No one these days sings melancholy acoustic songs quite like Rona Kenan. In this episode of “Song of Hope,” the singer-songwriter chose to perform “Shuvi LeBeitech” (“Return to Your Home”) by Dahlia Ravikovitch and Shem Tov Levi. Kenan talks about the new meanings that the song took on given the struggle for the return of the hostages. During the war, Kenan was reaffirmed in her belief that music can be a lifeline. “I draw comfort from sad songs, from songs in which hope peeks out through the cracks,” she says. “I prefer to be told the truth, and the truth is bitter now, hope always comes with pain. There is no ‘happy ending’ moment here.”
“Shuvi LeBeitech” was written by Dahlia Ravikovitch (1936-2005) – winner of the Israel Prize for poetry, and one of the most important female poets in the history of Hebrew literature. Many of her poems have been set to music throughout the years, but this song stands out as it was initially written to music – to a melody that Shem Tov Levi had previously composed. The fact that Kenan chose to turn to Ravikovitch’s poetic words is not surprising. Kenan herself comes from a literary home, being the daughter of the late Israeli playwright and novelist Amos Kenan and writer and researcher of Israeli literature Nurith Gertz.
Shem Tov Levi composed the tune in the early 1970s, and once the melody was put together with Ravikovitch’s wonderful lyrics and performed by Levi, the song appeared on his second solo album, released in 1981. In 1984, Chava Alberstein performed a famous cover version of it, and since then the song has received many varied renditions.
October 7 has made quite a few of the songs in the Hebrew canon more relevant than ever. Ben Shalev, music critic for “Haaretz”, wrote in November 2023 that ”no other song touches so deeply and wholly on the entire spectrum of emotions invoked by the tragedy of the hostages.” And indeed, “Shuvi LeBeitech” sounds as if it was written precisely for this moment, for this painful and difficult moment.
The subject of its lyrics is a young girl, a “wounded bird”, whom the song calls to come home. It is a dark and somber song that expresses deep longing. The return home is, of course, at the heart of all of our pain since October 7, and as Kenan explains so beautifully, it is not only a longing for the hostages to return home safely, but also the desire for the home itself to return. The boundaries of home were breached on October 7, and they must be restored.
However, “Shuvi LeBeitech” is also a hopeful song. Its last stanza talks of a faint hope. A crack of dawn through which a murky, thin ray of light enters. It’s a faint hope, but hope nonetheless.
