Shiri Maimon

Maimon was born on May 17, 1981, and is originally from Kiryat Haim.[1][6] Both of her parents were born in Israel, and her family roots are Syrian and Algerian.[7] She made her first stage appearance at the Festigal in 1991, when she was ten.[1] Her early performing experience included membership in the children's group Tehila and the National Youth Band, followed by service in the Israel Air Force band.[1]

After her military service, Maimon worked as a singer at a club in Eilat.[5]

Maimon became widely known through the first season of Kokhav Nolad (A Star Is Born), reaching the final alongside Ninet Tayeb and Shai Gabso.[1] She finished second after performing Dana International's “Don Quixote.”[1] After the competition, she joined the hosting team of the television program Exit.[1]

In March 2005, Maimon won Israel's televised Eurovision selection competition, in which 14 performers competed to represent the country.[6] Her winning song was “Hasheket Shenishar,” translated as “The Quiet Left Behind.”[6] She described representing Israel as a tremendous honor and expressed confidence in her choice of song, despite advice to select an upbeat English-language number.[6] As she explained, “from the start when they wrote the lyrics and the music for the song, I knew it would be the one I would win with.”[8]

At Eurovision in Kyiv, Maimon placed seventh in the semifinal, where 25 countries competed for ten places in the final.[9] She sang the latter half of her song in English and said she believed that decision had helped her advance.[9] She became ill after the semifinal, spent most of the weekend resting in her hotel, and arrived at the venue shortly before the final.[3] Nevertheless, she finished fourth with 154 points.[3] Afterward, she said she had felt well onstage and concentrated on the performance, taking medication after leaving the stage.[3] The contest's 2005 compilation included her performance under the English title “The silence that remains,” with her name rendered as Shiri Maymon.[10]

Her self-titled debut album was released in September 2005 and included “Le'an Shelo Telchi” and “Ahava Ktana.”[1] The National Library of Israel's catalog identifies Helicon as the record company and notes that the recording included a video for “השקט שנשאר” and a bonus track, “לאן שלא תלכי,” listed at five minutes and fifty seconds. Gadi Gidor and Zahavit Lagali were among its credited creators.[11] The album achieved gold status.[1]

Maimon's Eurovision song was named song of the year, and she received the 2005 People of the Year award for woman of the year in music, as well as the Reshet Gimel singer of the year title.[1] Recalling this period in a 2023 interview, she said she had returned from Eurovision feeling like a winner but found the subsequent succession of performances physically and mentally exhausting.[7] She took a month-long break in Thailand after the burst of activity.[7]

Following Eurovision, Maimon appeared in The Troupe at Habima, a musical based on Avi Nesher's 1970s film.[12] In a 2006 interview, she said she was preparing a second album that would include songs she had written and composed.[12] That album, Rega Lifnei She… (Just Before…), appeared in early 2008 and included “Yoter Tov Lisloach” (“It's Better to Forgive”).[1][13] The single became an immediate hit, and the album's production credits included Momy Levy and Yoad Nevo.[13] The recording drew on soul influences and emphasized Maimon's vocal range.[13] An English-language version was titled Standing on My Own.[1]

In October 2008, Maimon was selected through MTV Israel's website to represent Israel in the MTV Europe Music Awards' European Best Act category, alongside 22 other national representatives.[14] She was the first Israeli scheduled to perform at the awards and called the opportunity to represent Israel in Europe again “a dream come true.”[14] Her performance at the awards featured “Now That You're Gone.”[1]

Before Broadway, Maimon appeared in Habima's production of Evita in Tel Aviv; Chicago producers later invited her to audition for Roxie Hart after seeing her perform.[2] She subsequently secured the Broadway role.[4] Producer Barry Weissler said that watching her on tape and in concert convinced him that she would make a great Roxie; Maimon said she initially thought the call offering her the role was a joke.[4]

For the Broadway engagement, she traveled to New York with her family for two months of rehearsals and performances.[15] Her debut took place at the Ambassador Theatre on September 21, 2018, with the run scheduled through October 6 at eight performances a week.[4] The production later performed in Tel Aviv.[2]

Alongside her recording and stage work, Maimon served for three seasons as a judge on The X Factor Israel.[2] In 2018, she joined The Next Star as a judge for its 2019 season, with her return from New York linked to filming the program's sixth season.[5][15] She appeared as a judge on The Next Star for Eurovision in 2024.[16]

In 2024, Maimon released Shkufa, a seven-song album that included a duet with Berry Sakharof.[16] She said most of its songs had been written before the war and described the album as addressing the tension between harsh reality, dreams, and the desire to live.[16] At the time, she was also touring with a concert across Israel.[16]

Maimon's fourth-place Eurovision result, gold-selling debut album, and 2005 music awards established a sequence of achievements following her breakthrough on Kokhav Nolad.[1][3] Her subsequent work extended to Hebrew- and English-language recording and Broadway.[1][4] She also served as a television judge, including three seasons on The X Factor Israel and an appearance on The Next Star for Eurovision in 2024.[2][16]

Reflecting on Kokhav Nolad in 2023, Maimon said the program had presented her, Ninet Tayeb, and Shai Gabso as contrasting characters.[7] In her view, that portrayal did not capture how she understood herself: she recalled that she and Tayeb had come from similar, modest homes.[7] Her retrospective account also distinguished the elation of returning from Eurovision from the exhaustion brought on by the intensive performance schedule that followed.[7]

During the 2006 run of The Troupe, press reports alleged that Maimon behaved like a diva, isolated herself from colleagues, and was at one point boycotted by castmates. Maimon denied the claims, saying there had been no boycott and describing the production as a close-knit group. She acknowledged that, as in other musical ensembles, cast members could experience tension over solos, but said the reported conflict did not reflect her experience.[12]