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ABSTRACT
Israel has participated in the Eurovision, the largest European music festival, since 1973. The Jewish state regularly invests substantial resources in the contest and goes to great lengths to shine; with four victories, as well as two second places, it has been highly successful. Given its symbolic significance, as well as its actual impact on Israeli cultural diplomacy and nation-branding efforts, the annual media event and the process of selecting an artistic representative frequently elicit values-laden debates. Against this backdrop, the article investigates the evolution of the ways in which Israelis have presented themselves on the Eurovision stage, as well as the country’s internal discourse surrounding this annual cultural ritual. Israel’s participation in the yearly spectacle, I argue, has become an important element of ongoing Zionist-Israeli nation-building.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Rachel Furst for her thorough editing and to the anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful comments.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Ha`aretz, 2 April 1979, 3.
2 Ma`ariv, 2 April 1979, 4.
3 Jerusalem Post, 7 April 1979, 1; Ha`aretz, 2 April 1979, 3.
4 Aaronczyk, Branding the Nation.
5 Daniel Dayan and Elihu Katz have analyzed the staging of such events in detail. See their Media Events.
6 Britta Tim Knudsen, who has coined the term, and analyzed the staging of the nation through the broadcasting of historic events in the globalized world, see her “The Nation as Media Event.”
7 Jones/Subotic, “Fantasies of power.”
8 E.g., see Fricker/Gluhovic, Performing the “New” Europe; Kalman, Eurovisions; Tobin/Raykoff, A Song for Europe; Tragaki, Empire of Song; Wolter, Kampf der Kulturen.
9 Vuletic, Postwar Europe.
10 Among the few exceptions are: Belkind, “A Message for Peace;” Lutz/Press-Barnathan, Multilevel Identity Politics.
11 See, e.g., Lemish, “My Kind of Campfire;” Maurey, “Dana International;” Swedenburg, “Mizrahi/Arab/Israeli/Queer;”; Solomon, “Viva la Diva Citizenship;” Sznaider, Gesellschaften in Israel, 133–54; Ziv, “Diva Interventions.”
12 On this aspect, see Knudsen, “The Nation as Media Event.”
13 Bolin, “Visions of Europe.”
14 For details about television services in Israel and the ideology of early Israeli leaders, see Soffer, Mass Communication in Israel.
15 See e.g. JTA, 2 April 1979, https://www.jta.org/1979/04/02/archive/israel-wins-eurovision-song-contest (last accessed: 3 March 2022).
16 Related among others in: https://www.israel21c.org/12-fun-facts-about-israel-and-the-eurovision-song-contest/ (last accessed: 21 March 2021).
17 As is true for most initiatives to brand a nation, see Aaronczyk, Branding the Nation, 16.
18 E.g. in 1999. See Yedioth Aharonot, 12 May 1999, 24.
19 Such as one commentator of the Jerusalem Post, 15 May 1998, 15.
20 Jerusalem Post, 20 March 1992, 22.
21 See e.g. the comment by a comment by the director of the organization Stand With US, Michael Dickson, in Jerusalem Post, 19 May 2019, https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/The-real-winner-of-Eurovision-was-Israel-590089 (last accessed: 21 March 2021).
22 JTA, 14 May 2018, https://www.jta.org/2018/05/14/culture/israel-overcame-politics-winning-eurovision-song-contest (last accessed: 21 March 2021). Oppenheimer is the former director of the anti-occupation movement Peace Now.
23 Daniel Dayan and Elihu Katz, Media Events, 5.
24 Knudsen, “The Nation as Media Event.”
25 Regev/Seroussi, Popular Music, 121.
26 All songtexts and their English translation are taken from http://www.diggiloo.net/ if not noted otherwise.
27 Jerusalem Post, 11 May 2001, 22.
28 Hatsofeh, 25 April 979, 3.
29 Ha`aretz, 2 April 1979, 22.
30 Ma`ariv, 22 April 1983, Add. 2–3.
31 Jerusalem Post, 4 June 1999, Add. 16. For similar criticism, see Yedioth Aharonot, 30 May 1999, 21.
32 For these trends, see Vuletic, Postwar Europe, 182–9.
33 Cited after Jerusalem Post, 8 May 1998, 10.
34 Yedioth Aharonot, 23 May 2008, 24.
35 Ma`ariv, 25 May 2008, 24. Mauda later publicly stated to regret having compromised his observance of the Sabbath. Mako, Feruary 3, 2019, https://www.mako.co.il/tv-live-at-night/articles/Article-e95678405b2b861006.htm (last accessed: May 24, 2020)
36 E.g., the national-religious MK Bezalel Smotrich, quoted in The Jerusalem Post, 23 September 2019, https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Trials-and-tribulations-of-Eurovision-2019-whats-next-567646 (last accessed: 21 March 2021).
37 The Times of Israel, 18 May 2019, https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/hundreds-of-ultra-orthodox-protest-eurovisions-shabbat-desecration-in-jerusalem/ (last accessed: 21 March 2021).
38 For the creation of a Hebrew typonomy, see Azaryahu/Golan, “(Re)naming the landscape.” For the centrality of the Bible for Zionist culture in Israel, see Shapira, “The Bible and Israeli Identity.”
