The City in Gray – A Trip to Paris by Naomi Shemer

Let me start with a short personal story. My parents immigrated to Israel from Moscow in 1974 and, like all new immigrants, they didn't have a penny in their pockets. Despite this, they saved every penny and in the early 80s they had saved enough money for a trip to Paris. Everyone told them that it was a waste of money that they had saved with so much difficulty and that they should continue saving.

But my parents, who grew up behind the Iron Curtain and saw the Paris Only in books, they felt they couldn't wait any longer, took out the money they had held in the stock market and went on a month-long trip. In retrospect, it turned out to be the best investment they made in their lives, Paris enriched them with countless experiences. And the money? If they had stayed in Israel, it would have evaporated along with the stock market, which collapsed shortly after they returned.

Naomi Shemer arrives in Paris

So why am I telling you this story? Because Naomi Shemer made a similar investment about 20 years before them. The year is 1964 and Naomi Shemer receives a free ticket on a ship traveling from Haifa to Marseille in exchange for a song she wrote in honor of the launch of the ship “Shalom” together with Haim Hefer (is it just me or does the chorus of this song remind you a little of the song “Shlomit Builds a Sukkah”?).

The ticket was an excellent opportunity to travel to Paris, but there was one small problem: money. In order to solve this minor problem, Naomi decided to take the money she had saved to buy an apartment and “invest” it in a trip to Paris. We still enjoy the fruits of this investment today thanks to the poems she wrote or translated. And the truth is, before we continue and tell about those sweet fruits, I must bring you a wonderful anecdote from the website of Ofer Gavish For the fact that this was not the last time Naomi Shemer came to Paris in such a spontaneous way.

Several years after her historic trip to Paris, Naomi Shemer bought a fur coat in Tel Aviv. However, a moment after paying, she realized that with the heat and humidity of Tel Aviv, this coat would probably never come out of the closet. So instead of changing the coat, she decided to change the city and told herself that if she happened to find an envelope with money from ACUM at home, she would use this money to help her fur coat fulfill its dream of traveling to Paris instead of being locked in a closet. And so it was, the envelope arrived and Naomi Shemer went to Paris again.

The city is gray

Naomi Shemer lived alone in Paris for nearly a year, and then her daughter, Lely, joined her. During the years she lived in the city of lights, she studied French, visiting performances by the greatest chansonniers of her time in order to gain inspiration and, of course, writing.

The most famous song that Naomi Shemer wrote in Paris is of course “The City in Gray,” but few people know that the melody we know is not the original melody of the song. In the Eurovision Song Contest that took place in 1963, about a year before Naomi Shemer arrived in Paris, Alain Barrière’s song “Elle Etait Si Jolie” came in fifth place. However, despite not winning the contest, the song became a huge international hit.

Naomi decided to use the magical and romantic melody for the song “The City in Gray” that she wrote for the Yarkon Bridge Trio. The song presents us with the Parisian autumn through the eyes of Naomi Shemer and has become a kind of anthem for Francophiles (along with the song by Benny Amdorsky “Longing for Paris”).

Very few people know the original version of this song, but I had the pleasure of listening to a wonderful performance of it at the chanson evening I hosted at the Tsouzaman Club in 2014 (performances Dror Ben Yaakov And I picked up the nir. If you look at the bottom left you can see me wearing a striped sabdar, a scarf and a black beret as befits a French cliché).

However, in the end, Naomi Shemer decided that the lyrics were too good not to receive a unique melody, and the result is the version of the song we know today, which was sent to the Gesher Hayarkon Trio and became a hit.

Naomi Shemer's trip to Paris

While preparing the article, I spoke with Lali Shemer Naomi Shemer's daughter, who lived with her as a child in Paris. From the stories I heard and the lyrics of the song "The City in Gray," I tried to put together a sort of itinerary that would take us on a walk through the city of lights in her footsteps.

