Ilana Rovina

Ilana Rovina was born in 1934 in Tel Aviv

Ilana Rovina was born in 1934, the daughter of actress Hanna Rovina and poet Alexander Penn. Her parents never married, and she spent parts of her childhood with a foster family and on Kibbutz Geva. Songwriter Zrubavela Sasonkin was her older half-sister.

She left high school without finishing and joined the army, where she served as an officer. Afterward she studied classical singing in Milan and worked as a model.

Back in Israel she had hits such as "The Road Song" and "Irises" and formed a duo with Arik Einstein. She acted in the film I Like Mike and placed second at the Sopot festival in 1963. In 1970 she won the Hasidic Song Festival with "Yevarechecha".

She performed at the Olympia in Paris in 1965 and recorded songs in French. During the Yom Kippur War she entertained Israeli troops with other musicians.

She married four times, including to Uri Zohar and to businessman Gurion Weissman, with whom she had a daughter, Maya. She died in Tel Aviv in 2020.