SAMARITAN POP:

Samaritan rebel returns to roots in new pop album

By Matti Friedman
ASSOCIATED PRESS

11:22 a.m. March 18, 2007

TEL AVIV, Israel – A mainstream pop album is an unlikely place to encounter an ancient tongue known to a total of 705 people in the Holy Land.

But tucked between the smooth chords and Hebrew vocals on Israeli singer Sofi Tsedaka's debut CD, listeners can hear the lilting language of the Samaritans.

Tsedaka, well known here as the striking red-headed star of soap operas and children's TV shows, calls her new album a gesture of reconciliation with the Samaritans, the tiny religious sect she was born into and which she abandoned in anger a decade ago.

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