John Peel, the legendary host of the B.B.C., was one of the first to play intensively the original “Shirey Teiman” (“Yemenite Songs”) album. After he got the album from one of the “Kol Hashalom” (“Voice of Peace”) of Abi Natan radio station hosts, he started playing “Galbi” and “Im Nin’alu”. “I simply loved the record”, said Peel about the record “Galbi”. “It was clear that she had a good voice, and the song had an interesting and an unexpected production”. The sound of the songs, a combination of electronic dance and ethnic singing, was innovative and different from anything else that was played on the radio. The British pop newspapers, which considered Peel as an oracle, started to give Ofra plenty of compliments. As a result all the reputed music newspapers complimented Ofra. “Ofra Haza is magnificent”, wrote the magazine “Melody Maker”. “Her radiance and her complex voice, which is as pleasant as the drink of the gods, attract thousands to her performances. It seems like she is one of the most perfect singers in the world”.
Ofra signed a contract with the German record company “Teldek”, one of the biggest companies in Europe. She recorded a new album called “Temptation Eyes”, which was intended for the international market. The album was supposed to be released in January 1988, but Ofra wasn’t pleased with it. “The album was about to come out”, says Ofra, “but we managed to convince ‘Teldek’ company to shelve it. They gave me the song of the most famous composer and producer in Europe, Georgio Morodor, and I also turned him down, although it was my first record in Europe and although they gave me a big credit. I needed a lot of courage to come and convince them to shelve this record”.
“I heard some of the songs and I didn’t like this trend very much”, says Nitzani. “It was Barbara Streisand, but with songs of… it was nothing, it was a sort of a vanilla”.
“Half of the songs were theirs and half of them were ours”, says Ofra. “One of the producers in the company told me: ‘Nothing from Israel has been a success yet, and believe me, you must go with our trend’. So in the end we compromised, but even after we had done our ‘half’ of the album – we didn’t like the stuff. The album was ready, the covers were already in print, and Bezalel and I went to Germany to ‘Teldek’ company and announced to them: ‘We don’t want this album’. They considered our request and accepted it. What convinced them even more was the fact that “Im Ninalu” started climbing to the top of the hit charts. I couldn’t lie to myself, and I couldn’t come to the newspapermen and say that I love this album. They shelved the album and the great investment on it went in the trash, and it was a lot of money. At the moment they shelved the album, I went back to Izhar Ashdot. We went to London, came into the studio and started producing a new album, and that’s after we won our private battle against the record company and against an American producer who didn’t believe in Israeli music. They have their work line and they completely didn’t believe that a Yemenite songs album might have a success. They even brought up the argument that it was important for them to sell records. I answered it is most important to me to sing something I’m proud of, to be unique in something, and that I also want my album to be sold. In this aspect we both agreed”. 1988 was the year in which positive response increased in other countries and she began to perform more and more outside of Israel. In April ’88 she sold in advance a performance at Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, in which she was accompanied by a group of 14 players. Ofra was stunned. “It was the first time I sang the whole material from ‘Yemenite Songs’ on the stage, and the audience was hysterical”, she said. “There was a big happening there. The audience stood and applauded. I had tears in my eyes. What thrilled me most of all was the fact that everybody knew I was an Israeli, and nevertheless they didn’t ask about politics. They treated me with dignity. They said: “At last we can see something good coming from Israel”.
In June “Im Nin’alu” reached the top of the chart in Germany. It sold at a rate of 15 thousand copies a day, and stayed on the top for 11 weeks. In Britain it reached 15th place, in Belgium 10th, in Holland 26th, in Norway 11th, in Finland fifth, in Sweden seventh, and it also reached high places in the dance charts in the U.S.A.
“To succeed abroad wasn’t the dream of my life”, said Ofra as the big success came. “I have never imagined I will be a singer outside Israel, that my music will be popular all over the world and that my audience will not be Israeli or Jewish. It took me by sheer surprise.
“All the recent things that have happened to me there surprised me too. Altogether, I live in Israel, I haven’t lived abroad for years and I haven’t knocked on doors, I work here. And whatever happens to me there makes me happy and challenges me, and maybe even gives me the push to go there and make something out of it”.
