Yafa Yarkoni

Yafa Yarkoni was born in 1925 in Givatayim

Yarkoni was born Yafa Abramov in southern Tel Aviv to a Mountain Jewish family from the Caucasus. When she was 8, her parents divorced and her father moved to Rhodesia. In the 1930s she moved with her mother and brother to Givat Rambam, where her mother opened a café called Tzlil and the siblings performed.

On a recommendation from Shmuel Fisher, she studied classical dance at the studio of Gertrud Kraus and also learned piano. She danced with the Kraus troupe for 12 years, until a leg injury in 1945 ended her dancing. In 1944 she married Joseph Gustin, who was killed in Italy in 1945 while serving in the Jewish Brigade.

In late 1947 she joined the Haganah as a radio operator and served in the Givati Brigade, where she began singing with its troupe. Songs she sang then, such as Ha'amini Yom Yavo and Bab al-Wad, became linked to the war.

In 1948 she recorded Green Eyes, often seen as the first Israeli pop song, and then signed with Hed Artzi. She recorded national songs, salon music and children's albums, won the Singer and Chorus Festival in 1965 and 1966, and performed abroad at venues such as Carnegie Hall and L'Olympia.

She received the Israel Prize in 1998 and recorded her final song in 2000. That year she was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. She died on January 1, 2012, and was buried in the Kiryat Shaul Cemetery.