the rumors about Ofra’s ‘illness’”, says Bezalel. “Up until now we don’t know exactly how it has started, but we have an assumption: at that time charlatan managers placed false ads about her performances in different places in the country and when the audience came and Ofra didn’t show up, they ‘explained’ she was very sick. I remember that one time we came back from a show in the north, and the minute we came home her sister called in panic and said: ‘Ofra, people said your leg was cut off’!’, and it didn’t help that we reminded her that she saw Ofra safe and sound that very day”.
“And there where many other cases”, said Michal Ratzabi. “People checked every centimeter in skinny Ofra’s body in order to prove the cancer story, and once a woman tried to pull her hair and said that she wanted to ‘check’ if Ofra was wearing a wig because of irradiation. Full mail bags with letters of fans in panic were sent to us”. In order to quell the rumors that she had already died of cancer, Ofra did an interview in “La’isha” (an Israeli women’s magazine) under the title “Alive and breathing”. Other rumors talked about Ofra becoming deaf. “Of course all the rumors affected Ofra’s mood”, says Bezalel. “Children write to me that at education hour at school they were talking about my coming end, and that everybody started crying and praying that my treatments will succeed and that they hoped the irradiation would save me”, said Ofra. “I receive touching letters from people who heard that I have breast cancer, that I have a malignant tumor in my head, that I have blood cancer, and that my leg was cut off. I don’t want to blame anybody for the rumors. Does my success bother anybody? Why don’t they invent me a slight flu? Why do they invent me with cancer?”
Other rumors about Ofra concerned her special relationship with Bezalel. Everybody knew the story in general: Bezalel discovered Ofra when she was 12 and since then she was under his custody. He led her step by step and according to the press, she obeyed him blindly. The managers and journalists could not approach her except through him. But because Ofra and Bezalel refused to talk about the kind of relationship they had, the rumor industry spread quickly. It was suggested that their relationship was more than just an artist-personal manager relationship. Bezalel, who was married and a father of two children, ignored the rumors. Ofra paid a little attention to it: “The relationship between us will continue forever. He’s the man who guided me with my career and let me understand that not everything is as sweet as honey. We enjoy working together. We work in cooperation, and I have no interest in working with anyone else”. In the entertainment world it was said that Bezalel socially isolated Ofra. She almost never interviewed without his presence. Many times he always spoke on her behalf. “I have no doubt I would be a totally different person today if I hadn’t worked with the workshop and Bezalel Aloni. Maybe I would have been a wedding singer. He inspires me. What would I have been were it not for Bezalel?”, she said. What probably set fire to the rumors about their supposed relationship was Ofra’s remark in one of the interviews that “if I get married I will want my man to be like Bezalel”.
“The one who helped me more than anyone to gain much confidence was Bezalel”, says Ofra. “Bezalel is the most important thing that has happened in my life. Bezalel was and is still a tutor. I remember that in the workshop, among many people that I didn’t know, I found a strong man who gave me support and confidence. Therefore, my joining in with the workshop was smooth and without any crisis. I have always looked toward the future, and thanks to him I got to where I am. I have become incredibly mature. It was a very early development, which children this age do not get to. Were it not for Bezalel I wouldn’t have acquired wisdom, the right way of thinking, the ability to consider things in the right proportion. I skipped the stage of self-searching. It’s not right to say that I lived under his shadow, but he granted me the tools one can’t achieve on one’s own. My parents were crazy about him. My mother always told me: ‘When you go with Bezalel I can be in peace’. By the way, we belong to the same family, something on the side of our grandmothers. Bezalel gave me excellent advice: to be natural, to be myself. This advice I’ll never forget”.
“The bond between me and Ofra is simple”, says Bezalel. “I’m her personal manager. For her interests. The one who keeps her from being robbed and discarded. ‘Guardian of her interest’. A manager is like a real estate agent. He receives applications, he argues about the price, sees his financial gain at the top of his interest. I’m not a manager in that sense. That type of managing is against my whole being. This is the reason why many managers represented us. I’m not cut up to arguing on the phone, like at the market, about the price of tomatoes”.
