Ivri Lider. "Today I feel
totally liberated, devoid of inhibitions, devoid of
secrets. I am more sure
of myself and understand
the world better." (Eyal Toueg)
Art finally triumphed over love. But the triumph was preceded by a struggle. Ivri Lider, the most popular young singer in Israel, felt like he was on the verge of a breakdown. His love for his partner of the past eight years, Yaniv Weizman, was as strong as ever, but a voice in his head was begging him to escape. Lider agonized and sank into a gloomy state. Day after day, the decision was put off. Until March of this year, when the die was cast.
As it turned out, the break-up occurred just when Lider was reaching his professional peak. Nine years after his debut album "Melatef umeshaker" ("Stroking and Lying"), and five years after the famous "coming-out-of-the-closet" interview with Gal Uchovsky in Maariv, Lider, 32, had truly reached the summit of local pop, bypassing even Aviv Gefen, who is one year older. Not only did the girl groupies not abandon Lider in the wake of the revelations about his personal life, he continued to win many new fans. In 2005, the year in which his fourth album, "It's Not the Same," was released, he was voted male singer of the year by all the major local radio stations. Each one of his four albums has gone gold (i.e., sold at least 20,000 copies); he recently gave the 100th performance of his "It's Not the Same" tour; and soldiers and students rank him as the most popular singer. He is also writing music for movies (and even appears in the new film "Habu'ah" - "The Bubble"), and producing Rita's next album.
Things have also been going well lately on the personal side, too. After separating from Weizman, he met Sebastian, a German whose mother was a Holocaust survivor, and the two appear to have fallen for each other. Lider also feels sure enough of himself to expose aspects of his personality that don't exactly mesh with the "likeable gay guy" image he's acquired over the years - like his depression, his craving for thrills and adrenaline, his obsession with developing his physique and with fashion. "Today I feel totally liberated, devoid of inhibitions, devoid of secrets. I am more sure of myself and understand the world better," he says.
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Was the desire to continue as an artist the only thing that played a role in the break-up with Yaniv?
Lider: "I can't say what led to the break-up without it being related to a million other things. The whole process of intimacy is very difficult, especially when you have two individuals who want to fulfill themselves. In the old-fashioned kind of relationship, each one had a role and things were clearer and more absolute."
Is it hard to maintain a gay relationship over many years?
"The basis of our relationship was how much we loved each other. And it still is. I haven't completely stopped being excited about Yaniv. But it's very hard, over the years, to preserve a situation in which the two people in the couple are equal and satisfied, no matter how much they love each other. Especially when you have two strong and ambitious people."
Was your relationship an open one?
"We found a good place - or maybe not so good - in the middle, between the conservative model and the open model. There's no winning model. If there's something I learned a little about during these past few years it's that when you think you can deal with life by holding rigid views, then life will laugh right back at you. Rigidity creates difficulty and a couple whose relationship derives from such a stance won't last. Like [the pop group] Bright Eyes said: 'If you love somebody, let them go.' None of the experiences I've had in my life have been for nothing. Even if I felt bad, I learned something, and they served me somehow."
For example?
"I don't want to get into a situation in my life in which I enter a physical-intimate experience with someone whom I'm not totally interested in. Part of this growing up is being able to tell yourself when you enter an experience that you really want it."
Always in a shell
Ivri Lider was born on Kibbutz Givat Haim Ihud, to a mother of Polish background and a father from Argentina. His father, Asher, now a pensioner, used to be a sales representative for a firm dealing in stationery and writing materials; his mother, Dalia, is the director of the sewing workshop and a costume designer for the Batsheva Dance Company. They divorced when Lider was 20 and he continued living in his mother's home. (Today his recording studio is next to her house in Ramat Aviv.) His brother Amiel is 14 years older and a choreographer living in New York; his sister Raya works as a dresser in the Cameri Theater and is nine years older than him. When Ivri was five, the family moved to Bat Yam, and later from there to Herzliya. The frequent moves may well have contributed to his overwhelming shyness.
"When I'd go to the store, I wouldn't speak with the salesman. I'd hide behind my mother. I used to drive her crazy. She'd say: 'Go on, talk. Tell him for what you want.' It was really tough. I don't envy her."
What's the source of the shyness?
"It's a very interesting question whether a trait like shyness is genetic or acquired in childhood. I have no clear answer as to why I was like that, it's just the way I remember myself from the time I was young. I was a serious type, always in my shell. It's only in the past few years that I've really opened up. Being on stage helped, definitely, and so did just growing up. When you succeed at what you're doing it gives you confidence. All of these things gradually crack the shell."
