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How an Israeli TikToker’s little-known song became the soundtrack to emotional wartime reunions
(JTA) — An Israeli reservist on leave from the war in Gaza sneaks back into his house in the middle of the night to surprise his wife and sons. Another opens the door of his daughter’s preschool classroom and steps inside. Another stands behind his mother’s desk at work, waiting for her to turn and see him.
In each video, and hundreds of others just like them, a Hebrew song with the lyrics “Good days will come…” builds to its crescendo as the soldier’s family falls upon him.
The song seems tailor-made as an anthem for the emotional reunions that are providing Israelis a rare spark of hope at a grim time. “Even in the darkest hours of the night, there will always be a small star that will shine for you, for yourself and the way home,” the singer croons. “It’s always darkest before the sunrise.”
Yet the singer, Yagel Oshri, didn’t write the song for the war that the soldiers have been called to fight, which began Oct. 7 when Hamas attacked southern Israel, killing 1,200 and taking hundreds of hostages. “Two years ago I wrote the first version — not even from my personal perspective,” says Oshri, 23. His friend was depressed because her boyfriend dumped her, so he was trying to tell her, “Just smile, it’s all OK.”
היה געגוע
Few people heard the song since, even as Oshri became one of Israel’s rising stars on TikTok. As the driving force behind the Oshri Family account, Oshri accumulated followers with his made-for-social-media humor, often involving his two younger brothers and mother in videos made in the family home in Moshav Elikhin in central Israel. But behind the scenes, he was struggling in a way that changed the way he thought about his song.
“When I went through a depression, I realized you can’t just smile and get over it,” he said. So six months ago, he went to hit-making musician Offir Cohen’s studio and played him the first four lines of the revised song: “The family, friends, maybe going out/deep profound conversations late at night/dealing with change, old habits/the soul is at war with karma…”
Cohen told him to drop everything and the two went to the studio with a guitar and within “seven minutes” finished the song — lyrics, melody and all. “It flowed like a river,” Oshri recalls. They released the song on Aug. 15.
Galgalatz, the premier pop radio station in Israel, rejected it for their weekly playlist. “Maybe they just didn’t get it, they didn’t understand the heaviness,” Oshri says, with no bitterness. He uploaded the song to Apple Music, Spotify and, of course, TikTok instead.
There, “Getting over Depression” gained a small following. In late August, a clip Oshri posted on TikTok of himself playing on a keyboard with his brother at his side garnered dozens of supportive comments. By the end of September, he posted a duet in tribute to what he said was being tagged 1,000 times on the platform.
But nothing could have prepared him for what happened after Oct. 7. Like so many other Israelis, he was personally affected by the attack when his brother’s partner, 22-year-old Kim Dukarker, was killed along with hundreds of others at the Nova music festival. And like so many others, he sprang into action, giving back however he could — by performing for families evacuated from danger zones and soldiers called up as part of the biggest mobilization in Israel’s history.
Between the live shows and the ability of users on Instagram and TikTok to add favorite songs as soundtracks to their clips, “Getting over Depression” soon became ubiquitous — particularly when soldiers used it as a soundtrack to their surprise visits home.
Now, Israelis can’t get away from the song. It’s looping endlessly on the radio, including on Galgalatz — “I’m happy they get it now,” Oshri said — and in countless social media videos. Entire army units have sung along to the song. There’s even a spoof of a reservist trying to escape it, and TikTok videos of American Jewish musicians, like Orthodox singer Aryeh Kuntzler, performing it.
מקדישים לכם את השיר בתוך לב עזה! צה״ל חזק #צהל #עזה #israel
The song has streamed more than 3.5 million times on Spotify, making Oshri the second-most listened-to Israeli artist, and has been used on 17,000 TikTok videos, mostly of reunions. A prominent TV presenter shared the music set against clips of just-freed hostages, including 9-year-old Ohad Munder running through a hospital corridor to hug his family. That video got over 1 million views.
“I feel like God gave me a mission, to make people happy with this song,” Oshri says. “It’s a happy song. I think that Israel, in its DNA, is a happy nation. We like to say ‘Am Yisrael Chai,’” or the Jewish people live, a traditional phrase that itself has been renewed in a wartime song released Oct. 19, by Eyal Golan. “We like to say, ‘There will be good days to come.’”
Oshri’s song joins in a long tradition of Israeli songs giving hope at tenuous moments, including the classic “Yihiye Tov,” or “Things Will Get Better,” which a 22-year-old David Broza wrote with poet Yonatan Geffen in 1977 on the eve of peace negotiations with Egypt.
