Israel’s cultural exports are stronger than ever, with television, food and even celebrities making inroads overseas. But do they really have an impact?
BY AMY SPIRO JUNE 22, 2019
GAL GADOT waves to fans at the MTV Movie and TV Awards in Santa Monica, California, last week. Do any of them care that she’s Israeli?. (photo credit: MIKE BLAKE/ REUTERS)
She’s regularly touted as a better ambassador for the State of Israel than the hundreds of Israeli diplomats stationed around the world. And she’s arguably the most famous Israeli face on the planet.
But do Gal Gadot and Israel’s increasing cultural visibility really improve its image in the eyes of the world? Can the success of Israeli television, films, music and food move the hearts and minds of the average onlooker?
The Israeli government certainly seems to think so.
The government, in particular the Strategic Affairs Ministry led by Gilad Erdan, has ramped up the fight against the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement in recent years. The ministry has made its attempts to counter the online boycott movement a centerpiece of its activities.
Recently, Haaretz reported that Erdan has recruited the Mossad to aid in its activities against the boycott movement.
Mossad or no Mossad, Israeli cultural creations are spreading across the globe at a rapid rate.
This week HBO launched Euphoria, a much buzzed-about remake of an Israeli show from 2012. This fall ABC is slated to air The Baker & The Beauty, a remake of the popular Israeli romcom by the same name.
And with the rise of Netflix and its love of foreign TV shows, original Israeli creations are reaching millions of new fans around the world. Fauda was one of the first original Israeli shows to garner real traction overseas. Now, viewers are gobbling up Israeli creations like When Heroes Fly and Shtisel.
An article in Variety last week spotlighted actors from those shows who are now on the rise in Hollywood after that exposure, including Tomer Capon from Fauda and When Heroes Fly, Michael Aloni from When Heroes Fly and Shtisel, and Ninet Tayeb, a singer who also starred in When Heroes Fly.
Israeli chefs – Eyal Shani, Assaf Granit, Meir Adoni and more – have opened eateries around the world, winning praise and awards in culinary capitals such as Paris, London and New York.
And with the Eurovision Song Contest in the rearview mirror and a slate of high-profile concerts – including Bon Jovi, Jennifer Lopez, Lionel Richie and Sean Paul – coming up this summer, the BDS movement is having a particularly unsuccessful year.
BUT HOW much does any of this really impact Israel’s public image? Can Gadot, Fauda and Eyal Shani’s roasted cauliflower in a pita win over those who feel negative – or even neutral – about the Jewish state?
“I’m not sure how much Gal Gadot changes the overall image just by being a big star, but I think her meeting other big actors, executives, entertainers on a personal level – I think that can only help,” said Ari Ingel, an attorney and the director of the Creative Community for Peace (CCFP), a nonprofit that works to counter boycott efforts against Israel.
“The more people you have like Gal Gadot or even like Dennis Lloyd [the stage name of popular Israeli musician Nir Tibor] – when they’re at film festivals, when they’re at Cannes, when they’re on set, when they’re performing at Coachella, when they’re mixing with people that do have a lot of outreach… [people are] meeting an Israeli and seeing what an Israeli is about.”
Shayna Weiss, a scholar of Israeli culture and the associate director of the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies at Brandeis University, said this is a classic question of “soft power.”
The political science term refers to the ability to influence minds and hearts through noncoercive means, typically through culture, foreign policy and economic influence.
“The question, of course, is how you measure soft power, and can you measure it,” Weiss said. “I don’t think Gal Gadot harms Israel, but do I think Gal Gadot helps Israel much? Not so sure.”
Weiss pointed out that – especially with individual celebrities – there is a risk to the Israeli government in pointing to their success as a diplomatic win.
That was particularly clear earlier this year, when Gadot came to the defense of her friend Rotem Sela, in an online spat with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over campaign rhetoric against Israeli Arabs.