What place does your family have in your life?
"I really fit the cliche of a very dominant mother with a very shy child. We go through everything together. My family is small. My brother lives in America and we don't have a close relationship, but with my sister and mother the relationship is terrific. And my mother is proud of what her child is doing."
Dalia is a Holocaust survivor, a fact that cast its shadow over his childhood. "My mother has a story like all the people who went through that. Not an easy story. She was a girl in the Warsaw Ghetto, was smuggled out and saved. Even though we didn't get into this story at home, it was hovering there all the time. You know it as a kid and growing up, and because it's there it's in your consciousness all the time."
Despite various romantic experiences with women, Lider realized from adolescence that he was gay, but preferred to suppress any questions about his sexual identity and focus on music and athletics (bike riding and basketball). "I know that my very serious, total involvement in music, as well as my involvement in sport, put other parts of me on the back burner. Maybe part of my musical drive derived from a desire to compensate, but that was a creative period in which I cemented the other identities within me."
How did you keep it all together?
"Oh, I'm very good at keeping things in. Though it started to be hard from about age 10. But I'm not angry at myself. With me, things take a long time to ripen. It was a long process of self-development."
In fact, Lider's first sexual encounter with a man only took place when he was 24. Afterward, he saw no point in keeping it a secret from his family. "Coming out of the closet wasn't such a big deal. I said: 'Mom, I met somebody, a guy.' She said: 'Really? Great.' It's my luck, my family, the environment. My first time with a guy was at age 24 and the second guy was Yaniv and I was with him for eight years, including a two-month break after six years, during which I wrote my last record. That's my story."
But you only came out publicly at age 27, just before the release of your album "Ha'anashim hahadasim" ("The New People"). Did the bosses at Helicon try to dissuade you from being interviewed about your sexual preferences?
"They understood at an early stage in the work on the record that this was what I was going to do, whether they liked it or not. They had no choice. It's the way I wanted it and the way it would be. I would have felt really pathetic releasing an album called 'The New People' while hiding in the closet. I also did it for my own mental health, to be a free person, and also for my audience. I have a social commitment. It's the commitment of an artist. I think it's a right I have and I'm glad I acted on it. A lot of famous people have this right and don't use it. For me, the desire to be a better and braver person exceeded the concern about whether it would make me lose fans. If I hadn't done it, I'd have disappointed myself."
'Just look at him'
A red sun blazes above the Mediterranean as the large, air-conditioned van makes its way to Kibbutz Ma'agan Michael, en route to the 101st performance of "It's Not the Same." It's a Friday evening and Lider is accompanied by family and his close circle: his mother, his nephew Itamar, Roni Arditi - his personal manager and the show's producer - and his new love, Sebastian, who has a broad face and an infectious smile. Only his good friend, Gal Uchovsky, is missing. The excuse: a launch party for his new film "The Bubble," made with his partner Eytan Fox and featuring a soundtrack by Lider.
Dalia Lider directs Sebastian's attention to the road that leads to the kibbutz where her youngest child was born. The men talk about the results of the day's World Cup games. They're especially interested in the game between Argentina (which Lider is rooting for) and Germany.
The van passes by fish ponds and through clouds of mosquitoes, and arrives at its destination; it's three hours till showtime. They'll pass the time by playing soccer (Itamar is goalkeeper for the Hapoel Be'er Sheva youth team) and doing sound checks. Dalia Lider, who accompanies her son to as many appearances as her schedule will allow, sits down on the grass and checks out a new arrangement of one of the songs. She can still hardly believe her eyes.
"You have no idea how shy he was. He was afraid to go to our neighbors," she says. "And now just look at him on stage, how open he is, how much he's blossomed. In the past few months, something good has been happening to him. Ivri needs love."
An hour before the show, the group sits down to a Shabbat meal - schnitzel, roast beef, rice and steamed vegetables. A few members of the kibbutz's younger generation accompany them. One kibbutznik magically causes some chocolate cookies to materialize and the mood becomes very upbeat. Lider and Sebastian spend the last minutes before the show alone in the dressing room.
The lawn next to the pool fills up with about 1,500 people. The female fans crowd the front rows; behind them stand guys who ogle the star. In the last rows are the older kibbutzniks who bring along folding chairs. Lider treats them to an array of his biggest hits. He takes the stage in a black tank top, which enhances his liberated stage presence, and offers a powerful rendition of a song from his first album about a man who wears women's clothing. The audience sings the words along with him.
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