Post-Oct. 7, convoy of Israeli musicians seeks audiences who want to sing along

It was a desire for unity and comfort that brought a troupe of Israeli musicians to perform a Hebraicized version of John Denver’s “Country Roads” and other standards during an Israel Independence Day celebration in May at US synagogues and community centers.

The troupe of musicians is known as HaShayara (The Convoy), and is a project from Dror Israel, an educational movement of Educators’ Communities around the country.

They’ve traveled to the US a couple of times since October 7, 2023, and will be back again this October, bringing the Israeli version of a sing-along to Jewish communities. They also plan more trips.

“It’s not a performance — it’s a convoy, a connective experience,” said Gilad Perry, one of the Hashayara organizers and director of International Partnerships and Collaborations at Dror Israel, the educational arm of Noar HaOved.

One of the songs they perform is “Country Road,” the Hebrew version, which Perry happened upon on YouTube.

It was created by October 7 survivor Noa Hubara and Erez Brickner, one of the translators behind the Facebook page One Translation, which offers Hebrew versions of well-known English songs.

Hubara’s husband, Ido Hubara, fought off the Hamas terrorists who attacked their home community of Kibbutz Sufa on October 7 until he was injured and treated by his father, a medic and ambulance driver on the kibbutz, who was unable to save his son.

Hubara wrote the Hebrew lyrics while she and her children were evacuated to Eilat, as she hoped for a way to return home to their Gaza-border community.

Now, with Hubara’s blessing, it’s part of the Hashayara playlist, along with “Coming Home,” the anthem for the hostages.

“We’re a convoy,” said Perry. “We bring people with us.”

Music and singing have long been integral to the communal and educational experience at Noar HaOved, especially for Perry, a guitarist who uses music as a means of connecting with people and drawing them out.

After October 7, the organization immediately reached out to help the evacuated kibbutz communities of the south, helping them set up temporary schools and kindergartens.

They also understood that those who had survived the Hamas terrorist attack of October 7 needed ways to recuperate, and music was one method.

Perry and some 20 fellow musicians loaded their instruments into cars and drove around Israel, visiting evacuees, soldiers, and reservists from north to south.

They sang to kindergarten kids evacuated from Kibbutz Be’eri. There, the teacher told them to avoid singing a preschool favorite that includes a line about loving parents and grandparents, which could be a trigger for children who lost family members on October 7.

They adopted an additional singer, an evacuee from Kiryat Shmona being hosted in a hotel, who sang a Shlomo Artzi song “like an angel,” said Perry.

At some point, as the events of October 7 drove a wave of antisemitism and anti-Zionism in the US, the Hashayara musicians wanted to help out there.

“It’s a message from Israelis to American Jews,” said Raz Rotem, a vocalist for Hashayara who manages the troupe that sends three groups of musicians across the US. “We receive so much from these communities, and they’re also going through something really, really hard right now.”

They worked on a playlist of songs that would resonate for the American Jewish audience, aiming for music that the audience would be able to sing, like Noa Hubara’s “Country Road.”

“There’s a sort of emotional process that the audience goes through,” said Perry, who directs the ensemble. “We talk about war and solidarity and hard things, and there are tears and laughter and dancing and a hora, and we leave on a high note.”

“It’s all very moving,” said Rotem. “There’s something that happens in singing together out loud.”

She noted the importance of having Israelis recognize American Jewish culture, recalling entering a Reform synagogue and seeing a photo from the early 1900s.

“This culture is so rich, it’s something with depth and dignity, something with richness,” she said. “And I wish we had more of that back home, too — the possibility for that.”

At the end of each performance, Hashayara asks their audiences for song requests, and has often been asked to sing Am Yisrael Chai.

“We were cynical because it’s so old school, but something happened when we sang it,” said Perry. “Now it’s in our lexicon.”

“It’s important to say yes, Am Yisrael Chai — the people of Israel live, despite all the antisemitism and the attempts to destroy us,” he said. “I believe these encounters generate hope, and that’s incredibly important. Because we won’t be able to rebuild this society without hope. It has to be part of the process.”

For upcoming performances of Hashayara, follow their Facebook page.