All the living Israeli hostages are now, finally, home.<\/p>\n
As thousands of Israelis sat to watch those healing first images from what has been for the last two years Tel Aviv\u2019s Hostages Square, a song kept playing over and over: \u201cHaBayta,\u201d or \u201cHome.\u201d A cover of that song was recorded by 1,000 Israeli artists back in December 2023, after the first hostage deal fell through in November 2023.<\/p>\n
\u201cHome\/Home\/It is the time to return\/From the mountains\/From foreign fields\/The day fades and there is no sign,\u201d hundreds sang, along with the families of the hostages, while a full band played at the Caesarea Amphitheater. \u201cUntil the break of dawn\/I pray for your wellbeing\/Caught in the handcuffs of fears\/I hear steps\/Home, home\/Because we still haven\u2019t gotten\/What was promised to us so long ago.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHaBayta\u201d had been the song for the fight for the hostages since 2006, when it called for the return of Gilad Shalit and the late Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, whose captures led to the second Lebanon War. The words seem perfectly tailored to the despair and uncertainty and the desire for the hostages to return, and yet the song itself wasn\u2019t written with the release of hostages in mind.<\/p>\n
The story of \u201cHaBayta\u201d is indeed much older than battles for hostages. The inspiration behind it dates back to Yardena Arazi\u2019s time singing songs to soldiers during the first Lebanon War in 1982. Being in the midst of all that danger and having her own close calls with mortality catalyzed the pop artist against the war. When she ran out of songs to sing, Arazi began singing \u201cShir LaShalom,\u201d \u201cA Song for Peace,\u201d which she sang when she was in the army as part of the Nahal band.<\/p>\n
She shared her despair at what she saw and experienced with celebrated songwriter Ehud Manor, who wrote many of the beloved singer\u2019s \u2014 and her former group Shokolad, Menta, Mastik\u2019s \u2014 songs. His song \u201cEin Li Eretz Acheret,\u201d \u201cI Have No Other Country,\u201d was quoted on the senate floor in 2021 and was itself an anti-war protest song inspired by the loss of his brother during the first Lebanon War. Arazi\u2019s experience inspired Manor to write \u201cHaBayta;\u201d they found the melody in the song \u201cManana, Tomorrow,\u201d<\/a> composed by Israeli composer Yair Klinger.<\/p>\n The song became a huge hit and helped launch Arazi\u2019s solo career in her 30s, earning her the vaunted \u201csinger of the year\u201d title in 1984 \u2014 though the tune did also earn her death threats from pro-war activists.<\/p>\n There\u2019s something so stately and so grand about this song, especially when accompanied by an orchestra, but even when sung without one. The words have such gravitas, especially the word home. It\u2019s more than a song about four walls; it is a song about the very idea of home and homeland. Yes, the song itself calls for a withdrawal of troops from Lebanon and an end to the war, but the return to home in the song isn\u2019t that of a physical place. The song calls for a return to home as in, a place of ideals, the ideals of a democratic country. Arazi says as much in the excellent episode of \u201cOne Song\u201d which tells the story behind this song.<\/a><\/p>\n In 2003, Manor added new lyrics to the song that reflected his own feelings about where the country was 20 years after that war:<\/p>\n \u201cThe years pass, the years pick\/And we still haven\u2019t found solace\/Generations come and go, the wet cheek\/Cries a salty tear\/As if calling\/Home, home, the time has come to return\/From the end of roads, from a brothers\u2019 battle\/To that same place in our heart\/Home, home, the light still hasn\u2019t gone out\/To dreams without walls\/To a night with no pain\/Untill the rise of dawn I pray for your wellbeing\/My country, keep, keep\/The fragments of an Israeli dream,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n Those final lyrics didn\u2019t make it into the 2023 cover, but I can\u2019t help thinking about how much the spirit of the song echoes the soul of the fight of the hostages. The marches, the protests, the pleas, felt sometime like a fight for the very spirit of Israel \u2014 for the good in it, the life-loving parts of it.<\/p>\n Seeing the hostages return really does feel like our home is being rebuilt.<\/p>\n