From ‘pariah’ to sold-out shows: Noga Erez on career during war

After years of avoiding Israeli media, indie singer Noga Erez and her partner in life and work Ori Rousso have been interviewed by the Ynet news site, sharing what it’s been like since the war with Hamas sparked a cultural boycott of Israeli entertainers.

Erez and Rousso, who perform together under Erez’s name, were emerging as global stars before the bloody Hamas terrorist attack of October 7, 2023, as they collaborated with international stars and performed with Robbie Williams in his Tel Aviv show.

After October 7, Erez said in the interview, performances were canceled, producers stopped answering emails, her social media follower counts dropped, and abuse intensified.

Erez said she had fulfilled many of her professional dreams, but assumed that the journey was over.

“It was genuinely confusing,” said Rousso. “You think you’re finished.”

On October 9, two days after the massacre, Erez told Ynet that she stepped away from social media and hasn’t returned since. Content is still posted to her accounts, but someone else manages them.

As for Erez and Rousso, like many Israeli musicians, they performed for October 7 survivors, including those evacuated from their homes, as well as at hostage protests, and ultimately decided to keep on working — with success.

In 2024, Noga Erez opened for American singer Pink and performed at several well-known German music festivals.

“We were all living in a kind of delusion that was largely created by the media and social media,” said Erez. “Then came the day we put tickets on sale for a new tour, and I realized I was in a completely different movie. I thought I was a pariah artist, but the numbers told me I was a sold-out artist.”

They toured, booking smaller venues, but often sold out the venues and had to add shows, eventually selling out most shows in North America and Europe.

Erez and Rousso knew the tide had turned when American music festival Coachella invited them to perform in April 2026.

“Coachella is one of those places that gave up on us and came back,” said Erez. “Here we were playing Coachella after we’d thought our story was going to end very differently. I realized that meant something significant — that we’d overcome something. Not because anything had changed in the political reality or in the way people looked at us. The only thing that changed was that I sold enough tickets. Then they said, ‘Oh, okay.’ In the end, money talks. If you know how to bring in a crowd, people don’t cancel you quite so easily.”

The pair expanded their production, with eight dancers and a video production. But the show almost didn’t happen when war broke out with Iran in late February this year, leading to the closing of Israel’s skies. At the time, Erez and Rousso were in Israel with their extended family, and they spent enormous amounts of money getting them, the band and crew to the US through alternate routes.

Following the success at Coachella, Erez and Rousso are now moving to larger venues in North America and Europe for their spring 2027 tour.

Other elements discussed in the Ynet interview included details shared in “Noga,” the 95-minute documentary that premiered in mid-June at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York.

Austrian filmmakers and brothers Jono and Benji Bergmann began filming the couple five years ago, and the film divulged elements of their struggles as a couple — they separated for several months during the COVID pandemic — and their decision to have a child. Their daughter, Toni, is now a toddler and travels with them.

Before the war, Erez told Ynet she wasn’t sure she wanted to be a mother. After October 7, she changed her mind.

“The strange thing is, I’d always wondered: Why bring a child into such a shitty world?” Erez said. “But then the world got so shitty that I felt I needed to. I had to.”