“Gal Gadot is not stupid, she’s a very intelligent person, and therefore when she speaks and when she doesn’t speak… she knows exactly what she’s doing,” Weiss added. “She’s saying to Bibi, to Israeli hasbara (public diplomacy): You want to claim me, but ‘I’m not your toy.’”
Ingel said that Israel racks up a lot of cultural wins, but sometimes even more so when the government is not involved.
“In our work on the cultural boycott, they aren’t very present.” he said. “Because they don’t have those connections… the government just doesn’t have the contacts or connections or even the clout to talk to” managers, agents and lawyers of A-list Hollywood stars. “The music industry – the entertainment industry in general – is very insular and very small. That’s what makes CCFP unique. Because our advisory board is made up of some of the biggest people in the film, TV and music industry, it allows us to connect to artists in the way that the government isn’t able to do.”
WHILE BDS activity is only growing stronger in recent years, Israel also continues to notch cultural wins at rapid rates.
A wide range of celebrities have touched down in Israel over the past year for public and private visits, including Neil Patrick Harris, Sarah Jessica Parker, Jason Biggs, Will Ferrell, Gerard Butler, Jamie Oliver, Quentin Tarantino, Mario Lopez, Liev Schreiber, Karlie Kloss, Kate Upton, Gordon Ramsay and Morgan Freeman.
Artists including Madonna, Tyga, Enrique Iglesias, Alanis Morissette, Clean Bandit, the Backstreet Boys, Ozzy Osbourne, Ziggy Marley, Jason Derulo, Bill Burr, Chris Rock, Jerry Seinfeld, Jimmy Carr, Jim Jefferies, Jeff Ross and dozens more have performed for Israeli audiences recently. And each visitor and gig only enrages the BDS movement further.
But Weiss isn’t convinced these visits – even when accompanied by positive social media posts depicting Israel for millions of fans – have a real, long-term effect.
“This type of engagement is somewhat shallow; it’s thin,” she said. “It doesn’t stand up to serious discussion about Israeli challenges.” She reiterated that it is very difficult to measure the impact, but “if success is people seeing a picture of the shuk and thinking, ‘yummy, I like Israeli food’… there’s a shallowness in that language.”
Even when Americans and Europeans watch shows like Fauda and Shtisel on Netflix, the engagement is superficial, she said.
“You’re still talking about the show, you’re not talking about the actual country and the actual conflict,” Weiss said of Fauda, arguably the most popular original Israeli show in the world. “While Fauda is very Israeli, the very basic plot – good guys versus bad guys – is not a unique plot in popular television.”
But Ingel takes a more positive view of the show’s effect.
“A show like Fauda is sort of like its own Gal Gadot,” he said. “The more entertainment, film and artists that come out of Israel, it can only have a positive impact. It’s breaking down that barrier of people understanding – people who have never been to Israel, just hear what’s in the news – seeing the sort of the art that’s coming out of Israel.”
Undeterred, the boycott movement has targeted the cultural realm in an outsized way over the past several years, and has found some success.
“They have a very good narrative in Western countries that they’ve certainly locked on to,” said Ingel of the global campaign. “By conflating it – especially in America – with the struggles of African-Americans and social justice issues… they use very nuanced language.”
Ingel surmises that the BDS movement has focused in particular on the cultural realm because of its failures elsewhere.
“They’ve been unsuccessful in big business – I don’t think they’ve made much impact at all,” he said. “Google and Intel are flooding into Israel. So I think the BDS movement has found they have had some successes in the college campus space and the cultural sector, so they’re just focusing more efforts there.”
Ingel pointed to major wins for BDS with the cancellation of concerts in Israel by Lorde and Lana Del Rey. He noted that younger artists in particular are more susceptible to the bombardments on social media that are the hallmark of the boycott campaign.
But he believes some counteractions only end up amplifying the boycott message.
“I think a lot of people get bogged down in the boycott movement, when the reality is that most Americans don’t even know what BDS is, and what the boycott movement is,” he said. “It’s not impacting the masses.”
