Rabbi of Gush Etzion Rabbi Yosef Zvi Rimon happened to encounter Noa Kirel on her flight to Israel, after she won third place in the 2023 Eurovision final.
Kirel was moved by the meeting with Rabbi Rimon, and was slightly surprised when Rabbi Rimon did not know her name and was not aware of the results of the competition in which she participated. She asked Rabbi Rimon for his phone number and he invited her to consult him on any question.
After the meeting with Kirel, Rabbi Rimon wrote to his family members: “I’m on the plane. All the screens say congratulations to Noa, we’re proud of you. I saw someone in the seat next to me. I asked her: Do you know who Noa is? And she said: It’s me.”

He continued: “I said to her: So what did you do? Why are there signs in your honor? And she said: I won third place in Eurovision. So I asked: “What’s your family name? And she was surprised that I didn’t recognize her: Noa Kirel.”
“And then she and her mother started telling me that the grandfather was a rabbi and a scribe who wrote Torah scrolls,” he said. She asked what I was doing. “I told her that I am the rabbi of Gush Etzion and if she ever has a question she can ask. She got excited and asked for my number. She took a selfie and sent me the picture.”