Israel uncorks power ballad ‘New Day Will Rise’ for Eurovision contest

Two months ahead of the competition, Israel releases its song for the 2025 Eurovision Song Contest, a slow building symphonic showstopper titled “New Day Will Rise.”

The song is performed by Yuval Raphael, who survived the Hamas attack on the Nova music festival on October 7, 2023, and written by singer-songwriter Keren Peles.

It is largely in English with lines in Hebrew and French.

The chorus of the song includes the lines: “New day will rise/ Life will go on/ Everyone cries/ Don’t cry alone/ Darkness will fade/ All the pain will go by/ But we will stay.”

The Hebrew in the power ballad is taken from the biblical Song of Songs, which translates to: “Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it.”

“This is a powerful statement, it doesn’t matter how much fire they aim at us, our water is stronger, our love is stronger, they can’t extinguish us, they can’t burn us — it’s the most important line in the song and I didn’t even write it,” Peles tells the Kan public broadcaster.

Raphael says during the song reveal that now the song is out, “I want to give it a million percent, just let me work, let me maximize it, to make it the best version possible, so that everyone will be proud, and we’ll bring pride to this country.”

Raphael lived as a child for three years in Geneva, Switzerland, during which she learned French and wanted to incorporate it into this year’s song. The lines in French include: “You’re the rainbow in my blue sky/ My colors in the gray/ And my only wish under a sky of art/ A ray in my day/ The only song my piano can play.”

Raphael, an amateur singer, was selected to represent Israel by winning the “Hakochav Haba” (Rising Star) reality TV contest. She survived the Hamas attack by playing dead and hiding out under a pile of bodies in a roadside bomb shelter near Kibbutz Be’eri until she was rescued after eight hours.

The Eurovision song contest is scheduled for mid-May in Basel, Switzerland.