Family time in 2016. |
I was born in Israel in 1969 to my parents, Rina and Eytan, whose roots lay in the Jewish community of Iraq. After building a new life in Israel and marrying in 1963, they welcomed my sister, Hadassah, in 1964, and five years later I completed our small family.
I grew up a Sabra, surrounded by sounds that shaped me more than words ever could.
At weddings and celebrations, my parents would place me near the musicians,
and I remember feeling as if the instruments were speaking directly to me. 
Music didn’t just fill the room — it filled me.
When I was eighteen, my world broke apart. My mother died suddenly at forty-three,
and the silence she left behind was unbearable.
My father turned toward religion, searching for comfort in prayer and ritual until he eventually became a rabbi.
His newfound faith also influenced my sister, who embraced a
religious path as well.
I turned to  music.
And also in my marriage,
music has always been my
savior,
except for my children
who were the brighter
salvation of my life.
But my father never understood my devotion
for it. He wanted me to follow him into
a
religious life, and the distance between us grew until it became a quiet, painful emptiness. Yet when my father died suddenly in 2025, at eighty-seven, grief hit me with a force I didn’t expect.
Obituary for my father.
|
|
It tore my heart apart to see my
children go through their grandfather’s funeral —
to watch them face a pain they should never have had to know so early in life. |
Music
has always been the thread that holds me together. It still is. |
