Eden Golan touches down in Malmö ahead of Eurovision

AMELIE BOTBOL

“We can’t run away from reality, sadly, but we can focus on the good,” says Israeli Eurovision contestant Eden Golan.
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Israeli Eurovision contestant Eden Golan.

Israeli Eurovision contestant Eden Golan landed in Malmö, Sweden, on Tuesday to prepare for the competition, scheduled to begin on May 7.

“I feel like the main message is that we are here, we are strong, we will show our voices, the warmth, the strength and the emotion that we have inside us,” Golan told JNS.

“There are truly so many people who support us, people who like the song, are there for us and love us. We are a huge family, and we want to spread good, love and unity,” she added.

The Eurovision Song Contest is an internationally televised songwriting competition comprising three live shows: two semi-finals and a grand final.

All songs must be original and no more than three minutes in length. Lead vocals must be performed live, and no more than six performers can take to the stage during any one performance.

In each show, after all songs have been performed, each country participating awards two sets of points (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10 and 12) to their favorite songs; one set is awarded by a jury of five music industry professionals and one is awarded by viewers.

The five countries in each semi-final with the most points advance to the grand final.

Last year, Israeli pop star Noa Kirel finished in third place in the Eurovision final in Liverpool, behind Sweden and Finland. She was aiming to become the fifth Israeli to win the song contest since the Jewish state first entered the annual event in 1973 and the first since Netta Barzilai and her song “Toy” won in 2018.

Past winners include Izhar Cohen and Alphabeta in 1978, with the song “A-Ba-Ni-Bi,” Milk and Honey in 1979 with “Hallelujah” and Dana International in 1998 with “Diva.”

This year, Eden Golan, 20, will represent the Jewish state in the second semifinal on May 9. The grand final will take place on May 11.

The coming days will be busy ones for Golan.

“Each day revolves around Eurovision, from rehearsals and vocal lessons to interviews, photoshoots and fittings to prepare the wonderful outfits that I will be wearing on stage,” she said.

“I am concentrating on our goal: to give a great performance, and I am constantly working towards it,” she added.

Organizers of the Eurovision Song Contest reaffirmed in February that Israel would be allowed to compete despite calls to exclude it from the competition.

“Of course, there were thoughts and uncertainties at certain points. I don’t think I really let it get to me. I was very focused, I truly wanted to believe that we would be there on stage, I visualized it, I just saw myself performing on stage,” said Golan.

“Good thoughts, good vibes, good energy; here we are now,” she added. 

Rejecting parallels drawn by pro-Palestinian activists with Russia’s exclusion from the competition over its invasion of Ukraine, Noel Curran, director-general of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), said that “comparisons between war and conflict are complex and difficult and, as an apolitical media organization, it is not our place to make them.”

In March, Israel’s Kan News public broadcaster revealed the Jewish state’s final entry for this year’s contest, after the EBU had threatened to disqualify two earlier entries over perceived political messaging. A week earlier, the EBU informed Israel that Golan would be allowed to compete with “Hurricane.” 

“When we finally got the news that everything was sorted out, it was amazing, it felt like a weight was lifted off my shoulders,” said Golan. 

“It was exciting, heartwarming and uplifting because I really think that this year more than ever it’s important for us to be there on stage and show our voice,” she added. 

The last lines of “October Rain,” one of Israel’s earlier entries, described the condition of Israelis during the Oct. 7 terror attacks, in which 1,200 people were slaughtered: “There’s no air left to breathe/No place, no me from day to day.”

In one of the verses, Golan sang the word “flowers,” which is Israel Defense Forces slang for fallen soldiers, but which does not carry that connotation for European viewers.

Israel’s second-choice song, “Dance Forever,” was an apparent reference to the massacre at the Supernova music festival near Kibbutz Re’im, where Hamas terrorists murdered 364 people on Oct. 7.

Kan has said that the final submission, set to the tune of “October Rain,” tells the story of a “young woman who is surviving a personal crisis.”

“Honestly, when the news got out to me that they did not want to approve the song, I was shocked, to say the least,” said Golan. “Now that it’s done, I’m not looking back. I know that we have a great song that will represent us proudly and that’s all that matters,” she continued. 

“I am very happy with the final product. I think we have a great, powerful and emotional song that conveys so many feelings, in which every single person can find themselves and connect to it in some way or another,” Golan added. 

She told JNS she is well aware of the worldwide surge of antisemitism. 

‘We can focus on the good’

In March, a London movie theater threatened to cancel the screening of the Eurovision Grand Final if Israel remains in the competition, according to Deadline.

