From Wedding Bands in the South to the Cultural Mainstream, The Story of Sifatayim Is More Than a Success Story
"Ahlan wa sahlan," "Lala Fatima," "Mama Diali" , the band Sifatayim managed to bring about a revolution in Israeli culture. The documentary film "Sifatayim" (2026) about this one-of-a-kind band was screened this week at DocAviv. The film, produced and directed by Ruby Almalih, revisits the extraordinary story of Sifatayim, "the mouthpiece of the Moroccan community." ● More than mug shots and illustrations, a new film offers a glimpse into the mind of Gil Gibli ● 50 years to "One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest," McMurphy’s rebellion is still a relevant lesson about power structures
The group, which began as a wedding band in the south, went on over the years to become one of the most significant phenomena in the history of local music, bringing Moroccan and Mizrahi music from the margins to the forefront. The film is full of admiration for the revolution the band sparked, but it does not stop at a comforting nostalgic tale or a story of "how we got here." It seeks to remind us that Sifatayim is not only a story of musical success, but also of an ongoing struggle for representation and equality.
A unique breeding ground with its own musical expression
Sifatayim formulated a new cultural possibility. In the 1990s, the band established the idea of Sderot as "the Israeli Liverpool," in the sense of a unique breeding ground that gives rise to its own musical expression. There, on the shoulders of giants, grew Tipex, Knessiyat HaSechel and Tanara, who emerged in the south and came to make it in Tel Aviv because "you can’t sell music in Sderot."
When the interviewer in the film asks, "What do they put in the water in Sderot?" the band’s founder, Haim Uliel, answers that these bands had the chance "to grow alongside those who made it, you have a close role model." Uliel’s line seems to sum up, in miniature, the film, which opens and closes with scenes about representation in Israeli public life. The film ties the story of the band’s members, Uliel and his brother Eli Uliel, Haim Ohana, Sami Lazmi, Shimon Amar, Kobi Oz and Nir Hovav, to the complexity of Israeli society. From the opening moments, the ethnic rift and the public debate around "first Israel" and "second Israel" are front and center. In the first shot, Uliel watches an interview with Avishai Ben Haim, while the narrator mentions the gaps in representation between Mizrahim and Ashkenazim in centers of power: "in the Supreme Court, in the State Attorney’s Office, in the Attorney General’s Office, and in other spheres of Israeli public life." Uliel quietly adds, "also in the academic staff." From that moment, the film moves into the band’s journey of reunion with the Andalusian Orchestra, after years of estrangement.
They struggled to digest the sound the band brought
The story of Sifatayim begins in the early 1980s, in the wedding circuit of the south. Haim Uliel joined the orchestra of the Moroccan singer Armando in Ashkelon, and later brought in his brother Eli as a drummer, Haim Ohana as bassist, and the singers Dalia Almkais and Yehudit Azran. After Armando left, the foundation of a new band took shape, gaining momentum with the arrival of Sami Lazmi as lead singer and as the one who led the Moroccan-language vocals. The young keyboard player Kobi Oz, later the lead singer of Tipex and an important artist in his own right in local music, also joined the band at that time.
In those years, Israel struggled to absorb the sound the band brought. On one hand, industry figures urged the band members to sing in Hebrew. On the other hand, criticism also came from within Moroccan music itself, with some opposing the band’s modern interpretation, the integration of electric guitars, and the alteration of tradition. But it was precisely this tension that made Sifatayim a real phenomenon. It did not preserve the tradition as it was, but at the same time it did not abandon it in order to be accepted, it created a new language from it, a blend of Moroccan rhythm and electric guitar.
The band’s breakthrough also came thanks to the cassette revolution. Cassette tapes bypassed the formal gates of radio and the establishment, allowing Mizrahi music to build for itself an audience that longed for it. Later, the band won broader recognition, in part through collaborations with mainstream creators. One of the most prominent was the late Matti Caspi, who at first was apparently seen as mocking the band, but later composed a song for it. The meeting with Caspi marks the moment when the Israeli cultural center was forced to recognize the power of the Moroccan sound and accept it.
The band broke up amid internal disputes
Sifatayim recorded six albums, achieved great success, and eventually broke up in 1998 amid internal disputes. Thirty years later, Haim Uliel, who lost his son and Eli within a short time, understands that precisely out of the loss he must try to reconnect what fell apart.
The film’s strength lies not in presenting Sifatayim as a worn-out success story of people who moved from the margins to the mainstream, but as a broader chapter in the Israeli story. The film reminds viewers that even after that revolution, the struggle for voice is still present. Ruby Almalih, who was born in Sderot, often deals in his films with southern Israel and the space between Jewishness and Arabness. These include the series "Gaza-Sderot," which he directed for Channel 8 and Arte France and which was nominated for the International Emmy Award, his graduation film "Holeh et Natan," which tells the story of the brothers Holeh and Natan, two mechanics from the outskirts of Sderot, against the backdrop of security deterioration between Israel and Gaza and Qassam rockets around them, and the documentary "David Melech Yisrael HaShniya," which recounts the political career of David Levy.
In the current film, Almalih warns against flattening Mizrahi identity into a stereotype. Kobi Oz puts it well: "Haim very quickly gets pulled back into the world that supported him, into that world of the mimouna and the tarboosh. In my view, Haim is major league, he is not local league. He is not a niche. But the market always pushes you into that niche." The film premiered at the DocAviv festival, which is taking place this week, and will later be broadcast on Kan 11.
