Keren Peles, the composer of “New Day Will Rise,” this year’s Israeli Eurovision song, and Yuval Raphael, who performed the song in the competition, sang a new version in Hostages Square on Saturday night, with lyrics that reflect the joy of the imminent release of the remaining 48 hostages.
Peles performed the song in Hebrew, while Raphael sang the English version, to a jubilant, cheering crowd. The original song can be seen as an anthem of renewal and love after the October 7 massacre, which Raphael survived by hiding in a bomb shelter after she fled the Nova Music Festival.
New timely edits
Peles tweaked the lyrics so they more directly reference the hostages’ return. Among the new lyrics, Peles sang, “And soon you will come back to me/You will see the fear leave/There were too many hard days/But in the end there will be a happy end.” At the end, she sang, “And at night until sunrise/Let me cry with you/A great sun will rise above me/Another breath and soon you will return to me.”
At the end, Peles and Raphael sang the lines that were in Hebrew in the original, which are from Song of Songs: “Many waters cannot quench love, nor can rivers sweep it away.” Knowing that the audience knew all the words, Raphael held out her microphone, and the audience sang along.
Peles led the singing of the Israeli national anthem, “HaTikva,” at the end of the rally, standing with the hostages' families, for what all hoped would be the last Saturday night hostage rally.
Comedy in the Square
On a lighter note, on Sunday, ahead of a new season of Eretz Nehederet, Israel’s popular comedy show on Keshet 12, Omer Etzion, the actor who plays President Donald Trump on the show, strutted around dressed as Trump in Hostages Square. As crowds clapped and chanted, “Thank you, Trump!” he said, “I did it! I did it! No one thought it was possible, but I did it, anyway!”