The Rio Cinema in East London, known for its ties with Eurovision Party London, declared the decision via social media, and added that it will continue to support Palestinian charities.

“I am not naive. I know what is going on in the world. It’s not something we can really hide from,” said Golan. 

“I wouldn’t say I’m scared because I will be taken care of, and the whole delegation is going to be taken care of as well. Once again, I am very focused on our main goal: to give a great performance. We can’t run away from reality, sadly, but we can focus on the good,” she added. 

While Eurovision is the main focus, Golan said she had a lot of projects in the works, which she said she approaches with the same optimism and belief as she does the competition.  

“My dreams, my mind, my vision, life, people, but first of all my vision and the way that I see myself is what keeps me motivated and working every single day,” she told JNS.

“After Eurovision, I’m still going to do the things I love most, releasing songs, maybe music videos and albums. Everything will happen at some point, so whoever is interested, keep following and stay tuned,” she added.

This week “Hurricane” surpassed 4 million streams on Spotify.

Hamas Killing Spree Haunts Holocaust Survivors in ‘March of the Living’

Reuters and Algemeiner Staff

Participants attend the annual “March of the Living” to commemorate the Holocaust at the former Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz, in Brzezinka near Oswiecim, Poland, May 2, 2019. Reuters/Kacper Pempel/File Photo

Israel’s Holocaust commemorations this year have a searing significance for six elderly survivors now deeply scarred by the Hamas attacks of Oct. 7 that sparked the ongoing Gaza war.

The killing and kidnapping spree by Palestinian terrorists on a Jewish holiday morning shook the sense of security of Israelis – not least, those who had witnessed the state emerge as a safe haven after the Nazi genocide.

For Bellha Haim, 86, the upheaval is especially profound.

Her grandson Yotam – like her, a resident of a village near the Gaza border – was taken hostage by Hamas and managed to escape, only to be accidentally shot dead by Israeli soldiers.

The trauma drove Haim to return to her native Poland, which she had fled with her family as a child during World War Two, and where she will on Monday take part in the “March of the Living” at the site of the Auschwitz death camp.

The annual ceremony is timed to coincide with Israel’s Holocaust memorial day.

“I never went back, and I wasn’t convinced to go back,” she said during a meeting with other survivors ahead of the trip.

“But this time, when they told me that they were connecting the Holocaust and what I call the ‘Holocaust of October 7′ – because then in the Holocaust we (Jews) were not a united people, we didn’t have a country, and suddenly this pride of mine that has been broken, my pride in my people and my country that was shattered in front of my eyes – I said, ‘This time I will break my oath and I will go out.’”

As a teenager, Yotam had taken part in the annual Auschwitz vigil and Haim said she saw the event as a chance for communion with him and other victims of the Hamas attack.

“I will go out in the name of Yotam, who marched there when he was in high school, and I will go out there to shout out the cry of the slain, of the babies, of all my good friends that I will never meet again,” she said.

ARABIC YELLING AND GUNFIRE

Among those joining her will be 90-year-old Daniel Louz, whose hometown Kibbutz Beeri lost a tenth of its residents to the Palestinian attackers.

In some ways, he said, that ordeal was worse for him than the European war, when he escaped Nazi round-ups in his native France although half his family perished in Poland.

After he awoke to the sound of Arabic yelling and gunfire, “I was constantly busy with surviving and figuring out what to do,” Louz said. “In France, as a child, I suffered all kinds of post-traumas that I’ve learned to cope with. But in Beeri, it was the first time that I felt the fear of death.”

A neighboring house was riddled with bullets. Louz’s was untouched. He says he imagined the souls of the six million Holocaust victims steering Hamas away from him. “They probably wanted me to be here to tell this story,” he said, weeping.

Other Holocaust survivors participating in the March of the Living include Smil Bercu Sacagiu, 87, whose home was hit by a rocket from Gaza, and Jacqueline Gliksman, 81, whose home was torched by a Palestinian infiltrator.

“What was left, and luckily the terrorist didn’t see it, is my grandchildren,” she said, referring to gold figurines on a necklace she was wearing. “That’s the only thing I have left.”

Before he was seized, Haim’s grandson left a text message: “They’re burning down my house. I smell gas. I’m scared.”

She said that reminded her of a Holocaust-era song in Yiddish, invoking centuries of pogroms, with the refrain “fire, Jews, fire”. A veteran campaigner for peace with the Palestinians, Haim said she would no longer pursue that activism.

“I’m not able to,” she said. “Now what interests me is only my people.”

Antyizraelscy protestujący założyli obozowisko na kampusie Uniwersytetu Columbia w Nowym Jorku 22 kwietnia 2024 r.

