Israel’s 60th Anniversary – Yom Ha’atzmaut at Radio City Music Hall
In celebration of Israel’s 60th birthday, a fabulous display of celebrities, politicians and musicians entertained a sold-out audience last night at Radio City Music Hall in Rockefeller Center.
The night began with speeches from various political figures, including Israeli ambassadors and consuls, Governor David Paterson and Mayor Michael Bloomberg. We even heard video messages from Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, and President George Bush, which was actually pretty cool. Natalie Portman then came on stage, as she was introduced as the host of the evening…what a cutie! Never heard her speak Hebrew before.
Rami Kleinstein and his orchestra opened the musical portion of the show, followed by a beat-boxing Matisyahu, who sang his hits “I Will Be Light” and “Jerusalem”. Matisyahu was surprisingly mellow, he usually jumps around like a Chasid and I expected him to be more crazy in celebration of Yom Ha’atzmaut. He became a bit more lively upon joining Idan Raichel for a duet. Idan Raichel gave a great performance, as usual. When David Broza came on (I love him - amazing guitarist) he made the right choice performing his two most well-known songs, “Banu Lechan Mitachat LaShamayim” and “Yihieh Tov”.
David Broza was followed by Paul Shaffer of David Letterman fame, who came on together with Richard Belzer, aka “Munch” from Law and Order SVU. They did some sort of odd Yiddish musical shtick, not quite sure what that was…it was strange humor which maybe we could have done without, but hey, more Jewish celebs showing their support of Israel we’ll take.
The highlight of the evening for me was Yael Naim. You probably know her song “New Soul” from the MacBook Air commercial. She has a stunning voice and can really perform! Yael sat down at the piano, and gave a rendition of Britney Spears’ Toxic. It was awesome, a slow, sensual version of the song. I guess she was making fun of Britney (?) but her version was pretty excellent. Very unexpected from a poor-English speaking Israeli Frenchwoman. Hopefully someone was able to record that performance. I did however catch the second half of “New Soul”, check it out.
May 9th, 2008 at 5:31 pm
I desire the best for her in the memory of Israel, she left that country but she has a very good reputation like a patriot when she was there vilsting the soldier wounded in the war of survival for independence of Israel, my blessing for the cause of Israel, because is are own cause. It has been 60 years battling to survive in a very blody wars when the only democracy is Israel and maybe in the near future Irak. God bless you all from a friend that know a different tirany that is in Cuba.