Lina Makhoul is a candidate on the Israeli version of The Voice who sang Fairuz’s song “Les Feuilles Mortes” and got the judges’ approval in return. You can check out her performance here:
Judging by her last name, odds are Lina Makhoul is an Arab Israeli. She could also be of Lebanese origins. Her pronunciation is odd at times but otherwise I think this isn’t bad at all. At least she knows the song exists and went on a limb and sang it to an audience which most probably doesn’t understand a word being sung.
I won’t go into the cliche rhetoric how music transcends war boundaries. I really hope that some BDS activists don’t panic because of this and simply take it as it is: a nice performance of a song we all like on a TV show we can’t even watch on YouTube as its videos are not made available in our country.
I wonder though if Fairuz and the Rahbani family would approve of this. Honestly, I highly doubt.
A Separate State of Mind | A Blog by Elie Fares 
Lina Makhoul is a Christian Arab who resides in Akka, northern Israel. She volunteers in Israel’s Red Magen David (the Jewish equivalent of the Red Cross). Even though many may object to her participation in the show, I think it’s really important. We (Israeli Jews) live separately from Arabs and most Israeli Jews don’t have Arab friends. This makes it much easier to demonize Israel’s Arab citizens.
I wish more radical solutions were possible. I wish Israel stopped the discrimination and dispossession of its Arab citizens, I wish we were taught in school about the Nakba along with lessons about the “War of Liberation”, I wish real dialogue between Jews and Arabs in Israel was encouraged. But since all of these things aren’t going to happen, at least this show decreases stigma and inter-racial animosity.
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“I wish real dialogue between Jews and Arabs in Israel was encouraged.” It is greatly encouraged actually, at all government and society levels. The problem is that there are people who are living off the rift, both on the Arab side and in the Israeli left.
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Lina Makhoul is a Christian Arab who resides in Akka, northern Israel. She volunteers in Israel’s Red Magen David (the Jewish equivalent of the Red Cross). Even though many may object to her participation in the show, I think it’s really important. We (Israeli Jews) live separately from Arabs and most Israeli Jews don’t have Arab friends. This makes it much easier to demonize Israel’s Arab citizens.
I wish more radical solutions were possible. I wish Israel stopped the discrimination and dispossession of its Arab citizens, I wish we were taught in school about the Nakba along with lessons about the “War of Liberation”, I wish real dialogue between Jews and Arabs in Israel was encouraged. But since all of these things aren’t going to happen, at least this show decreases stigma and inter-racial animosity.
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Is there a way we can see the full performance with the judges comments?
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What a beautiful performance!
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Regarding the audience not understanding a word she sang, sadly you are probably right. The number of Israeli Jews who bother to study Arabic is way too few.
On the bright side, I’m pretty sure Shlomi Shabbat, the judge sitting on the far left, does understand Arabic.
Good performance.
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I don’t usually watch the Voice, but you got me curious. I just watched Lina Makhoul’s very impressive audition. She sang Empire State of Mind (in English), and all four judges turned around.
I don’t know if the link will work in Lebanon, but here it is anyway:
http://stateofmind13.publici.com/content/fairuz-voice-israel
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no, that was the link to this page…
here’s the right one:
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Beautiful performance.
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Yep I’ve heard of here from an Israeli Arab friend. I’ve attempted to watch the audition video on youtube, but the uploader had it blocked for Lebanon. youtube is blocked at work, I will sure check it when I get back home.
She is not of Lebanese origins though, she’s a palestinian christian (well originally).
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no! she is’nt Palestinian she is Lebanese she’s related to me and I am Lebanese.
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this is a link (works in lebanon) where you can watch her first time appearance singing Empire State Of Mind by Alicia Keys.
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xw88x4_israel-the-voice-s02e05-hdtv-x264-2hd-2012-yyyyyyy-yy-yyyy-yyyy_music#.USLpU9uJ1zQ
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You may be interested to know, Lina Makhoul won in the finals of “the Voice” tonight.
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