The last time that scenes of such grief and pain were seen in Israel was the night that Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated. Yesterday, Nov. 26, as on that night in 1995, people were standing in the Ichilov Hospital Square in Tel Aviv, waiting for someone to emerge and announce that everything would be OK. But then screams of disaster and shock were heard, accompanying the voice bringing evil tidings. Young boys and girls lit candles in Tel Aviv's Rabin Square and sang, "Where are there still people like that man." The television stations interrupted their broadcasts and adopted a mourning format; performances and events were halted and announcements were made to audiences on the loss of the special, prominent voice in their lives. The pain was of an entire country that lost something of itself.

The director of Ichilov Hospital, Gabi Barbash, went out to the journalists who waited in the entrance. In two sentences, Barbash said it all: "Twenty-five minutes ago, we declared the death of Arik Einstein. Now we have no one to sing to us anymore."

Arik Einstein departed to the next world abruptly, within a few hours, due to a ruptured aneurysm and it seems that the "beautiful and good Israel" of once-upon-a-time departed with him. He was 74 at his death.

Einstein started off in the Israel Defense Forces Nahal Band where he immediately became a star, and from then until today he was the "voice of the country." His beloved songs accompanied Israelis everywhere: “Ouf Gozal” (Fly, Little Bird) — which is sung by all Israeli children at their end-of-year school parties, and by all parents to their high-school graduates before their army recruitment — and "Shalom Chaver" (Goodbye, Friend), a song based on the word-combination coined by US President Bill Clinton in Hebrew after Rabin's assassination. Einstein's songs are the soundtrack of Israeli life. A few years ago, Einstein's "Atur Mitz'chech" (Your Forehead Is Decorated) was voted as the most beloved song out of the hundreds that he sang, in a poll taken by newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth. There were many other famous songs, too, including “Ani Ve’ata” (Me and You) to which Einstein also wrote the words: "You and I, we'll change the world; you and I, by then everyone else will follow. Others have said it before me, never mind; you and I, we'll change the world."