“Show them”: The Israeli Eurovision Fan Club hugged Aden Golan ahead of Malmo

“will be Hurricane,” said Eden Golan, our representative for Eurovision this year, To the dozens of girlfriends and members of the Israeli Eurovision Fan Club who came on Friday to the annual event that takes place before the contest, and asked to see and hear how the song would look performed on stage in Sweden.

These are the people who know every statistic, bet and vocal nuance in the Albanian song of 2004, and they are the main engine for the national event called ‘The Israeli Song’.

Every year the Israeli representative carries the weight of national honor on his shoulders. This year the story is different – Golan has the task of “showing them”, as Ilanit described it well.

Good luck from Ilanit and Mae Feingold

Lunchtime on Friday, half a year into the war, It is not the exact time to hear good and less good pop hits in a dark club in Tel Aviv, but joy, as we learned last Purim, is something that needs a little push in the back, and then it makes the whole climb alone.

Slowly, the Centro club in Tel Aviv was filled with Eurovision fans of all times and ages, the legendary performers of the Eurofalls (the group that has been performing Eurovision songs for years), parents and their children, unequivocally Eden Golan fans and people who did not miss a flight to any European city to cheer on the representative with the flag of Israel.

Like every recent public event, and it’s a good thing, the sign with the pictures of the abductees was placed on the stage and the call for their return was the first thing said by the club leaders who spoke on stage.

After a minute’s silence in memory of the victims of the war and on October 7, Ilanit, the first Israeli contestant in the European competition, took the stage and talked about the debate she had this year about whether it was right to send an Israeli representative, even at the cost of changing the text as required: “I thought that late We in mourning No Must participate this year, But I remembered how mother Shelley, a Holocaust survivor, responded when i came to ask her If travel to Germany for recording purposes. She saying to me: ‘travel and look to them‘, And that’s what I wish for Aden – to show them.”

“who will who hates hate and put, and who who loves will live And will be distinguished for a long life,” May said Feingold admitted the disappointment, who a decade ago tried her luck with the song Same Heart, and failed to qualify for the final. After singing the song and another song that she competed with earlier, she wished Golan much success.

Feingold shared her experiences in rehearsals for the semi-finals: “There were cruciform hook in the setting the original of the song. We called the director and he said To us he is hoped which is No be problem“. The setting, it should be noted, was finally changed.

Yellow wedding dress with pictures of hostages

After the fans took pictures with Ilanit and Feingold, and after some musical breaks, the main course of the meeting arrived – Eden Golan entered the club like a star, straight to the stage and to the graceful interviewer Maor Hoiman.

Golan didn’t sing live, but she received an insane amount of love from the audience, and never stopped getting excited. After drag queen Kimberly Swann performed “Hurricane” on stage, Ziv Abood, the fiancee of Elia Cohen who was kidnapped in Gaza, came up as a surprise.

Aboud came up with a yellow wedding dress with kidnapped photos and necklaces and a sign with the inscription: “My fiance was kidnapped in Gaza.” Last Purim she walked around the country like this, emphasizing that it was not a costume but her real condition.

The song that played while the three of them were on stage was Golan’s rendition in English of Yishai Rivo’s song, “Halev Sheli”. Like most of the audience, Eden herself could not hold back the tears. Aboud called for a deal to release the abductees and the entire audience shouted “now, now” with her.

Golan said that she connected with a song by a representative of Switzerland, and that she spends most of her time preparing for the competition, rehearsals, voice development, interviews and measurements, but refused to reveal what the stage performance would look like.

At a time when all the ceremonies of our national days will be changed, and most of the Independence Day celebrations have been canceled, including the IDF flight, Golan’s performance, which is sandwiched between Holocaust Day and Memorial Day, will have to show them and us that there is one small light.