Songs for Israel`s Memorial Day in the Public Domain – What We Listen to and Why: Educational Perspectives

Memorial and commemoration are key components of Israeli collective identity. Memorial Day for fallen IDF soldiers is marked each year on the Hebrew date of the Fourth of Iyar and includes appropriate official, public and school memorial and commemorational events. One of the most prominent public agents of this memory and commemoration is the media, including radio stations that have become Israel`s primary and most accessible memorial sites. Their Memorial Day broadcasts have become a major force in the formation of a national identity and are of immense educational-patriotic importance.

This study explores and characterizes the praxis employed by music editors in three domains in which music plays a significant role on Memorial Day: national radio stations, school ceremonies and public events. This study claims that although the music editors in the radio stations and public events are not formal educators, patterns similar to those found amongst school teachers (goals, intention, subject matter, etc.) emerge from the music editors interviewed and they can therefore be called "educational practitioners".

This study used two methods for collecting information:

1. Analyzing broadcast playlists of Israel`s national radio stations (Kol Yisrael and Galei Tzahal) on Memorial Days from 1993 to 2013.
2. Personal interviews with 20 music editors in the three domains.

The leading songs played on national radio stations were war and memorial songs written between 1940-1980. The national radio music editors see these songs as cornerstones of Israeli culture and remembrance, and as required listening for young and older Israelis alike.

The leading songs played in school ceremonies and in public events are songs about love, longing, and separation. Here the music editors attempted to connect the younger listener to memory and commemoration through individual and personal songs.

The music editors` choices of songs on radio stations, public events and school ceremonies, reflect a praxis, i.e. the deliberate and intentional application of combined perceptions, considerations and contexts. Their decisions are designed to shape and reflect a national state of mind, as well as values and ideas that are related to Memorial Day. Unlike the formal educational setting, the praxis revealed in this study is not designed to teach content or skills, but rather to evoke a conscious emotional event that addresses questions of identity and belonging through informal music education.