At that time 0fra performed in London, Hamburg, Paris and other European capitals. In her performance in London she translated the songs’ words to English for the audience. “It’s the most beautiful gift I could ever give to my parents, to whom this record was recorded as homage and as a tribute to their heritage. The music remained for over 2,500 years and now it is breaking through. It has probably the irresistible power one cannot stand up to, a power which conveys sensations even if one can’t understand the lyrics”. Soon there were ten more performances that were waiting for her, one of which was in June of the same year at the “Royal Festival Hall” in Paris, and also the public relations campaign that followed it.
At the end of the recordings Ofra released “Shaday”. The songs, in a Yemenite style, are sung in English to the words of Bezalel and herself. The album includes an English version of “Galbi”, and also a version of “Im Nin’alu”, both of which were produced by Izhar Ashdot, and two songs from “Yamim Nishbarim” (“Broken Days”), which were translated and re-produced: “Take Me to Paradise” and “My Aching Heart”.
“The decision to call the album ‘Shaday’ (in Hebrew: the keeper of the doors of Israel, one of the names of God) was my suggestion”, says Ofra. “The word ‘Shaday’ is written on all the mezuzahs (parchment scrolls) and it was important for me to use the name of God because it symbolizes everything I believe in. The record company people brought up all kinds of suggestions, but finally the good chemistry between us worked”.
A short while after the album was released, the contract with the record company ended. That was because, according to Bezalel, “the artistic manager in the company wanted Ofra to record European catchy pop songs that didn’t suit her at all. Then there was a falling out. Later, they bought the distribution rights from us like everybody else”.
Ofra had a great success at that time. Her songs were higher on the charts than the new songs of Michael Jackson. Jackson asked Ofra to join him on his world tour, but she refused. “I met him at the party, and he’s a very sensitive man, really a delicate soul. He looked like a cute Yemen to me. I had fun with him. He offered me to join him on his tour, but I refused. We have different kinds of music and a different audience, and I didn’t think it could match. At last they took Kim Wild, and she’s much more suitable to perform in front of 70 thousand people in a stadium.
“We didn’t make the decision easily. We did some thinking for a whole night, Bezalel and I. We know what a tremendous idea it could be, but on second thought we said: ‘What am I, Ofra Haza, going to do at such a happening?’ I want the audience to come and see me from the beginning to the end. I don’t want to be the opening singer, not even for Michael Jackson. As much as I was flattered by the offer, I refused. In the records company they appreciated my tough decision although a few of them said it was a pity, because this performance could bring me huge publicity and promote my album’s sales”.
A few days after Ofra performed in London, an important music magazine, “New Musical Express”, chose “Im Nin’alu” as its weekly single and also decorated the page with an illustration of Ofra in a traditional Yemenite costume. A month before, the London magazine “Time Out” published a passionate article before her performance. They didn’t forget to add a cool Yemenite picture of Ofra. “An exciting event”, the ‘Express’ praised the single. “Exciting all along. Not an excitement that comes and goes. Izhar Ashdot, the producer, is making wonders in the combination of modern and Yemenite percussion instruments”. The “Time Out” magazine also expressed: “What a voice! Haza is a pleasant enjoyable event in the long history of pop that absorbs substances from different musical styles in the world”.
In that year Ofra won many prizes. She won the “Gold Lion” in Germany, in the title “the hottest television star for 1988”. She also won the title “Singer of the Year” in Germany. “Im Nin’alu” was chosen as ‘Song of the Year’ in Germany and was nine weeks at the top of the German hit chart. The song also won first place in Italy, France, Belgium, Holland, Sweden, Portugal and other countries. Also in Japan she started to have success.
The international record company of Ofra, elated from the success, started pushing Ofra and Bezalel towards the American market. The thought was that if Ofra broke through the biggest market in the world, nothing would stand in her way. In order to conquer America, Ofra and Bezalel started packing their bags and moved to New York, but shortly afterwards they moved to Los Angles. “I ran away from New York because it was snowing and cold”. Los Angles, she said, reminded her of home a little bit more; at least it was warm, but it wasn’t a substitute. “My house is in Israel. This place is only my work place and I’m here because if one wants to succeed in the U.S.A. he can’t do it by remote control”.
