[HANASHIR:7098] singing for Israelis ?!?!?!?!?!?

[Joel <joels...>]

I just had an experience that I had to share with you all.
I was asked to sing at the Israeli shaliach in Tucson's Sukkot party, and I
was really excited about it. He asked me to sing Lu Y'hi and Bashana
Haba'ah, and that was fine, and I was ready. What never occured to me was
that I would be singing for mostly Israelis. It made me really nervous to be
singing long Hebrew songs in front of Israelis, and to make it even better,
the table they had for me to set the words on was so low that I could barely
see them.
Needless to say, it was a very stressful experience, and my friends who were
there said that they could see the weight off my shoulders and the smile on
my face every time I got to the chorus, and that it left with every verse.
It turned out being fine. Everyone enjoyed it and sang along, and the
Israelis thought it was cute to watch the funny American trying to sing in
Hebrew.
Anyway, it was fun, and I told the shaliach to give me a call any time he
needed badly pronounced Israeli music, and I really do hope to do stuff for
him again, but it was an audience that was different from Religious Schools
and camps that I wasn't quite ready for...

Joel Simon
joels (at) u(dot)arizona(dot)edu

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