Szaleństwo uniwersytetu

Phyllis Chesler
Tłumaczenie: Małgorzata Koraszewska

Phyllis Chesler – Emerytowana profesor psychologii i praw kobiet na City University w Nowym Jorku. Profesor Chesler opublikowała setki badań i tysiące artykułów, koncentrując się w ostatnich latach na problemach przemocy i tzw. zabójstw honorowych. Niektóre z jej książek, takie jak Women and Madness, należą już do klasyki. Jej opublikowana w 2013 roku piętnasta książka, An American Bride in Kabul, zdobyła National Jewish Book Award w kategorii pamiętników.

Jest nadzieja na zawieszenie walk w Strefie Gazy. “Jedyną rzeczą, która stoi między mieszkańcami Gazy a zawieszeniem broni, jest Hamas”

Dominika Maciejasz

Palestyńczycy z torbami z mąką, które udało im się zdobyć z wozu z pomocą humanitarną. Strefa Gazy, 19 lutego 2024 r. (Fot. REUTERS/Kosay Al Nemer/File Photo)

Wstrzymanie walk na 40 dni, wymiana zakładników na palestyńskich więźniów – to warunki zawieszenia broni, jakie ma proponować delegacja Hamasu, która na mediacje przybyła do Kairu.

Stany Zjednoczone starały się wywrzeć presję na Hamas, aby zaakceptował najnowsze propozycje, które są powszechnie postrzegane jako ostatnia szansa na zapobieżenie nowym, intensywnym walkom. Każda izraelska ofensywa w Rafah przyniesie wiele nowych ofiar cywilnych i zaostrzy ostry kryzys humanitarny w Strefie Gazy.

“Jedyną rzeczą, która stoi między mieszkańcami Gazy a zawieszeniem broni, jest Hamas” – powiedział w piątek sekretarz stanu USA Antony Blinken.

Blinken powtórzył również zastrzeżenia Waszyngtonu wobec ofensywy w Rafah, mówiąc, że Izrael nie przedstawił wiarygodnego planu ochrony 1,2 mln lub nawet większej liczby cywilów przesiedlonych z innych części Gazy, którzy szukali schronienia w rozległych, namiotowych obozach dla uchodźców i schroniskach ONZ.

“Bez takiego planu nie możemy poprzeć dużej operacji wojskowej w Rafah, ponieważ szkody, jakie by to wyrządziło, wykraczają poza to, co jest akceptowalne” – dodał Blinken.

Organizacje humanitarne i Organizacja Narodów Zjednoczonych również wielokrotnie wzywały Izrael do odwołania ataku w Rafah.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, dyrektor generalny Światowej Organizacji Zdrowia, ostrzegł 3 maja, że operacja wojskowa na pełną skalę w Rafah “może doprowadzić do rozlewu krwi i jeszcze bardziej osłabić i tak już zepsuty system opieki zdrowotnej”.

Cywile jako żywe tarcze

Izraelscy urzędnicy twierdzą, że ofensywa lądowa w Rafah jest niezbędna do osiągnięcia deklarowanych przez Izrael celów wojskowych, ponieważ stacjonują tam tysiące bojowników Hamasu i przywódców tej organizacji.

Hamas wziął ok. 250 zakładników podczas niespodziewanego ataku na południowy Izrael w październiku ubiegłego roku, który wywołał wojnę. Około połowa z nich jest nadal przetrzymywana w Gazie, a wielu z nich prawdopodobnie przebywa w Rafah lub pod Rafah.

W październikowym ataku Hamasu zginęło około 1200 osób, głównie cywilów. Ponad 34 600 osób zginęło w wyniku izraelskiej ofensywy wojskowej w Strefie Gazy, głównie kobiety i dzieci. Izrael twierdzi, że Hamas wykorzystuje cywilów jako żywe tarcze, czemu Hamas zaprzecza.

W sobotnich atakach na Gazę zginęło co najmniej sześć osób. Trzy ciała wydobyto spod gruzów budynku w Rafah i przewieziono do szpitala Yousef al-Najjar. W ataku na obóz dla uchodźców Nuseirat w środkowej Strefie Gazy zginęły również trzy osoby.

Hamas, który jest u władzy w Strefie Gazy od 2007 roku, mówi, że rozważa najnowszą propozycję rozejmu w “pozytywnych duchu”.

Hamas jest jednak głęboko podzielony, a wypowiedzi jego politycznego skrzydła, obecnie głównie w Stambule, często nie odzwierciedlają poglądów Yahya Sinwara, organizatora październikowych ataków i najwyższego rangą przywódcy Hamasu w Gazie.