In the U.S.A. Ofra and Bezalel started at the beginning of 1989 to work on her second international album, “Desert Wind”. Ofra and Bezalel wrote the songs by themselves. The record company, which invested huge amounts of money on publicity and studio hours, pushed the songs toward a more western style. For the musical production two super-wizards were recruited: Arif Mardin (who worked among others with David Bowie, Aretha Franklin and Howard Jones) and Thomas Dolby, the wonder child of the electronic pop of the eighties. Mardin and Dolby saw Ofra as a potential dance queen with an ethnic gimmick, and made a dancing album. The social and political contexts which Ofra and Bezalel tried to combine with the lyrics were gone. “Desert Wind” was a comparative failure, and sold only half a million copies. However, the world tour which followed it had a great success.
“I already felt then that I was being pulled in another direction”, said Ofra a year later. “There are people who become depressed because their album did not succeed. They take it hard or go to a shrink, and always think ‘where did we go wrong’ and imagine nobody loves them. I’m not like that. I thought about the positive things one could learn from this experience. I have made up my mind not to come near a disco anymore. There were appeals from all over the U.S.A., ‘come and perform for only 20 minutes with a playback’, but I refused, because I’m not interested in the money. I want to be a long term singer and make good things. I want to be on the stage but not to make people dance”.
Bezalel was less refined regarding “Desert Wind”. “I could close the studio and stop the recordings, but I gave in to pressures. The company invested huge amounts of money and told me: ‘what do you know about the American market?’ I said: ‘I know nothing about the American market, but I know about Ofra Haza’. She didn’t like what we had done there, and in hindsight she was right. I could say to the famous producer that worked with us to go to hell, but I didn’t. That’s why it was a failure, and I blame it only on myself”.
At that year Ofra released the American version of “Yemenite Songs”, which was called “Fifty Gates of Wisdom”. The album included the songs of the original album in the same versions but in a different order, and a slightly different cover which still included Ofra’s picture with traditional Yemenite clothes. The album was released in the U.S.A. and it got terrific reviews and and was a great success.
Ofra’s Israeli records company saw her tremendous success and decided to use the momentum. They released an album called “Yemenite Love”, which included songs of Ofra from the time of the workshop in Hatikva neighborhood. The thing was done behind the backs of Ofra and Bezalel, and obviously without their permission. Ofra and Bezalel sued the company and the court decided the company had to take out all their records from the record shops. The remix version to the song “Ya Hilwi”, which Ofra sang during the time at the workshop, was included in the album.
At that time Ofra won many achievements. She won two “Gold Lion” awards in Germany. At 1989 she was chosen again to be “Singer of the Year” in Germany. Her album “Shaday” got the “New Musical Award” for “International Album of the Year” in New York. Ofra also took part in the Tokyo Festival and won first place.
“It was very exciting”, said Ofra. “I had already performed in many events all over the world, but the performance in the Tokyo Festival was really special. An audience of seven thousand people in a huge hall named “Budokan”, an outburst of enthusiasm and warmth. When the judges in the competition decided eventually that I was the winner – I just didn’t know what happened. I’m not one of those who panic easily and I have already had all kinds of enjoyable moments in the past year or two, but nevertheless – I got excited like a child. It was really something”.
Ofra and Bezalel arrived to Japan a week before the festival. They arrived to promote “Im Nin’alu” and “Shaday” in the Far East. Simultaneously they were approached by the famous Tokyo Festival producers, who invited them to take part in it. The salesmen in Japan considered it to be a good idea and Ofra gave her approval. “It’s an international festival”, said Ofra. “It appeals actually to the audience of the Far East, but its outcomes reach the entire world – both to Europe and the U.S.A. In this festival, familiar artists take part, and this year artists from 13 countries take part, including the U.S.A, England, Holland, Korea, Poland, etc. It was an exciting experience, and I really enjoyed the atmosphere around”. All the great success Ofra received did not change her. During the time of her success in Israel she still visited her parents’ home almost daily, and visited her brothers and sisters on Sabbaths, and when she was abroad for long periods of times, she never gave up on the strong bond with home. On one of the holiday evenings the phone was kept open so Ofra could listen to her father singing the holiday prayers.
“Once we were abroad on Friday night”, says Shuli. “We searched for Sabbath candles (Jews light candles on Friday night to welcome Sabbath and bless it), but couldn’t find any, so Ofra told me: ‘Hold two matches, instead of two candles, and I’ll bless them’. I held and she blessed two Sabbath matches. I held it until my hands almost burned. When we didn’t have wine (Jews bless the wine on Friday evening, to bless the Sabbath) Ofra blessed Sabbath with Coca Cola”. “On each and every birthday of one of the grandchildren in the family Ofra would always call, from wherever she was, to sing ‘happy birthday to you'”, says Ester, Ofra’s sister.
