One morning, when Yuval Raphael, a survivor of the Nova festival massacre, was a 6-year-old girl, her father gathered her and her younger brother to announce they were relocating to Switzerland. Within a short time, the family packed up their apartment in Moshav Pediya and moved to Geneva for three years. Now, 15 years after returning to Israel, Raphael will once again board a plane to Switzerland – this time as Israel's official representative at Eurovision 2025.
"After what I went through on October 7, my whole family sat together and remembered my childhood in Switzerland," she recalls. "During that conversation, I started crying for the first time after what I had experienced."
Why then specifically?
"Something suddenly opened up in me. This was long before 'The Next Star' was even on the agenda, and before anyone knew the Eurovision would be held in Switzerland. But it just happened, and in hindsight, things connected."
If I had told 9-year-old Yuval that she would return to Switzerland as Israel's representative, what would she have answered?
"Nine-year-old Yuval would have said it would have happened much earlier. At that age, in my head, I was already living in Hollywood. I told myself, 'You're going to be a big shot, something very big, and you're going to sing on massive stages.' Those were the years when I most believed in myself."
Scheduling a meeting with Raphael (24) is almost impossible, despite numerous attempts. In less than a week, she will fly to Basel to begin rehearsals for Eurovision 2025, which will take place on May 17 and will be broadcast live on Kan 11.
"I'm rehearsing around the clock," she shares. "I do vocal development four to five times a week, sleep with a humidifier that keeps the vocal cords moist throughout the night, so I wake up as fit as possible. I also do a lot of treadmill work to condition my body, because an accelerated heart rate takes more oxygen – and the entire song depends on oxygen, breathing, and air. I'm training myself to function with less, to simulate the situation as much as possible, like being on the Eurovision stage."
You're an excellent singer. Why do you need so much preparation beyond rehearsing the song?
"It's like asking a bodybuilder why they need to keep training. My entire life revolves around this right now. It really feels like a kind of Olympics that I'm preparing for. I don't think I've ever invested in or been dedicated to something like I am to Eurovision. I wake up with it in the morning and go to sleep with it at night."
You still have more than two weeks until the competition.
"Oh my goodness, oh my goodness. That's not a lot of time, it's no time at all."
With all the busy schedule, do you find time to enjoy yourself?
"I'm engaged in what I've always dreamed of and also knew I would do. All my life, I wanted to be a singer, for this to be my main occupation that I would work at. But remember that my first song in my career is a Eurovision song. It's not from zero to a hundred – it's from zero to a million."
Does that include breaking points?
"Of course, there are those. And that's where my mom enters the picture, and she knows how to stabilize me. My mom is the only person who can stabilize me in that moment. I'm human, and I also have fears and concerns. I know there's a lot of responsibility on me, and I don't want to disappoint. I know there's a lot on my shoulders, and I want to bring 100% honor, so they'll be proud of me."
How do you deal with the less pleasant moments?
"I like and also want to give space to my insecurities, not suppress them. I'm not one of those who put on bandages and wave positive psychology around. I give my fears space, because there's something much deeper here, and the moment I give space and time and expression to fear and concerns – I don't walk around carrying that energy outward."
Do you reach states of crying during the work process?
"Of course, it's a release for me. Even before what I went through on October 7, crying was the best tool for me to release. When I don't cry, I know I'm experiencing a kind of disconnection that isn't healthy. I used to seek out crying to release it outward and not keep it inside, so it wouldn't come back to me."
Since October 7, have you cried more?
"Actually, since then, at first, because I was in a very, very large disconnection, I cried much, much less. I was looking for the crying, wanted to encounter it – and couldn't find it. After what I went through, I can say that when you can't cry – you're not connecting, and for me, that's the clear sign of disconnection."
So perhaps it's more accurate to ask if, after October 7, it was harder for you to cry.
"Absolutely yes. And these are symptoms I don't want to be in. I don't want to be disconnected, but I want to uproot the problem from its root, so it doesn't come to me later in life as post-traumatic stress. After October 7, I looked for where I could cry, and couldn't succeed. For an entire month, not a tear fell. I simply couldn't."
Today, can you cry, let's say, because of a bad rehearsal?
"A bad rehearsal won't make me cry, but it will make me go home and do more rehearsals. I sing from a place of opening everything outward, and what scares me is not getting anything back. That's my concern."
Take me into your world, when there's a breaking point, you lose confidence and tears flow – what do you do?
"Action that isn't escaping, television, or Instagram. And after I've released, the alternative is to get up and do a rehearsal, or inhalation, or treadmill. In other words, anything that reconnects me to doing – and then I really reset from it very quickly."
