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How an Israeli TikToker’s little-known song became the soundtrack to emotional wartime reunions
(JTA) — An Israeli reservist on leave from the war in Gaza sneaks back into his house in the middle of the night to surprise his wife and sons. Another opens the door of his daughter’s preschool classroom and steps inside. Another stands behind his mother’s desk at work, waiting for her to turn and see him.
In each video, and hundreds of others just like them, a Hebrew song with the lyrics “Good days will come…” builds to its crescendo as the soldier’s family falls upon him.
The song seems tailor-made as an anthem for the emotional reunions that are providing Israelis a rare spark of hope at a grim time. “Even in the darkest hours of the night, there will always be a small star that will shine for you, for yourself and the way home,” the singer croons. “It’s always darkest before the sunrise.”
Yet the singer, Yagel Oshri, didn’t write the song for the war that the soldiers have been called to fight, which began Oct. 7 when Hamas attacked southern Israel, killing 1,200 and taking hundreds of hostages. “Two years ago I wrote the first version — not even from my personal perspective,” says Oshri, 23. His friend was depressed because her boyfriend dumped her, so he was trying to tell her, “Just smile, it’s all OK.”
היה געגוע
Few people heard the song since, even as Oshri became one of Israel’s rising stars on TikTok. As the driving force behind the Oshri Family account, Oshri accumulated followers with his made-for-social-media humor, often involving his two younger brothers and mother in videos made in the family home in Moshav Elikhin in central Israel. But behind the scenes, he was struggling in a way that changed the way he thought about his song.
“When I went through a depression, I realized you can’t just smile and get over it,” he said. So six months ago, he went to hit-making musician Offir Cohen’s studio and played him the first four lines of the revised song: “The family, friends, maybe going out/deep profound conversations late at night/dealing with change, old habits/the soul is at war with karma…”
Cohen told him to drop everything and the two went to the studio with a guitar and within “seven minutes” finished the song — lyrics, melody and all. “It flowed like a river,” Oshri recalls. They released the song on Aug. 15.
Galgalatz, the premier pop radio station in Israel, rejected it for their weekly playlist. “Maybe they just didn’t get it, they didn’t understand the heaviness,” Oshri says, with no bitterness. He uploaded the song to Apple Music, Spotify and, of course, TikTok instead.
There, “Getting over Depression” gained a small following. In late August, a clip Oshri posted on TikTok of himself playing on a keyboard with his brother at his side garnered dozens of supportive comments. By the end of September, he posted a duet in tribute to what he said was being tagged 1,000 times on the platform.
But nothing could have prepared him for what happened after Oct. 7. Like so many other Israelis, he was personally affected by the attack when his brother’s partner, 22-year-old Kim Dukarker, was killed along with hundreds of others at the Nova music festival. And like so many others, he sprang into action, giving back however he could — by performing for families evacuated from danger zones and soldiers called up as part of the biggest mobilization in Israel’s history.
Between the live shows and the ability of users on Instagram and TikTok to add favorite songs as soundtracks to their clips, “Getting over Depression” soon became ubiquitous — particularly when soldiers used it as a soundtrack to their surprise visits home.
Now, Israelis can’t get away from the song. It’s looping endlessly on the radio, including on Galgalatz — “I’m happy they get it now,” Oshri said — and in countless social media videos. Entire army units have sung along to the song. There’s even a spoof of a reservist trying to escape it, and TikTok videos of American Jewish musicians, like Orthodox singer Aryeh Kuntzler, performing it.
מקדישים לכם את השיר בתוך לב עזה! צה״ל חזק #צהל #עזה #israel
The song has streamed more than 3.5 million times on Spotify, making Oshri the second-most listened-to Israeli artist, and has been used on 17,000 TikTok videos, mostly of reunions. A prominent TV presenter shared the music set against clips of just-freed hostages, including 9-year-old Ohad Munder running through a hospital corridor to hug his family. That video got over 1 million views.