In the spring of that year, Ofra published the album “Bayit Cham (“A Place for Me”). It was a time when many young girls left their parents’ home and many stories ran in the press about girls who couldn’t get love and warmth at their own house. Ofra asked Bezalel to write a song about it and he agreed. The theme song of the album (words and melody by Bezalel Aloni) tells about an old childhood dream of Ofra to set up a residence for children in need if she had “a lot of money” one day. A residence that would indeed be a place for them. Many hits came out of the album: “Bayit Cham (“A Place for Me”), “Yad Beyad” (“Hand in Hand”), “Ben Parvar” (“Suburban Boy”), “Bemanginat Halev” (“Heart Melody”). It won a gold album.
At that time Ofra and Bezalel started a very ambitious project. “All these years I wanted to be a singer by the right of my own songs”, says Ofra. “In the last two years I was stimulated by the idea to work on authentic Yemenite material. The idea was rejected because of a busy schedule. A year ago we decided to take the issue more seriously”.
At the beginning Ofra recorded two trial songs, “Galbi” and “As’alak”. The songs were played to Ofra’s and Bezalel’s parents. The parents enjoyed them very much so they both knew they were going in the right direction. Bezalel chose the album’s songs and also taught Ofra for many long hours how to read the text in special Yemenite accents. Ofra dedicated half a year to the recordings, with special care on the vocal and technical quality.
“Bezalel and I had our fears”, says Ofra. “We didn’t want the album to become too western. Eventually we managed to keep the authenticity by using the original instruments, the can and the tambala”.
The album was released in December 1984. In the album she revived old Yemenite songs with new productions by Benny Nagari. “Shirey Teiman” (“Yemenite Songs”) was a dream come true to Ofra – to make an album for her parents, an album containing all original Yemenite songs which have been sung for dozens and hundreds of years at every Yemenite occasion and holiday. In the album there are songs from a variety sources and ages ranging from the end of the 16th century (of Shalom Shabazi Rabbi) to later ages. Three of the album’s songs are sung in Arabic, including the song of Shalom Shabazi Rabbi, who wrote it in Arabic. All the rest of the songs are in Hebrew and are sang with a Yemenite melody. The songs are love songs, songs of lament, holy songs and Yemenite folk songs. The production of the record is a rich combination of vocal sounds and a folk Yemenite rhythm with classic instruments and orchestration.
Bezalel and Ofra decided to go with the Yemenite style to the end. She was dressed in a Yemenite wedding gown. “It was the first time I wore this gown in one piece and I was very excited”, says Ofra. “After all, it’s a wedding gown”, she added with a smile.
Bezalel also wanted to make some dance versions to a couple of songs. “I went to Achi Shtero, who was the most influential man at “Hed-Arzi”, and asked for a budget for dance productions for two of the songs, but he didn’t agree, using the excuse he had no money. I took out two songs which were to be included in the album and with the same budget we recorded ‘Galbi’ and ‘Im Nin’alu’; that’s why there are only eight tracks in ‘Shirey Teiman’ (‘Yemenite Songs’)”.
“I remember that when ‘Shirey Teiman’ (‘Yemenite songs’) was released and I brought it to the radio”, said Michal Ratzabi, Ofra’s public relations manager and also her best friend. “They didn’t know how to accept it. They didn’t relate to it, they didn’t play it at all”.
The absurdity was that when the album “Shirey Teiman” (“Yemenite Songs”) – which later on made Ofra’s breakthrough abroad – was released, it was only played in the oriental music shows. They didn’t want Ofra in the Israeli T.V. show “Siba Limesiba” (“A reason for a party”). “Yes, there were cases that we had to wage big wars to play my albums. I felt it was not fair, not right. I didn’t understand this discrimination matter, I did wrong to nobody, I worked hard and the audience loved me, so why do the media grudge me? I was always an optimistic girl who believed in God, and I said ‘whatever’. I never yelled nor raved. Bezalel always told me: ‘Ofra, the running is for the long distance’. I remember at the time when my album ‘Shirey Teiman’ (‘Yemenite Songs’) wasn’t accepted here in the Israeli critiques, Bezalel told me: ‘Don’t worry Ofra, we will flood the world with this music’, and I must say that I was a skeptic about it, I didn’t quite understand how the music will break through, but Bezalel was right as always”.