"It fell on my shoulder"
What is Eurovision pressure compared to that morning, on that terrible Saturday, when Raphael went out with her friends to dance at the nature party in the Gaza border region, on the Simchat Torah holiday, and they found themselves fleeing from the worst massacre in the history of the State of Israel.
For seven hours, they hid in a small shelter near Kibbutz Be'eri, with Raphael lying underneath bodies and pretending to be dead, even after she was hit by shrapnel herself. She and her friends left there miraculously, but traumatized. "I had very difficult hours in the shelter. In order not to be murdered, I had to hide with bodies, and to get out of there, I had to step on bodies," she recounts.
"I'll say something that probably only those who survived Nova will understand, after you come out of such an event, you're full of guilt feelings. You ask yourself many questions, and the central one is 'why was I saved and not them?' After I made peace with that, I want to give my dreams a chance."
"It's something that stayed with me for a very long time. The moment I managed to release that feeling, I thought to myself, you received a second chance at your life, and in the end, you'll be afraid? What a disrespect that is toward those who didn't survive. I came to the conclusion that I need to honor what I received and fly with my life."
How does that manifest?
"Taking my life to the best place I can, and fulfilling all my dreams."
In the past year, Raphael has repeatedly told the story of her escape from Nova and the moments of fighting for her life. She remembers everything in detail, and when she doesn't have a busy schedule, she can tell it again and again, for long hours, with patience. Soon she will also tell it in English, to viewers in Europe, who may not be willing to lend an ear.
"I remember we arrived at the parking area in Re'im around 1:30 and opened a bar in the trunk, and we entered the actual party around 3:30. We set up our 'kanta' (a private area enclosed with embroidered sheets) and went dancing. It was fun at incredible levels, and I really must say it was wow. It was my first time at a big festival, and it was fun to meet people from everywhere, dancing with everyone in the open air."
You describe a feeling of euphoria.
"Euphoria is the exact word, until it turned into a nightmare. I was in the kanta when everything started. We were just filming a video for my dad, and two minutes after that the missiles began. I told myself, okay, we're in the Gaza border region, what did we expect would happen? We thought there would be a barrage, we'd hide – and go back to the party."
Still, stressful.
"I was one of those who wasn't scared of missiles, because I had the feeling that if something needs to happen, it happens. But Hadar, our friend, was in severe hysteria. She got everyone up and told us, 'Get yourselves out of here, we're definitely not staying here.' We took our things, and then I looked at the sky and saw stripes of missiles. The plan was to drive to a friend who lived nearby, but on the way, there were terrorists. We made a U-turn, saw a small shelter, and went inside."
No fewer than 60 Israelis crammed into the small shelter, hoping to get out alive – but only a few of them survived. Raphael is one of them. "We were inside. I sat next to my friend and next to someone else I didn't know. She held my hand and wouldn't stop crying. I calmed them both down and said, 'Listen, we're in a protected space, a few minutes, and we'll split up and go home.' But then the first shooting inside the shelter started, and when it ended, the first thing I saw was her head on my shoulder. She died on me."
"At this stage, I was on the phone with my dad, who told me to lie down and pretend I was dead. The terrorists entered and exited about ten times, while I was hiding under bodies. There were shots and grenades, and it was a nightmare Satan himself couldn't have created. I'm the only one in my row in the shelter who survived – everyone else was murdered."
There was someone else who was murdered and her body was lying on your leg.
"The body that was on my leg was my biggest trauma from the whole situation. Both in terms of the physical pain, and in terms of my inhumanity, because I hid using her. This stayed with me for a long time afterward."
Do you know who she was?
"Yes. Two weeks ago, I met with her mother, and it was one of the most important things I've done in my life. Because I carried so much guilt with me, and the last thing I expected was to close the circle with her mother. I thought maybe she would hate me, because there was a lot of inhumanity in the shelter, and I had to try to survive, and I used her daughter. Even without being a mother, I can understand her pain. I look at it through her eyes."
And how did she react?
"She heard everything I had to say, hugged me, and started crying herself. She told me she hasn't slept well for a year and a half, and wanted to know that her daughter didn't suffer, because every second there, in the shelter, breaks the soul. She had heard many rumors about her daughter's death, but had no tangible proof."
Did you know how to give her the details she was looking for?
"Yes. In one of the recordings with my dad, the first shooting had already happened, and I told him I had a body on me. I knew to tell her that before her daughter had time to understand what was happening there – she was already no longer alive. She didn't see atrocities and didn't suffer. I left there feeling like a building had been lifted off my shoulders."
In your group, everyone made it out alive, that's nothing short of a miracle.
