Session 1: Resource 3

Click here to listen to the Miri Ben Ari interview about Adom Olam Ad Matai:


Miri Ben Ari (MBA): I’m here on a visit to the home land, on a really big campaign that I’m launching in Israel and in the Diaspora. As you know I’m working on something really special that’s connected to the Shoa, to “Holocaust Awareness” I don’t know if you guys know this but, 50% of kids in the US, who study in school, have no idea what the Shoa is.
Liron Tani (LT): Listen, 50% of kids in the US don’t know how to tie their shoes by themselves.
MBA: That’s not true. They definitely know how to tie their shoes, better then anyone else.
LT: Of course, they have Velcro!
MBA: But shoes don’t interest me! But I am interested because it (The Shoah) is connected to US and our history and to the land of Israel. You know there are so many songs that are about slavery in the US, but here are no songs about us, and our history.
LT: There is a song, and it’s horrible, the song “Never Again” By what’s his name, mini me? Wait what’s his name…Remedy.
MBA:You don’t love that song?
LT: It’s horrible!
MBA: You know I’ve never heard it.
LT: You’re lucky If you heard it, your ears would bleed.
MBA: That’s not right! I have to give credit to anyone who has the courage to write about this topic, because the Shoa is something no one wants to even touch.
LT: That’s not true!
MBA: Not the artists, not the young artists, you don’t see anything on MTV or VH1 about the Shoah…please!
LT: But maybe we don’t need The Shoah on VH1 or on MTV
MBA: But that’s exactly the problem, because of that the youth don’t know anything. They have to know what happened in history, just like the blacks talk about what happened to them.
LT: I’ll explain it to you differently. Everyone needs to know about the Shoah, but I don’t want to learn about The Shoah from a music video. With girls dancing in bikinis
MBA: Excuse me! So you don’t have to pay attention to that.
LT: The minute you live in Israel, you live The Shoah, every day.
MBA: That’s true
LT: Everyday!
MBA: Buuuuut, that’s not true, you know, the youth aren’t connected to the Shoah ceremonies, and the Museum of the Shoah, it doesn’t work!
Interview transcript with Israeli musician Miri Ben Ari by radio host Liron Tani on Galgalaz Radio, April 2007.
Transcribed and translated by Charlie Schwartz