{"id":112,"date":"2019-03-21T12:39:22","date_gmt":"2019-03-21T12:39:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/kaleidoscope\/?p=112"},"modified":"2019-03-21T12:41:10","modified_gmt":"2019-03-21T12:41:10","slug":"dana-international-and-the-importance-of-eurovision","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/kaleidoscope\/2019\/03\/21\/dana-international-and-the-importance-of-eurovision\/","title":{"rendered":"Dana International and the importance of Eurovision"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>I can\u2019t say I\u2019m too excited that the Eurovision Song Contest is coming round again, but the fact that it\u2019s going to be held in Israel reminds me of one of the most influential Eurovision winners, and one who helped raise the profile of the LGBT community worldwide.\u00a0 The 1998 final was held in Birmingham (who knew that?) and Dana International singing \u201cDiva\u201d was the winner.\u00a0 Wow!<\/p>\n

Dana International was born in Tel Aviv 50 years ago as Yaron Cohen.\u00a0 She came out as transgender as a teenager, avoiding military service as a result, and fully transitioned in London in the mid-1990s.\u00a0 Sharon Cohen was born.<\/p>\n

She had released a number of albums prior to being chosen to represent Israel in the Eurovision Song Contest.\u00a0 The choice was opposed by many Orthodox Jews and conservatives but she was undeterred.\u00a0 After she won she said: \u201cMy victory proves God is on my side. I want to send my critics a message of forgiveness and say to them try to accept me and the kind of life I lead.\u00a0 I am what I am and this does not mean I don\u2019t believe in God. I am part of the Jewish nation\u201d.<\/p>\n

Her subsequent musical fortunes have been mixed but Dana International will always be important for who she is as much as for what she has achieved.\u00a0 She has actively supported Pride events in Israel and Europe and challenges many assumptions about her home country. Yael Dayan, the daughter of Moshe Dayan (an important Israeli military leader and politician), said of Dana\u2019s victory that \u201cthis is an achievement for civil liberties and human rights\u201d.\u00a0 Twenty years on she remains an important figure in the wider LGBT community.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I can\u2019t say I\u2019m too excited that the Eurovision Song Contest is coming round again, but the fact that it\u2019s going to be held in Israel reminds me of one of the most influential Eurovision winners, and one who helped...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1234,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lgbt-history"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pd4Pwk-1O","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/kaleidoscope\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/kaleidoscope\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/kaleidoscope\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/kaleidoscope\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1234"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/kaleidoscope\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/kaleidoscope\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/kaleidoscope\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/kaleidoscope\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/kaleidoscope\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}