Omer Shem Tov in Boston (!)

 

photo by Sheila :)

With thanks to Cousin Loren and Morah Sheila who tipped me off, I have enjoyed reading about Omer Shem Tov's recent trip to Boston. Combined Jewish Philanthropies paid for him and his parents to come to Boston. He was met by day school students at the airport, spoke at a synagogue, toured Gillette stadium and threw out the first pitch at Fenway Park on Monday night, at Jewish Heritage Night. 

The Boston Herald had a write-up and this photo, of Omer surrounded on the pitcher's mound by Jewish Red Sox staff members:

I had been wondering how hard it was for an Israeli (aka "someone with zero baseball background") to learn to throw a pitch. The Herald reports that he practiced a few times in Israel but wasn't nervous because, "after all the things I've been through" there are very few things "that can affect me". 

As we learn more about the horrific conditions of his captivity (CBS News, reporting on his visit, writes that he was fed "one biscuit a day with salty water"), I'm glad he was able to get some extra support and love from Boston. 

Here is a video of Omer describing some of his captivity:

https://youtu.be/pok1RqlduVI?si=9zGICG8CCK1vDsO8

Eurovision 2025

Some interesting background that I wanted to share:

Israel's contestant this year, 24 year-old Yuval Rafael, is a survivor of the Nova massacre. I saw a video that overlaid her singing at Eurovision with a recording of her phone call to her father on October 7. Chilling. He likely saved her life by telling her to hang up and pretend to be dead (like most of the people around her). For eight hours she lay covered in corpses.....And survived.

And she's no long-term professional: her first on-stage performance was only six months ago.

Eurovision was held in Basel, Switzerland this year. Site of the 1901 Fifth Zionist Congress and Theodor Herzl's famous speech. Yuval recreated Herzl's historic balcony photo:

And the set she sang on during the contest was made to resemble a giant chandelier and balcony. Basically, it was a Herzl homage ;)

And what's this last photo??

It's not my photo, but shows the Eurovision results on the left and the Home front Command incoming missile alerts on the right. As YnetNews said, "Coinciding with Saturday's announcement of the winner, air raid sirens sounded across Israel amid missile fire from Yemen". (Our area, thankfully, was out of the zone)

PS: Israel came in second place, and won the popular vote!