w Shimrit Orr, Kobi Oshrat; from הופעה חיה בקיסריה (Gali Atari in Caesarea),

It's Rosh HaShana, the Jewish New Year today (or tonight, more precisely), so here's a cut of Gali Atari's Eurovision-winning hit "Hallelujah" to kick off the High Holy Days.

Singer and actress Gali Atari (גלי עטרי) won Israel first place at the 1979 Eurovision Song Contest (held in Israel), performing "Hallelujah" as the head of Milk & Honey - Shmulik Bilu, Reuven Gvirtz, Yehuda Tamir, and Atari - an impromptu group assembled to back her up and match the orchestration of the group the song had been offered to originally (Hakol Over Habibi, who passed on it, but who would later represent Israel in Eurovision 1981). Here's a clip of the winning performance:

Now a classic, "Hallelujah" in fact lost out to another song in the selection of Israel's Eurovision entry the previous year, though Eurovision 1978 nevertheless turned out to be the first of back-to-back wins for the country with Izhar Cohen & The Alphabeta's "A-Ba-Ni-Bi" earning Israel's first-ever first place.

The version we have today comes from a 2016 concert in Caesarea. It's got more of a party air to it...and lyrically the song is one of joy and celebration. As in, milk and honey and all that, y'know?

So sit back, repent, and sound the shofar:

…which was apparently used at times as a call to arms, as is the suspiciously Jew-ish sounding Orcish blurb for this post. I suppose the Warcraft Orcs are also diasporated, although they're not the prime suspect for the franchise's Jewish stand-ins...

Anyhow, there may or may not be more holy days in this space down the road. In the meantime, shana tova, and enjoy life...

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"Nesatavo" - YouTube | Spotify