“I feel like God gave me a mission, to make people happy with this song,” Oshri says. “It’s a happy song. I think that Israel, in its DNA, is a happy nation. We like to say ‘Am Yisrael Chai,’” or the Jewish people live, a traditional phrase that itself has been renewed in a wartime song released Oct. 19, by Eyal Golan. “We like to say, ‘There will be good days to come.’”
Oshri’s song joins in a long tradition of Israeli songs giving hope at tenuous moments, including the classic “Yihiye Tov,” or “Things Will Get Better,” which a 22-year-old David Broza wrote with poet Yonatan Geffen in 1977 on the eve of peace negotiations with Egypt.
With every war, a few songs capture the public’s imagination. In 1967, “We Shall Pass,” by Yehiel Mohar and Moshe Wilensky, was written to raise the morale of the country. Even more iconic was Naomi Shemer’s “Jerusalem of Gold,” written only three weeks before the war — and to which she added a new verse when Israel took control of East Jerusalem.
Sometimes singers become synonymous with wars. Yehoram Gaon, who sang “The Last War” in 1973 for the troops during the Yom Kippur War (“I promise you little girl, this will be the last war…”) is now back with a new version of his 1984 patriotic battle cry, “You Won’t Beat Us,” whose video features flag-waving soldiers and rumbling tanks.
“Music can produce shared allegiances and feelings of unity. In times of extreme crisis, people turn to the music that they most need as an attempt to stabilize their emotions [so they can] continue and persist,” says Murray Forman, professor of Media & Screen Studies at Northeastern University in Boston. After 9/11 he wrote the analysis “Soundtrack to a Crisis: Music Context, Discourse,” in the journal Television and New Media.
“Music has acquired new significance in relation to the atrocities of the terrorist actions,” he wrote then. But what he didn’t consider 20 years ago was that “along with the music of peace and healing and mourning and patriotically infused anger and nationalistic chauvinism (which each proliferated in the U.S. after 9-11 and probably does in other such circumstances), there might also be music of fear and dread and even celebration, depending on what communities we’re talking about,” he said.
Yagel Oshri meets and sings with the family of Raz Ben Ami, bottom right, who was released the day before as part of deal between Hamas and Israel. Her husband Husband Ohad remains captive in Gaza. (Courtesy Yagel Oshri)
“Maybe one thing is for all sides to try to listen closely to the music each other is creating and listening to.”
A number of English-language songs have also been adopted to epitomize the war. Skylar Grey’s “I’m Coming Home,” which has been used as a soundtrack for many American soldiers’ homecomings, was recently adapted in honor of the hostages still held in Gaza. Shiri Maimon sings it in a video featuring a display in Jerusalem of 240 beams of light, each representing a hostage. On Nov. 6, hundreds of the hostages’ family members gathered at Tel Aviv’s Cameri Theatre to record a version of Madonna’s “Like a Prayer,” in an event produced by Ben Yefet, who conducts Israel’s popular Koolulam singalongs.
Yet for many American Jews, Israeli anthems are a way for them to connect to the country. Yael Weinman, a lawyer from Washington, D.C., started creating shareable Spotify playlists that she called “Do Not Despair” when the war started. It included pop songs like “Out of the Depths” by Idan Reichl, “Chai” by Ofra Haza and “Hurts but Less” by Yehuda Poliker.
“For me, being in America and being so far away physically from Israel right now, it’s a way to feel closer to Israel at a time when being so disconnected is so painful,” said Weinman. She said it’s hard for many people like her not to be there. “Listening to the music is a way to feel more connected,” she says. “It’s comforting for me to listen to songs in Hebrew — it’s a way to feel comforted and not to despair.”
Oshri has been busy since the war pushed his song into the spotlight. In addition to working on new music that he hopes will bring comfort to his nation at war, he has played over 90 performances since the war started — at army bases, for wounded soldiers, for evacuated families, at funerals.