And then Bezalel approached Ya’ir Nitzani to make the remixes. Nitzani referred him to Izhar Ashdot. At the beginning, Ashdot prepared a remix for the song ‘Galbi’, because it seemed to him the most well-known song among the album’s songs. “We neutralized all the old instruments, and added new instruments”, says Ashdot. But the radio station completely ignored the new remix and didn’t play it at all.
“One day came the key man in the story, an English guy named Grant, who worked at the ‘Kol Hashalomw (“Voice of Peace”) radio station of Abi Nathan”, says Nitzani. “He entered and said: ‘I heard this thing you did, ‘Galbi’, and I liked it and I would like to get five copies and send it to my friends in England’. So we gave them to him, what do I care? We have a thousand copies from this rubbish, so we gave them. He was sitting in my room for about two hours and wrote letters and sent them to England”.
Together with the new single, Grant also sent them the “Shirey Teiman” (“Yemenite Songs”) album. “The album got to a record company in England, ‘Ace Records’, and they bought the rights from our record company here in Israel, ‘Hed Arzi’”, says Ofra. The album was also released in England by the company. “The record received excellent reviews from all the music papers”. “It is impossible not to get carried away after this wonderful singer whose voice makes you want to cry” (The Face); “A phenomenal singer” (Falk Roots); “An incredible singer” (melody maker), wrote the papers abroad. And despite the grudge in Israel, the album sold over 40,000 copies in Israel and received a platinum album.
At the same time the fight between Ofra Haza’s fans and Yardena Arazi’s fans began to heat up. At “Rosh Hashanah” (the new Jewish year) 1984, Arazi won the title “Singer of the Year” in the yearly chart of “Reshet Gimel” (“3rd Network”), after four years in a row that the title was in Ofra’s hands. “They wrote in one of the papers: ‘The queen is dead, long live the new queen”, said Ofra in response. “Only then I realized how much the title was important. The title ‘Singer of the Year’ is a title that the audience grants”.
Then there was the “ink incident’ from the middle of 1985 that turned the fight into a war. Arazi performed in “Amphey Whall” in Tel-Aviv. A girl from the audience shot ink from a water gun at her and hit her dress. “I felt so silly” says Arazi. “I felt it made both of us very small”. Arazi pressed charges at the police for assault, and simultaneously came out with an aggressive literal attack against Ofra, and claimed that the ink incident was the climax in a long chain of threats on her.
“Many times I come to my shows and I get a shower of curses from Ofra’s fans”, said Arazi. “They yell at me: ‘I wish you died for Ofra’. In the middle of the performance they would break out in rhythmic calls: ‘Of-ra Of-ra’. They inform one another. They know when I’m about to perform and come there in order to ruin it. Anyone who comes with a gun to a singer’s performance has a twisted mind. I don’t want to give ideas to anyone, but what if it was acid instead of ink? It’s a deliberate provocation. This time it was ink. The next time it could be much more dangerous stuff. We are talking about very strong emotions that someone takes care to inflame. I ask my fans, I really beg them not to be dragged to any reprisal”.
In response to Arazi’s attack on Ofra, Bezalel said: “She has her hair cut like Ofra’s. She dresses like her and even sings her songs. What can you expect from a young girl who tried to commit suicide and wants to be a singer at any price?” Ofra herself didn’t agree to apologize about the incident: “I didn’t do anything wrong and I don’t need to apologize. First I want Yardena to apologize to me for all her accusations”.
Ofra’s idolization reached a new climax. Ofra became the first Israeli singer which had her portrait printed on many products. Ofra’s portrait was on everything: letters and envelopes, covers and stickers, teenage diaries, pillows, shirts, scarves, sticker albums, posters, etc.
In the same year Ofra came out with the show “Malkat Haksamim” (“The Magic Queen”) with the magicians Chiko and Diko and ten dancers. In the show, which was dedicated mostly to children, Ofra sang about 22 songs. And indeed, to see Ofra’s performance in front of children is a real joy. The hall is astir. The children sing with her, cry, laugh, full of joy, running to the stage, kiss her and fill her with presents, which make her cry from excitement.
