John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s “Bed-in,” the couple’s protest against wars at the Amsterdam Hilton Hotel during the Vietnam War, remains one of the most iconic cultural moments of the 20th century.
But did you know it also made history as the first and only time John Lennon was recorded singing in Hebrew?
It all took place in 1969, when a then fairly anonymous Israeli graduate student made it to the couple’s action and brought with him, transliterated into English characters, two lines from a song he had written for the Shir Mizmor Choir of the IDF’s Chief Rabbinate.
The song was titled “An Oath to Jerusalem,” and its writer and composer, Akiva Nof, would go on to pen quite a few more iconic Israeli tunes and even become a Knesset member. And the lines he gave John and Yoko to sing were: “יְרוּשָׁלַיִם, נִשְׁבַּעְנוּ כֻּלָּם — לֹא נַפְקִירֵךְ עוֹד מִכָּאן עַד עולָם.” “Yerushalayim nishbanu kulam/Lo nafkirech od mi’kan ad olam” — which translates roughly to “Jerusalem, we all swore an oath/We won’t abandon you, forevermore.”
Nof taught Lennon and Ono the song, and you can hear the two sing the two lines with a guitar strumming in the background, after Lennon introduces them with “this is the voice of Lennon for the Voice of Israel:”
Rabbi Yael Buechler, who runs the Judaica brand Midrash Manicures, is related to Nof — he’s her grandfather’s first cousin. On a recent visit to Israel, she interviewed him about his encounter with Ono and Lennon, which later became the inspiration for a critically acclaimed play titled “Double Fantasy.”
Nof told Buechler that he simply had the chutzpah to knock on the door where he knew the couple was staging their bed-in, and when a man who cracked the door open asked him who he was, he yelled that he was from the Voice of Israel loud enough for Lennon to hear, and the Beatles singer beckoned Nof to come in.
“This is the only time that John Lennon sings in Hebrew, so of course it was really exciting,” Nof told Buechler.
Before he sang the Hebrew lyrics, Lennon also sang into Nof’s tape recorder a sample of “I Want You,” a song that hadn’t yet been released, and then sang “Hello Israel” to the song’s tune. Nof was scared that his recording would get confiscated because it contained a sample from a song that hadn’t yet seen the light of day, but he did manage to keep it. Yair Lapid, who would briefly become Israel’s caretaker prime minister and who is the current leader of the opposition, once said that it was one of the most moving things he’s ever heard.
“Growing up, I always knew Cousin Akiva had spent time with John Lennon, but I didn’t fully appreciate the significance of that moment — or of John Lennon singing two lines in Hebrew until I heard the full story from him on this trip,” Buechler told Kveller over e-mail.
It’s definitely one of the most kvell-worthy moments from Lennon and Ono’s Bed-in, in which Ono infamously said that “if I was a Jewish girl in Hitler’s day,” Yoko replied, “I would approach him and become his girlfriend. After 10 days in bed, he would come to my way of thinking. This world needs communication. And making love is a great way of communicating.” Oof.
As for Lennon, he never made it to Israel. The Beatles were meant to perform in the country in 1964, but the Israeli government refused to let them in due to concerns that the band could have a “negative influence on youth.” What a shame!
Still, Lennon and Ono’s song, “Give Peace a Chance,” first sung during that famous Bed-in, was performed on stage in Tel Aviv in 2008 by none other than his former “Beatles” bandmate Paul McCartney, who has been married to not one, but two, Jewish women.
“I’ve come to spread the word of peace, to Palestinians as well as to Israelis,” McCartney shared in an interview about that concert.
Nof would go on to have a prolific career as a lawyer, politician and songwriter.
“When I learned songs connected to Israel in Jewish day school, I remember thinking it was especially cool that Cousin Akiva composed and performed the song ‘Sisu Et Yerushalayim,’“ Buechler shared with Kveller.
He also wrote the song “Mayim Le’David HaMelech” — “Water for King David,” which remains one of my favorite classic Hebrew songs:
And yet, despite all his great achievements, it’ll be hard to ever surpass getting John Lennon himself to sing in Hebrew, thanks to just the right dose of chutzpah.