While the Eurovision in Tel Aviv last month was subject to incessant campaigns and intense media coverage of boycott efforts, it went off smoothly and was watched by 182 million viewers, according to the European Broadcasting Union.
“In the end no artists dropped out and no broadcaster pulled out,” Ingel said of the song contest. “On social media any comments about BDS were drowned out by thousands of people just enjoying the show.”
It’s clear that Israel has notched considerably more wins against the BDS movement in recent years than losses.
But as to whether it translates into more global support and understanding for Israel – that may take more than Wonder Woman to ascertain.
By: Malina Saval, Variety
The group included Vector’s Ken Levitan, S-Curve Records’ Steve Greenberg and Warner Music Group’s Aton Ben-Horin, among others.
This past weekend, squeezed between a string of Eurovision Song Contest parties, Tel Aviv’s posh Norman hotel played host to an intimate, invite-only dinner of music industry delegates from the United States. The rooftop-set event was designed as a highlight on the itinerary of the Creative Community for Peace (CCFP) weeklong trip to Israel. CCFP, an entertainment industry non-profit organization dedicated to promoting music and the arts as a bridge to peace and artistic freedom, brought 15 delegates to Israel for Eurovision week.
Among the guests were veteran manager Ken Levitan, founder and co-president of Vector; Craig Balsam, the co-founder of Razor & Tie; manager James Diener, co-founder of Alignment Artist Capital; Aton Ben-Horin, global vice president of A&R for Warner Music Group’s labels; Dan Rosen, CEO of Australian Recoding Industry Association; and Steve Greenberg, president and founder of S-Curve Records.
The event was organized by Jeremy Hulsh, founder and CEO of Oleh! Records, and doubled as a tribute to Seymour Stein, the Sire Records co-founder and veteran executive. Stein, a longtime supporter of Oleh! Records, was unable to fly in from New York to attend the dinner, but will be present at a party in his honor hosted by the music org, Israel’s chief music export and development office, at the Ace Hotel in downtown Los Angeles on June 19.
“Oleh! Records was founded nearly 15 years ago as a simple idea — to vitally support export-ready and active Israeli and Palestinian musicians to develop opportunities abroad, showcase at music industry events, develop investment opportunities for Israel’s artists, music technology, and as a means to counter the Boycott Divest Sanctions [BDS] movement,” said Stein by way of a letter he wrote to accept his Lifetime Achievement award. “I have seen thousands of incredible talents supported by Oleh! over the years both in Israel and abroad.”
Hulsh, noted Stein, has employed “his talent and networks to build a successful and continual platform for Israel’s music community to thrive at home and abroad. There is great talent here (both Israelis and Palestinians). It might even help toward a peaceful solution. Music has great power and strength.”
“Seymour supporting our cause adds legitimacy and weight to Israel’s music sector,” added Doron Gabbay, general manager of Oleh! Records. “When the man who discovered Madonna and the Ramones says he believes in your organization and in Israeli musicians, it means a lot.”
The dinner provided an opportunity to not only fete Stein, but the work that Oleh! and its annual Tune In Tel Aviv music conference has achieved in putting Israeli artists on the global map. Said Gabbay: “We aim to ensure that the robust, talented community of Israeli musicians are able to overcome Israel’s small population and geo-political situation to attain opportunities that have previously been out of reach.”
Balsam (pictured above, at right, with Hulsh), who is a board member of CCFP, spoke of how the Eurovision-timed mission to Israel underscored the imperative need to maintain a creative space in which artists can freely express themselves — regardless of their home countries’ government and policies.
“It’s important for artists to exchange ideas, it’s crucial to understand each other,” said Balsam. “We are the anti-boycott and we believe that artists should play everywhere.”
“We believe in the power of artists to affect lives and effect change,” echoed CCFP national director Ari Ingel. “Collaborating with Tune In Tel-Aviv and Oleh! Records to bring together artists from all different backgrounds in Israel and the Palestinian Territories — black, white, Arab, Jewish, Christian and more — truly works to further greater understanding between these
different communities.”
