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Shuly Nathan has lived in Israel since she was two years old, when she arrived here with her parents from her native London.
Her childhood was an active pursuit of two passions - athletics and music. At age 16 she made the choice to concentrate on music, singing and playing the guitar. In the military, she was a soldier-teacher, bringing literacy skills to new immigrants. As she taught them to read and write in Hebrew, they taught her to sing in their native languages. During that period she also appeared on amateur radio programs.
Songwriter and composer Naomi Shemer heard her singing, and asked Shuly Nathan to sing a song she had written "as a vignette," an addition to the Independence Day Song Contest in Jerusalem. The year was 1967, the song was Jerusalem of Gold. It is a song that has stood, stands, and will stand above all competition.
At the time Shuly Nathan was still a soldier, and as she traveled along the war zone entertaining the troops with her singing, the song took on a life of its own, turning into a hymn, a prayer for peace. It was sung by worried civilians and by weary soldiers. It was the heartbeat of the nation.
The population of Israel was then 2,500,000 - and 300,000 records were sold, a number unheard of in those days. Since then, Jerusalem of Gold has been translated into some forty languages.
More songs followed. Part of the prevailing mood of the sixties was the reawakening interest in folksongs, and Shuly Nathan embraced this grassroots form. She collected folksongs as she traveled, and traveled as she sang her songs. She sang songs of Israel and of Jews from around the world, American and Irish folksongs, Hassidic and Ladino songs. Many of these songs are available on CDs.
For a decade or so her singing voice was silenced by the clamor of her five children, but as they grew up, she returned to performing and recording. She has toured the United States and Canada, sung in many European cities, and in Australia
Japan and South America.
  
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