At first, Ofra planed to perform on the “Shirovision for Children” arranged by Pashanel, as she did every year since they canceled the contract, because of her deep admiration to his help, and although she didn’t have to do it. Only after Pashanel told Ofra he was not going to make a performance for Hanukah that year – Ofra decided to make her own performance.
At that time Ofra intended to release a new album. “There was a plan to record an album with Ne’omi Shemer’s (one of the best song writers in Israel) songs, which will be called ‘Hitchadshut’ (‘Renewal’)”, says Ofra. “I turned to her and asked her to give me one song and she said: ‘Why don’t we make a whole album’. Since then we meet once a week and work hard. She wants to get the best of me, since all the songs are new”. Finally, it didn’t work out. “We didn’t have chemistry”, said Ofra. In the end, only the song “Hitchadshut” (Renewal”) was included in the new album.
The album was released in the middle of 1985 and was called “Adama” (“Earth”), and Ofra included old composers such as Sasha Argov, Moshe Vilensky and Ya’acov Orland, as well as young ones such as Shem Tov Levi, Ehud Manor, Nurit Hirsh, Ya’ir Kalinger, Oded Lerer and others. As an old hand conductor she knew how to make the best of songs out of this group of artists, such as “Adama” (“Earth”), “Mishehu Holech Tamid Iti” (“Someone Always Walks With Me”), “Goral Echad” (“One Destiny”), “Le’atzmi Bilvad” (“Only for Me”), “Rachamim” (a name of a man, and also “Mercy”), “Shir Eres Le’adva” (“Lullaby for Adva”) , “Tzipori” (“My Bird”) etc. “The thing is that despite the huge difference between the writers, all of them created something in common at about the same time”, says Ofra, “something which was done completely unintentionally, songs with the smell of the land of Israel, with the attachment to the earth, with feelings of longing. Therefore, it was natural for me to call the album “Adama” (“Earth”). The album “Adama” (“Earth”) also won a gold album. Actually, even before the album “Shirey Teiman” (“Yemenite Songs”) was released, the album “Adama” (“Earth”) was ready, and Ofra was already recording her next album.
The album “Shirey Moledet Bet” (“Homeland Songs 2”), which was released that year, completed a pair of folk song albums, following the first “Shirey Moledet” (“Homeland Songs”). And indeed, it’s impossible to pan songs like “Al Na Tomar Li Shalom” (“Please, Don’t Say Goodbye”), “Hen Efshar” (“It’s Possible”), “Shney Shoshanim” (“Two Roses”), “Irisim” (“Irises”), “Al Gva’ot Shech Abreck” (“On Sech Abrech’s Hills”) and on poets like Imanu’el Zamir, Mordechai Ze’ira, Alexander Pen, Nathan Alterman and Chayim Chefer. The album sold over 20,000 copies and won the gold album. “The album “Shirey Moledet” (“Homeland Songs”) sold over 40,000 copies, it has a great demand, and I love these songs”, said Ofra. “Even if the first album wasn’t a success, I would do the other one. It would have been much harder for me not to record them”.
At that time Ofra already flew for performances abroad from time to time. She performed in Argentina for three weeks, giving five charity performances to raise money for schools in Buenos Aires – “Biyalic” and “Shalom Alechem”. She was shocked by the sympathy that she got. The press in Argentina swarmed around her. “I don’t remember such a thing. I didn’t rest at all. Press, radio and television all the time. My voice probably made them feel something. They were even ‘mad’ at me that I was in Chile five years ago and didn’t come by for a visit”. Ofra’s performances in Argentina were mobbed, and there wasn’t only a Jewish audience. “Wherever I went – in the supermarkets, perfumeries, cabs – they asked my autograph. ‘Cantanta, Cantanta’ (“a singer” in Spanish) all the time. The press turmoil around her was so big that even the Nazi paper “La Nueva Provincia” sent a journalist to interview her. She also performed in two concerts in Australia in which all the tickets were sold out in advance. Her song “Galbi” was broadcast many times on John Pill’s show on the B.B.C, and a crew of the popular rock show “The Tube” came to Israel to shoot and record her songs. The show “Women of the World”, in which each show is dedicated to women who made it, prepared a special report about Ofra for the American audience.
