July 13, 1941
Singer, songwriter and media personality Ehud Manor is born to Russian immigrant parents in Binyamina.
A graduate of the University of Cambridge, Manor composes about 1,200 songs and translates 600 others into Hebrew. He also translates many Broadway musicals, including “Hair,” “Les Miserables” and “Chicago,” and such Shakespearean plays as “Romeo and Juliet” and “Twelfth Night.” He hosts television and radio programs and writes children’s books.
Many of his early songs carry a message of peace. In 1968, he writes “Next Year” to express his joy at Israel’s victory in the June 1967 war, but his sadness after his brother’s death in the War of Attrition leads him to write “My Younger Brother Yehuda.” His beloved “Ein Li Eretz Acheret” (“I Have No Other Country”) expresses the divisions in Israel during the First Lebanon War. His “A-Ba-Ni-Bi” wins international fans after Izhar Cohen & the Alphabeta win the 1978 Eurovision Song Contest for Israel with the song. His best-known song is “Bashana Haba’ah” (“In the Coming Year”). Manor is awarded the Israel Prize in 1998 for his contributions to Israeli music.
He dies of a heart attack at age 64 in April 2005. A few months later, a Yedioth Ahronoth online poll ranks him as the third-greatest Israeli ever.