Read this incredible narrative essay from Angelina Morin. She reflects on her experience searching for community as a newcomer to NoVA, her relationship with Ofra Haza, and the power of the question: “Who is that?”
You can hear Ofra Haza in the streets of Fairfax, Virginia—at least you can when I am the one driving down these perfectly paved and windy roads. I roll my windows down to let the air carry her voice and cool the sweat on my brow from this desolate summer.
I am obsessed with Ofra Haza. I go home and I look at pictures of her on the internet. I feel like a young girl as I think my hair curls just like hers. I read the translation of ‘Chai’ and sing to myself in Hebrew. I listen to ‘Chai’ with the windows down on a beautiful day, when I am sad and scarfing down my poor man’s attempt at Sabich, and when I am up at three am. I read her lyrics to myself until I memorize them. I search the translation for every word. All I want to do is understand her. Ofra feels like a friend and her voice is great company.
I watch her on the Eurovision stage via YouTube. She is aglow with a smile pinned from cheek to cheek, her hair high above her forehead, and a confidence resonating in her voice. I do not have to watch any other contestant; she has won my heart.
I read her Wikipedia bio. I click every hyperlink and get lost in the spiral of her rise to stardom. “The Madonna of the Middle East” was loved internationally. In the latter half of her Wiki, her life is divided in this order: marriage, death, and legacy.
I have no Jewish friends in Fairfax, in the DMV. It is not out of a lack of trying. I have made plenty of friends here but, not-so-shockingly, none of them turn out to be Jewish. I attend Shabbat in DC and all anyone can ask me is about how bad the commute was and what I am doing around here so far from Fairfax? Admitting it took me forty minutes via metro to get to the synagogue feels desperate when I say it out loud. The truth is, I am desperate. I, too, would live in DC, immerse myself in its Jewish community weekly, and sweat in the city’s July heat if I could. But I can’t. So, I am here in Fairfax calling out to Ofra. When she sings, I pretend she is calling back.
On any given evening, in the midst of my glorious twenties, I am on the floor of my bedroom staring into Ofra Haza fan art and old vinyl. I am adding them to my internet shopping carts that total to a number I cannot afford. I am planning to print her out in my college library. I am going to drain the machines of their ink just to draw Magen Davids and hearts around her. I am scheming to get away with recreationally using the school lamenter just to seal her in shiny plastic to immortalize her on a wall in my bedroom.
I admit that sometimes I am not in the mood for Ofra or even my reliable cool girl Jewish / Hebrew pop. So, I sift Spotify’s music suggestions for me. There I see Omer Adam. I know of him already. He is not my favorite (please, forgive me for this) but he was born in North Carolina, my home state. I feel obliged to listen to his hits. I tire of them. I wish I had something, someone more human than an algorithm to tell me who to listen to next.
When all else fails there is always Agam. I drive around Fairfax with my windows down to let the pedestrians get a taste of Agam Buhbut. She is so cool girl. She is so Hebrew pop. “Love her like I do,” I tell the ravens and the pedestrians, with a gentle touch to the volume. As if they would wave me down. As if they would stop me, winded from their brief chase of my car, to ask me “Who is that?”
I come to a stop at a traffic light and change the song. “Didn’t like that one?” I shout from my car window. “You have to listen to Lihi Toledano or maybe Yael Selinger!” I queue them up. The light is green, but I do not see it change. My eyes stick to the pedestrians as the music rises from my speakers. But it is only the honking cars behind me who respond.
If I ever meet Riff Cohen, another Jewish Israeli artist, I hope she has not read this. I am parasocially in love with her (but if she is reading this, I could move past these feelings to gladly just be friends). I love her and her French, and her drums, and her beauty and her Jewess pride. Who can I tell about Riff Cohen? When my goy friend gets in the car, I play Riff Cohen loudly and hope she asks about her. She says, “Is this French?” and then “This is the kind of music my brother would like.” My love for this friend grows and I want to exclaim, She’s Jewish! but I do not think she would understand my excitement. It matters to me that Ofra, Agam, Lihi, Yael, and Riff all share this with me but I can’t quite say why. So instead, I smile and play Ofra. My friend does not ask about her.
Hey Alma loves to tell us who’s Jewish. I sigh and think does it really matter as I swipe through all ten slides on Instagram. As I dance in my tiny and mercilessly hot bedroom to Hebrew music. As I pick up my hairbrush, embedded with my inheritance of my great grandmother’s Ashkenazi curls, to belt ‘Mehapeset Derech’ into it. As I call out from my bedroom to Ofra, always, but also to someone unknown, a friend I have not met, in hopes that they might know every word too.
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