Because of her success, Ofra released a single in France called “Aime-Moi”. The single included two new songs, “Les heros dun jour” and “Aime moi”, which were especially written for it by French artists. In order to promote the selling of the single, Ofra went to France for three months. There were plans to make a whole album in French.
Ofra and Bezalel already translated a few of their familiar songs to French (like “Gavriel” (“Gabriel”), “Tfila” (“Prayer” – “Emmene Moi”) and “Bemanginat Halev” (“The Heart Melody” – “Nous Nirons Plus”) that were released only on a video cassette in the end).
“Concerning abroad, I’m working slowly”, she said. “Not long ago I didn’t have any material to export, I also had no time to work abroad, but I feel I can break through to these markets too. When I was in the U.S.A. they arranged me to be on the reputed Johnny Carson show, but I refused since I didn’t have enough songs in English, and there weren’t any albums in the shops. I didn’t want to show up on TV just so I can say I was on TV. In the show “Cats” in London I was talking to the stars of “Fame”, who were sitting in the hall, when suddenly a group of people approached me to get my autograph. The stars of “Fame” were shocked”.
In 1986 Ofra also released a video cassette called “Fantasy”, which included 10 of her songs in Hebrew, English, French and Yemenite. The time length of the cassette was 40 minutes, and 150 thousand dollars was invested in it. During the show on the video Ofra changes 30 costumes, a few haircuts, make up and jewelry. The shooting sites are also varied: Caesarea, Herzelia, Jaffa, Tel-Aviv, Haifa, Arad, Shabazi neighborhood etc. The song “Fantasy” was written especially for the new video.
At Passover that year, Ofra released “Albom Hazahav” (“The Golden Album”), a double album collection of 24 songs including her best hits and also English and French songs which still hadn’t been played to the Israeli audience. Ofra herself didn’t want to release the album, but she gave in to the fan’s pressure that got used to her new albums being released during Rosh Hashanah (the new Jewish year) and Passover. Because of the great demand, the release of the album was advanced, and early purchasers got the album without the traditional poster, which was included a week or two later. The album sold over 20 thousand copies and won a gold album.
At that year Ofra tried her luck in writing and composing. She released the album “Yamim Nishbarim” (“Broken Days”), of which she wrote and composed all the songs, except the song “Hake’ev Haze” (“This Pain”), which she composed together with Izhar Ashdot. “If I was asked a year ago about planning an album with my own songs I would say ‘no’”, she said. “I didn’t even consider it, but when Bezalel heard my two first songs he encouraged me unexpectedly when he told me: ‘you can do this!’ and the songs suddenly outburst from me. Ofra wrote 20 songs, from which she chose nine for her new album.
In “Yamim Nishbarim” (“Broken Days”) Ofra offered more surprises — not just by writing and composing all of it. Bezalel recommended to Ofra that Izhar Ashdot should do the production of the album. Ofra agreed and the outcome was very different from what she had done up until then. The sound was very updated, as the synthesizer replaced the piano. “In no album of mine was I so much involved as in this album. Our production came out in an international style. In the past the production had been done far away, in the producer’s home, and I was neutralized as far as what the producer had done. My work was in the studio, where I got a song that was already done. This time, not only had I written all the songs, but I also worked at Izhar Ashdot’s home not less than half a year on the songs. There wasn’t a sound which didn’t pass through me”. Huge hits like “Yamim Nishbarim” (“Broken Days”), “Kol Haklafim” (“All the cards”), “Lady” etc. came out of the album. The album sold over 30,000 copies, and got a golden album for the achievement.
At the end of that year Ofra produced a single show at an international level, called “Ofra Haza Al Habama” (“Ofra Haza on Stage”). The papers wrote that Ofra changed completely the style of her performance. And indeed, in the new show she started dancing, playing and changing costumes, things she had never done before. The director, Tzedi Tzarfati, helped her break out of her stangnated image, and she did it naturally. “Ofra Haza Al Habama” (“Ofra Haza on Stage”) was a huge production on an Israeli and European level, and Ofra went with the updated modern pop sound. Maybe this is what the record companies from Britain and Germany and also the managers from Holland and Japan found in her. She even succeeded to break through the disco charts in the U.S.A.
