Unicorns, Slurpees, and Dybbuks, Oh My!
Goofy videos are the new diplomacy
Uni-corny
A few weeks ago, Israel released the song and accompanying video for its official entry into this year’s Eurovision Song Contest, “Unicorn,” sung by pop sensation Noa Kirel. Like a number of previous Israeli entries, with a few parenthetical exceptions, the song is mostly in English, appealing to the international audience of the contest, who have a hand in deciding the winning song. Musically, it’s not particularly interesting or notable - it sounds like a lot of auto-tuned American pop songs (honestly, it sounds like something a skilled teenager could compose on Garage Band). And while its sound is probably interchangeable with any number of pop ballads, the cryptic lyrics seem to be the only thing that distinguish it as particularly Israeli.
We may be giving the lyrics too much credit, because on the surface they just appear to be a typical nonsensical mish-mash of adages, girlboss cliches, and faux-feminist appeals, but our first instinct on listening was that under the surface, a uniquely (unicornly?) Zionist message lurks. It starts with an aggressive stance that could be the voice of a scorned lover or, maybe, an Israel increasingly on the receiving end of criticism, especially from the European countries that make up the bulk of the Eurovision audience: “Hey, you don’t like the way I’m talking/Hey, so you stand there keep on call me names.” In the video, these opening lines are delivered by Kirel, dressed in a skintight black dress, lying upside down on the ceiling of a fancy restaurant where her date waits below. She’s defying gravity! She’s unique and special! She’ll show you what’s possible!
The theme of uniqueness, signaled by the title of the song itself, carries on through the chorus, which sees Kirel walking through a crowd of people passing by all around her without noticing her presence as the camera zooms in on her singing, “I’m gonna stand here like a unicorn/Out here on my own/I got the power of a unicorn/Don’t you ever learn?/That I won’t look back/I won’t look down/I’m going up/You better turn around.” Much like the state of Israel itself, insisting on its uniqueness (only democracy in the Middle East!), its military might (the power of a unicorn!), and its unwillingness to compromise over unpopular policies like the Occupation or the recent judicial reform, while claiming victimization in the court of popular opinion both at home and abroad, Kirel stands alone, singing her nonsense lyrics, while others pass by, oblivious.
The only words in Hebrew in the song seem to confirm this analysis. Toward the end, Kirel sings, “Ani lo k’mo kulam/mul kol ha’olam”: I’m not like everyone else/in front of the rest of the world. Again, is this Kirel singing about herself, her “phenomenal/feminine-al” (yes, that is really another lyric!) power, or is it yet another form of Zionist hasbara, claiming Israeli singularity in the face of a hostile world? I guess we’ll never really know, but we will find out what the world thinks of “Unicorn” in a few short months.
Now for something actually unique…
In more interesting Eurovision-related News, Dana International, who won in 1998 for her song Diva, ran into Adina Bar Shalom at a Yes launch event introducing the new shows of the season, which includes a documentary about Dana, the first transgender Eurovision winner. Rabbanit Adina Bar Shalom is the daughter of the famed Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, former Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel, who revolutionized the Sephardic world. Lately, Adina, who is an incredible figure of her own accord, has been in the news for her involvement in the newly formed left-wing religiously observant political movement Smol Emuni (Faithful Left). Decades ago, when Dana International, who is also Mizrahi, won Eurovision, she was on the receiving end of a lot of hate from members of Shas, the Haredi political party founded by Ovadia Yosef. But at the Yes event, as Dana recounts on her Facebook page, Adina ran over to introduce herself. The Rabbanit gave her a hug and discussed the importance of the unity, of everyone finding their own way, and how much they have to learn from each other. We love a happy reunion, and will definitely invite the Rabbanit to our own watch party this year.
A New Kashrut
Last year, a new Israeli TikTok creator named Ya’akov Levi began regularly posting videos of himself under the account name this.is.kosher, usually dancing to one of the latest songs popular on the platform, including Lizzo’s “About Damn Time” and Lady Gaga’s “Bloody Mary,” among many others. This would have been nothing new and not worth mentioning except that Levi is Haredi, and appears dancing to popular music in kapote and black hat, long, curly payes swaying as he moves. Soon after he began regular posts, he also came out as proudly gay, and often asserts the compatibility of his religious and sexual identities.
