Efrat Gosh on music, healing, and her upcoming anniversary show

Some artists get better with age, they grow into themselves, and when you look back, you can see how they’ve come to own their space. One of these artists is Efrat Gosh, who marked her career with a vinyl re-release of her self-titled debut album in August 2023. She will be celebrating her 20 years of making music with a show at Hangar 11 on March 1, hosting Yoni Bloch, Amir Lev, Alon Edar, and Alma Gov.

It’s a cold and rainy afternoon, the kind that turns opened umbrellas inside out. We’re sitting in a small neighborhood coffee shop in Jaffa, its walls covered with books about Palestine and Israel. 

Gosh, bundled in a red coat and wearing her signature red lipstick, is talking about music and the path she’s taken to get here, which she points out was “a journey and not a destination.” 

“For me, music has always been a kind of higher power, an anchor, that has led me all my life... It’s such a central part in how I perceive myself,” Gosh says. “And, actually, as the years go by, this only gets stronger, because maybe when I started working it was more about whether I was good enough, whether I was doing it well enough... It took me some time to understand that it’s not about me.”

She’s had two decades in the business (as well as some acting), and hits like Tamid Kesheata Ba (“Always When You Come”) from her first album (2005), “Lirot Et-haor” (“To See the Light”) from her second album (2007) and “Ah Ah Ah Ahava” (“Lo Lo Lo Love”) from her 2010 EP of the same name – tunes that many Israelis burst out singing if you just give them the first few notes. 

The nation's sweetheart

“In certain performances, there’s a kind of connection between people, between people’s souls,” she says, then clarifies, “It’s not even about the soul, but really, there’s something in music that connects – that connects us to other people, but also connects us to ourselves.” 

IT’S ALWAYS been about the music for Gosh. She says she knew this from a very young age. 

“I remember that as a little girl, like a lot of kids, I watched Disney movies. I remember especially The Little Mermaid, which has wonderful music... I was very young, maybe four, when they took me to see the movie. And I remember the moment when Ariel gave her voice to the witch.” 

At age six, Gosh auditioned for and was accepted by the Gordon School of Arts in Herzliya. “They asked me to draw a tree, a tree from the imagination. I don’t recall what tree I drew, but I remember that I really enjoyed the exam,” she says.

While still in high school, Gosh began performing standards in jazz shows, and at 16 left to spend her senior year studying at Rimon Music School, then served a short period in the army before being released by the IDF. 

It was during her first show singing backup for musician Yoni Bloch that she was discovered and signed, leading to her debut album. 

“I was excited, I was in euphoria after the show,” Gosh recalls. “But in some way, I felt that it was too good to be true, you know? Here is the dream that I really wanted to happen. And it took me a moment to tell them, ‘Okay, okay, I’m in.’”

With lyrics by Barak Feldman, composition and production by Bloch, and Gosh’s heartfelt renditions, her first album, Efrat Gosh, was well-received by audiences and critics alike, going gold. This was followed in 2007 by Haselichah ve Ani (Forgiveness and Me), in which Gosh wrote and composed several of the album’s songs including “Krav Egruf” (“Boxing Match”) a song with raw lyrics and an edgy sound about violence against women. 

She describes her writing process as “blood, sweat, and tears,” sometimes scribbled over a piano, which she plays while composing. The story behind “Boxing Match” is notable, as it was the first song Gosh wrote. 

“I took a sublet in Tel Aviv and one of the reasons I wanted the apartment was because it had a piano. When I moved into the apartment, I sat down and started to play what would later become Krav Egruf. That album was followed by her 2010 EP Ah Ah Ah Ahavah, winning her recognition as army radio Galgalatz’s Singer of the Year. 

During the time she took off from performing to focus on herself, on her family (she and her partner are parents of a 10-year-old son), and to treat her addiction, Gosh says she could not listen to music. It was “too much.” Instead, she spent time with food, in the kitchen of an Italian restaurant. “It was my way to create when I couldn’t make music.”  

Among the songs since her return is “Haba Shenoge’ahbi Met" (“The Next One Who Touches Me Is Dead”), released in 2022, written after meeting female prostitutes.

“I wanted to write this for the women who have the least strength and suffer the most... who literally sell their bodies to live and support themselves.” She says the song was a call for women to unite with the understanding that they have the power to bring change. “So I went and raised an army of women,” the lyrics end. It was a song adopted as an anthem of sorts by demonstrators during the Israeli protests for social justice.

FOLLOWING OCTOBER 7, Gosh found herself traveling the country, singing for soldiers, evacuees, survivors, and their families. “We were giving first aid to people in these performances,” she says. “I was exposed to an audience which was in great pain and had huge trauma.” These experiences led her to write the song “Lahzor Kvar Habitah” (“Come Home Already”), released in 2024 – the first song Gosh produced herself after studying music production.

Gosh, like many artists, has songs in her drawer and songs she is writing. She’s working toward her next album and also wants to do soundtracks, as well as to keep acting “if the right role comes along.” 

The journey so far has been one of “ups and downs,” she says, adding, “Sometimes I fell, but the view was amazing.” 

What’s made it all worthwhile? 

Gosh pauses as she thinks, sipping on soda water. “There are moments that come at the end of a show,” she explains. These moments are when she knows she’s given it her all. “It doesn’t have to be a big performance,” Gosh says, “just one where I felt in the moment very connected to myself and, through this, was able to connect to the people standing in front of me and give them this thing. That’s the real reason I work in this profession.” 

For tickets, go to: https://bit.ly/Efrat20