Yehoram Gaon Uncovers a Heartfelt Gift to a Close Friend

Singer Yehoram Gaon opens up in an interview with News 12, sharing deep and personal memories from various periods of his life as he reveals struggles, successes, and the unforgettable connections that influenced him along the way.

"The financial situation was very bad," Gaon recalls looking back at his childhood. "As kids, we didn't feel it, but today I realize that if we ate meat once a week, and if my family traveled from our neighborhood to the Mahane Yehuda market just to buy eggs because they were a few pennies cheaper, I understand how difficult it was."

Gaon also describes the influence of his education at the neighborhood high school, now known as "Leyada." "I learned here the incredible rigor with everything, not to give up on anything," he shares. "This kind of perfectionism, you know, always wanting to do better, but you’re never quite satisfied."

Additional memories touch on moments in the school synagogue where he celebrated his Bar Mitzvah. "I still feel that tremor of grabbing that candy. It was thrown straight at my head," Gaon recalls. "What I got as gifts were only books. No trips abroad, no America. Just books. From this place, this synagogue, I set out. It was the first stage where I projected my voice."

One of the hardest moments in Gaon's life was receiving the news of his father's passing. "I arrived at the base, at the command, and the sergeant was waiting for me outside. Then he tells me, 'Go, go to Jerusalem, your father has died.' It felt like the sky was falling on my head."

Despite the pain, his close friend Uri Zohar insisted he return to routine. "Uri Zohar came and said: 'You are coming back, you are coming back and you need to laugh, and you need to sing, and I won't let you stop.' That Uri didn’t give up, I'll remember that for my entire life."

After his father's death, Gaon wanted to express his gratitude to Uri. "I thought, what gift could I give him? So I said, I'll take the prayer book my father prayed with and give it to him. Then Uri asked what the book was. I told him, 'It's a prayer book.' I gave him his first siddur."

Despite rumors, Gaon clarifies that he wasn't the one who brought Uri Zohar back to religious observance: "He took the book, kept it at home. I believe that after he started returning, he went back to the book."

At the end of the interview, Gaon reminisces about his long-lasting friendship with Arik Einstein, whose paths diverged from his after their band's breakup. "Many years later, I told him, let's have a reunion, and Arik said, gladly, it would be wonderful," Gaon shared. "And that same week, he simply passed away. It didn't happen. I later wrote a sort of eulogy and told him, listen, when we meet in heaven, let's figure out what exactly happened in the 40 years we didn't talk, because we were such wonderful friends."