Israel has chosen its representative at this year’s Eurovision Song Contest, which will be held next May in Malmö (Sweden). The singer Eden Golan won the HaKokhav HaBa (The Next Star) contest on Tuesday night, with which Israeli public television, KAN, selects her representative. Eden Golan, 20 years old, originally from Tel Aviv, faces a complex task, given the rejection in many Eurovision circles of Israel’s participation in the festival due to the war in Gaza.
“This year, more than ever, I am excited to represent my country on Europe’s biggest stage. I promise to do the best I can and bring the Eurovision 2025 contest to Israel,” said Eden Golan in his first statements after obtaining a passport to Malmö, as reported by Eurovision. Her words “this year, more than ever,” in clear reference to the current situation in Israel, already indicate the meaning that the young singer gives to her participation.
The song he will perform will be chosen in the coming weeks by a commission of music and entertainment specialists. In recent years, Israeli representatives have sung songs in English. However, public broadcaster KAN has said that this year the song must include at least some fragment in Hebrew, “in light of the complicated period” in the country.
Since the Hamas terrorist attack on February 7, in which some 1,300 Israelis were killed, most of them civilians, and some 240 were taken hostage, the Israeli military response has caused up to 28,000 Palestinian deaths, many of them women and children. , in the Gaza Strip.
On the set of HaKokhav HaBa, Eden Golan performed with a yellow pin in allusion to the Israeli hostages still in the hands of Hamas, surrounded by empty chairs on stage in tribute to those absent. Golan performed the song I Do n’t Want To Miss A Thing by Aerosmith for Thursday and the public, which she dedicated to all those who long for their loved ones to return home. “I want to stand in front of all of Europe and lift up our nation. I was born in Israel and only here do I really feel at home. There is nothing that excites me more in the world than representing our nation this year at Eurovision,” said Eden Golan, according to The Times of Israel.
Indeed, Eden Golan was born in Tel Aviv on October 5, 2003, but for thirteen years he lived with his family in Russia, an aspect of his biography that is also controversial due to the Russian attack on Ukraine. In 2018, at the age of 9, she participated in the children’s talent show The Voice Kids Russia. Eden and her family returned to Israel in 2022. The singer started as a dancer as a child and then directed her steps towards singing. She has said several times that her big dream is to sing a duet with Beyoncé.