Also in the same year the book “Ofra Haza” was published. It featured chosen periods from her lifetime story, Ofra behind the scenes, and a special interview with her. “Many people ask me questions by writing and face to face, wanting to know so many details about me, my childhood, my career, my private life etc.”, said Ofra. “To all of them, with great love, this book was written”.
On February 3rd, 1987, Ofra had a benefit performance together with the Air Force Orchestra in the Air Force Base in Nevatim in southern Israel (12.5 miles or 20 kilometers north east of Be’er-Sheva). At the end of the performance Ofra intended to fly back to Tel-Aviv in the Cessna aircraft of the Air Force. “The performance at the military base was really outstanding”, said the pilot who flew Ofra back after the performance. “It was really a smash. The soldiers cried in excitement, applauded and enjoyed themselves. Ofra accompanied our orchestra of 16 people, and the productions were great and rich, like in Europe. Everything was at a high standard. It was great for the audience and also for Ofra”.
A few minutes after 11 o’clock at night, Ofra boarded the Cessna aircraft on her way home with her sister Shuli, Bezalel, the pilot, a flight lieutenant who works as a combat pilot, a mechanic who had joined them at the last minute, and Danny Mosko, the commander and conductor of the Air Force orchestra. The orchestra itself drove north on a bus. “On our way we talked about the performance, how it was, about possibilities for other performances in the Force, etc.”, says the pilot.
“After we took off the pilot reached 3000 feet in the air”, said Bezalel. “Afterwards I heard the pilot speaking on his radio, saying that he was going down to 2000 feet because of the fog. A few seconds passed and suddenly we were doing somersaults on the ground. The plane was smashed. Afterwards there was a frightful horrible silence”.
“Suddenly, with no warning, we felt a huge ‘Boom’, like in an accident”, said the pilot. “We didn’t conceive what had happened because we didn’t feel the aircraft was losing height. After the ‘boom’, the aircraft was jerking like a pingpong ball a few times, doing one somersault forward and then turned over. Then there was silence. This whole thing took only two seconds”.
“After a ten minute flight I felt myself on the ground and everything was upside down”, said Ofra. “Luckily my sister and I were strapped in. Bezalel untied us, and he and my sister dragged me out of the window and pulled me out of the aircraft”.
At 10:40 PM contact with the aircraft was lost and there was great fear for the safety of the passengers and crew. Shortly after the Air Force realized that there was something wrong with the plane and they considered the possibility it had crashed or made a forced landing in the aircraft’s course. They immediately sent up numerous helicopters and also “Hercules” planes which lit large areas of the planned flight with flares in the area of Beyt-Kamah and north of the Negev. This was despite the stormy and rainy night and the clouds and fog. Simultaneously ground forces were sent to search large areas in an effort to find a sign of the plane. The total forces included helicopters, ambulances, jeeps, armoured cars and many soldiers.
“All night long we stood there in the cold, rain, and in the mud”, says Ofra. “Until we realized they were trying to search for us. We saw flares but we couldn’t signal back because we didn’t have any lanterns or matches.” All the south command was alerted to locate the plane of “our Ofra”. The fog, rain and mud didn’t prevent the forces from entering even tough areas in order to locate the plane and its passengers. In some of the jeeps they hummed Ofra’s songs in whisper.
“We found ourselves standing in a deserted place in freezing cold, rain and strong wind, sunk deep down in the mud”, says the pilot. “When one tried to pick up his leg it hardly moved, it was stuck in the mass of clods. Around us there was a heavy fog and we had no idea where we were. We couldn’t see more than one meter forward and we had no idea what direction to turn to”.
The pilot apologized all the time. He felt very embarrassed, and was anxious. “We had been standing and waiting maybe an hour, until we started to hear helicopters and see flares”, he says. “Only when the flares started to light did we start climbing on rocks and looked for a way out”, says Ofra. “At about 3 AM, when all the area was already lit up with the flares, we found a shelter made of concrete. Up until then we were just standing there and our legs were freezing”.
“We decided to go there, hardly treading in the mud, and then we realized that the shelter was deserted”, says the pilot. “We tried to break through the door and we couldn’t, so we kept standing under a kind of a little roof, that didn’t protect us from the cold and the wind, but at least gave us a little shelter from the rain”.
