"Dance"- A Plea to a Nova Victim

A Song in Translation

I first published this song this past spring on Israel's Memorial Day for Fallen Soldiers and Victims of Hostile Acts.

As the name suggests, Israel’s Memorial Day, probably unlike any other country in the word, honors not only fallen soldiers but also those murdered in terrorist attacks. As of this past Memorial Day, despite then seven months of fighting an ongoing war, the number of civilians who died that year actually outnumbered the number of soldiers (though both tallies are heartbreakingly high). Almost all fell in one hideous, prolonged attack on October 7th at the Nova Festival and neighboring kibbutzim near the Gaza border, and the dead can't be counted in multiples of 10 as was the case even in the worst years of the intifada, but rather in hundreds.

It wasn't easy to choose which song to translate in honor of this day. There are just so many written in the wake of October 7th. I chose to create a translation of Osher Cohen’s song “Dance” that addresses, almost intimately, a Nova victim. It touched me deeply, both because of the power of its lyrics-- pleading for its subject to escape, and trusting that even though she might not have, she is now dancing above-- but also the poignancy of the visual. I have broken from my norm and used the artist's actual video. I couldn't not, as this clip at 5 minutes long (a minute-and-a-half longer than most music videos) lists, one after the next, the names of every victim of the October 7th attack. I presume three-and-a-half minutes simply didn't give the video's creators enough space for all of the names.

In Cohen's own words, the song is "dedicated to my sisters and brothers who were murdered in cold blood. To my sisters and brothers who were burned while alive, breathing the smell of death. To my sisters and brothers who were taken captive and are waiting for us to bring them home. This song is dedicated to my sisters and brothers who survived the inferno but not the reality following it. To my sisters and brothers who are still fighting for our home."

I, too, dedicate to all those our people have lost since October 7th, and in prayer for the return of all of our hostages.

(A note to the viewer unfamiliar with Hebrew: What you are seeing in the video is an ongoing list of names of all those who fell on October 7th- each vertical line distinguishes one name from the next; the letters ז''ל following each name mean "May his/her memory be a blessing.")

Words and Melody: Osher Cohen and Nadav Navi Aharoni