If you want me to show you the city in gray

There is no doubt that after more than 20 visits to the City of Lights, I can say that gray is the default color of the Parisian sky. To some of us it may seem a little depressing, but I actually like this sky. First, it allows for soft lighting that makes photography in Paris so much fun.

But beyond that, these skies blend so well with the Parisian gardens during the fall, which is an integral part of Parisian charm. And speaking of gardens, how can we not mention the Luxembourg Gardens Located near the Latin Quarter that Naomi Shemer loved so much and not far from where she lived. Naomi walked through these gardens many times alone and with her daughter Lely and who knows how much inspiration these gardens had on her.

Come and take a walk on the cobblestones.

Anyone who travels to Paris rarely finds paving stones today, but rather sidewalks and asphalt roads. The reason for this lies in the student uprising that took place in Paris in 1968, a few years after Naomi Shemer returned to Israel. During this uprising, the students uprooted curbstones from the street and sidewalks and threw them at the police. After the uprising ended, the Paris municipality decided that in order to prevent a recurrence of these incidents, it would simply uproot the paving stones itself and replace them with soft asphalt.

However, if you still want to walk on cobblestones in the footsteps of Naomi Shemer, I recommend you go to Court of Commerce-Saint-André She must have known him, because she loved to walk along the Boulevard Saint-Germain and the side streets. In this charming place you will find ancient courtyards and   La Procope, the oldest cafe in Paris.

Dum raised our eyes to the pigeons that fly

According to the city council's 2010 figures, there are around 800,000 pigeons in Paris, about one for every 25 residents. This means they can be found almost everywhere. So why not pop over to the Ile Saint-Louis and take a look at the pigeons there, with Notre Dame right in the background?

So I'll give you my hand and we'll go down to the dock, where the wind will blow away piles of garbage.

The truth is that there are so many quays along the Seine that it's really, really hard to choose. Since Naomi Shemer lives on the left side of the Seine, why don't we take a walk along the quays south of Notre Dame? There we can find quite a few Booksellers And not far away is the Shakespeare & Company bookstore, which Naomi loved very much. And as for the piles of shalwar kameez? See the Luxembourg Gardens section because there is no place where shalwar kameez is redder and more charming.

On a bench then I was captured and with the light falling, if you say I'm tired of the city in gray

One of the characteristics of Paris is its benches, which can be found on every corner. That's why it's very difficult to know which bench Naomi Shemer was referring to in her poem "The City in Gray." Since Naomi Shemer lived in a small hotel called Duc de Saint Simon, which bears the name of the street on which it is located (today it is a fairly luxurious hotel) and loved to walk in the Latin Quarter, any bench in the Luxembourg Gardens, in the small gardens in the 7th or 6th arrondissements, or those along the Avenue Saint-Germain could certainly be suitable.

I will bring you back on eagle wings above the clouds to your city that awaited you with its white houses.

Okay, this is about the plane that takes us back to Tel Aviv, but there's no point in getting ahead of the curve and arriving at Charles de Gaulle or Orly ahead of time, right? So let's play with words a little. The eagle is Napoleon's symbol, so there's nothing more appropriate than visiting the palace. The invalid And in the church where he is buried, which is also not far from the hotel where Naomi Shemer liked to stay.

Route map

So now that we've introduced the places associated with Naomi Shemer, let's try to connect the dots on the map and create a logical route that can be done in one day. Although this is a route for the well-traveled, between us, there's something about Paris that makes even the biggest armchair pedalers become well-traveled, so I hope you try this route and enjoy it.

Thanks

First, I would like to thankLali Shemer Without which this entire article would not have been possible.

Secondly, I would like to thankOfer Gavish He is a walking encyclopedia in everything related to the history of Hebrew singing (check when the next time he is going on a singing tour. A first-class musical experience is guaranteed).

And finally, I would like to thank my dear Francophile friend Yoel Tamanlis, owner of the Facebook page Paris via Zoom