“The helicopters left at around 4 AM”, says Ofra, “and we had been waiting in this place until 5 o’clock. Four long hours in the freezing cold”. All this time the pilot had all the men, four in number, surround Ofra and Shuli in a circle, to preserve their body heat. While walking, almost without paying attention, Ofra started singing her song “Hake’ev Haze” (“This Pain”). Later on she began to sing: “If a man falls from a plane in the middle of the night only God can save him” (a famous Israeli song).
“I remember the pilot told me that until that night he hadn’t believed in God. Since that night he couldn’t avoid it anymore”, says Ofra.
The newspapers had already begun preparing big headlines about the disaster. Officers came to the Haza and Aloni families and notified them that they were apparently looking for corpses, since there wasn’t the slightest chance one could survive a plane crash. Also the Minister of Defense, Yitzchak Rabin, was notified that apparently six corpses were being searched for.
Ofra wore high heel shoes and she gave her sister the black boots which she used in the performance. “We were waiting till dawn and at about six o’clock the pilot instructed us to start walking”, said Ofra. “From far away we could see the lights of cars. We went towards the road. Workers’ cars were passing by on their way to work. We stopped a car with two Arabic workers from Peugeot 504 station, who were shocked and didn’t understand where we came from. They drove us towards Be’er-Sheva, but only brought us part way because they were afraid to get near a military base”.
“They took us to Daharia, a ten minute drive, maybe even less”, said the pilot. “We started walking on the edge of this village and at that hour all the workers started to go to work. Buses and cabs were standing there in a line. And we, after a whole night in the mud and the rain, looked wet and snuggled, almost the same as these workers”.
“We were walking two kilometers to a military base”, said Ofra. The group reached the base near the Arab village of Daharia, the same base where the military searching forces were concentrated. “All the country is looking for you”, welcomed Major General Ehud Barak. At the same time some officers were leaning on their maps: moving here, moving there, an outflanking from the right, an outflanking from the left. “I asked them: ‘Tell me, are you searching for the falling plane? It’s us, we’re here’”, says the pilot. “They were shocked. ‘We were looking for corpses’, they told us”.
“All the passengers, six in number, are waking into a nightmare in a tiny airplane, upside-down and crashed, beaten and bruised”, says Ofra. “A piercing cold, rain and hail are beating us, and I’m slopping in thick mud with my thin show dress on me. Walking and stumbling all night long, I woke up from the crash ten minutes later. I was wounded in my hands and legs. I had puncture wounds”.
“Ofra was O.K. all along”, says the pilot. “I saw her crying only once, in the base. That’s all. Besides that, she was O.K. all along. Without any complaints or grouses”.
Immediately they all made contact”, says the pilot. “They took us and brought us to ‘Hadassah’ hospital”. All six suffered from bruises and slight scrapes all over their bodies. After a medical exam they were sent to their homes. Ofra wanted to go to the Wailing Wall in order to do the “Hagomel” blessing (a blessing Jewish people do when they are saved from death), but at last she gave up the idea in order to go straight home. She decided to cancel the performances that were planned for the following days.
“A few days later, people from the Air Force showed me a map of the place, and said we crashed in a place called ‘Be’er Ofra’ (‘Ofra’s Well’)”, says Ofra with excitement. As a memento the army sent her one of the propellers, which she kept in the garden of her house in Yahud. For years the propeller had been there in memorial of the traumatic event that had happened to her. The work on the case of the plane crash was called “The interrogation of Ofra Haza’s plane”. After a month it was decided to prosecute the pilot of the Cessna aircraft. His license to fly the Cessna aircraft was revoked at aircraft was revoked at the recommendation of the commission of inquiry that was appointed by the air force commander.
Ofra and the pilot kept in touch, and every year at the day of the event, which Ofra called “my second birthday”, they used to speak on the phone and met one another occasionally.
Thousands of bouquets and other presents were sent to Ofra from her fans and citizens who were worried about her. Many visitors came to the hospital where she was treated and to her house, and brought presents, chocolate, flowers and blessing cards.