To that end, following the dinner, guests headed to Tel Aviv hotspot Teder for a showcase featuring such Israeli acts as singer-songwriter Noga Erez and A-wa, a Yeminite-Israeli band made up of sisters Tair, Liron, and Tagel Haim.
Erez, whose debut album “Off the Radar” received rave reviews when it was released in Israel in 2017, and whose single “Dance While You Shoot” was used in an Apple computer campaign that same year, performed an hour-long hip-hop-heavy set for some 600 fans in attendance.
“We’ve been working with Noga for years,” said Hulsh of the choice to add her to the line-up. “She was absolutely the right artist to showcase for the international industry we had attending because she represents the cutting edge of Israeli musical talent and has her hand firmly planted on the proverbial button of Israel’s pop cultural scene.”
A-wa (pictured above), whose moniker comes from the slang word meaning “yes” in Arabic, was discovered by Tomer Yosef, lead singer of Balkan Beat Box. Known for its mix of traditional Yeminite music, hip-hop and electronica, the trio’s single “Love of my Heart,” nabbed international attention back when it was released in 2016. The band is now signed to S-Curve records, with a new album dropping this summer.
Their mission: to bring Israeli music to the global stage as a way to promote inclusiveness and diversity amongst all types of people and ethnicities.
“We wanted a name that would be very positive, that would represent our music and also something that people could say to others that sounded positive,” said the sisters. “The whole A-wa experience is about bringing people together and embracing our many identities and celebrating life.”
By Kelly Hartog, J Post
LOS ANGELES – In 2008, a 24-year-old singer by the name of Hind Laroussi Tahir represented the Netherlands at the Eurovision Song Contest in Serbia. She didn’t even make it to the semifinals.
But 10 years later that singer – who now simply goes by the name Laroussi – is living in Los Angeles; hit the American Billboard’s Top Dance Music Chart at No. 5 in December 2018 with her single “Lost,” and is about to launch her first English-language album.How To Turn Your Smartphone Into a Smart Glucose-Meter (Dario)
Will she follow in the path of international stars such as ABBA and Celine Dion, who got their first worldwide exposure at the annual competition? It’s a matter of luck and talent, but the Eurovision ladder to success sure doesn’t hurt.
While Laroussi has been a star in her native Netherlands for years (she placed third in her country’s version of American Idol in 2003 and has released three albums there), she said her success in the United States after moving here three years ago would not have been possible without her Eurovision experience.
“The exposure I got helped my career 100%,” she said. “First of all, I gained a lot of fans, but most of all it was one of the best learning experiences on how to prepare yourself to be on such a big stage; how to deal with nerves; the large amount of interviews and press conferences.”
Laroussi got her big US break through singer/songwriter Philip Lawrence, who had just finished rehearsing with Beyoncé and Bruno Mars for the 2016 Super Bowl halftime show when he met her.
“When I talk about Eurovision here in the States, I always compare it to the Super Bowl, to let Americans know how big it is,” Laroussi said.
Today, Laroussi is managed by Adrian Miller, who has a long history in the industry, and who is responsible for the meteoric rise of Anderson Paak, who won a Grammy this year for his rap single “Bubblin.” Miller also helped launched the careers of dozens of other artists, including Flo Rider, Sugar Ray and Korn.
The Eurovision Song Contest, Miller said, “absolutely came to light by way of [my] relationship with Laroussi. It tells the story that you can reach an executive by any means necessary all the way in Los Angeles.”
Miller said he believes the value in Eurovision is similar to the value American Idol, America’s Got Talent and The Voice had. “It’s now a new format and an opportunity for the common folk to become involved in the industry,” he said.
And while he believes that Eurovision is very much a part of Laroussi’s own story “with respect to the navigation of her path and journey,” he added, “It’s not like I’m looking at Eurovision on a regular basis, but I’m not running from it either.”