“I just sang for a kidnapped woman that was released,” Oshri says in the car from Israel, referring to Raz Ben Ami, who was released by Hamas on Nov. 29. Her husband Ohad remains captive in Gaza.
On Sunday, Oshri announced that he would begin selling jewelry with lines from his now-iconic song etched in his handwriting, with the proceeds to benefit the Israeli army.
Oshroi told JTA that every time he sings the song, in his heart he dedicates it to Dukarker. But he says he knows “Getting Over Depression” doesn’t belong to him any more. “It’s Israel’s song,” he said. “It’s the song our nation has chosen to listen to.”
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Georgetown University Postpones Passover BDS Vote Following Outcry
In Washington, DC, on March 23, 2025, a group of Georgetown University students and community leaders protest. Photo: Andrew Thomas via Reuters Connect.
Georgetown University’s student government has rescheduled an anti-Israel boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) referendum that it initially scheduled to take place during the Passover holiday following outcry from Jewish students, who argued the original timing effectively disenfranchised them by depriving them of a chance to express opposition to the measure at the ballot box.
As previously reported, the Georgetown University Student Association’s (GUSA) senators voted via secret ballot for a resolution to hold the referendum — which will ask students to decide whether they “support … divesting from companies arming Israel and ending university partnerships with Israeli institutions” — on April 14-16. The move outraged Jewish students, as well as GUSA senators who deplored the body’s passing the measure by allegedly illicit means.
“This referendum, cloaked in the language of human rights, represents not only a troubling overstep into Georgetown’s academic and fiduciary independence but also a campaign rooted in the discriminatory logic of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement,” said a letter the university’s chapter of Students Supporting Israel (SSI) sent to university president Robert Groves. “The passage of this measure would not occur in isolation. It would embolden future efforts to marginalize Jewish and Israeli students, deepen campus polarization, and risk fueling the disturbing rise in antisemitism seen at other institutions. Universities that have permitted such one-sided campaigns are now facing not only fractured communities and repetitional harm but growing federal scrutiny — including potential impacts to public funding.”
GUSA said on Monday that it moved the referendum date, issuing a statement which acknowledged concerns raised by SSI, as well as Chabad Georgetown, Georgetown Israel Alliance, and the Jewish Student Association.
“We made this decision after hearing concerns about the placement of the election during a religious holiday,” the governing body said in a statement posted on Instagram. “Although the election has been rescheduled, formal campaigners may continue to campaign for the referendum until the end of the campaigning period. Individuals may continue to register as formal campaigners until the end of the campaigning period.”
The referendum must still be contested for other reasons, SSI told The Algemeiner on Tuesday.
“We commend the decision to move the vote past Passover but are still intent on combating the procedural irregularities surrounding the referendum,” the group said, referring to the fact that the resolution only passed because GUSA senators, the campus newspaper reported, “voted to break rules” which require referenda to be evaluated by the Policy and Advocacy Committee (PAC), a period of deliberation which establishes their merit, or lack thereof, for consideration by the senate.
Georgetown is one of 60 colleges and universities being investigated by the federal government due to being deemed by the Trump administration as soft on antisemitism and excessively “woke.” Such inquiries have led to the scorching of several billion dollars’ worth of federal contracts and grants awarded to America’s most prestigious institutions of higher education.
On Monday, the administration impounded more than $2 billion in federal funding previously awarded to Harvard University over the institution’s refusal to agree to a wishlist of reforms that Republican lawmakers have long argued will make higher education more meritocratic and less welcoming to anti-Zionists and far-left extremists.
