Israeli Pop Stars and Social Responsibility in Music

Pop music does not arrive in a vacuum. In a country still absorbing October 7, and dealing at the same time with rising violence against women, what comes off the biggest stages carries weight. Within one week, two of Israel's most listened to female artists gave two very different answers about what that weight requires.

Odaya Azoulay released her EP "Hashem Azar" on Wednesday. On it is a track called "Dylan *3898." The number in the title is the hotline of the Michal Sela Forum, which works to get women out of violent homes and to respond in emergencies. Odaya put it there on purpose, so that it would appear in every playlist, every share, every screenshot.

The song, which she wrote and composed with Avi Ohayon, is told from inside a violent relationship. A woman hides the marks. She is afraid when he is home. She stops going to her parents, forgets what her friends look like, lies to herself, and stays.

What Odaya said when she released it matters as much as the song. She told her followers that if they are in distress they should call, and that the women answering the phones do sacred work. Then she added something to her younger fans: respect the organization, don't call for nothing. That is an artist who understands that a hotline is not a marketing asset. It is a phone line with a limited number of people on the other end.

A week earlier, Noa Kirel released "Love Song," directed by Adam Rider.

The video opens with a warning that it is for viewers 18 and over and contains violence, blood and graphic scenes.

What follows is a revenge sequence: a jealous suspicion at a Japanese restaurant, a mass brawl, stabbing, objects thrown, and blood. It is a fictional retelling of the honeymoon with her husband Daniel Peretz that was cut short by appendicitis, and it is built on Tarantino, with critics also naming Sabrina Carpenter and Ariana Grande videos as reference points.

Kirel is entitled to make it. Artists do not owe anyone a sanitized world, and a demand that Israeli pop stay gentle because the country is in pain would be its own kind of censorship. The question is narrower than that, and ELEM, the organization working with at-risk youth, put it plainly this week. It called on Kirel to correct the messages she is sending young audiences, arguing that when violence is presented again and again in glossy, rhythmic, stylish packaging, something stays with the viewer. It said the age warning does not release her from responsibility, given how many children and teenagers treat her as a model.

That is the real issue, and it is not about artistic freedom. It is about the gap between a warning slide and an audience. Kirel grew up in public alongside girls who are now teenagers, and a title card at the top of a video that reaches them in one tap on social media is a formality, not a barrier. Putting the warning there and moving on is a way of noticing the problem without addressing it.

None of this makes Odaya a saint and Kirel a villain. They are two artists at different points, making different work. But the contrast is instructive, because it shows what the choice actually looks like in practice. One of them looked at her reach and asked what it could be used for. The other looked at her reach and asked what would travel.

In a country where post-trauma sits in most homes, and where women are being killed by the men closest to them, the answer to that question is not a small matter. There is no shortage of blood on Israeli screens. What is short is the other thing.