Israeli Folk Music

Israeli folk music, the shirei eretz Yisrael tradition of songs of the Land of Israel, is the songbook created for the Jewish settlement of Palestine and the early state: communal songs of landscape, labour, love and nation-building by writers such as *Naomi Shemer*, sung by *Shoshana Damari*, *Yehoram Gaon* and the kibbutz choirs. Accordion, guitar and simple choral arrangements mark the classic sound, and the repertoire, from "Jerusalem of Gold" to the songs of *Arik Einstein*'s early albums, remains the shared canon of Hebrew culture.