"From that day on, all of us friends became inseparable. From morning till night. It's a shared fate. It's the only place where my battery gets charged, not drained. When I sit with people who weren't there, I expend energy, and they will never understand what I went through. With them it's different."
"Fears won't knock me down"
How could it not? October 7 changed Raphael's life. She entered the party as one Yuval – and left as another Yuval, determined to fulfill her big dreams. "It can't be that I receive life, and someone else doesn't. I felt there must be a reason. And after I received life, I knew I had to give a chance to every dream I have and everything I would like to fulfill myself in. To honor this gift I received. And second, what is the fear of failure compared to the fear of living again?"
What would you answer to someone who claims you made it to the competition because of Nova?
"My story is part of me and my life story, and the emotion I sing from is also related to what I went through. On the other hand, I made it to the biggest music show in the country, in prime time, alongside huge singers with incredible voices, and week after week, I went up and competed against them and won. I really believe I did something right, and that it has nothing to do with Nova. I am worthy, and I feel it. Long before Nova, I knew I would be a singer. I always believed this would be my career and that this is what was going to happen. Vocally, I always believed in myself."
Did you watch Eden Golan last year?
"Of course. You can see she worked hard and put all her heart there. Even when I talked to her, I understood how much she gave her hundred percent. I'm very proud of her, because she entered a situation she didn't expect, and handled it with the utmost courage. I really appreciate her, it's impossible not to."
Do you yourself understand the magnitude of the task?
"I understand the size of it, but there's also innocence in me, and I want it to remain part of me. I don't need to understand all the fears so they don't knock me down. I know what happened last year, and I take everything into account. I'm preparing for everything, but I also tell myself that there are things I have control over and things I don't. For the things under my control, I'll give a hundred percent. Everything that's not under my control – there's nothing I can do about it."
Are you prepared for encounters with representatives from other countries?
"I take everything into account. But in the end, my goal, what I'm coming to do, is to deliver a strong number, bring honor to my country, and do justice to the song written for me. I consider every possible scenario, and that expands even more my desire to open my heart to everyone. When it's harder, I want to give even more. There will always be those who love us and those who don't. We're used to that."
But not all of us are used to singing in front of hundreds of millions live across Europe.
"I think I've had the best preparation for this."
Even for people booing while you're singing?
"Then there will be booing. Again, there's nothing I can do about it. That's theirs. I'm still coming with the same agenda. And you know what? More than that, I think this is the kind of situation that will open my heart even more."
Recently, it was reported that competition participants created a group and left you out. Were you hurt?
"This whole story caught me by surprise. I didn't know about this group until the reports, and after I joined it, I discovered there were ten countries that weren't there at all. So I don't think it was something personal against me or against us."
Let's talk numbers.
"In terms of numbers, I'm actually very goal-oriented, I'm coming to take first place. I'm clear that it might not happen, but if you asked about numbers, I want to bring the trophy home. I want to bring Eurovision to Israel."
Do you think that's possible, despite everything happening around Israel in the competition?
"Against all odds, there's something in me that truly believes in victory."
I don't want to put negative thoughts in your head, but Eurovision is a complex event. Are you considering, for instance, a scenario where you don't advance from the semi-final?
"Everyone who knows me knows that I believe in the biggest cliché in the world, which is that what needs to happen – happens. I truly believe this wholeheartedly, and it gives me a lot of peace and satisfaction. Because even if it means the competition will end in a nightmare – I believe that's what needed to happen. In the same breath, I have no belief that something like that will happen, because I'm working too hard for it not to happen."
Are you in therapy?
"Not at the moment. The type of therapy I like is digging very deep into the wound, and I don't know how appropriate it would be right now to dig into the wound before Eurovision. For everything related to Eurovision itself, all the things surrounding the competition, I'm treated by my mother, who is a psychologist."
From your perspective, has dealing with the October 7 events moved aside for now?
"I've stopped everything in my life that isn't Eurovision right now, because I think you can't deal with both things together, it could clash a bit. These are two events that are too big, and also very unrelated to each other, so for a second, I've put it aside. I also feel that I'm in a good enough place to put it aside for a moment."
"Wore men's shirts"
As mentioned, Raphael was born in Moshav Pediya, and after her family returned from Switzerland, she grew up in Ra'anana. In high school, she studied theater and dance – from there, she remembers a traumatic crisis that prevented her from creating for many years, in fact, until last year.
"The principal noticed an area of my body that was more developed than the other girls, and commented on it. I was only 11. I remember she took me outside and told me I was required to buy new shirts."
For modesty reasons?
