Yuval Raphael, a survivor of Israel’s Nova Music Festival, where on October 7, 2023, hundreds were killed, assaulted or captured by Hamas terrorists from the nearby Gaza Strip, will represent Israel at the 2025 Eurovision Song Contest in Basel, Switzerland.
The 24-year-old aspiring singer, who had no prior experience singing professionally, was crowned the victor of season 11 of “The Next Star (Ha’Kokhav Ha’Ba),” Israel’s popular singing competition show on network Keshet 12, and awarded the coveted honor to represent Israel on the world stage.
The show has previously selected winners such as Netta, who won Eurovision in 2018 and brought the annual colorful music competition telecast to Tel Aviv. In the last two years, local pop stars Noa Kirel and Eden Golan, finished in third place and fifth place, respectively.
During the finale on Wednesday night local time, Raphael performed a stripped-down rendition of “Dancing Queen” by ABBA, the Swedish pop group that gained global success following their win at Eurovision back in 1974, and a cover of Sam Smith’s 2015 Academy Award-winning song “Writing’s on The Wall” from the James Bond film Spectre.
Alongside her vocal abilities lauded by the show judges, Raphael’s personal story resonated early in the competition as she shared how she survived the massacre that unfolded at the Nova Music Festival. Raphael was able to flee the grounds and take cover inside a public bomb shelter outside of Kibbutz Be’eri. There, she hid in the far corner of the small cement space, trapped under dead bodies and playing dead herself for over eight hours, before being rescued by the father of another festival attendee who took it upon himself to drive down to that area and save his daughter’s and others’ lives.
“Every time we [those who were still alive] raised our heads, we couldn’t understand why there were less and less people in the bomb shelter,” she recalled in March 2024 while speaking in front of the UN Human Rights Council on behalf of the Jerusalem Institute of Justice. “We thought the terrorists were taking the dead bodies. We didn’t realize it was because of the grenades, blowing up their bodies.”
Raphael, who is fluent in English and French in addition to her native Hebrew, took part in Israel’s advocacy efforts internationally over the past year, and ever since her November audition (where she sang Demi Lovato’s “Anyone”), has expressed her desire that “the world will hear a first-person account of what I went through and have been dealing with every day, so no one could claim otherwise.”
She added that “music is such a beautiful way to echo a message” and “competing right now felt exactly meant to be.”
Going into its 69th year, Eurovision is regarded as the world’s biggest music event drawing upwards of 200 million viewers worldwide across 40 markets. Last year, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) firmly defended Israel’s inclusion despite some political protest to force the country out in regards to the war in Gaza. The tension led to extreme security measures throughout the city of Malmo, which hosted the event, while singer Eden Golan’s performance of the song “Hurricane” was met some booing in the crowd. Last June, the EBU reaffirmed its stance that Eurovision is a non-political event and the decision to allow Israel to participate is in line with other non-political organizations such as sports federations.
The Eurovision Song Contest 2025 will take place this May in Basel, Switzerland.
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