This morning I drove my daughter to school through the Judean Hills with Noam Bettan’s Eurovision performance playing on repeat. I must have listened to it four or five times before we pulled into the school parking lot.
I’m not a music competition guy. I don’t follow pop stars. I’ve never watched an episode of American Idol in my life. And Israel has been performing at Eurovision for years. So why now?
Because this year felt different. Five countries - Iceland, Ireland, the Netherlands, Slovenia, and Spain - picked up and left. Withdrew from the entire competition rather than share a stage with Israel. Not a military operation. Not a political summit. A song contest.
They got my attention.
His name is Noam Bettan. He’s 28 years old. Could be any Israeli kid. Could be your nephew, your neighbor’s son, the guy you daven next to on Shabbos. Born in Israel to French immigrant parents, he grew up between languages and cultures, which explains why his song, “Michelle" moves between Hebrew, French, and English like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
Last night, he got up on a stage in Vienna, in an arena full of people who ranged from cheering fans to those actively chanting for his country’s destruction, and he performed.
Not just performed. He smiled. He brought energy. He gave everything he had.
Even the countries that didn’t show up, heard him.
When he walked off that stage he said: “I heard the boos at the beginning. They were really, really loud. But I focused on the performance."
That was not just Noam the singer talking. That was Noam the Jew talking. Because that’s what we do.
We all have our stage. For some of us it’s how we dress or what we learn. For others it’s simply having the nerve to say out loud that Israel has the right to exist.
We all in our own way stand up to the boos and the chants. Some of us do it in Vienna in front of millions of people. Some of us do it quietly, every single day, in ways that nobody sees, and we keep marching forward.
Not because it’s easy, but because it’s who we are. Because the show must go on.
Noam Bettan is just a kid with a song. But those words he sang last night - “between one tear and the next, there is someone who will hear" - weren’t only his. The song was co-written by Yuval Raphael, last year’s Israeli representative. A Nova survivor who stood on that same stage twelve months ago and won the hearts of the world, winning the popular vote.
She handed him the torch and last night he carried it masterfully.
Despite their boos, their chants, their desire to burn the whole thing down, we show up and we always will. Because that is who we are.
Juda Honickman is Spokesperson for One Israel Fund