39 Jerusalem Post, 5 April 1999, 7.
40 Hatsofeh, 28 May 1999, Add. 3.
41 Davar, 5 May 1986, 8.
42 Cited after Der Spiegel, 11 May 2019, 113.
43 Yedioth Aharonot, 19 May 2005, 24.
44 For a biting critique of the Zionist appropriation of Holocaust memory, see Zertal, Israel’s Holocaust.
45 Ibid.
46 Feldman, “Marking the Boundaries.”
47 Cited in Cleveland Jewish News, 29 April 1988, 23.
48 Yediot Aharonot, 16 May 2013, 4.
49 Yedioth Aharonot, 22 May 2006, Add. 18.
50 See, e.g., Davar, 13 April 1975, 15; ibid., 7 April 1976, 12; ibid., 5 May 1986, 8; Ma`ariv, 25 April 1982, 2; Ibid., 22 April 1983, Add. 2–3; ibid., 7 May 1990, Add. 1; Yedioth Aharonot, 19 May 2005, Add.9; ibid., 9 May 2014, 12.
51 Jerusalem Post, 26 May 1991, 4.
52 As one letter to the Jerusalem Post did. See Jerusalem Post, 13 May 1991, 4.
53 JTA, 6 May 1991, https://www.jta.org/1991/05/06/archive/israel-wins-third-place-in-eurovision-song-contest (last accessed: 21 March 2021).
54 Jweekly, 11 October 2007, https://www.jweekly.com/2007/10/11/controversy-is-this-israeli-band-s-cup-of-tea/ (last accessed: 24 May 2020).
55 New York Times, 18 April 2009, https://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/19/world/europe/19eurovision.html (last accessed: 23 March 2020).
56 Sahin, “Dervish on Eurovision Stage.” Turkey withdrew from the contest in 2012.
57 Jerusalem Post, 18 May 2001, Add. 16.
58 For a critical reading of this performance, see Shayna Weiss, “Pop Toys and Power Politics: Israel and the Eurovision Song Contest,” Jewish Review of Books, 13 May 2019, https://jewishreviewofbooks.com/uncategorized/5318/pop-toys-and-power-politics-israel-and-the-eurovision-song-contest/ (last accessed: 19 March 2021).
59 Shimoni, “Our Holocaust;” Yablonka, “Oriental Jewry and the Holocaust.”
60 Sephardi Jews in North Africa and the Balkans were also murdered in the Holocaust, but the genocide is widely perceived as affecting only Ashkenazi Jews. See Abramson, “A Double Occlusion.”
61 Gal Ochovsky has been accused of sexual assault and is under police investigation, https://www.timesofisrael.com/prominent-lgbt-activist-gal-uchovsky-accused-of-sexual-assault/ (last accessed: 2 March 2021).
62 Ma`ariv, 25 May 2003, add. 5.
63 As the Jerusalem Post claimed, Jerusalem Post, 8 January 2007, 24.
64 Ma`ariv, 3 April 1979, 32. Early Zionist use of Yemenite traditions was the attempt to infuse their Western music with elements of what they perceived as “oriental.” See Regev “Musica Mizrakhit,” 276.
65 Baker, “Wild Dances.”
66 Davar, 30 March 1979, add. 11.
67 Hochberg, “The Mediterranean Option,” 56; Seroussi, “Yam Tikhoniyut,” 192.
68 Wiwibloggs, 27 October 2010, https://wiwibloggs.com/2010/10/27/harel-skaat-is-now-officially-gay/6970/ (last accessed: 24 May 2020).
69 See, e.g., The Times of Israel, 10 May 2018, https://www.timesofisrael.com/netta-barzilai-is-the-voice-of-metoo-at-eurovision/ (last accessed: 23 March 2021).
70 For a critical analysis of this phenomenon, see Jones/Subotic, “Fantasies of power.”
71 Activists and scholars discuss such practices under the label of “pinkwashing.” The concept was developed by Puar, Terrorist Assemblages. For a critical account of the Israeli case, see Gross, “Politics of LGBT Rights.”
72 LGBT rights are widely perceived as important part of common European values. In this vein, many countries present themselves as LGBT-friendly on the Eurovision stage to demonstrate their European character. See Jones/Subotic, “Fantasies of power.””
73 See, e.g., Ha`aretz, 9 February 2011, https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/culture/1.5133873 (last accessed: 23 March 2021). For details on Dana International’s transformation, see Daniel Mahla, “Nahöstliche Diva auf europäischer Bühne? Dana International und die europäisch-israelischen Beziehungen der 1990er Jahre.” In: Johannes Heil (ed.): Two Centuries of Wissenschaft des Judentums (in print).
74 Hochberg, “The Mediterranean Option,” 49, 56.
75 Europeans themselves have constructed their continental identity in opposition to an eastern other. See e.g. Malmborg/Strath, Meaning of Europe.
76 Ha`aretz, 27 March 2019, https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/eurovision/.premium-40th-anniversary-of-hallelujah-the-song-which-almost-bankrupted-israel-1.7062244 (last accessed: 23 March 2021).
77 For the application of this argument in the context of Eurovision, see also Belkind, “A Message for Peace,” 8.
78 Jerusalem Post, 18 May 1993, 6.
79 See above.
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Daniel Mahla
Daniel Mahla a senior lecturer in history, writes on modern Central European Jewish and Israeli history. His book Orthodox Judaism and the Politics of Religion: From Prewar Europe to the State of Israel was published with Cambridge University Press (2020).