Kathleen Reiter

Reiter was born and raised in Montreal, Quebec, where she grew up in an Israeli household.[1][3] Her parents are Israeli, and as a result she was fluent in Hebrew from a young age and spent many summers in Israel with her parents' extended families.[3]

A turning point came at age 16, when she participated in a March of the Living trip that began in Poland and continued to Israel during Memorial Day and Independence Day.[3] The experience proved formative — she later recounted that seeing young Israelis in military uniforms during the trip moved her to tell her father she wanted to join the Israeli army.[3] The journey changed her outlook and first planted the idea of living in Israel. After subsequently backpacking through Europe, she stopped in Israel on the way back to Montreal and found she did not want to leave.[3]

Within days of her arrival in Israel, Reiter auditioned in a blind audition for the inaugural Israeli season of The Voice.[3] All four judges — Sarit Hadad, Rami Kleinstein, Aviv Geffen, and Shlomi Shabat — turned their chairs for her, and she selected Hadad as her coach.[3] Three months after landing in the country, she was named the winner on March 31, 2012, edging out runner-up Raz Shmueli by a narrow margin.[2][3]

Following her victory, Reiter signed a recording contract with Universal Helicon and toured Israel alongside other winners and singers from the show.[3] She later wrote a blog post titled "Beats & Brains: My Voice after The Voice."[4] Her author biography stated that she was completing her debut album, which was scheduled for release that year.[1]

Reiter described her musical style as "pop soul" and said she worked with Sarit Hadad on both Hebrew- and English-language material.[3] She planned to collaborate with Israeli songwriters on her album and said that writing and performing in both languages was important to her identity as an artist.[3] She also described her outsider perspective on Israel's music industry as an asset, emphasizing the value of carving out a distinctive niche.[3]

"I'm still living in 'The Voice' bubble, living out this crazy dream, going on tour, and it's all fun and stuff," she said shortly after the competition. "Talk to me in a couple of years [about life in Israel], but so far it's been amazing."[3]

Reiter arrived in Israel in January and entered The Voice auditions almost immediately.[3] The competition gave her an instant social circle in a country where she initially knew no one.[3] "They joke all the time that 'The Voice' was my absorption process," she said. "I came here not knowing anyone, but I made friends that I'll have for life."[3]

She later lived in Tel Aviv and continued working as a singer-songwriter.[1]