The new year settles, and her Requiem is sung by Shauli Greenglick. The Man with the Green Sign (Green-Glick) - What a symbolic name there is for a guy who comes to sing in an olive uniform, conquers the judges and the audience but decides to conquer Gaza instead. In other words, no one decided to occupy Gaza – but that's another story.
Capt. (res.) Shaul Greenglick in "The Next Star" - about two weeks before he fell in Gaza
On the day that reality and holy nation was informed that the reservist with a heavenly voice had fallen in battle to defend the homeland, the audition video on his Instagram page received 2 million views. I think 20 of them were mine, because I had a hard time stopping this hypnotic sequence.
Aside from the fact that it's a pleasure to listen to – and I admit I haven't been able to watch the show since October 7 – Capt. Greenglick's audition video is an Israeli capsule that doesn't skip a single sound.
Keep your eyes up
An unknown soldier who arrives from a dark battlefield after a horrific massacre that belongs to nightmares, emerges into a bright studio with an ambition from the realms of fantasy - to represent Israel at Eurovision. He walks nonchalantly and in high shoes, a Nahlavi who has nothing to do with him, holds a microphone and says that it is easier in reserve duty than at home.
Why? On the superficial level, he is a messiah according to his innocence that on the ground they are showered with clothes, food, McDonald's and tablets, jokes that he even asked for a hair transplant in Turkey, and everyone laughs.
Capt. (res.) Shaul Greenglick, photo: courtesy of Keshet 12
The second part of the explanation belongs to the deep layer. Shauli spoke of the gap between the family comfort and the need to break away from it and return to fighting: "I went home to freshen up, it breaks you... All of a sudden to go back and put on a vest – it's not easy."
There is also a home video of the family at the piano on Shauli's brief trip home, singing Shlomo Artzi over a glass of wine, and Mom hugging the reservist and crying. In this war, your death and the song of your life are broadcast live, for worse, for better and for better.
It's not clear where on the continuum between family and battle the studio and the musical dream are located, but it seems that the escapism that "The Next Star" provided pleasantness to all sides, and in this capsule it is permissible to praise combat in wartime and laugh at the less visceral ones (Assi was a military policeman, Keren was a theorist in a military band, Ran armed combat helicopters, Rotem Sela served in the navy in the Kirya - and some chose the right to remain silent).
Each participant laughed at himself, as if making a deep bow to Lieutenant Greenglick.
Israeli Capsule
Shauli sang Hanan Ben Ari's "Blind Bat," taking him to depths that even the original performer did not touch. "Maybe, we really want you with us," Assi said, and the Peles Foundation made it clear that she would love to see him represent the nation at Eurovision (the European Union would probably be happy too).
Nahal fighters operating in the Gaza Strip, photo: IDF Spokesperson
In this born Israeli capsule, now validated as a will, you see a father with a kippah blessing a bald singer with a priestly blessing, and sisters in pants and mother in a handkerchief praying for the success of the recruited star.
"I'm not who I was, who you knew
How many years I wasted being almost."
So sings the son of the mother who cries with fear, pride, joy at the paragon of the judges who recognize the child's talent. At the funeral, his mother, Ruthie, the parent's counselor, eulogized him, saying that at once she became a bereaved mother, and a mother who was proud of her son's choices, who did everything perfectly.
"And you're crying inside
I see you burn
You refuse to agree
That it's not just a passing period."
When he sings these lines, he feels like asking the director if he felt in advance, or just mediated to us what he saw there – a mother with sharp senses who won't sleep when her children aren't, a mother who worries that this cruel hour might create a clash between the child's talent and the education and values she instilled in him. A captain's priorities that may have been clear: "I'm asleep and my heart is awake," he sings.
The funeral of Capt. (res.) Shaul Greenglick, photo: Coco
This season's "Next Star" has a role: it has succeeded in making a challenging model accessible to the screen generation, which itself challenges virtual reality.
Keep a little dream for you
"How good you are," Keren Peles called out to him, "you are the beautiful Israeli. You're giving, reassuring me that someone like you is wearing a uniform," and the other judges added: "Give it to the guys from the unit to take care of themselves and that we hug them, and thank you for what you do."
Before announcing his retirement for the sake of statehood, Shauli told the camera: "We are strong together, united together. We will go and conquer Europe." The captain in the reserves of the 931st Battalion of the Nahal Brigade wrote that he planned this year differently. But through its star - and will fall.
The year 2023, which has cut swords and sharpened truths, has brought us back to simple things, to clear priorities. That's how it is in an existential war, apparently.
We keep remembering that it is permissible to say that there is good in the world and there is evil, that there is light and there is darkness. That there is absolute truth. That there is justice. But in the north, we see from day one our hesitancy in the south and our dependence on Western countries, and understand that internally we are less ripe for independence
. Unless a miracle happens and our strategy changes, we will continue to rise to "be allowed to publish" mornings.
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