Monthly Archives: May 2025

Eurovision 2025 Final: Israel’s Yuval Raphael Finishes in Second Place as Hundreds Protest Gaza War in Basel – Haaretz

18 Sunday May 2025

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My Introductory Notes: This article from Haaretz today (May 18, 2025) describes the 2nd place finish of Israel’s spectacular new-comer star, Yuval Raphael, in the 2025 Eurovision Competition. She was not expected to place second, but her song and her beautiful voice, won the day. I post at the end the link to Yuval’s official entry into the competition.

No one from a singer’s host country is permitted to vote for his/her own country’s entry, so Yuval won on the merits, despite anti-Israel demonstrations inside and outside the concert hall.

Yuval survived the October 7, 2023 Hamas massacre of 1200 Israeli young people at the Music Festival in Southern Israel by hiding for 8 hours underneath the bodies of fellow concert-goers who had been murdered.

Yuval had never performed before any large audience, so to ascend so quickly to represent the people and State of Israel at this international competition before 6500 people in the hall and millions watching on television is a remarkable accomplishment. She did so with courage and grace, and her voice is spectacular – resonant, beautiful and open, entering the heart.

Here is the Haaretz article:

The Eurovision Song Contest final ended on Saturday night in Basel, Switzerland. Israel’s Yuval Raphael’s performance of “New Day Will Rise,” a song written by Keren Peles, finished in second place, with Austria taking the lead.

The competition venue, which holds around 6,500 spectators, featured performances by several frontrunners, including Sweden, Austria and France.

Audience voting opened at the start of the performances. A combination of public votes and national jury scores determined the final results. Viewers could vote up to 20 times using the official app, phone, or text message. Jury votes had already been cast during a rehearsal held Friday night.

Austria was crowned the unexpected winner, after Wasted Love by JJ received a total of 436 points. Israel received 357 points. The public votes awarded Israel 297 points – more than any other country.

Raphael, 24, was at the Nova music festival during the October 7 attack by Hamas militants on southern Israel that killed 1,200 people and saw 251 taken hostage.

During the attack, she hid in a shelter near Kibbutz Be’eri and sustained shrapnel injuries. She was one of only 11 survivors from that shelter, having hidden under the bodies of victims for eight hours.

She later shared her harrowing experience in a speech before the United Nations Human Rights Council. Witnesses said that on Saturday, two protesters—a man and a woman from Holland — splashed red paint and began shouting during Raphael’s performance. Security guards quickly led the protesters out of the venue.

Since Thursday’s second semifinal, Israel had dropped to seventh place in the betting rankings, with Finland and Estonia overtaking it. Raphael was scheduled to perform fourth out of 26 entries – a relatively early slot that, according to past trends, tends to reduce a country’s chances of winning.

During Friday’s jury rehearsal – and similarly in Thursday’s semifinal dress rehearsal – a few audible boos and other disturbances could be heard during Yuval Raphael’s performance. However, no disruptions were heard during rehearsals for the press.

After a relatively quiet week, a pro-Palestinian protest took place in Basel ahead of the final. Several hundred people gathered in central Basel to express solidarity with the Palestinian people and to oppose Israel’s participation in the contest. Demonstrators chanted slogans such as “Boycott apartheid Israel,” “No stage for genocide,” and “Free Palestine.”Swiss police declined to provide Haaretz with information regarding the investigation of a pro-Palestinian demonstrator who made a throat-slitting gesture toward Raphael and the Israeli delegation on Sunday. “The public prosecutor’s office is handling the case, and for tactical reasons, we cannot provide further information at this stage,” the police stated repeatedly.

https://www.google.com/search?q=Israel%27s+Yuval+Raphael%27s+song+at+Eurovision&rlz=1C1GGRV_enUS934US991&oq=Israel%27s+Yuval+Raphael%27s+song+at+Eurovision&aqs=chrome..69i57j33i160l5.11033j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:2cf0822c,vid:Q3BELu4z6-U,st:0

Like an Old Car

16 Friday May 2025

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As we age, we’re like old cars – hopefully classic cars – but regardless of whether we regard ourselves as old Chevy’s or Cadillacs, the reality is that just as those jalopies break down and need replacement parts and tune-ups to keep running effectively, so too is it for each of us.

