I don't mean to be a spoilsport, but in terms of the quality of the music Israel clearly did not deserve second place. (I'm not saying it wasn't good, but far from winning quality. IMO at least 5 countries were significantly better then us.) We only got that due to political support (and maybe also connected to the message of the song). And that is expected whether most people are pro or anti Israel. Points are awarded based on more votes than other participants, not the majority of the votes. Any country which is politically relevant like Israel (or Ukraine) will automatically garner more attention and take one of the top spots in most countries. So Israel did well with the public due to relevance (unlike San Marino or Malta which have little recognition, and even the UK and France lack the benefit of people having strong opinions about them.) The other countries that did well with the popular vote either had an extraordinary performance/song or had some event, story or controversy which caused the song to go viral and get attention (such as Estonia and Sweden). Regarding the jury Israel performed about as well as expected, especially in light of the fact that other strong songs got even less jury votes such as Spain and Norway, and other countries with strong entries performed only nominally better such as Malta, Germany and Finland. (I'm not a big music expert, but these are my opinions about the actual entries.)
As far as non-Israel thoughts, these were some that I shared with friends:
- San Marino did not deserve dead last with the absolute banger they sent. And neither Iceland nor Spain should have placed so low either.
- Malta getting only a handful of public points is a welcome repudiation of overly sexualized music. Here's hoping that between this and the UK's public disaster last year, next year's competition will have less of those types of songs.
- In a just world, Lithuania and the Netherlands would have both been in the top 10
- Latvia's success this year is a very good sign for creativity in the competition.
- Sweden's song is my absolute favourite of the season and became one of my favourite songs in general. Very glad they stayed in the top 5, but I'd have personally swapped their placement with Estonia's.
- Estonia's song really did not click for me until I saw the staging. 10/10 comedy gold. It really goes to show how much the presentation can elevate a performance.
- On that note - Austria's song is sophisticated and extremely challenging on a vocal level, but I didn't connect with the staging at all. The choice to do it in black and white made it feel like I was watching a movie as opposed a live performance. The cinematic style would have worked for a music video but I didn't connect to it at all as something I was supposed to be appreciating as an "audience member in the moment." It was my 3rd place going into the final (Sweden in first and Netherlands in second) and I dropped it down to 4th after seeing the staging for the first time. It's still a deserved win, though.
- Overall, I'm pretty happy with these results. I liked almost every single song in the final, which is not something I could say about many years.
Many of the criticisms I hear about Modern Orthodox Rabbis and why Chareidim cannot take them seriously is their investment in pop culture, especially ones likely assur (such as Eurovision, with rampant tznius and kol isha issues). While one can understand the laity participation, the participation by Rabbis who should be taking Halacha more seriously shocks me. (This is not meant as a criticism of you, merely an observation).
Im curious how you respond. Do you believe Eurovision is halachically ok?
Like many things within the area of popular culture, I think the answer is contextual. Here are some important guiding questions that I'd ask to anyone who poses the question to me:
1) Do you pasken that a recorded voice has the din of a kol l'halacha? If the answer is no, such that you wouldn't respond to any brachos or listen to a live megillah reading or the like, over video then the kol isha concern is largely mitigated.
2) Are you coming at it from a place of leitzanus or a place of cultural/linguistic interest?
3) Do you actively watch the performances which lack tznius and listen to the ones that are sexually explicit?
That all is to say that I think there are ways to engage with it that are mutar, but each person is unique and needs to have an honest cheshbon hanefesh before engaging, as they would with many other areas of pop culture. What is alright for one person may not be for another.
1) Correct me if i'm wrong, but this is pretty clearly the minority view (anyone besides for the Tzitz Eliezer?), and seems to be a weak argument. The reasoning behind kol isha, hirhur, is obviously distinct from the internal halachic logic of determing original kol for brachos and megillah.
2) I could see intent being relevant for something more squarely 'pareve,' like certain movies or sports events, but not a relevant factor in something that seems to clearly cross halachic lines.
3) What does this mean? If you're differentiating between seeking out the explicit ones vs watching them as part of the broader program, i agree that the former is worse, but that doesn't seem to translate into the latter being permitted.