When it comes to discovering new talent, Miller said, “We, as Americans, have to look at the platforms in Europe when we are thinking about breaking out artists here. Music is pretty much something that flows on any continent.”
Miller said he is someone who likes to try to break in artists from outside the US, and Eurovision could be an opportunity for something like that.
“But it’s a little tricky,” he said, “because it’s not like programming that anybody can participate in.”
However, he added, thanks to Laroussi, there is a track record. “She’s created a gateway. Why would you discover gold and not look to see if there were other natural resources available? I’m a miner of sorts. I mine talent. I should be all over the globe doing it.”
THAT SENTIMENT is something that David Renzer and Ari Ingel agree with. Renzer is the former chairman/CEO of Universal Music Publishing Group. He is co-founder of Creative Community for Peace, and Ingel is the organization’s director.
CCFP was established in 2012 and is an entertainment industry nonprofit organization that represents a cross section of the creative world dedicated to promoting music and the arts as a bridge to peace, while supporting artistic freedom and countering the cultural boycott of Israel.
“The entertainment industry is very interested in seeking out talent wherever it is,” Ingel said, “whether it’s Europe or the UK or even some African artists who have recently been making a lot of noise. Drake has been influential in bringing [Nigerian artist Wizkid] to light.”
Nonetheless, Ingel said it’s important to note that the Eurovision contest is very much a pop-driven contest, “and it’s a different sort of sound that they have in Europe: Europop.”
Ingel’s introduction to the contest came through a client of his – Fredrik Thaee – who cowrote and produced the Danish song “Rainmaker” for Emmelie de Forest, who won Eurovision for Denmark in 2013.
“When Frederik showed me the impact [“Rainmaker”] had in Europe and he showed me the tens of millions of views on YouTube it had, it really struck me,” he said. “I don’t know if it’s something the American music industry is paying close attention to, but they’re getting a greater understanding of it.”
Ingel said he believes the perception about European music is changing because of producers like Thaee and others from Sweden, Denmark, Scandinavia and Germany who have moved to America and are working here. He cited Toby Gad, the German music producer/songwriter, best known for cowriting John Legend’s “All of Me,” Fergie’s “Big Girls Don’t Cry” and Beyonce’s “If I Were a Boy.”
When Netta Barzilai won the contest last year, “that song got some traction here,” Ingel said, “but it’s difficult [for Americans to get really involved], because they’re not seeing the lead-up to it and getting involved in the excitement of it.” It doesn’t help, he added, that you can watch Eurovision in America only via the online stream of an LGBT website.
He and Renzer both noted that what could drive awareness of the competition and its potential this year is that Madonna plans to perform and unveil two of her new songs.
“CCFP is actually bringing a high-level music entertainment executive delegation to Israel, including African-American executives, and they’re going to be touring the country, and that will include attending the finale of the Eurovision contest,” Renzer said. “We’ve timed [the visit] purposefully around Eurovision.”
Ingel added, “Part of it is to show [the executives] the power and size of Eurovision.” Echoing Laroussi’s comments, he said, “Last year, 198 million people watched the Eurovision, and just 110 million watched the Super Bowl. The size of Eurovision is massive, so we’re doing our part to expose the industry to some of that.”
While they would not reveal any specific names, Renzer said there would be “senior executives from Warner Music Group and Sony on the Israel trip.”
“Executives are looking for talent wherever it can be found,” Ingel said, “and them being able to see these artists live is a huge opportunity for the artists, and I think it’s going to expose American executives to the type of music there is throughout Europe, because a lot of the countries – like Lithuania and Bulgaria and Ukraine and these smaller countries in Eastern Europe – don’t have much access to the American music industry.”
As for Laroussi, she’ll be watching the contest as she does every year.
“I’ll actually be watching with my Israeli friends this year,” she said.
And yes, she’ll be rooting for the Netherlands.
“Their song is really, really good,” she said. “I think they have a real chance of winning this year.”
