24-Nov / 0 COMMENTS

I was singing for the first time at the Atrium in The Hague, in a ceremony honoring people who saved Jews during the Second World War as ‘Righteous among the nations’. I was honored to be there, and as always, was a bit emotional to be partof the event and the chance to sing in Hebrew to an audience.

I had finished singing ‘Eli Eli’ (Walk to Caesaria) by Hanna Senesh and David Zehavi. Everything went fine. Once again I managed not to cry. With a mixture of relief and thinking forward on the next song, I walked down the steps off stage. And then it happened- the thing we dread most as performers: My heal got caught in the wooden step and I lost my balance. I heard a small gasp escape the audience and felt the fear from the gaze of some people on me. The mayor of The Hague was sitting closest to the stairs. In a split second he got to his feet and came to my aid. I didn’t fall, no one hit the ground- The mayor came to the rescue.

 
The rest of the ceremony went by beautifully. I sang ‘Lechol Ish Yesh Shem’ (Every man has a name) and ‘Hachol Yizkor’ (The sand will remember). Each time both ambassador of Israel and the Mayor of The Hague helped me off stage, which added a bit of glamour to that simple action. In my head it went down a bit like the scene from ‘Gentlemen Prefer Blondes’ where Maryline Monroe sings ‘Diamonds are a girl’s best friend’ 🙂