Uzi Hitman was born in Tel Aviv on June 9th, 1952, and passed away on October 17th 2004. His family lived in Giv'at Shmu'el. When Hitman turned 6 they moved to Ramat Gan, where he lived for the rest of his life. His parents were survivors of the Bergen Belzen concentration camp. Hitman's father studied in a cantorial seminary with Cantor Moshe Koussevitzky and followed a religious lifestyle, whereas his mother was secular.
According to Hitman, his father had a great influence on his musical path, and he used to play recordings of his father's singing whenever he had visitors. In addition to the cantorial music played in his childhood home, Hitman’s parents listened to Italian opera music, pop music bands and rock music bands such as the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, as well as popular European singers of the 50s and 60s such as Enrico Macias, Helen Shapiro and more. This musical variety enriched Hitman’s world and would later find its way into his compositional style.
Hitman wrote some songs which became hits in Israel, such as Noladeti la-Shalom (I was born for Peace), composed after the arrival of his firstborn child, and dedicated to Egyptian president Muhammad Anwar el-Sa'adat on one of his visits to Israel. In addition, he composed many lyrics for musicians in the Mizrahi music genre, wrote children's songs and music for various music festivals such as the Festigal, the Hasidic Song Festival and the Kdam Eurovision contest, the Israeli national preselection of the Eurovision song contest.
In 2002 Hitmanreceived the Notzat ha-Zahav prize (Golden feather) from ACUM (Society of Authors, Composers and Music Publishers in Israel) for his lifetime achievement as a composer in the "Hebrew song" genre, as many of his songs became an integral part of its repertoire.
See here the full version of Uzi Hitman's biography in Hebrew, written by Talila Eliram.
