Duncan Laurence of the Netherlands accepts the trophy from Israel’s Netta Barzilai after winning the 2019 Eurovision Song Contest in Tel Aviv on May 19.
By STEVE LINDEDuncan Laurence of the Netherlands accepts the Eurovision trophy from Israel’s Netta Barzilai.(photo credit: RONEN ZVULUN / REUTERS)EUROVISION WINDuncan Laurence of the Netherlands accepts the trophy from Israel’s Netta Barzilai after winning the 2019 Eurovision Song Contest in Tel Aviv on May 19. “This is to dreaming big!” Laurence said as he thanked an estimated 200 million viewers of the contest, whose theme was “Dream Big!” Italy came in second and Russia third, while Israel’s Kobi Marimi finished 23rd out of 26 countries in the final. American pop star Madonna sang two songs at the end of the contest, and in a short interview, praised the Eurovision contestants and “the power of music to bring people together.”RONEN ZVULUN / REUTERSCOALITION PROBLEMS Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faced a parliamentary showdown with Yisrael Beiteinu leader Avigdor Liberman over the Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) conscription bill, two days before Netanyahu’s May 29 deadline to present his new government to President Reuven Rivlin. Netanyahu proposed a compromise on the bill that was accepted by Haredi parties and the Union of Right-Wing Parties, but not by Liberman.DEVASTATING FIRESIsraeli firefighters, with the help of aircraft from Egypt, Italy, Croatia, Greece and Cyprus, succeeded on May 25 in containing fires that raged across the country in heatwave conditions since Lag Ba’omer three days before. Dozens of homes were destroyed in blazes caused by negligence and arson, including 40 in Mevo Modi’im, a moshav founded by the late singing rabbi, Shlomo Carlebach. Three-year-old Elad Frizat died in a fire in Safed, while in central Israel dozens were injured, 500 acres of forests destroyed, and some 3,500 people were evacuated from their homes, firefighters said.US PLANThe economic section of the US peace plan for Israel and the Palestinians, dubbed “the Deal of the Century” by the Trump administration, will be unveiled in Bahrain on June 25, the White House announced. Jared Kushner, the senior adviser who has been overseeing the development of the administration’s plan together with Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt, said the US was grateful to Bahrain for the opportunity “to present our ideas for creating greater economic vibrancy in the region.”CONSTRUCTION TRAGEDY Four Israeli workers were killed and two injured on May 19 when a crane collapsed at a construction site in Yavne, a city in central Israel. “The work accident in Yavne is shocking, and the number of injuries and fatalities at construction sites is untenable,” said Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan, who ordered Israel Police to conduct a thorough investigation. Twenty people have been killed and 70 injured in building site accidents in Israel since the start of 2019.JEWISH ASTRONAUTJessica Meir, 41, whose father fought in Israel’s War of Independence, will take part in a NASA Space Shuttle mission to be launched from Kazakhstan on September 25. Born in the US to a Jewish Iraqi-Israeli father and a Christian American-Swedish mother, Meir said she considers herself Jewish and would take an Israeli flag with her into space. “Personally I’m not really a religious person, but I think that my Jewish background is obviously a big part of my culture,” she told JTA.WONDERFUL WOUK Jewish-American Pulitzer Pri-winning authorHerman Wouk died at his home in Palm Springs on May 17, 10 days before his 104th birthday. Wouk was born in the Bronx, the second of three children, to Russian-Jewish immigrants from what is today Belarus. Wouk won the Pulitzer in 1952 for The Caine Mutiny, which was adapted into a film starring Humphrey Bogart. His other bestsellers included Marjorie Morningstar, The Winds of War, War and Remembrance and This Is My God.
