‘Homegrown’ by Steve Levine
Jarmila Gorna’s whole album Aspaklaria was aired on Jerusalem’s Radio Free Nachlaot in Steve Levine's 'Homegrown' programme on the 4 Dec. One of the radio presenters, Lorelai Kude, compared her to the medieval Torah commentator, the Ibn Ezra, for his many talents:
“Jarmila Xymena Gorna is like a musical polymath. She’s a bit like the Ibn Ezra, and although he is a medieval Torah commentator and she’s a modern musician - so there’s quite a gap between them, but in a way it’s very much the same kind of ability to do many, many, many things well, all at the same time without seemingly specialising in one, being super confident in all of them...”
Jarmila commented on Facebook: ‘So, friends, how much better can it get... and what an honour’...
But who exactly was the legendary Abraham Ibn Ezra, known simply as the Ibn Ezra?
Rabbi Abraham Ben Meir Ibn Ezra (Hebrew: אברהם אבן עזרא or ראב"ע) was a Jewish Torah commentator, philosopher, astronomer & astrologer, mathematician, poet, linguist and wonderer.
His work ‘The Beginning of Wisdom’ (… is the Fear of God) is a one of the most important of the basic medieval texts of astrology.
find out more about the Ibn Ezra
There is a legend that he died in England from a fever and a sickness that came upon him after an encounter with a pack of wild black dogs. This legend is attached to the belief that he denied the existence of demons.
Isn’t it rather spooky that one of Jarmila’s songs on the album Aspaklaria bears a title ‘Black Dog’?
’Black Dog’ in Apple Music
’Black Dog’ on Spotify