In March, it canceled $400 million in federal contracts and grants for Columbia University, a measure that secured the school’s acceding to a slew of demands the administration put forth as preconditions for restoring the money. Princeton University saw $210 million of its federal grants and funding suspended too, prompting its president, Christopher Eisgruber to say the institution is “committed to fighting antisemitism and all forms of discrimination.” Brown University’s federal funding is also reportedly at risk due to its alleged failing to mount a satisfactory response to the campus antisemitism crisis, as well as its alignment with the DEI [diversity, equity, and inclusion] movement.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Trump Envoy Witkoff, in Apparent Reversal, Calls on Iran to ‘Stop, Eliminate’ Nuclear Program
US President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy-designate Steve Witkoff gives a speech at the inaugural parade inside Capital One Arena on the inauguration day of Trump’s second presidential term, in Washington, DC, Jan. 20, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Carlos Barria
US President Donald Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East on Tuesday called on Iran to “stop and eliminate its nuclear enrichment and weaponization program,” apparently toughening his position against Tehran less than 24 hours after suggesting the Islamic Republic would be allowed to maintain its nuclear program in a limited capacity.
“A deal with Iran will only be completed if it is a Trump deal,” Steve Witkoff posted on the social media platform X/Twitter. “Any final arrangement must set a framework for peace, stability, and prosperity in the Middle East — meaning that Iran must stop and eliminate its nuclear enrichment and weaponization program. It is imperative for the world that we create a tough, fair deal that will endure, and that is what President Trump has asked me to do.”
Witkoff’s statement appeared to be a complete reversal from comments he made to Fox News during an interview on Monday night, in which he indicated that the White House would allow Iran to enrich uranium to a 3.67 percent threshold, allowing Tehran to create a “civil nuclear program.”
“Iran does not need to enrich past 3.67 percent. In some circumstances, they’re at 60 percent; in other circumstances, 20 percent. That cannot be,” Witkoff said. “You do not need to run — as they claim — a civil nuclear program where you’re enriching past 3.67 percent.”
Negotiations between the US and Iran regarding a potential deal over the latter’s nuclear program began this past weekend in Oman. Witkoff and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi each led their respective delegations in the discussions, which were facilitated indirectly via mediators. The White House touted the deliberations as “positive and constructive” and confirmed a second round of deliberations set for Saturday.
During Monday’s interview, Witkoff confirmed that the next round of negotiations will center on “verification on the enrichment program and then ultimately verification on weaponization.”
“That includes missiles — the type of missiles that they have stockpiled there. And it includes the trigger for a bomb,” Witkoff said.
Critics pointed out that Witkoff’s proposal seemed to resemble the 2015 deal struck between the US under the Obama administration, Iran, and other world powers which also aimed to prevent Tehran from acquiring a nuclear weapon by prohibiting the regime from enriching uranium past 3.67 percent. The first Trump administration scrapped the deal in 2018, arguing that the agreement would allow Iran to clandestinely pursue a nuclear weapon, and reimposed harsh sanctions on the regime.
Iran has claimed that its nuclear program is for civilian purposes rather than building weapons. However, the UN’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), reported in December that Iran had greatly accelerated uranium enrichment to close to the 90 percent weapons-grade level at its Fordow site dug into a mountain. The UK, France, and Germany said in a joint statement that there is no “credible civilian justification” for Iran’s recent nuclear activity, arguing it “gives Iran the capability to rapidly produce sufficient fissile material for multiple nuclear weapons.”
Israel has been among the most vocal proponents of dismantling Iran’s nuclear program, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arguing that that the US should pursue a “Libyan option” to eliminate the possibility of Tehran acquiring a nuclear weapon by overseeing the destruction of Iran’s nuclear installations and the dismantling of equipment.
“That could be done diplomatically, in a full way, the way it was done in Libya. I think that would be a good thing,” Netanyahu told reporters during a meeting at the White House last week. “But whatever happens, we have to make sure that Iran does not have nuclear weapons.”
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Canada’s Conservative Leader Condemns Antisemitic Crime Surge, Says Visa Holders Who Break Law ‘Will Be Deported’
Hundreds of anti-Israel protesters, primarily university students, rally at Toronto’s Nathan Phillips Square on Oct. 28, 2023. Photo by Sayed Najafizada/NurPhoto
Canadian Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre has announced plans to crack down on visitors to the country who promote hate against Jews, asserting that anyone in Canada on a visa who breaks the law will be deported.
