![]() But Jews from Yemen are generally among Israel ’s poorest citizens Haza and her family lived the slum area of Tel Aviv, a neighborhood known as Hatikva. An impoverished and for many years unstable nation at the tip of the Arabian Peninsula, at one point Yemen once banished its Jewish population to the desert Haza ’s parents were then rescued by military airlift and granted entry visas into Israel. ” Over her 20-year career, Haza became one of the most successful recording artists Israel had ever produced, and when she entered a Tel Aviv hospital in February of 2000 for an undisclosed illness, fans gathered outside to hold vigil.īorn in the late 1950s in Tel Aviv, Israel, Haza was one of nine children born to parents who had emigrated from Yemen some years before. Her music, a People reviewer once wrote, merges “the coiling quarter-tone melodies of traditional Yemenite folk music to the crisp electronics of modern dance-pop in a remarkably satisfying fusion. ![]() In 1988, she scored a massive hit with “Im Nin ’alu, ” a Yemeni prayer set to a catchy disco beat it sold more than a million copies and remained a dance-floor staple for months across Europe and North America. Haza sang in Hebrew, Arabic, and English, and her songs bridged a cultural gap in this striferidden part of the world between its Jewish, Muslim, and Christian music-lovers. The first Israeli recording artist to achieve international renown, Ofra Haza was also a phenomenon in the Middle East with the wide crossover appeal of her music.
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