If there was something in the world Ofra loved more than anything, it was children. “Ofra raised my children”, says Shuli. “She had maternal sense, and children were the love of her life. After all, we were raised in a family that was blessed with children and grandchildren running around. She was expecting children of her own”.
The emotional bond with her family members was more valuable to her than her career and the number of CDs sold in the stores. Shuli remembers the “surprise of her life” she got from Ofra. “I loved it in the U.S.A, but I was missing my parents badly. I haven’t seen them in a year, and it was like a million years. One day, Ofra took them in a plane to America. Two old people who had never left Israel. For two weeks she didn’t go anywhere without them. Two weeks, practically hand in hand. She took them everywhere, in the biggest limousine in America. From Atlantic City to the amusement park in Coney Island. They were like small children taken on a trip, and Ofra was thrilled to give them this experience”. If there was something that bothered Ofra on her way to the top abroad, it was the distance from the family. “She thought a lot about her career abroad”, remembers Shuli, “but we encouraged her. We didn’t want her to be stopped. We wanted her to fulfill all of her dreams. After each performance in Germany, in Britain, she would call and tell me how it went. Despite that, I wanted to see it with my own eyes. I will never forget the moment Ofra went on the stage of the ‘Palladium’, the greatest club in New York, popping up with a Yemenite robe, and all these flashing lights around her, and all these Americans are going crazy and applauding. I was standing there, watching it all, and cannot believe what a great thing is happening. Suddenly there was complete silence; she started singing and I was crying”.
In 1990 when she participated in the popular Tonight show of Johnny Carson, Carson told her he likes her. Two weeks later Michael Jackson told her he loved her too. Ofra also participated in an awards celebration in Hollywood for the end of a decade of movies. Her invitation was personally sent by Michael Jackson, who also sat by her at one of the respectable tables by the stage. “I heard a lot about you”, he whispered to Ofra in his fragile voice. Afterwards, at the end of June, Michael Jackson was an honored guest an Ofra’s concert in Japan.
In that year Ofra was given the international music award in Monte Carlo for “Best Sold Israeli Singer of All Times”. Additionally, three songs of hers were played in the movie Wild Orchid, starring Mickey Roark. A year later she took part in the “Singers of the World for world peace” project with artists like Peter Gabriel, Lenny Kravitz, and M.C. Hammer, who sang “Give Peace a Chance” together. The song was released during the Gulf War, and became the hottest thing on MTV. “After the song was released I got phone-calls from all over the world”, says Ofra. “Everybody knew that my family lived in the area where the missiles fell, and called to ask me if I was Ok”. When the song became a big hit, all the artists were invited to all the popular talk shows. Ofra refused. “The song was written before the war started in order to prevent it. I was for peace too, but once the missiles started to fall on Israel it changed. I refused to take part in the interview show of Arsenio Hall and say that I was for peace like everyone else. I couldn’t say ‘give peace a chance’ while my family was being bombed. I wanted to say ‘give Bush a chance’. They didn’t agree I would say such a thing, so I didn’t participate”.
In Israel Ofra was criticized a lot for not coming back immediately after the first missile had landed, but only some time later. “The Israeli delegation in Los- Angeles told me: ‘If you go back to Israel you’ll have nothing to do besides staying at home, but here you can take part in Israel’s public relations efforts and do something’. We had a special event in which we mobilized money for a hospital in Israel, so I really don’t feel we had done nothing. On the contrary, we did a lot”.
The lessons Ofra and Bezalel learned in “Desert Wind” were applied in the album “Kirya”, which was recorded in Los Angeles and produced by the super producer Don Was.
“We didn’t think at all about having a producer”, said Ofra. “Bezalel and I were pretty locked into doing the album alone. We had credit for the production, and the record company accepted the explanation that the foreign producers don’t understand the point, who think that it’s enough I’ll use my voice and make “mahawals” (trilling her voice). When the record company people came to see me singing in the Montreux Festival and in Hamburg, they realized that my performance was acoustic, without any synthesizers and samplers, and that the audience was thrilled about it. But because my songs had success in the discos, they simply thought about the younger audience who will buy my albums. They didn’t know that the audience that comes to my performances also consisted of many people aged 35-40. There weren’t many teenagers. Mostly the yuppies came. It took them time to realize it because I was actually out in the field and they were in their offices”.