I passed my 75th birthday last December, and though I feel good enough, the reality of aging is ever-present and something I don’t take for granted.

I first got the shock of my life at the age of 59 when I was diagnosed with a relatively advanced stage of prostate cancer. I had surgery to remove it and then I had to confront (for the first time in my life) that had modern science, a great doctor and competent and compassionate nurses not taken care of me, I would have died young, like my father before me who succumbed to his second heart attack at the age of 53.

As I’ve aged, I think much more than ever before about my parents, aunts and uncles, and grandparents too, and the maladies of aging they experienced in their generations. Thanks to medical research and development in so many areas of bodily and mental health over many decades, longevity and good health have increased in modern societies if we’re treated, that is, by competent physicians, nurse practitioners, nurses, psychiatrists, psychologists, and state-of-the-science hospitals and clinics. How we take care of ourselves, how much exercise we do each day, whether we eat well and in moderation, forgo alcohol and drugs, get adequate sleep, enjoy positive mutually supportive relationships with family and friends, control our stress levels, do productive and creative work, have good genes, and get appropriate bio-medical support – all taken together – make a substantial difference in our quality of life, happiness and contentment, health, energy and longevity.

I regard my body and mind often like the first car I co-owned with my brother – a 1955 Chevy. I loved that car, and when Barbara and I led a congregational tour to Cuba years ago, seeing those 1950s models rumble along on the streets of Havana, held together by spit and wire, made me happy and nostalgic for my early years.

Last week, after returning from an overseas trip, to catch up on my health issues, I saw a different doctor every day. But – whether I complain about the effort it takes to go to one physician after another, given my respect for their competence, expertise and treatment, I much prefer that to the alternative. I used to say when I played golf regularly, especially when I had a mediocre hitting day that was frustrating no matter what I did to make adjustments in my focus, stance and swing: “Better this side of the grass.”

I depend now more than ever on the expertise of those physicians and the bio-medical assistance they prescribe to sustain me as a positive thinking half-glass-full 75 year-old Jew that I now am, a positive quality that propelled me from my youngest years to be productive and to find meaning in my life. I’m grateful not only to them, but most especially to my family, friends and community. They sustain and inspire me.

May we all “live long and prosper,” and be for each of us the embodiment of wisdom, strength, love and support that we can offer to one another.

“Rededicating Ourselves to Deepening Interfaith Relationships: A Pledge Sponsored by the International Council of Christians and Jews”

11 Sunday May 2025

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 I signed this pledge today and invite my readers to do so as well, wherever you live around the world, whether you are Jewish, Christian or Muslim. Please read this commitment to Interfaith Relationships carefully, and if you believe in this declaration of commitment, click onto the link at the end of the statement and include your signature. I thank you in advance.

An Invitation to Recommit to Interfaith Relationships in These Tumultuous Times

In this year of 2025 in the Western calendar, defining religious observances for Jews, Christians, and Muslims occur within days of each other. Jews commemorate liberation from slavery at special Passover meals. Christians celebrate freedom from the slavery of death brought by the resurrection of Jesus. Muslims celebrate Eid-al-Fitr as the joyful culmination of Ramadan, uniting in prayer, charity, and reinvigorated communal experience. This convergence provides a moment that our world in turmoil desperately needs, a moment to continue the progress of the past several decades in deepening interfaith relationships.

Our world is living through a time when relations among people of different faith traditions are under great stress. The ICCJ, being especially dedicated to dialogue between Jews and Christians, as well as trilateral dialogue with Muslims, believes that the violent and polarized world of today urgently needs such dialogues to continue and, indeed, to intensify in the months and years ahead.