4) Assuming this is about watching the program, not just listening, what about the tznius issues? And the issues with listening to sexually explicit material, regardless of who the singer is?
I'm curious to see a fuller explanation of how there are ways to engage with such a program that are mutar
I'm not a posek, nor would I ever claim to be, so farbeit from me to attempt anything resembling a "teshuva" on the subject. I'll just briefly respond to your questions with my own personal perspective. And I obviously want to flag beforehand that I was not raised in the Orthodox world and much of my background on the subject is coloured by having grown up both seeing things like this as value-neutral and also being largely desensitized to many things that the Orthodox world considers to be inappropriate:
1) I can personally guarantee that at least one major rosh yeshiva at YU (quite possibly two or three of them) hold that there is no technical concern for kol isha in recordings. For the one I'm thinking of, that is an explicitly mentioned corollary to disallowing responding to brachot, hearing megillah, and the like over Zoom. Relatedly, Rav Henkin Zt"l initially cites his grandfather as directly saying that there is no concern of kol Isha on television (as opposed to just via radio). Though he then says that he asked again at a later point and was given a far less certain response.
It's also unclear whether the concern for kol isha is one of hirhur or one of erva (or some combination of the two). Poskim who have weighed in certainly seem to go either way on the question. If the concern is erva then that's mitigated by it not being a kol. If the concern is hirhur then it would seem to become a case-by-case situation with some songs being unambiguously assur due to their subject matter and/or tone (even just listening to them) and others being more than likely muttar.
2) I'd actually think there are more halakhic issues with watching sports (at least American Football and others with significant likelihood of serious injury) broadly than selectively listening to particular songs.
3 and 4) I'll summarize my own personal approach here, emphasizing that my particular interest comes from a broader interest in language, culture, and musical composition: I personally initially listen to all of the songs blindly - that is, without any accompanying video and often without knowing what a particular singer looks like. By the time the competition itself comes around, I know which songs are inappropriate and which songs aren't. Not every singer is a woman, not every male singer is accompanied by dancers who are dressed immodestly, and not every woman who is singing is doing so about explicit subjects. The ones who are really inappropriate I don't watch. Not do I encourage watching. There are several that I think are perfectly fine to listen to but assur to watch. There are others that I think are probably fine to listen to and to watch, and there are some that I wouldn't even listen to.
On that note, I'll close this already too long comment with two points -
- Various rabbis (and some roshei yeshiva) from across the Modern Orthodox and Dati Leumi worlds have been sharing the full video of Yuval Raphael's performance. They did the same last year for Eden Golan. From that alone, one can infer that the MO/DL community has largely ruled that kol isha is not a universally applicable for whatever reason one goes with.
- As with any subject, there's a lot of nuance and room for disagreement. I personally believe that if something seems to be muttar and can be convincingly argued as such then there's nothing to hide in participating in it while also acknowledging that others can disagree. Having said that, I hope that no one takes any of my comments as a broad acceptance of watching the full competition without any halachic concerns. This initial article mentioned nothing about watching it at all and only focused on technical questions of point distribution and bias towards Israel. It's only been in the comments where this turned into a discussion about watching the competition itself and I think it should be clear that there's no heter to do so willy-nilly. At most, I think it's coherent to say that not every song is a halakhic concern and that they ought to be watched (and listened-to) on a case-by-case basis. Anyone who is watching it just as a form of leitzanus or to see pretty women in skimpy outfits is doing something unambiguously assur.
As always, happy to further clarify but I think there's a limit to what can be said in a comment so I'll end off there.
I think that it's important to emphasize that rabbis are normal people with their own sets of interests, both Jewish and broader. If a rabbi were to do something without giving any thought to it halachically, I think that's a major problem. But if engagement with something is well-articulated and not beyond the pale of their particular community I don't see what the problem is. l'mashal, I was the interim rabbi at a shul in a more yeshivish community for just under a year. One of my balabatim saw me at the grocery store wearing jeans and was very unhappy about it. Another once took me to task for quoting from a non-Jewish book in a drasha. Neither of those things are at all controversial in my current community.
