Israel identifies author of 1967 postcard to Naomi Shemer
The National Library of Israel has established that the author of a postcard to Israeli songwriter Naomi Shemer, in which he highly praised her composition “Jerusalem of Gold,” was Six-Day War veteran Aaron Bar-Oz. As The Jerusalem Post reports, the sender’s identity was determined nearly 60 years later thanks to Bar-Oz’s daughter, who recognized her father’s handwriting on the postcard displayed at the library.
A postcard from the front
The song “Jerusalem of Gold” was first performed by Israeli singer Shuli Natan on the eve of Israel’s Independence Day in 1967. Three weeks later, on June 5, the Six-Day War began.
The following day, Shemer, who was travelling to perform for military personnel in the Sinai Desert, heard on the radio that the Israel Defense Forces had regained control of Jerusalem’s Old City. She then wrote down the composition’s fourth verse in a small address book, referring to the return to the cisterns, the market and the sounds of the shofar on the Temple Mount.
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That same day, Bar-Oz wrote Shemer a postcard on behalf of a reconnaissance unit in northern Israel. He noted that the song had become part of the lives of soldiers at their positions and that the fighters sang it constantly. Bar-Oz was later wounded in fighting on the Golan Heights.
Shemer’s reply was handed over to the library
Shemer kept the postcard and replied to Bar-Oz nine days later, after the end of the war. In the letter, she congratulated him and the entire unit on the victory and said she was glad to have helped them with her song.
Bar-Oz, now 89, kept Shemer’s letter framed at home for many years. According to him, he wrote the postcard in field conditions, using another serviceman’s back as a writing surface. In mid-August, he transferred Naomi Shemer’s reply letter to the National Library of Israel for preservation, bringing together the two related archival documents.
