The sound-track of memory:: Ashes and Dust and the commemoration of the Holocaust in Israeli popular culture

The article investigates the 1988 music album Efer Veavak (in English: Ashes and Dust) that was created by Yehuda Poliker and Ya'akov Gilad, two Israeli-born children of Holocaust survivor parents. The article's findings suggest that the Holocaust story as told through Ashes and Dust emphasizes individual aspects rather than collective lessons and that there is a growing sensitivity to the issue of memory preservation. Moreover, Ashes and Dust highlights the notion that the survivors' children are now the bearers of Holocaust memory, and that it is through them that the Holocaust becomes an Israeli story about the present, rather than only a diaspora story about the past. These tendencies are amplified by the fact that Ashes and Dust is a popular cultural product. The public use of the songs through radio broadcasting has in many cases caused them to be assimilated into the mainstream and has blurred their initial identification as markers of a singular event, the Holocaust.