Yuval Raphael will represent Israel in the 2025 Eurovision Song Contest after winning Channel 12’s Rising Star (Kochav Nolad) pre-Eurovision finale with renditions of Abba’s “Dancing Queen” and Sam Smith’s “Writing’s On The Wall.”
Raphael, 24, from Ra’anana, is a survivor of the October 7 nova music festival massacre and the “death shelters,” the fortified shelters where dozens fled the festival and hid during the Hamas attacks.
For her first audition, Raphael performed the song “Anyone” by Demi Lovato, earning her the highest score.
As the season progressed, her performances, such as Bruno Mars’s “Talking to the Moon” and Demi Lovato’s “Warrior,” stood out, primarily because she only began singing professionally after October 7.
Valerie Hamaty came in second on the show. Third place went to Moran Aharoni and Red Band, and Daniel Weiss finished in fourth place.
The Eurovision Song Contest will take place in Switzerland on May 17 and will be broadcast live on KAN 11.
The song Raphael will sing will be selected by a professional committee and revealed live during a KAN 11 broadcast in March.
“I can’t explain how excited and ready I am! Thank you for giving me the huge privilege and trusting me to represent my people,” Raphael said in a statement released by Channel 12.
Advocacy for Nova survivors
In March 2024, Raphael joined the Jerusalem Institute of Justice at the United Nations in Geneva to give testimony of her experience hiding in the far corner of the public bomb shelter just outside Kibbutz Be’eri with around 50 other festival attendees.
She spoke about being trapped under the dead body of another young woman for eight hours, playing dead. “I can’t explain how heavy a body becomes when it is dead,” she said.
Of the 50 people who hid with Raphael, only 12 survived long enough to be rescued.