May 8, 2013 Newsletter:

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Lavry with Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion

“In the morning we recorded the song at the Habima performance center. The recording was interrupted by the sounds of the shelling of Tel Aviv. The explosions could be heard in the recording and that’s how the song was broadcast.”

The song became a hit and the anthem of the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces).

“One Saturday morning during the first cease-fire of the Israeli Independence War, we heard people singing Our Squad Marches at Night by our house, at 79 Gordon Street in Tel Aviv. Marc and I immediately ran to the window (we lived on the fourth floor) and saw a squad of soldiers standing on top of a flatbed truck and singing out loudly. He graciously waved to them, they waved back and disappeared” — recalled Helena Lavry, the composer’s wife.

The first broadcast of Galey Tzahal, the Israeli military radio station, on September 24, 1950 at 6:30 pm, opened with the first line of the song Kitatenu Balayla Tsoedet (Our Squad Marches at Night), which served as the station’s jingle for many years.

The Marc Lavry Heritage Society
www.marclavry.org

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