As he’s gained followers (he now has over 100 thousand), popularity, and public support, he has begun posting more content targeted at educating the public about and combating hate against gay members of Haredi communities. In the last few months, he has also begun speaking mostly English in his videos, which clearly allows him a wider audience, and recently his mom, also Haredi, who expresses her love and support for him, has been a regular guest in his posts (she is a native English speaker with what sounds like a South African accent). Occasionally he talks about the harm of homophobia or conversion therapy, offers support to other people like him who are still closeted, and most recently he has drawn attention to hateful comments he receives, often allowing his mother to respond with characteristic derision. In a video from January, he sits in the car with his mom and asks her, “What do you think about all the people that don’t accept me the way I am?” Without missing a beat, she replies with a little smile on her face, “That they can go to hell,” and the two laugh together.
But mostly what he does is declare his identity, celebrate it, dance and act goofy, and spread the kind of joy and love that he also demands from the world. In a way, the very similarity of his posts to so much other content on TikTok is part of what is revolutionary about it - Levi doesn’t see himself as an anomaly or something to be corrected or changed, he is simply making himself visible, and making space on the internet, and in the world, for others like him.
His account is delightful, 10/10 no notes. (Highly recommended if you’re having a bad day.)
Restoring U.S.-Israel relations, one Slurpee at a time
It’s no secret that Israel’s new-ish right-wing government and the recent civil unrest over the judicial reform package it proposed in the Knesset has strained its relationship with the United States. Since resuming office in late 2022, Netanyahu has not been invited to visit the White House, an unusual snub. And after Netanyahu fired Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for questioning the wisdom of proceeding apace with judicial reform, the White House expressed “deep concern” about the situation and reiterated its support for strong democratic checks and balances.
So it must be kind of a difficult time to be the U.S. Ambassador to Israel, right? Maybe, but you’d never know it from looking at the sometimes wacky Twitter account of Ambassador Tom Nides. On St. Patrick’s Day, which happened to fall on a Friday this year, Nides visited Molly Bloom’s Irish Pub in Tel Aviv (who even knew there was such a thing?), wearing a silly Guinness beer hat and pouring pints to cheers of “L’chayim” and “Shabbat shalom!” The same day the Instagram account of 7-11 in Israel posted a now-expired story showing Nides visiting the store and pouring himself a Slurpee (although it was abundantly clear that the man had never seen a Slurpee before in his life, he cheerily downed it). On March 3, his Twitter account featured a video of Nides in a ridiculously tall chef’s hat, baking hamantaschen in his kitchen and reminiscing in his charming upper-Midwest accent about celebrating Jewish holidays as a child in Minnesota. (During the course of pulling what he called “hamantaschens” out of the oven he exclaimed “woo hoo” and “oh jeez, they’re hot” in his delightfully goofy way.)
It’s not that there’s nothing serious posted on Nides’ Twitter feed - there are the requisite photos of him praying at the Western Wall and meeting with civic groups and political leaders. Furthermore, even these fun videos are clearly calculated and part of the diplomatic strategy And especially these days, his job must not be easy - the New York Times reported that he has been passing messages (between Slurpees, of course) from Biden to Netanyahu as the U.S. has tried to discourage the Israeli government from pressing forward with the unpopular judicial reforms. But Nides’ charmingly wacky public persona is the perfect antidote to, well, everything else happening in Israel right now. Slurpees anyone?
Further Up: Angel of Destruction
There's been a lot of TV shows about Haredim. Shayna keeps a list, and it’s over twenty shows by now. But we haven’t seen anything like this show yet. Angel of Destruction, or The Malevolent Bride, as it’s being called in English. The show is about a dybbuk (!!!) who possesses women in a strict Haredi community and the horrors that follow. Kan posted the first scene, and it is terrifying. Even if you don’t know Hebrew (or Yiddish!) it’s worth watching. The camera work, the sounds – all scary as hell and phenomenally well done. Of course, there is a long tradition of creepy Jewish literature about dybbuks and ghosts and whatnot and we CANNOT WAIT to see how this plays into this discussion. Even if we won’t be able to sleep for weeks.
While there has been a wave of Hebrew horror in Israeli cinema, as an upcoming book will document, very little of it has dealt with Haredim. (A few non-Israeli movies have done so with mixed success–Attachment, for example.) Angel of Destruction changes that. It was supposed to premiere last Sunday, but due to the..uh..news..it was delayed by a week. Early reviews are in, and good so far. We are excited to watch, because honestly not much can be worse than real life at this point. And, Dybbuks.
Speaking of the news, our favorite sign from the protests:
Yair Netanyahu is the Connor Roy of Israel. Prove us wrong.
Signing off,
Shayna and Melissa
The fact that Adina Bar Shalom hugged Dana International, and that they were photographed touching, is also really important. I don't know what her public interactions are in terms of shomer negiah, but the photos present an argument that Dana is a woman and so prohibitions of negiah across sexes aren't operative. That's a powerful statement that I think folks in Israel will pick up on.