OPINION: Am Yisrael Chai, alive on the Eurovision stage
Yuval Raphael didn’t just sing for Israel at Eurovision — she survived 7 October by playing dead among corpses. Her joy and strength cut through the noise of media bias in Basel last weekend
We all know where we were on 7 October 2023. One person who doubtless remembers the day in far too vivid reality is Eurovision singer Yuval Raphael. Her new, frothy celebrity is a tonic for us all. Her sunny disposition, together with the almost outlandish fact that as a 24-year-old, she had the presence of mind to follow her father’s instruction on the phone to “play dead” while surrounded by real dead bodies for hours, is grimly surreal. Of course the po-faced commentary from Graham Norton, neatly sidestepped that inconvenient truth of Yuval’s own story.
But this consistent media assault, this special singling out of Israel, has had a subliminal impact on Diaspora Jews.
In part that’s because the inflammatory, accusatory, calumnies levelled against Israel are unrelenting. They have been for the last 84 weeks, well before a shot was fired from Israel.
The media narrative on 7th, 8th and 9th October 2023 was seemingly framed within a prism of contextuality. There was a purported justification for Hamas’ atrocities, many of which were yet to come to light. It has an impact on Diaspora Jews. It has to – particularly when intelligent and articulate pundits, who are more often than not, Jewish, philosemites and Zionists themselves, join in sowing seeds of nagging doubts about Israel and its conduct of the war.
Back to Basel though. Ane senior member of the Anglo-Jewish community lamented that it was “hard to argue” with Graham Norton’s commentary (which had omitted any mention of Yuval’s horrific ordeal) that Eurovision’s organisers would be “breathing a sigh of relief that they’re not faced with a Tel Aviv final next year”.
This Eeyore-esque approach, this defeatist, self flagellating, semi supine position, where sensibilities and pride are dulled, is symptomatic of the horrors Israel faced on 7 October and continues to.
Yuval epitomises all that is best about Israel: youth, with an old head on her shoulders; courage, defiance, a champion in the face of adversity
But Yuval doesn’t represent the Israeli government and its infernal machinations. Nor is she aligned to any political party. To be sure, politicians capitalise on her success. But it’s a bit like saying the UK’s entry is synonymous with the Starmer government. But different rules apply for Israel: any Israeli outside of Ben Gurion is deemed to be a representative of the state and indeed, the government of the day.
But in this default role that Yuval did not choose, she reminded us of the best of Israel. She is a talent, a survivor and a ray of positivity. Her roar of Am Yisrael Chai at the end of her performance was emblematic of our old-new people. And isn’t that what Israel is? Really. Beneath the current open wounds of war and politics, Israel, as the late Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks said, is the home of hope.
Yuval epitomises all that is best about Israel: youth, with an old head on her shoulders; courage, defiance, a champion in the face of adversity.
We in the diaspora need to remember that Israel is not only our home, our heritage; it is also our hope.
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