On the Eurovision question, I certainly wouldn't host a party to watch it as a rabbi in the community (nor would I host a Superbowl party, etc). But I think nuanced engagement can certainly be modeled if it resonates and can be done in ways that are mutar.
As above, this is all well and good for a 'pareve' secular engagement, but it seem difficult to explain something which seems more clearly 'out of bounds.' Even if there was a way to navigate everything halachically, how many of the laity are aware of that and will assume that those workarounds were used?
And just to play devil's advocate, if there is a permissible way to do Eurovision and one knows that one's community will be watching anyway, wouldnt it be better to hold a viewing party in a permitted way rather than doing it on one's own? I may be wrong, but i feel like this has become fairly common with superbowl parties. Why would you certainly not do a party?
I wouldn't want to turn this into a thread bashing chareidism. The chareidi world has much to be proud of and to respect despite it not being a life I would choose for myself or for my family.
If I had to make a list of my top five they would be (not necessarily in this order): France, Malta, Spain, Austria, and Estonia. France had a musical masterpiece replete with a powerful and relatable message and the performance was solid. Malta had a banger of a song that would get any party on its feet with great presentation. Spain was energetic, and tasteful with a slight mystique. Austria's song, vocals, and staging was simply breathtaking. And Estonia had a great vibe and lovable comedic relief with perfect presentation.
Latvia was artistic, but didn't resonate with me at all. Sweden was overrated with too much emphasis on the presentation and not enough on the music itself (both arrangement and vocals). Lithuania was simply boring and San Marino felt outdated. Germany, Finland and Norway deserved far more attention than they got.
My personal top ten were Sweden, Netherlands, Lithuania, Austria, Poland, Spain, Germany, San Marino, Albania, and Luxembourg. And Ukraine was in a very close 11th. I was overall pleased with results, but the ones that hurt really hurt :(
I got into it while living in Canada, where its considerably bigger than in the US and is available to watch on YouTube. My wife encouraged me to watch it because "it's so silly" and, as someone who enjoys learning about other cultures and languages, I immediately became hooked.
I'm not a big fan of ballads generally and actually had Israel at #15 on my personal scoreboard before the competition. Regardless, I think that it was very well-performed and certainly deserved a higher placement by the Juries given how the other well-executed ballads did. It's just such an obvious inconsistency to anyone who really examines these numbers. But my point is that even if the jury put Israel in the top five, it's not a guarantee that Austria wouldn't have won. I didn't mention the lyrics of Israel's song being universally appealing, but that definitely had something to do with it as well. At least in my friend-group, people were very hungry for a positive, optimistic song to win (ie Sweden or even Estonia after the staging proved so effective. Israel isn't as up-beat but certainly comes with an optimistic enough message.
Each ballad needs to be examined on its own merit. France and Austria, for example, had a far more sophisticated arrangement and much more impressive vocals. You can't scream antisemite just because you disagree with taste, and in specifically with Eurovision I'm skeptical since Israel has generally received such positive treatment.
Exactly. That's why, even in the thought experiments I used, I wouldn't have put Israel above Italy. I just don't think it could have topped it on an objective level. So even if the jury put it as high as possible, Austria would still have won due to a combination of their objective technical merits and sufficient public support.
"As a Jewish convert to Orthodox Christianity with a fairly wide set of historical books under my belt, it troubles me to see some hierarchs and channels following the world's narrative about "anti-Semitism" and all the things that have been done to "combat anti-Semitism." I'll tell you directly, as a 100% pure blooded Ashkenazi man, how to fix "anti-Semitism:" Anti-Semitism will end when faithless Jews leave other groups of people alone and stop trying to transform their nations and cultures in ways that invariably harm the populations in question. It is really not that complicated.”
