Israeli Musician Adi Ulmansky Releases Haunting Tribute to Late Brother
Israeli musician Adi Ulmansky opens up about releasing her deeply personal new track, 'Song for Asaf,' dedicated to her late brother who died by suicide after a lifelong battle with depression, and how music became her ultimate survival mechanism.
For the past 27 years, Adi Ulmansky's family lived on an extreme emotional roller coaster, culminating two years ago in an extraordinary and painful paradox. At the time, both the acclaimed musician and her late brother Asaf were hospitalized simultaneously at Sheba Medical Center: she was in the high-risk pregnancy ward expecting her second daughter, while he was in the psychiatric ward following a suicide attempt. At noon, they would meet to eat and joke that it was now easier for their parents to visit both of them at once. Such was the bond between the older brother and his younger sister: loving, protective, and filled with dark, self-deprecating humor. A month after Asaf was discharged, he stopped answering messages. Ulmansky and her father rushed to his apartment, pounding on the locked door to absolute silence. In a video published on social media, she recalled the quiet grace of police officers who entered through a window, shielding her and her father from seeing Asaf's body after he took his life at the age of 42 without leaving a note. Ever since Asaf was diagnosed with severe depression at age 15, the family had lived in dread of this moment. When it finally arrived, they had to figure out how to navigate the grief.
Despite being an established musician, creator, and producer, writing a song about the shadow that accompanied her since she was ten years old was not an obvious choice. "The thoughts started many years ago," Ulmansky explains in an interview. "Is it my place to write songs about this? Does it honor him? Could it hurt him? I carry a very heavy weight, but I didn't want to make things harder for him. Life was hard enough as it was." The decision crystallized on the way to the shiva. "It was some sort of detachment, a desire to find something positive in a very difficult event. A spark of hope, of life. It was very hard to reach that decision because he cannot say yes or no anymore."
Indeed, "Song for Asaf," released ahead of a new mini-album, is first and foremost Ulmansky's way of coping with relentless thoughts about the loss ten months ago. The war in Iran, which broke out shortly after, only compounded the anguish. "I would sit at 11:00 PM in the safe room with my daughters, the lights off, feeling this overwhelming pressure thinking of him and everything that happened. So I started writing just to release it. I never thought it would become a song, let alone be released." What changed over time? "As I worked on it, it became a genuine coping mechanism. I found myself crying while writing and releasing. Over time, I thought: maybe I can tell his story, give him a place in the world, leave something behind. Even though it is a painful topic people avoid touching, I wanted people to know who he was.
In the track, Ulmansky vividly and tenderly depicts both his story and her own: a brilliant young man trapped by a war inside his own head, yet fighting to study, work, and maintain independence; and the younger sister who loved fiercely while living in the shadow of family anxiety. "Your soul was lost," she sings over a dark beat and a rising vocal. "You walked in the desert for forty years / Now it is time to rest." She recalls his sharp intellect, filled with quantum physics, black holes, and the Zohar, noting how he even asked for the Babylonian Talmud during a psychiatric admission despite their entirely secular upbringing. When asked about apologizing to him in the lyrics, despite her family's tireless 27 years of support, she shares advice from her therapist that brought profound relief: "She told me, 'You know, it is very arrogant and narcissistic to think that if you had done this or that, he would still be alive, as if the world revolves around you.' That really set me free.
Looking back, Ulmansky's artistic journey—from her breakout on a television talent show to her indie electronic project Lorna Bee and her trailblazing solo career and production work—takes on a new context. Caring for Asaf often relegated her own needs to the background. Music became her parallel reality and survival mechanism: dyed hair, television appearances, international tours, and an escape from the heavy domestic atmosphere. Now, at 38, Ulmansky realizes she no longer needs to hide. "I am tired of hiding, tired of feeling that something is wrong and that I need to put on a mask. This is my burden, this is my story. Whoever loves me, loves me because of and despite this burden, and whoever doesn't, that is okay too."
