During about half of every year Israel can get some rain.
In that winter season the wildflowers go wild!
Right now the red anemones are blooming, especially here in the Negev.
Every Israeli knows the old 1945 song about anemones, "Kalaniot" in Hebrew.
It has even been called Israel's unofficial national anthem.
You can enjoy poet Nathan Alterman's lyrics translated here.
The concluding verse says this:
Yes, generations come and pass without end
but each generation has an anemone in a tune.
Happy is the man if between storms and thunder
an anemone bloomed for him, if only just once.
Shoshana Damari, the singer with the Yemenite accent who made the song famous, even has an anemone-themed gravestone.
The standing stone has her name and the message "Anemones will always blossom."
Many admirers left the traditional stones of respect on her grave, wet because it had rained that day a month ago when I visited.
Wiki says that "Kalaniot" was sung to Shoshana Damari when she was on her deathbed in February 2006.
Listen to her, our "queen of Israeli song," (often likened to Edith Piaf), singing Kalaniot here.
From her grave this is the view of Trumpeldor Cemetery.
The first burials began in 1903.
Tel Aviv has since grown up and now surrounds the famous old cemetery.
There is no more room here; you would have to be a VERY important VIP to be honored with a plot.
For more about this fascinating old Jewish cemetery please see my earlier posts.
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(Linking to inSPIREd Sunday.)
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