I don't mean to be a spoilsport, but in terms of the quality of the music Israel clearly did not deserve second place. (I'm not saying it wasn't good, but far from winning quality. IMO at least 5 countries were significantly better then us.) We only got that due to political support (and maybe also connected to the message of the song). And that is expected whether most people are pro or anti Israel. Points are awarded based on more votes than other participants, not the majority of the votes. Any country which is politically relevant like Israel (or Ukraine) will automatically garner more attention and take one of the top spots in most countries. So Israel did well with the public due to relevance (unlike San Marino or Malta which have little recognition, and even the UK and France lack the benefit of people having strong opinions about them.) The other countries that did well with the popular vote either had an extraordinary performance/song or had some event, story or controversy which caused the song to go viral and get attention (such as Estonia and Sweden). Regarding the jury Israel performed about as well as expected, especially in light of the fact that other strong songs got even less jury votes such as Spain and Norway, and other countries with strong entries performed only nominally better such as Malta, Germany and Finland. (I'm not a big music expert, but these are my opinions about the actual entries.)
As far as non-Israel thoughts, these were some that I shared with friends:
- San Marino did not deserve dead last with the absolute banger they sent. And neither Iceland nor Spain should have placed so low either.
- Malta getting only a handful of public points is a welcome repudiation of overly sexualized music. Here's hoping that between this and the UK's public disaster last year, next year's competition will have less of those types of songs.
- In a just world, Lithuania and the Netherlands would have both been in the top 10
- Latvia's success this year is a very good sign for creativity in the competition.
- Sweden's song is my absolute favourite of the season and became one of my favourite songs in general. Very glad they stayed in the top 5, but I'd have personally swapped their placement with Estonia's.
- Estonia's song really did not click for me until I saw the staging. 10/10 comedy gold. It really goes to show how much the presentation can elevate a performance.
- On that note - Austria's song is sophisticated and extremely challenging on a vocal level, but I didn't connect with the staging at all. The choice to do it in black and white made it feel like I was watching a movie as opposed a live performance. The cinematic style would have worked for a music video but I didn't connect to it at all as something I was supposed to be appreciating as an "audience member in the moment." It was my 3rd place going into the final (Sweden in first and Netherlands in second) and I dropped it down to 4th after seeing the staging for the first time. It's still a deserved win, though.
- Overall, I'm pretty happy with these results. I liked almost every single song in the final, which is not something I could say about many years.
Curious: tangentially related:
Many of the criticisms I hear about Modern Orthodox Rabbis and why Chareidim cannot take them seriously is their investment in pop culture, especially ones likely assur (such as Eurovision, with rampant tznius and kol isha issues). While one can understand the laity participation, the participation by Rabbis who should be taking Halacha more seriously shocks me. (This is not meant as a criticism of you, merely an observation).
Im curious how you respond. Do you believe Eurovision is halachically ok?
Like many things within the area of popular culture, I think the answer is contextual. Here are some important guiding questions that I'd ask to anyone who poses the question to me:
1) Do you pasken that a recorded voice has the din of a kol l'halacha? If the answer is no, such that you wouldn't respond to any brachos or listen to a live megillah reading or the like, over video then the kol isha concern is largely mitigated.
2) Are you coming at it from a place of leitzanus or a place of cultural/linguistic interest?
3) Do you actively watch the performances which lack tznius and listen to the ones that are sexually explicit?
That all is to say that I think there are ways to engage with it that are mutar, but each person is unique and needs to have an honest cheshbon hanefesh before engaging, as they would with many other areas of pop culture. What is alright for one person may not be for another.
1) Correct me if i'm wrong, but this is pretty clearly the minority view (anyone besides for the Tzitz Eliezer?), and seems to be a weak argument. The reasoning behind kol isha, hirhur, is obviously distinct from the internal halachic logic of determing original kol for brachos and megillah.
2) I could see intent being relevant for something more squarely 'pareve,' like certain movies or sports events, but not a relevant factor in something that seems to clearly cross halachic lines.
3) What does this mean? If you're differentiating between seeking out the explicit ones vs watching them as part of the broader program, i agree that the former is worse, but that doesn't seem to translate into the latter being permitted.
4) Assuming this is about watching the program, not just listening, what about the tznius issues? And the issues with listening to sexually explicit material, regardless of who the singer is?
