Recommended Recordings in Israel

The Oranim Zabar Troupe featuring Geula Gill orchestrated and performed many of the classic 1950s and 1960s Israeli songs that are known to Israeli folk dancers around the world. Look for "Shalom!" "Hora," and "On the Road to Eilat," all originally Electra recordings. This music, like Israel itself, was a synthesis of old and new traditions.

For the truly authentic stuff, look up ethnomusicologist Deben Bhattacharya's four-record collection of traditional Israeli musicians from Morocco, Uzbekistan, Bukhara, Yemen, and other lands.

Israeli popular music reflects a lively, unusual blend of Western and Middle Eastern styles and sensibilities. Among Israel's all-time favorites to look for are Ethnix, a group that puts its own spin on Western dance rock; Zehava Ben, a wildly popular singer of Jewish-Moroccan ancestry; the legendary Ofra Haza, one of the first Israeli singers to break into the international market, with a repertoire that included both traditional Yemenite songs and rearrangements of these pieces into disco; and Yehuda Poliker, the son of a Holocaust survivor from the Greek community of Salonika, whose bestselling Enayim Sheli (My Eyes) opened the door to Hebrew interpretation and rendition of Greek music. Finally, of special interest to Westerners is Achinoam Nini (known as Noa outside of Israel), who grew up in the United States and has returned to Israel to dazzle her homeland with her extraordinarily pure voice. Her original songs and renditions of classics range from witty to dramatic and reflect lively New York, English-language, Yemenite-Israeli sensibilities that are absolutely dynamite.