Dudu Fisher sings a song from the 1964 film Sallach Shabati, a musical comedy about the early years of immigration to Israel, when new arrivals lived in ma'abarot - transit camps serived by tents or shacks, and endured physical privation. Often, their dreams about the Land of Israel were vastly different from the rough pioneering spirit and conditions that they faced. Sallach Shabati placed Ephraim Kishon and Menachem Golan on the film-making map. The title of the movie is a play on the Hebrew words "slicha shebati" -- sorry that I came.
Join in, and sing along!
"What am I doing here - I have no idea.
What is this here anyway, I ask.
From all sides I hear,
Sallah, this is The Land of Israel.
This is the Land of Israel, Sallah,
here was where King David lived,
here you'll live too, by the will of Allah,
in the land of Zion, as God promised."
Ach ya rab, ya rab, [Oh, dear God]
ach ya weil, ya weil -
where, oh where, oh where is
the Land of Israel?
How could we have left our home there
and put everything into a suitcase?
How could they speak to us of olive oil,
and 'If you will it, it's no legend'?
We came just like the Exodus from Egypt:
the kids, the luggage, my wife,
[All going at me] from morn to noon.
We even crossed the sea of DDT.
Ach ya rab...
They took me by ship,
They took me away, and took me here.
They gave us a bed, a kerosene cookstove,
A torn blanket, and a table.
They took me, my little doll,
Gave me a tin shack.
They took me away, took me;
When will I also get to take?
Ach ya rab...
How we saw the era of the Messiah,
how we heard the call of the Shofar…
How we said, God is watching over (us),
[we] won't want for anything here.
Instead of the Messiah, I came
and now there's no-one to help (us).
There's no Messiah, just Sallah Shabbati,
who uses his back (for loads), like a donkey.
Ach ya rab....
