Monday, August 4, 2008

Salaam (Od Yavo Shalom Alienu) - More on music & culture

Last week I posted the video for "Sweet Home, Jerusalem" and talked about how it expresses a particular Jewish view of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Here's another musical voice in that debate. The song is Salaam (Od Yavo Shalom Alienu), performed and made into an Israeli hit a couple of years ago by the Israeli band Sheva. Sheva has been around since the late 1990's combining Jewish and Muslim musicians, Biblical lyrics, and a focus on promoting peace. I don't know Sheva's opinion about dividing Jerusalem, so I don't want to say they're on the opposite side of any debate with "Sweet Home, Jerusalem's" Menachem Herman and Rabbi Lazer Brody. Like "Sweet Home Jerusalem," though, "Salaam" wants to define a vision of the world and help bring that vision to life. Is it a better vision? Or even a complementary vision? I don't know, but seeing them up against each other helps remind me that life and politics in Israel is complicated and if there were any easy answers they'd have been found a long time again.

Here are the lyrics to Salaam, taken from Wikipedia

# English translation Transliteration Hebrew
1 Peace will come upon us Od yavo' shalom aleinu עוד יבוא שלום עלינו
2 Peace will come upon us Od yavo' shalom aleinu עוד יבוא שלום עלינו
3 Peace will come upon us Od yavo' shalom aleinu עוד יבוא שלום עלינו
4 and on everyone. Ve'al kulam (x2) ועל כולם




5 Salaam ('peace' in Arabic) Salaam (Salaam) סלאאם
6 On us and on all the world Aleinu ve'al kol ha olam עלינו ועל כל העולם
7 Salaam, Salaam Salaam, Salaam (x2)

Od Yavo Shalom


You can find out more about Sheva and check out their albums at their website and MySpace page.
Hat tip to YouTube user PedroTheMonk for posting (and constructing?) the video.
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3 comments:

  1. Simcha Daniel Burstyn שמחה דניאל בורשטייןAugust 31, 2008 at 8:41 PM

    Hey, very nice site. I was wondering - do you have notation for Sheva's Shir LaMaalot (ps. 121)? Thanks,
    Simcha Daniel

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  2. JackAugust 31, 2008 at 9:05 PM

    Hi Simcha Daniel,

    Not personally. I did a quick check of the JewishGuitarChords.com and found three different versions of Shir LaMaalot. I'm not sure if any of them are the version you're looking for. I'll ask around and see if I can find it for you.

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  3. JackSeptember 1, 2008 at 7:40 PM

    Ok. I was able to confirm that the Yosef Karduner version of Shir LaMa'alot available at JewishGuitarCords.com is the one performed by Sheva. I hope this helps.

    Here's the link...

    http://jewishguitarchords.com/YosefKarduner_ShirLamaalot.txt

    ReplyDelete