Naomi Shemer

Naomi Shemer was born in 1930 in Kvutzat Kinneret

Naomi Shemer was born Naomi Sapir in 1930 at Kvutzat Kinneret, a kibbutz her parents Rivka and Meir Sapir helped found. In 1935 she and her mother visited relatives in Vilnius, many of whom were later killed in the Holocaust. She began playing the piano at age 6 with her mother's encouragement.

After high school she delayed her army service to study music, despite objections from some kibbutz members. She studied at the Israeli Conservatory in Tel Aviv and then at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance, with teachers including Paul Ben-Haim and Josef Tal. Back at Kinneret she taught music to children and wrote her first songs.

In 1951 she joined the IDF and served as a pianist with a Nahal troupe. She married actor Gideon Shemer in 1954, and they had a daughter, Lali. After her service she wrote for theater, for the band Batzal Yarok and for military ensembles, and her 1957 song for Batzal Yarok became her first hit.

In 1964 she wrote songs for the Yarkon Bridge Trio and Hebrew versions of French songs in Paris. In 1966 she founded the quartet The Shemer Sisters. In 1967 she wrote "Jerusalem of Gold" for a song festival, and after the Six-Day War it became a kind of second anthem.

She published her first book of songs in 1968 and toured the United States and Canada. She received the Israel Prize in 1983. She died in 2004.