The album was prepared for almost a year and was being recorded for three months. Ofra and Bezalel wrote together the lyrics and the music, and most of the productions were theirs, to original Yemenite melodies. There were no compromises in the texts and Ofra defined them as “protest songs”. Kirya is lamenting over the boys who were killed for Jerusalem and is calling to find a way to communicate with the Arabs. Don Was says that when he heard Ofra for the first time, it was in the international festival in Tokyo. In the rehearsals for the performance, he remembers this voice breaking through without an accompaniment, without anything. It was straight Ofra. It was only a microphone trial but Was, one of the greatest musical producers in the U.S, remarked in admiration: “I couldn’t speak, I was stunned. I knew I had heard one of the greatest singers in the world”.
Although Was didn’t understand a word in Hebrew, and surely not in Yemenite music, he found himself struggling together with Ofra and Bezalel to return Ofra to her roots and to object to the record company’s wish to make another disco rhythms album. “Her primal secret of success was the ethnic music she sang, which was exotic and mysterious and had to remain this way. We already have Madonna and Barbara Streisand or Paula Abdul. She shouldn’t be like them. She should be what she is – the Aretha Franklin of Yemenite music”.
With Was as producer, most of the English was gone and the ancient Hebrew and Yemenite were back, the synthesizers were gone and the leather drums returned. The disco rhythms were moderated and also the “spirit returned”, as Ofra defined it herself. “Now it’s a hundred percent me”, said Ofra about the album. The topics of the album are also closer to her heart. She sings about Jerusalem and “Daw Da Hiya”, a Yemenite girl who was executed because she tasted the forbidden fruit of love (the video clip of the song appeared many times on MTV), and about the fate of the people of Israel. A day after the album was released Ofra visited Israel in order to introduce the album that was “the most Israeli album I have ever done abroad”.
The album, which hundreds of thousands of dollars were invested in, was at the top of the selling chart for 32 weeks. Another song which appeared on the album, called “Trains of No Return”, was written by Ofra and Bezalel because of the anti-Semitic atmosphere they had felt when they were in Germany. The record company objected to the song but did not prevail and the song appeared in the album. After the album was released, many Nazi demonstrations started to pop up in Germany and Austria. Furthermore, many times Ofra gave rise to “upheavals” against the anti-Semites: in one of the programs she participated in, she said that if the interviewer was a Nazi, he had to resign.
Ofra says that a short time after the album was released she watched together with Bezalel the “Grammy” awards on T.V. “I wish we will also stand on this same stage next year”, she told him. A year later, in 1993, Ofra had a phone call from Don Was, who gave her the good news. She was nominated for the Grammy award in the “World Music” category for the album “Kirya”. She couldn’t believe it: her dream came true. Although she was nominated for the Grammy, another singer won, much older than Ofra, who told Ofra after winning that if he hadn’t been awarded he could have gotten a heart attack. Ofra said that she hadn’t prepared for a speech because it was clear to her that she intended to thank God, Bezalel and her parents – at that doesn’t need to be written. Two days after the contest Ofra came back to Israel to perform in the beauty pageant. Bezalel didn’t want her to perform there. “I considered it a terrible loss of momentum”, said Bezalel. But Ofra said that she had enjoyed performing there and felt that the audience loved her.
In the same year she also took part in the MTV music awards and sang the song “Temple of Love” together with the “Sisters of Mercy”. The song was a great success and came to the third place in the British chart. In that year Ofra also took part in the “Kdam-Eurovision” (Pre-Eurovision) contest, not as a singer but as a writer of Uri Fineman’s song, “Or” (“Light”). She wasn’t in Israel during the contest, but she helped Fineman before the contest. The song didn’t win first place.
A year after, in 1994, Ofra returned to Israel and released a new Israeli album called “Kol Haneshama” (“My Soul”).