I'm curious to see a fuller explanation of how there are ways to engage with such a program that are mutar
I'm not a posek, nor would I ever claim to be, so farbeit from me to attempt anything resembling a "teshuva" on the subject. I'll just briefly respond to your questions with my own personal perspective. And I obviously want to flag beforehand that I was not raised in the Orthodox world and much of my background on the subject is coloured by having grown up both seeing things like this as value-neutral and also being largely desensitized to many things that the Orthodox world considers to be inappropriate:
1) I can personally guarantee that at least one major rosh yeshiva at YU (quite possibly two or three of them) hold that there is no technical concern for kol isha in recordings. For the one I'm thinking of, that is an explicitly mentioned corollary to disallowing responding to brachot, hearing megillah, and the like over Zoom. Relatedly, Rav Henkin Zt"l initially cites his grandfather as directly saying that there is no concern of kol Isha on television (as opposed to just via radio). Though he then says that he asked again at a later point and was given a far less certain response.
It's also unclear whether the concern for kol isha is one of hirhur or one of erva (or some combination of the two). Poskim who have weighed in certainly seem to go either way on the question. If the concern is erva then that's mitigated by it not being a kol. If the concern is hirhur then it would seem to become a case-by-case situation with some songs being unambiguously assur due to their subject matter and/or tone (even just listening to them) and others being more than likely muttar.
2) I'd actually think there are more halakhic issues with watching sports (at least American Football and others with significant likelihood of serious injury) broadly than selectively listening to particular songs.
3 and 4) I'll summarize my own personal approach here, emphasizing that my particular interest comes from a broader interest in language, culture, and musical composition: I personally initially listen to all of the songs blindly - that is, without any accompanying video and often without knowing what a particular singer looks like. By the time the competition itself comes around, I know which songs are inappropriate and which songs aren't. Not every singer is a woman, not every male singer is accompanied by dancers who are dressed immodestly, and not every woman who is singing is doing so about explicit subjects. The ones who are really inappropriate I don't watch. Not do I encourage watching. There are several that I think are perfectly fine to listen to but assur to watch. There are others that I think are probably fine to listen to and to watch, and there are some that I wouldn't even listen to.
On that note, I'll close this already too long comment with two points -
- Various rabbis (and some roshei yeshiva) from across the Modern Orthodox and Dati Leumi worlds have been sharing the full video of Yuval Raphael's performance. They did the same last year for Eden Golan. From that alone, one can infer that the MO/DL community has largely ruled that kol isha is not a universally applicable for whatever reason one goes with.
- As with any subject, there's a lot of nuance and room for disagreement. I personally believe that if something seems to be muttar and can be convincingly argued as such then there's nothing to hide in participating in it while also acknowledging that others can disagree. Having said that, I hope that no one takes any of my comments as a broad acceptance of watching the full competition without any halachic concerns. This initial article mentioned nothing about watching it at all and only focused on technical questions of point distribution and bias towards Israel. It's only been in the comments where this turned into a discussion about watching the competition itself and I think it should be clear that there's no heter to do so willy-nilly. At most, I think it's coherent to say that not every song is a halakhic concern and that they ought to be watched (and listened-to) on a case-by-case basis. Anyone who is watching it just as a form of leitzanus or to see pretty women in skimpy outfits is doing something unambiguously assur.
As always, happy to further clarify but I think there's a limit to what can be said in a comment so I'll end off there.
How would you respond to the larger cultural point of a Rabbi vs laity?
I think that it's important to emphasize that rabbis are normal people with their own sets of interests, both Jewish and broader. If a rabbi were to do something without giving any thought to it halachically, I think that's a major problem. But if engagement with something is well-articulated and not beyond the pale of their particular community I don't see what the problem is. l'mashal, I was the interim rabbi at a shul in a more yeshivish community for just under a year. One of my balabatim saw me at the grocery store wearing jeans and was very unhappy about it. Another once took me to task for quoting from a non-Jewish book in a drasha. Neither of those things are at all controversial in my current community.
On the Eurovision question, I certainly wouldn't host a party to watch it as a rabbi in the community (nor would I host a Superbowl party, etc). But I think nuanced engagement can certainly be modeled if it resonates and can be done in ways that are mutar.
As above, this is all well and good for a 'pareve' secular engagement, but it seem difficult to explain something which seems more clearly 'out of bounds.' Even if there was a way to navigate everything halachically, how many of the laity are aware of that and will assume that those workarounds were used?
