Israel’s Eurovision representative performs a song rejected as too political at the UN event

Israeli singer Eden Golan will perform in October at the UN headquarters on the anniversary of the Hamas attack, reports an Israeli news site Ynet. Golan plans to perform a song at the event October Rainwhich was rejected from Eurovision last spring because the original text of the song was considered too political.

October Rainin the text refers to the October 2023 Hamas attack on Israel that killed nearly 1,200 Israelis, many of them civilians. At the insistence of Eurovision organizer Ebu, the text was changed, and Golan finally performed it in the final under his name Hurricane.

The changes are not big, but the most essential difference is that the expression “October rain” is not mentioned in the version approved by Ebu.

Golan is scheduled to perform the original version of the song on October 7 at a memorial service organized by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs at the UN headquarters.

Golan performed the original October Rainin shortly after the visa final in Tel Aviv, in a demonstration demanding that the Israeli government act to release the hostages taken by Hamas.

In last spring’s Eurovision, Israel’s participation was at stake at times, when Ebu considered Israel’s alternative candidate song too political. In the end, the president of Israel also intervened in the matter Isaac Herzogwho called for the song to be changed to allow Israel to enter the final.

Israel finished fifth in the final. It didn’t exactly get points from the expert judges, but it was the second most popular in the public votes.