Rika Zaraï

Rika Zaraï (Hebrew: ריקה זראי; 19 February 1938 – 23 December 2020) was a Franco-Israeli singer and writer.

Rika Gozman (later Zarai) was born in Jerusalem. Her father came from Odessa (now Ukraine) in the Russian Empire, and her mother from Valozhyn (now Belarus), then in Poland.

She passed her baccalaureate at the age of 17 and enlisted directly in the Israel Defense Forces, a year before her compulsory service would have drafted her. She attended the Jerusalem Music Conservatory where she obtained a first prize in piano. During her 18 months of army service, she was appointed producer of the entertainment troupe of the IDF Central Command.

In 1958, she married Hungarian-born composer Yochanan Zarai [he], with whom she had her daughter Yael (Yaël Bolender). She would later divorce Zarai and marry French musician Jean-Pierre Magnier.

On November 9, 1969, she was the victim of a car accident. The singer sank into a coma for six days and remained immobilized in a cast for eight months. Despite a reserved medical prognosis, she recovered completely after three years. It was during her painful convalescence that Rika composed, as a snub to her suffering, the song Balapapa, with joyful lyrics and which would be a great success.