About

When Jews start talking about themselves, the words “thousands of years” can’t be far away. Also “suffering.” We’re good at that too. But perhaps we don’t often enough stop to appreciate our joys and triumphs; what we do and what we make. How we touch the world and make it laugh and sing. AbbaNibi.com taps into what Jewish media are talking about in contemporary culture, entertainment, and leisure around the world.

AbbaNibi.com is a blog for people who want to feel connected to Israel and Judaism through culture, rather than through politics.

Working on a daily basis, the AbbaNibi newswire showcases the biggest headlines and special interest features, that have to do with entertainment and culture, as well as lifestyle and leisure, all revolving around both Israeli and Jewish-American public figures worldwide. The idea is to highlight the artistic and evolving media that comes out of Israel as well as Jewish entertainers working throughout the industry, and the contribution of our community to the world.

Each week on AbbaNibi, we will “Spotlight” Israeli talent – an artist who has had a tremendous impact in Israel and whom we know Americans and Europeans will love to get to know. Come browse through the artists we highlighted here, discover their work, read their bio. In short, get familiar with yet another aspiring face of Israel.

To our friends in the Israeli Entertainment Community: Our Artist Page is an editorial passport for Israeli artists to use wherever they want, in order to be properly presented within the English-speaking world. If you’d like to be featured with an Artist Page on AbbaNibi, please email us and let us know.

Finally, please subscribe for our Daily Top 5 (on your right) to get a short email that concludes the top stories of the day. All the goodies from our web site – straight to your mailbox, less than a minute of reading, to be the most updated about the Jewish/Israeli happenings. As we say in Israel, “The mountain comes to Moses.”

Meaning of the name

“AbbaNibi.com” is named after a famous Israeli song from 1978, entitled “A-BA-Ni-Bi.” The song symbolized a moment in time for the State of Israel: a moment when Israel – and some might say, the Jews overall – went beyond a desperate struggle for survival, to an era of celebration, our own form of popular culture, and a lightness and joy millennia lost. This song, “A-BA-Ni-Bi” which was written by Ehud Manor and Nurit Hirsch and performed by Izhar Cohen, not only became one of the biggest hits ever in Israel, but also represented the country in the Eurovision Song Contest, and was the first song from Israel to ever win the contest.

The song talks about love in the eyes of little kids, who are too embarrassed to say “I Love You,” so they say it in a self-invented language, “the language of the B,” where the words of the chorus, “A-BA-NI-BI O-BO-HE-BEV O-BO-TA-BACH” actually mean, in Hebrew, “Ani Ohev Otach” (“I Love You”).

This site, “AbbaNibi.com,” is a reflection of a joyous song of love to our own culture.