The thing that perhaps helped Ofra recover from the plane crash trauma was the growing positive responses in Europe and the U.S.A. for the dance version of “Galbi”, which started to spread. Ofra was chosen that very day (a real coincidence) as the singer of the month in England, as if she got a prize for what she was going through. “Everything came by surprise”, said Ofra. “Nothing was planned. Suddenly we started to get responses. Suddenly we started getting phone calls from all over the world. People started to show interest, to ask questions, to invite me to perform, they asked me to give them the rights for my songs and records”. “We are trying not to lose proportion and not to be carried away”, said Bezalel. “The telephone doesn’t stop ringing and the invitations to performances, radio, newspapers and television interviews and for shooting are coming all the time. It’s very easy to lose one’s head and to jump on every offer. But it is wiser to know what to choose, the best things, the things that will suit Ofra”.
In that year Ofra took part for the first time in the “Festigal” (a children’s song festival). She sang the song “Arba’im” (“Forty”) and a medley of her songs. The song “Arba’im” (“Forty”) uses the image of the forty years of the Hebrew walking in the desert in order to speak about the 40 years of the Israeli existence: “Forty years we went / together in hard toil / because we’re always everybody for everybody// for the newcomers from all over the world to the land / for the newcomers from east, from west / forty years of land like wonder / forty”. Bezalel Aloni wrote the lyrics and Ofra herself composed the music. The song won first place in the contest.
The idolization of Ofra continued to break new records. Her official fan club, which was established by Amos Gazit, became the biggest fan club in Israel of all time and included over than 40,000 fans. Every day the fan club got about 200 letters addressed to Ofra, and Ofra herself got sacks of letters to her house, three times a week. Ofra’s, Bezalel’s and her parents’ houses were full with boxes containing letters. Anyone who joined the club received a free gift and could also acquire tape cassettes, video cassettes, posters, scarves with her picture and a signature, sets of 18 notebook stickers, time schedules, letters and envelopes, shirt emblems, books, etc. at a discount. Additionally, many private fan clubs were set up by the fans themselves and were named after her songs and records, like “Pituyim” (“Temptations”), “Chai” (“Alive”), “Bayit Cham” (“A Place For Me”)”, “Super Star” etc. They were located in private houses or in asylums (every Israeli building has an asylum in case of attack in war). Their walls were covered with posters, pictures and accessories of Ofra.
In November 1987 Ofra and Bezalel discovered that a couple of black rappers, Eric B. and Rakim, sampled Ofra’s voice from the original version of “Im Nin’alu” to their song “Paid in Full”, which was recorded for the soundtrack of the movie “Colors”, starring Sean Pen and Robert Duvall. The song became a big hit in Britain and the U.S.A., and everyone wanted to know who was the singer that was trilling in the background. “It gave her a tremendous push”, says Bezalel. “Even Eric B. and Rakim didn’t know she was a young singer who lived in Israel. They thought it was an old recording of an Arabic singer who was already dead”. Because of the interest that the song from the movie created, Ofra and Bezalel decided to make a remix of “Im Nin’alu”, and recruited Ashdot again. “Izhar wanted to make the song faster, and he did, but it didn’t sound good”, says Ya’ir Nitsani. “He said: ‘listen, we can live with it, but it’s better to bring Ofra’. I called Bezalel and told him to come to the office. And he really loved it then, and he instantly agreed with us that it had to be recorded again”.
Ofra came to the Studio and recorded “Im Nin’alu” again, for the remix. Ashdot prepared a new remix which included words in English in addition to the original lyrics. In the same year, 1987, Ofra decided to release “Shirey Moledet Gimel” (“Homeland Songs 3”) which included additional homeland songs such as “Re’ach Tapu’ach, Odem Shani” (“The Scent of the Apple Tree, Scarlet Red”), “Ayelet Ahavim” (“Beloved Woman”), “Ma Yafim Halylot” (“How Beautiful Are The Nights)”, “Hakotel” (“The Wailing Wall”) and also “Hechalil” (“The Flute”), which was recorded during the Israeli television broadcast in duet with Yehudit Ravitz. The song received good reviews and that’s why she included it in her album. The album was dedicated to celebrations of the 40 years of independence of the state of Israel. The album was also a great success and reached the sales level of a gold album. It was the last of Ofra’s albums before her major breakthrough with albums overseas.