“We will bring in tougher laws to target vandalism, hate marches that break laws [and] violent attacks based on ethnicity and religion,” Poilievre said at a campaign event in Ottawa on Saturday. “Anyone who is here on a visitor visa who carries out law-breaking will be deported from this country.”
Canada has criminalized hate speech, leveling a maximum punishment of two years imprisonment for anyone who engages in “communicating statements in any public place” which “incites hatred against any identifiable group where such incitement is likely to lead to a breach of the peace.”
Poilievre also blasted the string of recent hate crimes targeting Canadian Jews, decrying the “targeting of synagogues and Jewish schools with hate, vandalism, violence [and] firebombings.”
Antisemitic outrages surged a staggering 562 percent in Canada last year compared to 2022, according to a report from the World Zionist Organization and the Jewish Agency for Israel. Their research, unveiled in January, showed a 340 percent increase in total antisemitic incidents worldwide.
On April 7, B’Nai Brith Canada, a Canadian Jewish advocacy group, published its review of last year’s antisemitism, finding that the “total number of reported cases of hatred targeting Jews reached an apex of 6,219 incidents in 2024. This is the highest number B’nai Brith Canada has documented since the inception of its audit in 1982. It reflects a 7.4 percent increase in incidents since 2023, when we recorded a then-unprecedented 5,791 national tally.”
Poilievre’s pledge aligns with recent moves by the Trump administration in the US to block alleged antisemites from entering the country and deport those already here.
US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced last week that it will monitor social media platforms for antisemitic speech and conduct as a basis for denying permanent residency status and immigration benefits. The agency announced that the new policy is set to take effect immediately and will be applicable to both green card applicants and international students.
“There is no room in the United States for the rest of the world’s terrorist sympathizers, and we are under no obligation to admit them or let them stay here,” said Tricia McLaughlin, spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). “Secretary [Kristi] Noem has made it clear that anyone who thinks they can come to America and hide behind the First Amendment to advocate for antisemitic violence and terrorism — think again. You are not welcome here.”
On Monday, the Trump administration revoked the visa of Columbia University graduate student Mohsen Mahdawi and took him into custody, making him the latest foreign student and anti-Israel activist detained and slated for deportation as a result of alleged support for the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.
Mahdawi said that he “can empathize” with Hamas over the terrorist group’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel. He served as co-president of Columbia’s Palestinian Students Union, which organized protests calling for the school to divest from the Jewish state.
In August, Mahdawi praised the “martyrdom” of a cousin who served in the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade. “Here is Mesra who offers his soul as a sacrifice for the homeland and for the blood of the martyrs as a gift for the victory of Gaza and in defense of the dignity of his homeland and his people against the vicious Israeli occupation in the West Bank,” he wrote on Instagram.
On Sunday, the Washington Post reported that an internal State Department memo challenged the rationale for detaining Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish PhD student at Tufts University who co-wrote an op-ed advocating for divestment from Israel, currently held at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center in Basile, Louisiana.
According to the Post, the memo stated that “neither DHS nor ICE nor Homeland Security investigations produced any evidence showing that Ozturk has engaged in antisemitic activity or made public statements indicating support for a terrorist organization.”
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said of the decision to expel Ozturk that “the activities presented to me meet the standard of what I’ve just described to you: people that are supportive of movements that run counter to the foreign policy of the United States.”
On Friday, Judge Jamee Comans of the LaSalle Immigration Court in Louisiana ruled that the Trump administration can deport Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, the first foreign college student targeted on the basis of anti-Israel advocacy.
Rubio said that Khalil had engaged in “antisemitic protests and disruptive activities, which fosters a hostile environment for Jewish students in the United States.”
The post Canada’s Conservative Leader Condemns Antisemitic Crime Surge, Says Visa Holders Who Break Law ‘Will Be Deported’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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