This work was commissioned by the Dutch-Jew Bernard Bronkhorst as a monument in sound to the victims of the Holocaust and to the builders of Israel. The title is taken from the Eighteen Blessing of Hebrew liturgy: Blessed be Thou, who revives the Dead. The music incorporates melodies of traditional prayers and tunes in a manner balanced between documentary quotation and composition. It is essentially a symphonic work in four movements based on a single theme, the Judaica theme, which is developed organically, spreading, like a tree, with branches extending into each of the four movements.

World Premiere: 3rd, May 1987, Amsterdam
by the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra under David Porcelijn
soloists: Joseph Malovany, Tenor
Liewe Visser, bass baritone
The Radio choir of Hilversum
The Toelzer Knabenchor

Further performances:

Israel (Tel-Aviv and Haifa), December 1987
by the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra under David Porcelijn
7 performances

Brussels, February 1989, Palaix des Beaux-Arts
the BRT orchestra under David Porcelijn

• La Libre Belgique/Paule Tran
  Poem a l’humanite
  ...Cyclopeen...Flamboyant...Une heure durant, la riche etoffe de ses quatre mouvements se deroule sans que la tension ne se relave un seul instant.......

• The Daily Telegraph/Geoffry Norris
  In the penultimate concert of its current Barbican series, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra conserved most of its energy for the British premiere of Noam Sheriff’s Mechaye Hamethim.
  ....This piece composed with palpable sincerity, with a sense of horror and, in its final movement, glorification of the Deity........

• Jewish Chronicle, London/ David Sonin
  .....From the opening bars until the final "Hallelujah" Sheriff demonstrates that the evocation of the Jewish experience is not the prerogative of the written word, canvas or carving. Music has a central role in projecting Jewish life, and with Mechaye Hamethim, the void that has existed since Schoenberg’s "A survivor from Warsaw" may now be filled.

• Frankfurt Allgemeine Zeitung/Ellen Kohlhaas
  Noam Sheriff hat die Vorgaben erfuellt: Sein werk ist durchrungen von juedischer Musikgeschichte, aber auch von westeuropaeischer, vorsichtig avangardistischer Tradition.

• Frankfurter Rundschau/Klaus K. Fueller
  ...ein Gesamtkunstwerk geschaffen, dessen Qualitaet ihm einen Platz in den Konzertsaelen sichern wird. ... Die Musik ist von ausserordentlicher manchmal schmerzender Intensitaet, von deutlichem Symbolgehalt und von einer klaren Aussage...

Ludwigsburg festival, Germany, August 1995
by The Lithuania Philharmonic orchestra under Noam Sheriff

Lublin. Poland, March 1996
by The Lublin Symphony Orchestra under Jakob Kovalsky