Many wondered why she needed this album – after all, she didn’t need Israel anymore. But Ofra felt that the album was a “need”. A need of the soul. “I missed it so much, an album in Hebrew”, she said. “For me it doesn’t matter at all what is happening with me in the world, Israel is my only home, the home I love, the roots, the soul. When I entered the studio in Israel after so many years, a sort of a pleasant unexplainable feeling spread all over my body, as if I started all over again. I don’t feel at all that I’m going back. The excitement is the real motive for doing things, and every new start is a new excitement”. And although it is a Hebrew album, the song “Kol Haneshama” (“My Soul”) was chosen to be the theme song of the French movie “Queen Margot”, with the star Isabel Adjani, in Hebrew.
In that year Ofra experienced the second trauma in her life. On April 7th, Ofra flew from to Israel on Flight 316 from London. The plane had a forced landing. “In the first few seconds of the take off we heard a loud ‘boom’. We had no idea what it was. We felt our legs shaking. The pilot took off straight up in the air and overcame the problem. Everybody imagined it was something else. Some thought it was sabotage. The captain spoke to us after a few seconds and called on us to calm down. The flight went by quietly. When we got to Israel, the pilot started to land the plane and surprisingly went up again.
He told us that something was wrong with the wheels. He tried to land again but took off again. The chief steward told us what we should do: take off our shoes, remove heavy things from our body, like glasses or jewels, bend down and embrace our legs from the ankles down. Seven years ago, with the ‘Cessna’, it happened unexpectedly. We fell down and felt nothing. We didn’t know what to think. This time there was a long time to think, the plane circled in the air above the airport for a long hour. With the first ‘boom’ in London I took out the Psalms book (a Jewish service book) and read it from the beginning to its end. I felt a need, a sort of an inner feeling to say ‘Shma Israel’ (‘ Hear, O Israel’, a Jewish prayer). I read it in order to relax. I said: ‘It’s not the right time to die now. We weren’t saved once only to die now!’ When they said it was one minute before landing, we bent down. There was tension. Quiet. Everybody expected the worst. I put the Psalms into the pocket in my jacket and felt strengthened. It was an incredible landing. From the movies. The complete opposite of what we had expected. When we went down from the plane we looked around and we were shocked: dozens of ambulances and fire brigades. The entire airport was lit up. I realized they expected the worst. All the firemen with the fire suits said: ‘Ofra, it’s your second time’. The customs officials also said: ‘good heavens, God is watching you. You have a life insurance for good’”.
In the MTVision (MTV’s video clips competition) that year, it was Ofra who announced the results of the Israeli jury to the other delegations. All the newspapers in Israel wrote how beautiful Ofra Haza looked. Ofra also hosted the “Golden Model Pageant”, in which she entertained the most successful Israeli model in the world – Shiraz Tal.
In the exact same year Ofra received an exciting invitation to perform in the ceremony for the Nobel Peace Prize with the song “Kufsat Tzva’im” (“Paint Box”). The song became very famous in Israel. The prize was given to Yasser Arafat, Shimon Peres and Yitzchak Rabin. Afterwards she sang songs for peace with Sinead O’Connor in a special performance in Oslo, and when O’Connor came to Israel, Ofra was the one who hosted her. She also met with Stevie Wonder when he came for a visit in Israel.
In addition, Ofra started to host two programs on “Radius” – the regional radio of the Hasharon area. One of the programs was the “Hachush Hashishi (“Sixth Sense”), which was broadcast every Friday at 12:00 o’clock. “It’s an individual program with the music that I love and that is right for this hour. Songs of R.E.M. for instance, a band I like very much. Meanwhile, until the records at the station are manageable, I take CDs from home and play what I have. Altogether it will be a program of good music, also for housewives, soldiers on the way home, and for the young people who wash their cars on Fridays”. She also had the show “Ahava Plus” (“Love Plus”), which was broadcast every Tuesday at 23:00. “It will be a romantic hour, in which I’ll play quiet music, about romance and love. A part of the show will be dedicated to numerology and Kabala. Listeners will be able to call in a live broadcast and ask questions on these subjects”.
After the assassination of Prime Minister Rabin, Ofra was asked to sing in an assembly for his memory. She agreed to sing “Le’orech Hayam” (“Along the Sea”) in a special version, which starts with the words of “Kol Haneshama” (“My Soul”).
Ofra also performed, for the first time, in the opening show of the Arad festival. She was supposed to have a solo performance (“people will not be able to stay indifferent to this performance”, she said in an interview), but a day before the performance three youngsters were crushed when they tried to enter the performance of the “Mashina” band and were choked to death in the mob. Ofra was among the first artists who decided to cancel their performances in the festival. She decided, like many others, one couldn’t perform under these circumstances.