The ICCJ has composed a declaration of recommitment to the work of dialogue, including specific practices to enhance it.

We invite any individual, organization, or institution that cherishes interreligious amity to join us in our resolve by endorsing the declaration and enacting its values in their own lives and circumstances.

A Pledge Sponsored by the International Council of Christians and Jews

The First and Second World Wars killed over one hundred million people and made refugees of hundreds of millions more. Empires fell. Nations were born. Weapons with unimaginable power were devised, threatening the very existence of life on our planet. Nonetheless, from this carnage and chaos positive initiatives arose, including in many places an historically unprecedented transformation in relationships between Jews and Christians.

Appalled and traumatized by the industrialized slaughter of two-thirds of European Jewry, people in both communities sought rapprochement after nearly two millennia of estrangement and antipathy. Christians had to confront a long history of anti-Jewish rhetoric and violence, while Jews had to risk hoping that Christian overtures were truly sincere. Crucial turning points were a conference in Seelisberg, Switzerland in 1947, which led to the founding of the International Council of Christians and Jews, and the Catholic Church’s 1965 Second Vatican Council declaration Nostra Aetate and the 1967 report of the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches, “The Church and the Jewish People.”

The quest for open dialogue and sincere friendship between Jews and Christians raised many moral, theological, and social questions and shed new light on each community’s self-understanding. After centuries of mutual ignorance and polemic, it took time to build trust and to learn how to speak to one another. Gradually, a unique era of dialogue, understanding, and mutual enrichment began. As never before, unfolding differently in various parts of the world, Christians and Jews, while forming civic collaborations and deep personal friendships, studied together in exceptional depth, some becoming expert in the other’s history and texts. These dialogue partners explored religious ideas that previously were avoided. Understanding themselves to be journeying together in God’s covenantal presence, they found new respect for each other’s religious integrity, leading many churches to disavow missions to convert Jews. Such efforts and experiences were models to engage with other religious communities, especially Muslims.

Over the years there have been disputes and missteps. The journey has been a complicated and uneven one. The post-Shoah geographic concentration of Jews in Israel and major cities in the United States means that most Christians around the world cannot personally engage in interreligious dialogue with Jews. In various times and places, religious radicalism dehumanizes people by setting them against each other along religious lines. Even though peace often seems an impossible dream, there are Jews, Christians, and Muslims who have nevertheless steadfastly pursued dialogue and friendship for decades. Their courageous efforts are signs of hope to people everywhere.

The war between Israel and Hamas in the wake of October 7, 2023, which has longstanding regional and intercontinental aspects, has shaken interreligious amity to a degree not seen since World War II, and will have long-term consequences. Among some Christians and Jews old stereotypes and suspicions about each other have resurfaced. Around the globe, antisemitic bigotries and even violence have surged, provoking fear. Although people view and are impacted by the current crises in diverse ways, all are haunted by the tragic death toll. Yet we who cultivate interreligious friendships yearn for and must prepare and work for the day when peace will dawn and both Palestinians and Israelis, Christians, Muslims, and Jews, will prosper in peace and security.

THE SIGNATORIES OF THIS PLEDGE RESOLVE that interreligious dialogue cannot be a victim of these or any other attacks or conflicts. Indeed, dialogue is more important than ever. We believe it to be God’s will and our holy calling. Wherever we live and whatever our circumstances, we pledge to:

  • Be blessings for one another and therefore for the world,
  • Support one another in our covenantal responsibilities to God,
  • Share each other’s joys and sorrows,
  • Actively oppose religious prejudice, including especially antisemitism, Islamophobia, or anti-Christianity, and bear truthful witness for each other when misrepresented or defamed,
  • Review our religious teachings, rituals, and practices to address any elements that caricature or teach disrespect for each other, or that in any way racialize or dehumanize anyone,
  • Continue and deepen the joint study of subjects that urgently need attention, such as: Christianity as more of a credal religion in comparison to Jewish self-understanding as a peoplehood, the land and state of Israel in Jewish and Christian spirituality, the meaning of the Jewish identity of Jesus for Jews and Christians today, the ongoing implications of the Shoah for Christians and for Jews, their bonds in the scriptural Word of God, their traditions of ethical reasoning, and how they can speak and act together for the good of humanity and creation,
  • Seek to develop deeper interreligious friendships with Muslims, and
  • Better discern the divine Presence in each other’s communities, traditions, and rituals.

