Annual festival includes an oud ode to a Jewish Tunisian diva
Unusual mashups abound at the 25th Jerusalem Oud Festival, ranging from Hadag Nachash performing Psalms to a Grammy-winning Indian bamboo flute player
Jessica Steinberg, The Times of Israel's culture and lifestyles editor, covers the Sabra scene from south to north and back to the center
Throughout the last year of the war, despite a steady stream of sirens warning of rockets from nearby Lebanon, vocalist Ayelet Uri Benita and oud master Emad Dalal met each Sunday in his home studio in the Arab village of Kafr Yasif, preparing for their oud ode to a Tunisian diva.
“Each time, those three hours together would just lift me,” said Benita. “I would go out from Emad’s studio just full of hope, in belief and spirit.”
The show, “Everyone’s Favorite, A Tribute to the Songs of Tunisian Diva Habiba Msika,” will be performed on Friday, November 22 at Jerusalem’s Confederation House as part of the 25th Oud Festival, November 21-30, with Benita, Dlal, Yuval Tobi playing the Turkish saz, percussionist Omri Zichron and Basil Hleihel playing the flute and violin.
It’s part of the unusual mashup that often describes this annual festival, which this year includes hip-hop band Hadag Nachash performing music from the Book of Psalms, the Tractor’s Revenge rock band creating prayerful trance music with the Piyyut Ensemble, as well as multiple combinations of oud masters, singers and performers, bringing the sounds of Armenia, Tunisia, Yemen, India and Israel to Jerusalem.
Performances will be held at the Confederation House, National Library of Israel, Jerusalem Theater and Mazkeka performance space and bar.
“I believe in music,” said Effie Benaya, who manages the Confederation House and Oud Festival and decided to go forward with the event despite the challenges of the ongoing war. “I believe in its power to heal the heart – of the individual and of society as a whole. I believe that music carries comfort and hope, especially in bloody and unbearably difficult days like ours.”
The songs of a Tunisian diva may seem idiosyncratic, but this collection of musical works relates directly to the fusion of East and West and of shared existence celebrated by Habiba Msika, an early 1900s Jewish Tunisian diva during her brief life before she was murdered by a jealous suitor.
Benita, who has Tunisian heritage, had come across Habiba’s unusual story in a book, and the percussionist, vocalist and performer felt a zing of inspiration. She found recordings of Habiba singing on YouTube, but needed help with the Arabic, to better understand and arrange the songs.
Benita and Dlal had performed together in the past, and Benita knew that Dlal, a veteran oud player and performer could help her understand what Habiba was saying, and together create something more bilingual for audiences.
The two musicians, who live in neighboring northern towns, applied for and received a local grant for artists working on musical creations of all genres, which allowed them to put aside some time during the last year to work on this.
“This is therapy for us,” said Benita.
“We just work well together,” said Dlal. “It’s not my music, but I love music, it doesn’t matter what kind, I’ll play whatever comes my way.”
It helped that the two of them sort of fell in love with their muse, Habiba, born in Tunisia in 1901 to a poor Jewish family, orphaned young and raised by her aunt, a singer. Habiba broke many barriers as she rose to fame, demanding higher salaries and taking different lovers, including Jews, Muslims and Christians.
“She’s a lady who didn’t agree with anything in her time,” said Dlal. “I love women like that.”
The two performers aimed to channel Habiba’s spirit, particularly as some of Benita’s friends asked if she was sure she wanted to perform in Arabic, given the sensitivities in Israel after the October 7 Hamas terrorist attack.
“They asked me,’ Are you sure, maybe this isn’t the right time,'” said Benita, who grew up hearing Arabic spoken in her home, as the granddaughter of Tunisian immigrants. “I pushed it aside. Nobody’s saying that now, but there were voices like that months back.”
Dlal believes in continuing with life as much as possible, whether regarding work or welcoming Israelis to his village to do their shopping and get haircuts.
What helps, said Dlal, is leaving religion and politics out of the conversation.
“You need to educate your kids at home, to teach them not to be racists,” he said. “That, and learning the language of the other. You have to feel that the other person is a human like you, you sanctify the other person.”
When the two perform “Everyone’s Favorite, A Tribute to the Songs of Tunisian Diva Habiba Msika” on November 22, it will be their third time in front of an audience, having performed it at Kibbutz Lohamei Hagetaot and at the Jaffa Theater, with plans to keep performing this piece that’s come to mean so much to each of them.
“People don’t know what they’re coming to hear,” said Dlal.
One of the few visiting performers to this year’s Oud Festival is Rakesh Chaurasia, the Indian bamboo flute player who won two Grammy Awards in 2024 and is still arriving on November 23, despite several canceled flights.
“I said yes straight away because I love this country, I love the food, I love the people, I love the views,” said Chaurasia, who performed in 2018 with trumpeter Avishai Cohen. “I know what’s happening there, but if I’m invited with love and respect, I’m coming.”
Chaurasia will perform classic Indian music, rather than his usual fusion or jazz.
“I’m taking the challenge of bringing peace and harmony,” said Chaurasia, speaking from India. “Music is the only thing with no religion, no caste and no one language. So why not give it a shot.”
Jerusalem International Oud Festival, November 21-30, tickets available through the festival website.
