When I emigrated to Israel in the late 70s, I was not overly enamoured of the local pop and rock scene.

That may have had something to do with my then-limited Hebrew vocabulary, or I just didn’t dig the music or the way the far more staccato Hebrew was sculpted into the rhythms.

Either way, for me and many sabras, rock in Israel enjoyed a renaissance in the 1990s, as the likes of new wave, post-punk Sderot-based band Knessiyat Hasechel (Church of Reason), Eifo HaYeled and Girafot added some collateral to the marriage of “Israeli” and “rock”.

All the above, and many of their contemporaries and successors, were deftly snapped by photographer Ronen Lalena, often as compelling images for album covers.

Sadly, Lalena, 55, contracted a rare eye disease a few years ago and is no longer able to work in the field.

However, he will be afforded a well-deserved salute for his peerless oeuvre when 200 of his prints, taken between 1992 and 2016, are exhibited at Hangar 11 at the Port of Tel Aviv.

To read more on this story, subscribe to our new e-edition. Go to E-edition.jewishtelegraph.com.

If you have a story or an issue you want us to cover, let us know - in complete confidence - by contacting newsdesk@jewishtelegraph.com, 0161-741 2631 or via Facebook / Twitter