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When we sang the song “Let It Be,” we ended with the Hebrew translation of the words let it be - “Lu Yehi,” which is the name of a very famous Israeli song. There is a strong connection between the two songs, and here is the story, told by the composer and lyricist of Lu Yehi:

Naomi Shemer: The Story of the Song “Lu Yehi”

In the summer of '73, the Beatles' Let It Be was often played on the radio.

I liked the song, but I did not like the Hebrew name they gave it - "So Be It” (“Sheyihiyeh"). In my heart I called it Lu Yehi, and I planned to make a Hebrew version of that name.

That summer my friend Hava Alberstein asked me to write her a new song: I told her about my intentions about Let It Be - and then we both forgot about it.

In the days between Yom Kippur and Sukkot, Hava called me and reminded me of that conversation. She said it was urgent: "I have a performance for pilots’ wives, let's do it." Hava came to my house, and the Hebrew version I had prepared for her no longer had any connection to the original lyrics, but expressed the worries and anxieties of the war, which had broken out a day or two earlier. While we were singing the new song I had written, sitting at my piano, still with the melody of Let It Be, my husband, Mordechai Horowitz, came home on leave from army duty. He heard the new song and said, "I will not let you waste this song on a tune written by foreigners: this is a Jewish war, and you must make it a Jewish tune."

After a short while, Aharona Dayan [Moshe Dayan’s daughter-in-law, and an executive in Israel television] called and asked me to appear on television that evening. On the way to the Herzliya Studios, in Aharona's car, I changed the tune. And as with the lyrics - even in the new melody there was already the sorrow and distress of the war. (It turns out that the Beatles' song served as a platform – or springing board - for a completely new song.) The next day, on the eve of Sukkot, the new song was broadcast on television in a performance. I was in Pardes Hanna with my friend Batya Strauss, may she rest in peace. The next morning I received a phone call from the Gashashim. A car brought me to the IDF radio station, Zico [Grazziani, IDF music conductor] - prepared an arrangement, and I recorded the song with the Gashashim.

I sent the new musical notation to Hava, and two days later she also sang Lu Yehi on television, in its new format.