"Tonight, I am sure I did not have the wrong job".
At the end of what will remain as her final concert, on February 3 at the Folies Bergère as part of the Night of the Depression, Rika Zaraï, who disappeared this Wednesday, December 23, at the age of 82, admitted to herself very moved by the triumphant reception of the public and confided in our reporter, in what will also be her last interview.
"I missed the audience so much", also confessed the artist, she who had to be absent from the stages for several years after a stroke leaving her in a wheelchair.
However, she was never really part of the memory of the French, this Israeli singer, born of a Polish mother and a Russian father Rika Gozman, on February 19, 1938 in Jerusalem, in what was still Palestine under British mandate. .
Landed in France at the end of the 1950s after a few performances in the Middle East and without speaking a word of Molière's language, she quickly made a place for herself in the song, ensuring the first parts of big names like Jacques Brel or Gilbert Bécaud.
Deeply saddened by the disappearance of Rika Zaraï who conquered the ❤️ des 🇫🇷 with his beautiful accent of sabra.
She sang Israel and Jerusalem with passion and dedication.
It is one of the most beautiful voices of in French that has died out.
Our condolences to her husband JP Magnier pic.twitter.com/bLEd8YvVlG
- Israeli Embassy in France (@IsraelenFrance) December 23, 2020
A contagious good mood
A decade later, it is she who is at the top of the bill, thanks to titles as irresistible as they are joyful, "Casatschok", "Without shirt, without pants", "So I sing".
Petulant and lively, as will be her whole life, she is regularly invited to the TV and radio shows.
A contagious good humor that makes her a true popular singer, proud of both her Israeli roots - over the years she will adapt several classics from her country of origin - and of her host land, whose clichés she sings. and the praises in "C'est ça la France".
From the 1980s, while continuing his artistic career, Rika Zaraï began to clear an unexpected field.
Passionate about unconventional medicines, at a time when only a handful of people were interested in the concept, she became a specialist in herbal care.
And decides to put all his knowledge in a book, “My Natural Medicine”, published in 1985 by Michel Lafon.
Bingo, the book sells two million copies!
The artist makes a spectacular breakthrough in the media, more often to talk about his new field of predilection than to sing.
And continues to release books that bristle the Academy of Medicine.
"Five fruits and vegetables a day, I said it already"
She doesn't care.
"You, journalists, you like us to be in boxes, but, sorry, the drawer was too narrow for me," she explained in the Parisian - Today in France in 2013. I'm not an old midinette which sings only the flowers, the blue sky.
I read every day to learn.
I had studied health for ten years before writing, it was not a fad.
Eat five fruits and vegetables a day, I said that already at the time ”.
Health and well-being, a constant concern for Rika Zaraï, who had known her share of trials.
A serious car accident in November 1969, which plunges her into a coma for six days and immobilizes her for several months.
But also a stroke, in June 2008, which left her hemiplegic while she was preparing to celebrate her 50 years of career with several concerts planned at the end of the year.
Once again, the singer will take over.
“Hope is always right”, as nicely summed up in his latest book, published by Michel Lafon in 2006.