"I was never a provocative child, that wasn't my style. I had shirts like everyone else's, but she decided I needed shirts with a round, closed neckline."
Did you comply with the demand?
"The next day, when I still hadn't had time to buy new shirts, she sat me outside her office all day. She told me, 'You're not going out for breaks, not entering classes, and not moving from here.' Even the shirts I later bought didn't satisfy her. At some point, she started involving my dad in this whole thing, and it became a very big story – until I reached a point where I started wearing oversized men's shirts, large and loose."
Didn't you try to resist?
"There was something in me that wanted to rebel against the principal, but she put an idea in my head that wasn't there before, and from that point, I started judging myself much more harshly. If I did decide to wear something tight, I would put a sweatshirt over it – even in summer."
Did you stay in the dance program?
"I knew that if I quit, I would be giving in to her, so I didn't quit, but we would go on stage six or seven girls, and I would be anxious about people looking at me. Do you know anyone else who goes on stage and doesn't want to be seen? That was me."
An unpleasant experience as a teenage girl.
"Today, I can say I went through a full-blown trauma. It's an anxiety that has remnants in me to this day, even though I worked very hard to release that place. It still accompanies me." In the army, Raphael served as a border crossing guard in the Jerusalem area, and during that time her parents decided to divorce. "I grew up knowing that family is the most important thing in the world, and suddenly, when my parents wanted to break up, it was very surprising. But I was at a mature enough age to understand that if they weren't good together, it was better for them to separate."
Was the separation process accompanied by disputes and fights?
"They protected us very much, and hid from us what we didn't need to know as children. But I was already mature enough to accept it. By the way, we have a large extended family, about 60 people."
After all the residue, hardships, and insights that accompanied her life, Raphael came to Season 11 of "The Next Star for Eurovision" – and from the first sound she uttered, she captivated the judges' panel and the viewers at home. In Basel, she will take the stage with the ballad "New Day Will Rise," written by Keren Peles, and will try to advance from the second semi-final, which will be held on May 15, to the coveted final.
What did you think about the song when you heard it for the first time?
"Wow, I really loved it. Throughout the season, when I chose songs, I chose songs with emotion. Even if there were ones that vocally could have fit me more beautifully, I chose songs that would connect to my soul – and with 'New Day Will Rise' I felt that. There's such a strong message here that I want to express, both in terms of melody and music, and there's a lot of softness – exactly how I want to bring myself to Eurovision."
Do you have a sense of mission?
"I feel the biggest mission in the world. A mission to represent my country and represent my people, all the people of Israel."
Have you heard the songs from other countries?
"Some of them. In principle, I had this agenda of 'I'm not listening to songs' – but with Instagram and TikTok it's somewhat inevitable."
Know your enemies.
"Absolutely yes. But on the other hand, I need to work on my number, and that's what I'm focusing on. I'll know my 'enemies' at another stage. From what I've had a chance to hear so far, 'Espresso Macchiato' from Estonia is an addictive song at incredible levels."
What about betting odds?
"I don't follow them. Anything that could distract me and that I have no control over – I don't get into. I want the best result, and it won't help me to look at what place in the table I'm in at any moment. Right now, I don't know what place I am in the betting odds."
Currently, you're in fourth place. "
Nice. Imagine we were now in 15th place – so what, am I supposed to let go?"
If you were guaranteed fourth place in the competition, would you take it?
"No, I want first place."
"Desire to reach focus"
After recovering from the great disaster in the Gaza border region, and amid the busy rehearsals for the huge competition in Europe, Raphael also managed to find love – singer Ido Malka, whom she met on "The Next Star." "It comes when you least expect it and when your head is completely elsewhere, and that's what happened," she candidly shares. "We've been together for a bit over two months."
You'll have a beautiful story for your grandchildren.
"Our story began after the show ended, not during the season. Ido made some kind of move, and from there it all started."
Are you in love?
"Yes, I love him."
Do you have time for each other?
"Right now, it's mainly sleeping together and waking up together. The rest of the da,y everyone is in their own activities. It's nice that we know each other's world, and that there's an understanding of the whole situation. It's nice that I have experiences I can call him and share with him."
In Switzerland, will he watch you from the front row in the hall?
"No. I have all the desire in the world for him to see me in this situation, and to know he's in the audience – but the desire to reach focus and bring the best result is stronger right now."
You'll go up to sing while dozens of hostages are still in Gaza. Will this issue be expressed on stage?
"The hostages should have returned home long, long ago, and it's an issue that's very difficult for me. It's important to raise awareness, and I'll do that where I can, but we also need to remember that this competition has rules – and I respect them fully."
