It remains remarkably quiet around the Israeli Eurovision entry Eden Golan

Malmö, Sweden, is on edge. The city is hosting the Eurovision Song Contest for the third time (previously in 1992 and 2013), but never before has the contrast been so great: while songs from ABBA (it is fifty years after ‘Waterloo’) sound in the streets, position snipers are on the roofs and hundreds of heavily armed police officers with police dogs patrol the streets and around the Malmö Arena.

Just like last year in London, the European song festival has the theme United By Music, celebrating the interconnecting power of music. The Eurovision Song Contest, which kicks off on Tuesday in the Malmö Arena with the first semi-final for the ten final places, will also go down as the most secure edition ever: artists are searched and visitors are not allowed to bring bags inside.

Calls to boycott Israel from participating in the festival due to human rights violations in the war in Gaza have been going on for months. But the EBU sees no reason to exclude the country, as long as Israel adheres to the rules. The original song ‘October Rain’ was rejected by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) because it clearly referred to the October 7 Hamas attack and thus violated the politically neutral rules. A number of sentences have been deleted in the renewed ‘Hurricane’. A loaded word like ‘flowers‘ has been replaced – it is military code for ‘casualties’.

Also read
The Eurovision Song Contest does not want to be political, but will that work with Israel’s participation?

Deeper meaning

In the meantime, 20-year-old Israeli participant Eden Golan, popular in her own country where her music videos are regularly on television, is keeping quiet. In a few interviews (to Reuters and, among others The Times of Israel) she emphasized how representing Israel this year in particular has a deeper meaning on a completely different level, “because of everything my country and our people had to go through.”

Golan was missing from the opening ceremony on Sunday, where the artists arrived on a turquoise carpet, according to sponsor tradition. Officially, the reason was Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day in Israel, the EBU reported. On Instagram, Golan lit candles in memory in a moody black-and-white video.

And now it is remarkably quiet around the candidate who won her place through the TV show Hakokhav Haba (Rising Star), where she sang songs by Whitney Houston (“I Have Nothing”) and Aerosmith (“I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing”). While the other Eurovision candidates make fanfare at parties in the city – Joost Klein danced on the stage of a club on Monday – her social media remains quiet. No parties. There is also nothing about the Israeli singer on the Eurovision channels themselves. And the spokesperson for the Israeli delegation also remains silent, after repeated questions NRC.

It is difficult to determine how great the threat to the participant is. On Thursday, the day that Golan performs, a pro-Palestine demonstration is planned in the city center of 20,000 to 40,000 demonstrators. For her safety, the singer must stay in her hotel.

Golan told Reuters that she would ignore the protests as much as possible and concentrate on her actions. “I am here to make my voice heard, my gift from God.” She wants to make people feel something, “down to their soul.”

Outlier

Eden Golan was born in Kefar Sava, northeast of Tel Aviv. She grew up in Russia for most of her childhood, from the age of six, her parents are of Latvian-Ukrainian descent. In 2022, the family moved back to Israel as a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Golan has been singing since a young age and participated in various singing competitions, including the Russian Junior Eurovision Song Contest in 2015. For two years she was the face of a girl group, and at the age of eighteen she signed her own recording contract. In her songs she mixes dance with pop; last year she had two singles ‘Dopamine’ and ‘Taxi’.

Also read
Should artists boycott the Eurovision Song Contest if Israel participates?

Her performance on Thursday in the second semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest will be downright aesthetic, based on the first rehearsal images. There will be a very high ring on the stage, which can light up beautifully and has a built-in wind machine. There are steps on either side for the five dancers (three men, two women) to climb. The entire group wears natural colors, beige and gray. Golan, with her back-length hair, wears a cream-colored, long draped dress.

Vocally she is a standout in this competition in a fairly average pop ballad. Disaster presents itself with claps of thunder from the first seconds. Then Golan sings how she has to brace herself, how she dances in the storm. She can really use her voice. Especially towards the end she delivers a few high screams, after which she softly belts out the song in Hebrew.

To share

Email the editor