Mira Awad

Awad was born in 1975 in Rama, in the Galilee, to a Christian family.[1] Her father, a family physician, met her mother while studying in Bulgaria.[1] In a later interview, Awad described her father as an Israeli Palestinian from the Galilee and her mother as a Bulgarian Christian.[3]

She began performing onstage at the age of nine, and as a teenager wrote songs and formed a band.[1][7] At eighteen, she began studying art and English at the University of Haifa, but left after two years to pursue music at the Rimon School of Music.[1] She subsequently moved to Tel Aviv.[8]

Awad gained wider recognition through her casting as Eliza Doolittle in “My Fair Lady” at the Israeli Opera.[7] In 2002, she was selected from 120 auditionees after the production’s producer invited her to audition, although she had not known auditions were taking place.[7] She described the part as a challenging departure from the difficult, dramatic roles she usually received, and as a role she had been waiting for.[7] Her early theater work also included the Arabic-language play “Adhkur” (“I Remember”) at the al-Midan Theatre in Nazareth and “Double Loneliness,” produced by the Arab-Hebrew Theatre in Jaffa.[7]

On television, Awad played Amal in “Arab Labor,” the series written by Sayed Kashua that began in 2007 and ran until 2012.[3] Amal is an Arab-Israeli human-rights lawyer who falls in love with a Jewish man.[3] The series was the first Israeli primetime show to feature Arabic and Palestinian characters presented as ordinary people.[3] Awad’s television acting had attracted enthusiastic reviews by 2008.[5] Her performance work has also encompassed films and plays, and she participated in Idan Raichel’s musical project.[6][1]

By 2009, Awad and Noa had collaborated for eight years, including concerts in Israel and abroad.[9] Awad described their partnership as a friendship rather than a gimmick.[9] The Israel Broadcasting Authority’s Eurovision committee selected them to represent Israel at the 2009 competition in Moscow, making Awad the first Arab artist chosen to represent the country at the contest.[4] The proposal for their collaboration preceded Operation Cast Lead, while Noa’s selection occurred the day after Israel launched its military operation in Gaza in late December 2008.[4][5]

During preparations, the pair rehearsed four songs in Hebrew, Arabic, and English, with a televised selection planned to choose the entry.[5] They ultimately performed “There Must Be Another Way,” also identified as “Einayich,” in all three languages.[3] It was the first Israeli Eurovision entry to include Arabic lyrics, and the duet finished sixteenth in the final with 53 points.[3] Noa described the performance as an opportunity to send a message of peace.[5]

Alongside Eurovision, Awad was preparing her debut solo album.[9] In an interview before the contest, she said she had worked on it for nine years, with financial difficulties contributing to the delay.[9] She planned ten songs in Arabic and English, most written and composed by her, with “There Must Be Another Way” as a bonus track.[9] She emphasized that the lyrics were personal, including songs about relationships, rather than being written specifically about politics or war.[9]

Her debut, “Bahlawan” (“Acrobat”), was released in 2009 alongside an international album with Noa.[10] Awad said she had independently released an Arabic-language single after record companies declined to handle music they expected would sell no more than 5,000 copies.[10] Singing in Arabic, she explained, allowed her to bring something of her own to her music.[10] She also said that she and Noa had chosen their Eurovision song without compromising their artistic choices.[10] During the same period, she appeared in the Cameri Theater’s production of “The Return to Haifa.”[4]

Awad’s repertoire encompasses pop and rock in Hebrew and Arabic, as well as classics from the Arabic repertoire.[11] She described “Bahlawan,” the title track of her first album, as one of her most important songs.[11] Its acrobat metaphor expressed her experience of balancing between Jewish and Arab worlds and between Christian and Muslim communities.[11] She also connected it to her experience as an Israeli Palestinian, while saying the metaphor could apply on other levels.[3]