In the “Teimaniyada” (a Yemenite celebration) in Rosh-Ha’ayin, which took place that year, Ofra performed before a Yemenite audience which came there in honor of the event. In that same year Ofra gave her voice to the song “My Love is for Real” by Paula Abdul. The song also won a great success and entered the list of the ten biggest hits of the dancing charts in the U.S.A. Additionally, she performed for the second time in the Montreux Jazz festival in Switzerland.
At the beginning of 1996 Ofra decided to shelve her new international album “Queen in Exile”, which had already been recorded. “We recorded another different album, all in English, but the feeling deep inside was that it wasn’t it. I felt no need to rush, it was better to hold oneself and feel a hundred percent sure about oneself. There was no use to release something and then regret it.” “We invested a lot of money in the album, but finally it was shelved”, said Bezalel. “I wanted Izhar Ashdot as a musical producer, but the record company refused. They didn’t care he had done “Im Ni’nalu”, the most successful world hit of Ofra. They said they didn’t know who he was. They wanted us to work with Chris Franz and Tina Weymouth from ‘Talking Heads’, who worked then under the name ‘Tom Tom Club’. Finally Izhar produced five songs and the rest we recorded in the U.S.A. with Chris and Tina. We didn’t like what they had done. It was an American pop which didn’t suit Ofra, and we had already had a bitter experience from ‘Desert Wind’. I announced the company I wasn’t willing to go through with the recordings, and then they decided to release the album with the singing sketches of Ofra and with the playbacks, which had already been done. I turned to our lawyers and we stopped the production. Thus, the contract with Warner was over”.
Immediately after “Queen in Exile” was shelved, Ofra started recording her next album – Ofra Haza. The recording started in January 1997, the first album of Ofra which was recorded in Germany (in Hamburg). It was produced with Frank Peterson, who produced with Michael Cretu the first “Enigma” album, and worked also with the British Sara Brightman and the American Marky Mark.”Most of the songs in the album were written in English, here and there is a verse in Yemenite, because the rhythms are expressly modern. It’s hard to explain the sound. The album is mystic on the whole, somewhat moody, far from being ethnic, more electrical, but there are dance remixes and we also added classic sounds with the London symphony, so there would be new thrilling sounds. ‘One Day’, one of the songs in the album, is a duet with Andrew Aldridge from ‘Sisters of Mercy’, who returns me a favor for my vocal contribution to their previous album”.
At that time, the beginning of 1997, Ofra and Arnon Tzadok were shooting a movie thriller which was based on the abduction of Yemenite children [it is clamed that in the 50’s there were hundreds of kidnappings of newborn Yemenite children by the authorities, and they were given to Ashkenazi parents who had no children]. The film was called “Tzedek Muchlat” (“Primal Justice”), and Ofra played a young lawyer who discovered she had been abducted too when she was a baby. It’s a police, detective, murder, and a love film. Ofra was chosen to play the main role although she had never learned acting. But the choice was understandable: “A Yemenite and also a star and also the friend of Arnon Tzadok”, she says. “It was the kind of thing that made me say ‘yes’ immediately. The idea was close to me, thrilled me, and I wish this film would have influence”.
But things didn’t work out as planned. “Ofra is very disappointed”, said Bezalel. Ofra’s and Bezalel’s main argument against Arnon Tzadok, the director, was that she played a much smaller part than what was promised to her. As a result, they decided Ofra would maintain a low profile as far as the movie was concerned, would not take part in the promotion, and would not record the songs for the soundtrack, as was agreed at first. “We asked to read the script”, says Bezalel. “Arnon said there was no script yet and it would be written during the shooting. I believed Arnon, and gave up on it. Ofra participated in the rehearsals and came to the shootings. At the editing stage we asked a few times to watch the movie and all our requests were rejected. Just before one of our journeys abroad, we were called to watch the movie in a private cinema. At the end of the screening I felt terrible about the role and the part of Ofra in the movie. It wasn’t what we had waited for. Ofra is mainly disappointed, very disappointed”, said Bezalel. “Ofra is known for her delicacy and she won’t respond in public and won’t say a word but she’s very much disappointed”.