In making these commitments, we pray that God will bless our efforts and continue to accompany us in our search for deepening and lasting interreligious friendship and understanding.

THE INTERNATIONAL COUNCIL OF CHRISTIANS AND JEWS (ICCJ)
MARTIN BUBER HOUSE, HEPPENHEIM
APRIL 2025

To endorse this pledge, go to – https://www.iccj.org/resources/iccj-statements/iccj-declaration-2025.html

Two Weeks in Paris

08 Thursday May 2025

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My wife Barbara and I just returned from two weeks in Paris, our fourth visit together over the past 42 years. The maple trees were blooming, the weather temperate, the beauty of the city wondrous. We walked a lot, visited Musee D’orsay, Musee de L’orangerie, Musee Picasso, and the Louvre. The French couldn’t have been more welcoming – I worried about that given the resentment I expected as a consequence of Trump’s hostility towards America’s traditional allies abroad.

The downside, if there was one, were the crowds everywhere, except early in the morning when I walked along the Seine. Thousands of people sat in cafes everywhere in late afternoon consuming pastries and libations, talking and watching walkers-by.

Though I read the International New York Times daily and selectively read email from Israel to stay on top of the news, we took a break – as much as we could – from the daily outrages of the Trump and Netanyahu administrations. The mental relief was welcome.

It’s said that when visiting France, sojourners go to be inspired by beauty – and it is certainly so. The vistas in the city, the parks and centuries’ old cobble stone streets, and the paintings, sculptures and monuments created by the greatest artists in world history are within walking distance. Notre Dame has been open after reconstruction following the fire five years ago to visitors since the end of last year and we were stunned by its majesty. The Church of Sainte Chappelle, also on the Ile de Paris (a stone’s throw from the Church of Notre Dame), built in the 12th to 14th centuries and renovated in the 19th century, is as spectacular a religious architecture as I have ever witnessed.

Walking through the Louvre, one has to decide what exactly to see before going in because of the massive number of works. I decided to visit only High Italian Renaissance and 19th century French Masters, the two focuses I studied in my History of Art Major at UC Berkeley more than 50 years ago.

I knew I’d never get close to the Mona Lisa, but there were other pieces I wanted to see as well. The crowd around the mysterious lady watching us from every direction was so intense (150-200 people who refused to move to let others come close) that I left that gallery and sought other master works of Leonardo da Vinci and Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, including this self-portrait with his friend that Raffael painted as a young man (between 1518 and 1520), the very year he died at the young age of 37.

My impressions as we reflected upon some the greatest of humankind’s creations in western civilization, reminded me not only of the artists’ genius, but of life’s brevity. They are, of course, all gone, but their works remain as their legacy.

Years ago I sat with Leonard Nimoy and asked him about the source of his inspiration as an artist. He said that great artists always have antenna out and receiving. The moments of creation, he noted, come from a place beyond the rational mind. He liked to quote the 19th century American Shakespearean stage actor Edwin Booth (1833-1893) who, Leonard said, heard the solemn whisper of the god of all arts:

“I shall give you hunger and pain and sleepless nights, also beauty and satisfaction known to few, and glimpses of the heavenly life. None of these shall you have continually, and of their coming and going you shall not be foretold.”

As I viewed Paris’ artistic riches, Booth’s notion of the god of all arts filled my thoughts as I marveled at the creative genius left to us in every age.