Composer-arranger Yonatan Razel was riding a wave of popularity following his hit “Vehi She’amda,” when his then four-year-old daughter nearly lost her life. Today, after an exhausting and statistics-defying rehabilitation process, Razel is back in the recording studio, with a new message of hope and thanks for the miracles his family has experienced.
Two years ago — what seems to him like a lifetime — Yonatan Razel’s world turned upside down following the triumph of his first album Sach HaKol in 2007 and the success of his hit song “Vehi She’amda” — which he composed produced and arranged and then performed with Yaakov Shwekey. He was awarded “Singer of the Year” by Ynet and his “Vehi She’amda” and was awarded “Song of the Decade” by the Israeli station Radio Kol Chai and he was back in the recording studio working on a new album.
But that came to a screeching halt the night his oldest child four-year-old Rivkah went out onto the porch of the family’s second-floor home inJerusalem’s Nachlaot neighborhood to watch the Israel Independence Day fireworks display. As she leaned on the railing it suddenly moved out of place and she went tumbling onto the concrete below.
A short distance away a young man who happened to be a Hatzolah paramedic was waiting for his brother who was late. The young man lost patience and decided to leave cutting through the parking area under the Razel home. Just then Rivkah fell and seconds later the paramedic was there with his rescue equipment trying to resuscitate the child.
Rivkah was rushed unconscious to Hadassah Ein Kerem’s trauma unit. Her prognosis looked bleak.
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