Shye Ben Tzur performs Hebrew qawwali at Kamani auditorium in Delhi

HATKE QAWWALI: Delhiites recently witnessed an evening of good old qawwali with an unusual twist, when Israeli artist Shye Ben Tzur performed at Kamani auditorium recently.
Though the performance had all the elements of a traditional qawwali performance, what struck a chord with the audience was the fact the songs were in Hebrew as opposed to the usual Persian and Urdu renditions of the genre.As Shye, who has received training in Indian classical music, enthralled the audience, swaying his head to the beats, the crowd too joined in and clapped along in tempo.
A TALE OF TWO COUNTRIES: “Israel has a very diverse culture as there are so many people from so many different countries residing there – people from Russia, Brazil, Africa, European countries, etc. But people there don’t know much about India. We hold cultural performances every month across India as we want people in India to know more about our country,” said Chana Anzi, cultural head of the embassy of Israel.
Organized in the memory of Israeli-American Daniel Pearl, a journalist who was killed in Pakistan, the event saw Daniel Carmon, ambassador of Israel to India, who was also present at the do, speaking about the importance of bilateral ties between countries. He said, “Culture is really important for the bilateral relationship between two countries, as it shows that we all have something in common. For example, Shye’s rendition of qawwali in Hebrew.
We, in Israel, have a lot to learn about the Indian culture and we hope there are Indian cultural programmes held in Israel.” Chana also spoke about her recent trip to the northeast. “I recently went to Shillong for a music performance. I had heard so much about how the people there are so into music, but it was only when I went there that I realised how true that was. Every single person over there knew so much about so many genres of music. And they were all musicians! I was amazed.”
Beatrix Lorenzo Didic, counsellor, embassy of Spain, Ditza Froim, minister counsellor, embassy of Israel, Bharat Mitra, MP Dinesh Trivedi, Pratibha Prahlad and Dinkar Asthana, deputy director general, ICCR, were also spotted at the do. Suzanne from Australia, who was wearing a kurta, told us, “It’s nice to see the fusion of the Indian and Israeli cultures. I came especially for it and I loved it.”