Yehuda Poliker

My friend Liz from the "My So-Called Israeli Life" blog pointed me to Yehuda Poliker, an Israeli singer-songwriter of Greek-Jewish decent. He's put out half a dozen or so albums and numerous collaborations. Great stuff. The track I'm particularly taken with is called "Sipur Zmanim Avaru" of his "Live at Caesaria" album. The video below, a collaboration with Israeli singer Arik Einstein is the title song from the Greek film "To Rembetiko" by Kostas Ferris.

Arik Einstein & Yehuda Poliker - Rebetiko (Shir hashayara )
Yehuda Poliker

This comment from the ShmorgelBorgel on the YouTube message board provides a bit more information about the video

"Yehuda Poliker,the bezouki player on this song,is an Israeli of Greek-Jewish heritage (his parents immigrated to Israel from Salonika after being deported to Poland & surviving the death camps).The Heb.lyrics of the song were by Eli Mohar, I believe, a great Israeli songwriter-it's a patriotic song about Jews coming to Israel-but one can't help wondering if it's a bit tongue in cheek too,a homage to the propaganda type songs of an earlier generation."

Thanks to Liz for pointing me to Poliker, Athens70 for posting the video, and ShmorgelBorgel for the comments.