Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu joined reporters Yinon Magel, Erel Segal and Shimon Riklin in singing “Shabichi Yerushalayim” as part of Magel’s “Niggun L’Shabbos” program.

Magel learns Gemara and Parshas HaShavua every Shabbos with Harav Dovid Druk and also sings a “niggun Shabbos” together with Segal and Riklin and posts it on Twitter, according to a Kikar HaShabbos report.

When the song was over, Netanyahu quipped: “You didn’t bring darbukas (Arabic for goblet drums)?”

Netanyahu was referring to a controversy that arose this week when Blue and White MK Yoaz Hendel was condemned for being racist when he referred to Sephardi culture as a “culture of darbukas.”

Hendel was discussing the need for a homogenous Israeli culture in an interview and said he won’t accept the culture of chaos in the Arab community. He said that some Jews who immigrated to Israel before the state was founded came with a mindset of Vienna concerts and others came with a mindset of darbukas.

Darbukas are popular with Sephardi musicians and Hendel was widely slammed in Israeli media.

Hendel defended himself by saying that he wasn’t inferring that one culture was better than the other and he himself prefers darbukas over classical music.

רק מציין שבמוסיקה הפרסית משתמשים בטומבק ולא דרבוקה… pic.twitter.com/w3jtttl1Rh

— lior ayubi I.U.B (@liorayubi) February 8, 2020

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)