A frontrunner on the latest season of “Rising Star,” the Israeli talent show, has advanced on the basis of her renditions of an iconic Israeli song that includes words from the Shema, one of Judaism’s central prayers, and “Hurricane,” the country’s post-Oct. 7 anthem that she performed alongside a survivor of the Hamas massacre that day.
Those might be unsurprising selections in a Jewish country that has lately been defined by its response to Oct. 7. But it’s not just her voice that sets Valerie Hamaty apart: She’s also an Arab Christian, the only such contestant on a show whose winner becomes Israel’s entrant to the Eurovision Song Contest. And her success is sparking debate at a time when Israel’s war in Gaza has tested relations between Jewish and Arab Israelis.
“That an Arab should represent Israel on an international stage is a huge source of pride,” said Zohurha Abonar. “And the fact that she’s from right here? That makes it even more special.”
Abonar is a Muslim resident of Jaffa, the city adjacent to Tel Aviv that is a heart of Arab Israel and Hamaty’s hometown. She was speaking at a Christmas market where Hamaty’s recent advance added to the seasonal cheer.
One teenage girl, who said she was Hamaty’s cousin but asked not to be named, said the singer’s growing success resonated deeply within her Christian community. “She’s inspiring so many of us,” she said.
But Hamaty’s rise hasn’t been welcomed by everyone.
“She’s always pandering to Jews,” said one young woman from a group standing nearby, who declined to give her name.
Valerie Hamaty and Daniel Wais, a survivor of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, together perform “Hurricane” on the talent show “Rising Star.” (Screenshot)
“My generation in the Muslim community will never stand behind her,” she added, pointing to Hamaty’s decision to wear a yellow pin in support of the hostages, and what she viewed as the singer’s public alignment with Israeli Jews during the ongoing war. Hamaty has made regular visits to hospitals to cheer soldiers wounded in Gaza, sung at the funerals of victims of the Oct. 7 attack, and toured battered kibbutzim and communities.
On various Arabic forums, discussions about Hamaty reflect this divide. Some praise her for breaking cultural barriers and serving as a role model for young Arab artists. Others express discomfort with her association with Israeli national events.
Among Jewish Israelis, opinions are similarly divided. While some welcome her Eurovision candidacy and her decision to perform well-known Hebrew and English songs in Arabic — which Hamaty translates herself — as a reflection of Israel’s diversity, others see her performances during a time of war as tone-deaf and believe that the privilege of representing Israel on the global stage should be reserved for a Jewish artist.
“How can we send a non-Jewish singer to represent us?” one commenter wrote in response to a video of Hamaty’s most recent performance. “After all, Israel is the state of one nation, the symbol of the Star of David is on the flag. This is a fact, not an opinion.” The comment drew a handful of responses accusing the author of racism — but also more than 80 thumbs-up emojis.
Hamaty’s father, Tony, says he follows every online exchange about his daughter closely but has managed to stay level-headed. “I go into every article written about my daughter and if there are a thousand talkbacks [comments], I’ll read every single one. I like to understand what people think,” he said.
“The comments sections are tainted by a few very loud racists who answer everyone,” he added. “But the sane majority has shown nothing but love for Valerie.”
Bars and restaurants in Jaffa, adjacent to Tel Aviv, in April 2017. (Michael Jacobs/Art in All of Us/Corbis via Getty Images)
Tony Hamaty was speaking from his eponymous pizzeria in Jaffa’s old city, where a TV on the wall played a loop of his daughter’s performances.
One of the most emotionally arresting was a duet performed with another contestant, Daniel Wais. Wais’s father, Shmulik, was killed on Oct. 7 in their home in Kibbutz Be’eri as he tried to defend his wife, who was kidnapped, brought to Gaza and later murdered. Her body was eventually recovered by the IDF.
Just before filming the episode, Wais had come from his parents’ reburial, moved from temporary graves to the kibbutz cemetery now considered safe enough for a proper funeral.
During the show, Wais shared that he and Hamaty had competed against each other in a talent competition before the war. His father, who attended that event, had told him afterward that he needed to find a way to perform with her someday. Reflecting on the duet, Wais said, “When I realized we’d be singing together on ‘Rising Star,’ I got goosebumps.”
The two sang “Hurricane,” the song performed by Eden Golan, who represented Israel in last year’s Eurovision. The song, which referenced those murdered on Oct. 7, had its lyrics and title altered after Eurovision organizers deemed it too political. Golan performed it in the final, hosted in the Swedish city of Malmo, amid loud jeers and boos from audience members opposing Israel’s war in Gaza, as well as cheers. Golan ultimately placed second in the audience vote and fifth overall.
Israeli singer Eden Golan, representing Israel with the song “Hurricane,” performs during the final of the 68th Eurovision Song Contest on May 11, 2024 at the Malmo Arena in Malmo, Sweden. (Jessica Gow / TT/ TT News Agency/AFP via Getty Images)
In their rendition, Hamaty and Wais incorporated lyrics from the original version, titled “October Rain.”
