David D'Or

Origins and early life

David D'Or, born David Nehaisi in 1965 in the Tel Aviv suburbs into a family from the Jewish community of Libya — his great-grandfather was a rabbi of that community — is an Israeli singer, composer, songwriter and painter, a countertenor whose range covers more than four octaves.

Work and career

He sang during his military service in the Central Command band of the Israel Defense Forces, trained at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance, and was invited by Zubin Mehta to sing Carl Orff's Carmina Burana as soloist with the Israel Philharmonic; he has been named Israel's Singer of the Year three times, and nine of his albums had gone platinum by 2008. He wrote Tishmor al HaOlam Yeled — Watch Over the World, Child — for the birth of his nephew, and the song became one of the pieces Israel plays at its memorial ceremonies; in 2004 he represented Israel at the Eurovision Song Contest in Istanbul with Leha'amin, To Believe, written with the lyricist Ehud Manor.

In 1995 he was the first Israeli to sing in Hebrew for a pope, John Paul II, and in 2009 he sang for Benedict XVI in Jerusalem beside Dudu Fisher and an Arab-Jewish girls' choir; in 2007 he premiered in Belgrade the peace cantata Halelu — Songs of David, written with the American conductor David Eaton and sung in Hebrew, Arabic, English and Latin. The proceeds of Yesh Od Tikvah went to NATAL, the Israeli centre for the treatment of trauma caused by terror and war, and those of his Voice of Love concerts to the Buddhist Tzu Chi foundation — work he described as the spirit of tikkun olam, the repair of the world.

Since the 2010s he has turned mainly to Jewish liturgical music, piyyutim and traditional melodies, and at Shimon Peres's funeral on Mount Herzl he sang Avinu Malkeinu, as the president had asked in his will; in 2025, at the Festival of Jewish Culture in Warsaw, a protester threw red paint over him while he was singing a prayer for peace. He is not to be confused with David Cohen, the Israeli singer of the 1960s billed as David the Red Sea Singer, who was also announced under the name David Dor.