How Israel lost the elites and won the people - a Eurovision story

The Eurovision finals in Malmo, Sweden, remind us that no one does antisemitism quite like the Europeans

May 22, 2024

The mood at the very gay, very Jewish party I attended in NYC was bleak. But as David Ben Gurion once said: In Israel, in order to be a realist you must believe in miracles.

If you’ve never heard of Eurovision, imagine the Olympics but everyone is so bad its good, the UN General assembly if the Croatian delegate wore feathers, the World Cup, yet somehow gayer. The premise is simple – each country in the European Broadcasting Union picks a performer and an original song to represent their nation and the gladiatorial crooners face each other in a series of preliminary sing-offs and eventually a final – and that’s when the real show begins.

In a voting process that would wrinkle even Steve Kornacki’s khakis, each participating country gets to rank all the others with two sets of votes – one from a professional jury, and one cast by viewers. The point tallies are all broadcast to the sound of gasps and cheers, in a modern-day game of Risk where countries constantly move up and down the scoreboard, with the ultimate winner awarded the honor of hosting the show next year. It’s the only world stage where rabid nationalism meets unapologetic kitsch.

Charismatic performers and quality songs score highly of course, but the voting has always been geopolitical. Balkan countries vote for each other, as do Scandinavians. Ukraine won in 2022 (the betting odds had it at 62%) and Russia was kicked out the same year. When Israel won in 1979 (back-to-back champions baby!), it could have been because our entry “Hallelujah” was a masterpiece, or because five days earlier we (the country, not the musical legend Gali Atari) signed a peace deal with Egypt.

For us Israelis, our ranking in Eurovision is the ultimate popularity contest, but more importantly – a temperature check to see if we are accepted—an annual tally of who obviously hates Jews (Ireland!) and who is inscribed in the Book of Life (We love you, uh, Germany?)

We may seem like a tough bunch, but underneath the chest hair is a nation that just wants to be one of the guys. Every vote is a reminder that we too are a normal country, just like you. We go to the beach, we love coffee shops, we’ve got killer choreography - It doesn’t matter that some of us watched the contest in a shelter while under missile attack, that the cute boys from last year’s pride parade are now fighting in Gaza, and that a few hours after Eurovision counts the votes, we’ll begin counting our dead as Memorial Day begins. Other than the endless war, terrorism, and existential threat – we’re super cool, if you turn off Al Jazeera and TikTok and just get to know us.

This year, the Eurovision finals in Malmo, Sweden, reminds us that no one does antisemitism quite like the Europeans. First, 20-year-old Israeli contestant Eden Golan was asked to change the name of her song from “October Rain” to something less “political” or kindly drop out, sparking a fiery national debate we haven’t seen since in Israel since agreeing to German reparations in 1952. Meanwhile, thousands of artists from battle-weary countries like Finland and Iceland called to boycott the contest. The British entrant had to tearfully apologize to his fans for participating and remind them he signed a letter to condemn Israel all the way back in October, before it was cool. The Norwegian lady who reads the points on TV quit in protest hours before, leaving the country without a Norwegian lady to read the points on TV. Several gay bars and drag queens in the UK and the US, for which Eurovision is like the Superbowl and Christmas combined, decided not to host showings altogether, either in protest or fear, or both. Even Greta Thunberg took a strong stand and marched against Israel’s participation, taking a break from doing…whatever it is she does.

Eurovision celebrates diversity, so it was not surprising to see thousands of Islamists gain interest in the contest this year. Thousands of passionate keffiyeh-clad fans took the street in Malmo days before the contest, singing their own songs of Intifada and other golden living dreams of vision. So moved was the crowd by the music, that Israeli performer Eden Golan had to be escorted in and out of the arena by a convoy of hundreds of police officers and advised not to leave her hotel room during her entire stay. Eden was booed at every rehearsal. The Irish contestant, draped in a keffiyeh that matched their facial tattoos, proudly reported that they cried when Israel qualified for the final. The Greek participant pretended to sleep when Eden spoke at the press conference, and the Dutch singer covered his face and mocked her, in one of several last straws that ended in his disqualification hours before showtime. But perhaps the most egregious of all is when a member of the press asked Eden if she felt it was irresponsible for her to be there, given the danger her participation poses to everyone else (she answered diplomatically like the princess that she is).

The smirkers, the hissers, those who asked Eden to delete a video they had just taken – it’s unclear how many of them were true believers and how many just thought they were reading the room. As any public figure who posted something along the lines of “thoughts and prayers” on October 7 can tell you, the online mob will set you straight about the Middle East. If enough people bully you into bullying someone else, best to go along with the crowd. If hundreds of people scream loud enough, discount the thousands who choose to remain silent. And all of it maybe would have been ignored, if the Israeli song wasn’t really, really good. “Hurricane” (deadname: October Rain) is a banger, and Eden completely killed it on stage, despite the unprecedented booing at the final. Yet when it was time to announce the jury votes, those are the votes by the panel of experts from each nation, many of the countries didn’t even include Israel in their rankings. They may have liked the song, but really, who wants to deal with those nasty Instagram comments? Avoidance is the safest bet for an intact follower count.

When the jury portion of the show had culminated with Israel at a disappointing 12 out of 26, Israelis began to close out our tabs, but refused to lose hope. And then came the popular vote, the unwashed Eurovision masses. The people of Europe had spoken, anonymously and without fear of retribution. A shocking 15 countries awarded Israel the maximum number of points, launching it into the very respectable 5^th place overall, and 2^nd among all televoters, an upset not seen since (insert sports metaphor here)

Were the good people of Switzerland paying homage to Theodore Herzl? Was the Swedish vote an affront to Islamist extremism? Was San Marino moved by Eden’s bravery against all odds? We may never know why people voted the way they did (though some antisemites on X have theories), but one thing has been clear throughout the years – Eurovision fans like a good performance and a appreciate an underdog. We threw our espresso martinis in the air and hugged strangers in rainbow flag yarmulkas. We were in lockstep with the world again. The ugly duckling had transformed into a beautiful, socially acceptable swan.

I walked home with my head held high. The loud hateful voices were drowned out, and the room people thought they were reading – well, turns out they were in the wrong room. My joy only lasted a few minutes1. It was not lost on me that nothing has changed - 133 hostages are still being held by Hamas in Gaza. My country is fighting an existential war, increasingly alone. And my other country, the United States, is torn between caving in to the bullies and standing up for what’s right. Perhaps we’d all be better off caring less about what people think, and more about what they do. As Eden says (do you really think this piece won’t end with a cheesy lyric?): “Take it all, and leave the world behind”.

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BONUS: A beautiful performance Eden Golan gave last weekend at the Hostage rally, including the “political” lyrics that include such controversial phrases like “Never Again” and “October Rain”.