And just to play devil's advocate, if there is a permissible way to do Eurovision and one knows that one's community will be watching anyway, wouldnt it be better to hold a viewing party in a permitted way rather than doing it on one's own? I may be wrong, but i feel like this has become fairly common with superbowl parties. Why would you certainly not do a party?
The jeans point is a good one. I think in a more yeshivish community you cannot wear jeans for It will cause a loss of respect.
This is why chareidism sucks. Everything is Assur besides for carefully crafted internal templates. Modox have a life with a Jewish core.
I wouldn't want to turn this into a thread bashing chareidism. The chareidi world has much to be proud of and to respect despite it not being a life I would choose for myself or for my family.
Lots of fair points.
If I had to make a list of my top five they would be (not necessarily in this order): France, Malta, Spain, Austria, and Estonia. France had a musical masterpiece replete with a powerful and relatable message and the performance was solid. Malta had a banger of a song that would get any party on its feet with great presentation. Spain was energetic, and tasteful with a slight mystique. Austria's song, vocals, and staging was simply breathtaking. And Estonia had a great vibe and lovable comedic relief with perfect presentation.
Latvia was artistic, but didn't resonate with me at all. Sweden was overrated with too much emphasis on the presentation and not enough on the music itself (both arrangement and vocals). Lithuania was simply boring and San Marino felt outdated. Germany, Finland and Norway deserved far more attention than they got.
My personal top ten were Sweden, Netherlands, Lithuania, Austria, Poland, Spain, Germany, San Marino, Albania, and Luxembourg. And Ukraine was in a very close 11th. I was overall pleased with results, but the ones that hurt really hurt :(
Random question how does someone in the US get someone invested in eurovision?
I got into it while living in Canada, where its considerably bigger than in the US and is available to watch on YouTube. My wife encouraged me to watch it because "it's so silly" and, as someone who enjoys learning about other cultures and languages, I immediately became hooked.
Do you think Iceland song sounds like Israeli hit https://youtu.be/vlrE48oFwk4?si=f-Pczpp4cUUOLBz_
Yes, but a lot of songs sound similar to each other. I'm not sure what would go into proving plagiarism or the like.
I'm not a big fan of ballads generally and actually had Israel at #15 on my personal scoreboard before the competition. Regardless, I think that it was very well-performed and certainly deserved a higher placement by the Juries given how the other well-executed ballads did. It's just such an obvious inconsistency to anyone who really examines these numbers. But my point is that even if the jury put Israel in the top five, it's not a guarantee that Austria wouldn't have won. I didn't mention the lyrics of Israel's song being universally appealing, but that definitely had something to do with it as well. At least in my friend-group, people were very hungry for a positive, optimistic song to win (ie Sweden or even Estonia after the staging proved so effective. Israel isn't as up-beat but certainly comes with an optimistic enough message.
Each ballad needs to be examined on its own merit. France and Austria, for example, had a far more sophisticated arrangement and much more impressive vocals. You can't scream antisemite just because you disagree with taste, and in specifically with Eurovision I'm skeptical since Israel has generally received such positive treatment.
Exactly. That's why, even in the thought experiments I used, I wouldn't have put Israel above Italy. I just don't think it could have topped it on an objective level. So even if the jury put it as high as possible, Austria would still have won due to a combination of their objective technical merits and sufficient public support.
"As a Jewish convert to Orthodox Christianity with a fairly wide set of historical books under my belt, it troubles me to see some hierarchs and channels following the world's narrative about "anti-Semitism" and all the things that have been done to "combat anti-Semitism." I'll tell you directly, as a 100% pure blooded Ashkenazi man, how to fix "anti-Semitism:" Anti-Semitism will end when faithless Jews leave other groups of people alone and stop trying to transform their nations and cultures in ways that invariably harm the populations in question. It is really not that complicated.”
– Brother Augustine
https://bbc.com/news/articles/ckg77pxj2mno
Yes, Yuval should have won. She was the best singer of the night by far. That Austrian guy's song almost gave me a seizure.