From the Liveblog of
Thursday, April 24, 2025
Transgender icon Dana International to get Independence Day honor, sparking right-wing backlash
Singer Dana International, a pioneer of Israel’s LGBTQ community who won the Eurovision Song Contest in 1998, will light an Independence Day torch next week, sparking backlash from right-wing conservative groups who have urged a boycott of the ceremony.
The transgender artist will receive the honor alongside American conservative pundit Ben Shapiro, whose participation in turn has drawn backlash from LGBTQ rights groups. Also lighting torches will be ex-hostage Emily Damari, Olympic medalist and bereaved father Oren Smadga, IDF officers and others.
Dana, 56, whose real name is Sharon Cohen, won Eurovision with the classic “Diva.” The song’s producer, DJ Offer Nissim, was offered to light a torch this year and refused, the Walla news site has reported.
Dana initially refused as well, but ended up announcing yesterday that she is accepting the honor. She said she had agreed with the organizers, who initially focused on her solely as a cultural figure, to emphasize her status as an icon of liberty and liberalism.
In a statement accompanying her decision, she has said she “hopes we’re doing the right thing, and I want to see up close who this Shapiro is” — referring to the US pundit, who has expressed anti-LGBTQ views.
A pair of right-wing groups has written a letter to the ceremony organizer, Transportation Minister Miri Regev, demanding that the singer be excluded from the ceremony.
“What has Dana International done for the State of Israel?” Naama Zarbiv, head of the anti-feminist group Shovrot Shivyon, tells Walla. “They’re bringing her because she’s transgender. What will she say? That she underwent gender-changing surgery? That she encourages children to do? Is this what we’re honoring?”
Zarbiv says the pick likely came to “balance out” the choice of Shapiro, but claims it shows “confusion” and “contradicts reality, biological logic and traditional values.”
She has sent the letter to Regev along with Michael Puah, chair of the Bocharim Bamishpacha—Choosing Family organization, citing the recent rollback of transgender rights in the US and UK.
Meanwhile, Itamar Segal, editor of the ultraconservative Olam Katan weekly, has penned a scathing op-ed for Israel National News urging a boycott of the torch-lighting ceremony.
“A man, a singer who decided he is a woman, an Israeli ‘pioneer’ of one of the biggest insanities humanity has ever known. Anyone who knows the phenomenon up close and understands what it means… knows how crazy, how bad it is,” he writes, saying transgender people are like chametz (leavened bread) during the festival of Passover, “which needs to be eliminated from the land so it is not seen or found.”
The Times of Israel Community.