Shari Afik Zweig, a musician and creator, told her life story in a Studio 7 interview, tracing a path from a protected haredi childhood to writing some of the best-known songs in Jewish music. She was born the youngest child to Holocaust survivor parents who saw her as a miracle after their wartime ordeal in Europe. Her father was a Alexander Hasid, and her mother, Hana'le, came from a family of Torah scholars. Zweig said her parents' view of her as an extraordinary gift helped shape her confidence.
She grew up in south Tel Aviv, studying in the strict Beit Yaakov system while living on Lilienblum Street, opposite the iconic Eden Cinema. That proximity pulled her toward art and the stage. As a child she learned belly dancing at age seven, absorbed Arabic songs from her father's small cafe opposite the cinema, and later moved with her family first to Florentin and then to Bnei Brak as her parents grew more worried about the city's influence. She said her father also taught her a lasting lesson in tolerance, greeting Arab customers from Jaffa with respect and coffee.
During her youth in Bnei Brak, around the time of the Six Day War, she met her future husband, Ehud, in a public phone booth. He approached her without a skullcap, she rejected him as a religious girl, and he immediately produced a kippah from his pocket. Their relationship deepened despite his painful background, he was orphaned after both parents died within a week when he was 16. Her father bought him tefillin, they married, and their son Avi was born less than a year later. Zweig studied guitar with Misha Appelbaum, then began teaching others and even taught Ehud.
When Avi was one year old, the couple began composing together, including a unique setting for the prayer "Yedid Nefesh." Zweig said many people still assume the melody is ancient or by Shlomo Carlebach. The marriage later collapsed as she became more religious and Ehud went in a different direction, and the divorce was painful for her. Still, they kept submitting songs to the Hasidic Song Festival, where their "Yedid Nefesh," sung by Edna Lev, placed second, and "Hador Na'eh," sung by Miri Aloni, won first place during the Yom Kippur War.
After leaving Bnei Brak and moving to Safed when Avi was in sixth grade, she built the citywide music program "Classes That Sing," teaching large groups of children to play guitar and percussion, especially from poor families. The success drew national attention, including a visit from then education minister Yossi Sarid, who was moved to tears and told her, "I see you and I so want to kiss you and say that what every person needs is to feel that he is a messenger. When it is cold, he changes worlds." Today she focuses on poetry and literary work, alongside volunteering in clubs for women with disabilities and women with Alzheimer's, saying music can help them remember their names, songs, and life stories.