Awad later developed the television drama “Muna,” beginning the writing process about a decade before its 2019 broadcast.[6] Around five years before the broadcast, it was selected as one of six new series for development by the public broadcaster.[6] The eight-episode drama, with dialogue in Arabic and Hebrew, follows a young Arab woman navigating life between Tel Aviv and the conservative northern Arab village where she grew up.[6] It began airing in January 2019, with its final episode shown on February 25.[6]

Awad said “Muna” was not autobiographical, although some of its central character’s conflicts reflected feelings she had experienced.[6] She described its protagonist as a woman who wants to make art but cannot escape local politics because of her identity.[2] The longer television format offered an opportunity to explore identity and normalize different characters and narratives, including a mixed-couple story.[6] Awad expressed particular pride in presenting a modern, liberal, strong, and independent Arab woman, in contrast to what she regarded as limited and stereotyped television portrayals.[2]

In 2016, Awad lived in Tel Aviv with her Jewish Israeli husband, Kosta Mogilevych.[3] In a 2022 interview, she said she and her partner, Costa, had moved to London about three months earlier, primarily because of his work.[12] She characterized the move as a possible sabbatical rather than a permanent departure from Israel.[12] Their departure had been delayed while they arranged for his parents to leave Ukraine and settle in Israel.[12]

Awad also spoke in 2022 about chronic fatigue and a reduced desire to work, saying doctors had eventually diagnosed an adrenal-gland problem.[12] She linked her need to slow down to having worked intensely since eighteen.[12] At the same time, she discussed resuming live performances and releasing music from a double album whose two parts had appeared in late 2021 and early 2022.[12]

Awad’s Eurovision appearance established a first for Arab participation in Israel’s representation at the contest.[4] Her work in “Arab Labor” and “Muna” brought Arab characters and questions of identity into Israeli television.[3][2] Reflecting on “Arab Labor,” she said she felt the series had helped open doors.[3] Her public engagement also included becoming a board member of The Abraham Fund Initiatives, a nonprofit devoted to promoting coexistence.[3]

Awad has described her artistic purpose in terms of human connection rather than political solutions.[11] In 2015, she said she was a musician trying to help audiences see people who wanted ordinary lives and peace, not someone claiming to resolve political conflicts.[11] She stressed that her repertoire included love, disappointment, and interpersonal relationships as well as peace and social questions.[11]

Identity has remained an explicit theme in her explanations of her work.[3] She described living between identities as “walking a very thin line,” observing that both “Israeli Arab” and “Israeli Palestinian” could prompt objections from different people.[3] Her account of Israeli diversity used the image of a pot containing many appealing ingredients that nevertheless refused to become one dish; she suggested that bringing them together could create something beautiful.[3]

Awad’s Eurovision participation drew opposition during the period surrounding Operation Cast Lead.[1] An open letter from Israeli Arab and Palestinian artists urged her to withdraw, alleging that the duet would serve Israeli propaganda and create an appearance of Jewish-Arab coexistence.[5] Awad later said she had faced criticism both from Israelis who considered her too attached to her Arab roots and from Palestinians who considered her too loyal to Israel.[3] She recalled spending two days at home crying and said her parents feared for her safety, but she ultimately decided that participating mattered more than yielding to pressure.[1]

Awad said media coverage gave more attention to criticism than to the support she and Noa received from both sides.[9] She preferred to concentrate on their song’s quality rather than predict its contest result.[9] Looking back in 2016, she remained proud of the performance, despite disappointment at what she regarded as worsening conditions for Arab integration.[3] She also reported criticism of her “Arab Labor” character from Israeli viewers over her defense of Palestinian workers and from Arab viewers over her feminism and relationship with a Jewish man.[3]

In 2010, Awad withdrew from a Noa concert scheduled in London on Israel’s Independence Day.[13] Her manager attributed the cancellation to death threats against her and anonymous threats against him, which he said came from Jewish and Arab callers.[13] Awad’s published statement instead emphasized the date’s complexity for her and said her manager had agreed that he should not have scheduled her to perform that day.[13] An al-Ittihad editor disputed the threats explanation and characterized the withdrawal as political; Awad did not comment to the reporting outlet.[13] She said her other planned concerts with Noa would proceed.[13]