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Shmulik Kraus
Shmulik Kraus (born July 1, 1935 in Jerusalem; died February 17, 2013 in Tel Aviv) was an Israeli singer, composer, actor and poet. He was a pioneer of Israeli pop and rock, receiving a lifetime achievement awards from channel 10 in 2005 and from Israel's Ministry of Education in 2006. He started his singing career in the late 1950s working with [a=Abi Ofarim]. Kraus became famous in his native country in the 1960s as one third of [a=The High Windows] with [a=Arik Einstein] and his wife at the time, [a=Josie Katz], writing all the music for the trio. He frequently collaborated with lyricist [a=Yankale Rotblit] and wrote music for Einstein, [a=Arik Lavie] and [a=Shalom Hanoch]. Kraus' career was repeatedly interrupted by violent incidents and periods in mental hospitals, later attributed to bipolar disorder in a 2014 biopic. His first of seven solo albums, A Criminal Record (1977), was written while he served time on gun charges and recorded during a brief furlough in 1971. In 1975 he and Katz recorded a children's album based on poems by [a= Miriam Yalan-Shteklis] set to music by Kraus. Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon chose his song “Hatishma Koli” to be played while he orbited earth on the Columbia space shuttle in 2003.