Tony Hamaty shared that his daughter had received overwhelming support from survivors and family members of victims of the Oct. 7 attack, saying they had urged her to “stay strong and not let the racist voices get to her.”
In an interview with Israel’s Channel 12, Valerie recounted a moving encounter with Shani Goren, who was taken hostage to Gaza and released in a deal with Hamas in November 2023. Goren reached out to the singer, expressing her desire to hear Hamaty sing in Arabic, explaining that she wanted to reconnect with the beauty of the language despite the trauma she endured.
“I don’t want to associate it only with what I went through there,” she said Goren told her. “You’re the only one who can help me see it differently.”
For Hamaty, the moment was transformative. “If this is my mission, and these are the people who have given me their blessing, I have nothing left to prove. Music constantly amazes me — if Arabic triggers fear in some, singing transforms it, reaching their hearts in a different way,” she told the outlet.
Nevertheless, Hamaty said she has no plans to sing in Arabic if she gets the chance to represent Israel at Eurovision. Instead, she plans to sing a ballad in English with some Hebrew — a standard mix at the multinational contest that has recently been dominated by English-language lyrics. She explained that her presence as an Arab on the Eurovision stage already carries the message of diversity.
“The goal is to connect with Europeans, so English is necessary for them to understand, and Hebrew represents Israel, the official language here. The fact that I’m Arab is already part of the story. There’s no need to overstate it.”
Hamaty’s father acknowledged that the war has made hearing Arabic difficult for some Israeli Jews: “There are those who say, ‘With all due respect, we love her and everything, but it’s hard for us to hear the Arabic language right now.’ I can understand that sentiment on an emotional level — I’m not angry with them. In some ways, I even get where they’re coming from. But I don’t agree with them.”
“The people who say they don’t want an Arab woman to represent them are speaking out of ignorance, out of anger,” he said. “If they took the time to do a little research and understood what Valerie has accomplished they might feel differently.”
Valerie, a ninth-generation native of Jaffa and polyglot who speaks five languages, began her education at a French Christian school in Jaffa before transferring to a public school in Tel Aviv, where her musical talent first drew attention. In high school, her music teacher formed a band after hearing her sing, and she was chosen to perform at Memorial Day ceremonies, a notable decision in a country where the solemn day symbolizes the sacrifices of Israel’s almost entirely Jewish army. One performance left such an impression that her head teacher noted it was the first time all 1,000 students stayed through the ceremony, captivated by her voice.
An Israeli soldier places flowers on the graves of fallen Israeli soldiers at the Mount Herzl military cemetery hours before the start of Memorial Day, April 20, 2020. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
She participated in the March of the Living trip to Auschwitz and sang at the Knesset at age 16. After high school, she was expected to pursue medicine but chose to study music at the Rimon School of Jazz and Contemporary Music. Initially apprehensive about her father’s reaction, she tearfully confessed her decision but to her surprise, Tony said he fully supported her. “I told her if music is her dream, I’m behind her.”
In 2021, Hamaty had a breakout moment: She joined the eighth season of “Rising Star,” coming in second. (That year, the winner got 1 million shekels, or a little less than $300,000, rather than a Eurovision spot.) Since then, she has released several singles and nabbed roles in multiple Israeli TV shows — including “Madrasa,” a drama set in an Arab-Jewish high school written in Hebrew by the Arab Israeli author Sayed Kashua.
Through it all, she has collaborated frequently with prominent Israeli artists, including Noa Kirel, who represented Israel in Eurovision 2023, and Ivri Lider. She also performed in 2022 at the country’s torch-lighting ceremony on Mount Herzl to mark the transition between Israel’s Memorial Day and Independence Day — a day that only a minority of Israeli Arabs celebrate as a holiday.
If she ends up representing Israel at Eurovision in Basel, Switzerland, in May, it wouldn’t be the first time the country uses the competition as an opportunity to showcase its multiculturalism. When Israel hosted the contest in 2019, after winning the previous year, the country’s public broadcaster released a promo video with a self-deprecating ditty sung by an Arab-Israeli personality, Lucy Ayoub, along with Russian-Israeli presenter Elia Greenfeld. “In fact most Israelis have complex identities/that is why we all look at each other here as frenemies,” they sang.
Tony Hamaty was candid about the resistance Valerie has faced from some in the Muslim community. “I have many Muslim friends who raise an eyebrow and ask, ‘Why does your daughter support Israel?’”
In response, he pointed to the indiscriminate brutality of Hamas. “They killed over 30 Arabs, including women in hijabs, showing that they don’t care about religion or nationality. Their ideology is purely about killing every Israeli citizen,” he said. For him, the choice is clear: “We have to stand with the state — we are Israelis.”
He concluded: “If my daughter wins, she’ll show that racism doesn’t have the final word.”
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