The best songs of Bracha Zefira (1910-1990)

Singer and collector of Jewish Yemenite music

A selection of songs performed by Bracha Zefira, pionneer who put Oriental melodies on Hebrew poems

Israeli singer of Yemenite origin, Bracha Zefira is exposed at a very young age to the Arab and Bedouin melodies that she hears while walking through the old city of Jerusalem. She studies theater, music, and will meet in Berlin the pianist composer and arranger Nahum Nardi, who will become her accomplice on stage and in life.

Zefira left her acting career to dedicate herself to singing. Their touring program included songs of different oriental ethnic groups that Zefira knew from her childhood including Sephardic songs, Jewish songs from Yemen, Persia, and Bukhara, as well as songs of Bedouins and Palestinian Arabs, all arranged by Nardi.

A collector of traditional songs, Bracha regularly returned back to the neighborhoods in which she grew up. She asked old women to sing her their songs, and she participated in local festivities.

After several years, Bracha Zefira stopped her collaboration with Nahum Nardi, ans started working with other composers, such as Paul Ben-Haim, Ödön Pártos or Marc Lavry.

Her repertoire included over 400 songs, many of which she helped create, either by working with composers on the melodies, or with poets on the lyrics. Her songs based on Arab or Bedouin melodies include Ben Nahar Prat, Yesh Li Gan, Lamidbar, Aley Giv’a, and were arranged by Nardi. She sang Piyyutim of Yemenite and Sephardic Jews with their original words, like S’I Yona, and Hamavdil. For Sephardic Romances she either replaced or translated the Ladino words, like Hitrag’ot with words by Yehuda Karni.

Read Bracha Zefira’s biography

Documents joints

0:00
0:00

You may also like

LES BUBBEY MAYSE – LE PETIT MATIN DU GRAND SOIR

This 9th CD of the "Discovery" Collection immerses us in the world of four magnificent musicians united by their love…

PERPETUEL KLEZMER – DENIS CUNIOT

Along with jazz, Klezmer music became involved in the everlasting movement of evolution and creation of the 1980s. In France,…

The new Jewish scene

This playlist presents a selection of artists from the new Jewish scene who blend Klezmer, Yiddish, Judeo-Spanish and Oriental music…

Launch of the Mémoire Radiophonique Juive program (Jewish Radio Memory)

Initiated by the European Institute of Jewish Music in 2019, the Mémoire Radiophonique Juive (MRJ) (Jewish Radio Memory) program makes…