Bruce Springsteen

Tzruya “Suki” Lahav, a violinist and poet who played with Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band in the mid 1970’s on some of the band’s most beloved LPs, has died. She was 74.

Yonatan Albalak, her son, posted on Facebook April 2 that his mother had been “gathered into infinity after a short and hard battle with the cursed disease” of cancer.

“She wrote songs that touched people’s hearts,” he wrote, describing her as “a special woman, smart, pure in heart and loving life. She was the best mom I could ever ask for.”

Lahav’s tenure with the group lasted only between 1974 and 1975, yet she contributed several standout moments to Springsteen’s catalog. She performed on “The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle” and its follow-up, the smash “Born to Run.” She played the famed violin intro to the classic single “Jungleland,” and performed the multi-tracked choir on “4th Of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)” after a church vocal group failed to turn up for the session. She also played on a fan-favorite, widely-bootlegged cover of Bob Dylan’s “I Want You.”

She entered Springsteen’s camp after her husband, Louis Lahav, engineered on Springsteen’s 1972 debut album, “Greetings From Asbury Park.” Lahav told the Jerusalem Post in 2007 that she joined the group as “a young girl in a flowing white dress from Kibbutz Ayelet Hashahar in the Upper Galilee, barely out of the army, barely married … I went from kibbutz harvest music to rocking with Bruce.”

She remained a major artist in Israel for decades after her tenure with Springsteen. She recorded with the Israeli rock band Tamuz, and wrote songs for prominent Israeli artists like Rita, including “Yemei Hatom” and “Shara Barkhovot.” She won the ACUM Lifetime Achievement Award and the Arik Einstein Prize there. In 1990, “Shara Barkhovot” was Israel’s submission to the Eurovision Song Contest.

March 29 (UPI) — Participants in the thousands of No Kings demonstrations across the United States said they came out to protest President Donald Trump for his crackdown on immigration, his decision to go to war in Iran, and even his decisions to put his name on federal property and money.

The organizers behind the No Kings movement estimated that about 8 million people turned out for Saturday’s protests, which took place across at least 3,000 individual locations in every single congressional district in the country. The New York Times reported, though, that the estimate could be off because organizers’ figures in some cases were higher than those reported by local public safety officials.

The marquee event at the Minnesota State Capitol in St. Paul drew more than 200,000, people, organizers said. Among them were Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., singer Joan Baez, actor Jane Fonda and Gov. Tim Walz. Rocker Bruce Springsteen performed his original song, “Streets of Minneapolis, inspired by civilian deaths at the hands of federal immigration officials during an enforcement crackdown earlier this year.

The Minnesota Star Tribune reported that the St. Paul demonstration had a dual purpose — condemning the Trump administration while also celebrating the those in the state who stood against the federal immigration enforcement surge.

Speaking at the St. Paul event, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison called on attendees to “look past Trump and into the society we dream about.”

“Every right we fought for and won is under attack right now,” he said. “In part, we got ourselves into this mess because of an election, and we’re going to get out of this mess with an election.”

At the University of Iowa, organizers Katy Gates told The Times many college-age attendees were inspired to protest in response to the war in Iran. Trump authorized attacks on Iran in conjunction with Israel beginning Feb. 28. Some have taken issue with the now-monthlong involvement in a war without congressional approval.

“Our generation has grown up with this idea of endless war in the Middle East,” she said. “And the idea of getting into yet another is something that people are rightfully angry about.”

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., went beyond protesting Saturday, announcing a bill to ban sitting presidents from putting their names on federal property and currency.

“In America, we do not bow to kings,” she said. “Our president should be focused on bringing down grocery prices, making healthcare affordable and ensuring every family can get ahead, not using their position to boost their own personal brand.

“It is time that we institute this ban and make sure that our government serves the people, not one person’s ego.”

Inspired by the addition of Trump’s name to the John F. Kennedy Performing Arts Center in Washington, D.C., and his plans to add his own signature to currency, the legislation would also ban banners with the president’s face on the side of federal buildings, naming a class of warships after a sitting president and putting their image on commemorative coins.