With every war, a few songs capture the public’s imagination. In 1967, “We Shall Pass,” by Yehiel Mohar and Moshe Wilensky, was written to raise the morale of the country. Even more iconic was Naomi Shemer’s “Jerusalem of Gold,” written only three weeks before the war — and to which she added a new verse when Israel took control of East Jerusalem.
Sometimes singers become synonymous with wars. Yehoram Gaon, who sang “The Last War” in 1973 for the troops during the Yom Kippur War (“I promise you little girl, this will be the last war…”) is now back with a new version of his 1984 patriotic battle cry, “You Won’t Beat Us,” whose video features flag-waving soldiers and rumbling tanks.
“Music can produce shared allegiances and feelings of unity. In times of extreme crisis, people turn to the music that they most need as an attempt to stabilize their emotions [so they can] continue and persist,” says Murray Forman, professor of Media & Screen Studies at Northeastern University in Boston. After 9/11 he wrote the analysis “Soundtrack to a Crisis: Music Context, Discourse,” in the journal Television and New Media.
“Music has acquired new significance in relation to the atrocities of the terrorist actions,” he wrote then. But what he didn’t consider 20 years ago was that “along with the music of peace and healing and mourning and patriotically infused anger and nationalistic chauvinism (which each proliferated in the U.S. after 9-11 and probably does in other such circumstances), there might also be music of fear and dread and even celebration, depending on what communities we’re talking about,” he said.
Yagel Oshri meets and sings with the family of Raz Ben Ami, bottom right, who was released the day before as part of deal between Hamas and Israel. Her husband Husband Ohad remains captive in Gaza. (Courtesy Yagel Oshri)
“Maybe one thing is for all sides to try to listen closely to the music each other is creating and listening to.”
A number of English-language songs have also been adopted to epitomize the war. Skylar Grey’s “I’m Coming Home,” which has been used as a soundtrack for many American soldiers’ homecomings, was recently adapted in honor of the hostages still held in Gaza. Shiri Maimon sings it in a video featuring a display in Jerusalem of 240 beams of light, each representing a hostage. On Nov. 6, hundreds of the hostages’ family members gathered at Tel Aviv’s Cameri Theatre to record a version of Madonna’s “Like a Prayer,” in an event produced by Ben Yefet, who conducts Israel’s popular Koolulam singalongs.
Yet for many American Jews, Israeli anthems are a way for them to connect to the country. Yael Weinman, a lawyer from Washington, D.C., started creating shareable Spotify playlists that she called “Do Not Despair” when the war started. It included pop songs like “Out of the Depths” by Idan Reichl, “Chai” by Ofra Haza and “Hurts but Less” by Yehuda Poliker.
“For me, being in America and being so far away physically from Israel right now, it’s a way to feel closer to Israel at a time when being so disconnected is so painful,” said Weinman. She said it’s hard for many people like her not to be there. “Listening to the music is a way to feel more connected,” she says. “It’s comforting for me to listen to songs in Hebrew — it’s a way to feel comforted and not to despair.”
Oshri has been busy since the war pushed his song into the spotlight. In addition to working on new music that he hopes will bring comfort to his nation at war, he has played over 90 performances since the war started — at army bases, for wounded soldiers, for evacuated families, at funerals.
“I just sang for a kidnapped woman that was released,” Oshri says in the car from Israel, referring to Raz Ben Ami, who was released by Hamas on Nov. 29. Her husband Ohad remains captive in Gaza.
On Sunday, Oshri announced that he would begin selling jewelry with lines from his now-iconic song etched in his handwriting, with the proceeds to benefit the Israeli army.
Oshroi told JTA that every time he sings the song, in his heart he dedicates it to Dukarker. But he says he knows “Getting Over Depression” doesn’t belong to him any more. “It’s Israel’s song,” he said. “It’s the song our nation has chosen to listen to.”
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The post How an Israeli TikToker’s little-known song became the soundtrack to emotional wartime reunions appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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What Does Implementing BDS Mean for American College Students?
The Activities and Recreation Center at UC Davis. Photo: Wikipedia Commons.
The Associated Students of the University of California Davis (ASUCD) have a lot of responsibility. They manage a $20 million budget, hire upwards of 1,600 students, and provide essential services for the entire community. This is why it’s so alarming that such a body would be used to further an unpopular and deeply antisemitic political movement rather than take its responsibilities seriously.
After the atrocities of October 7, 2023, student leaders chose to redirect their priorities toward promoting an agenda whose sole purpose was to target both Jewish and Israeli students through the guise of “solidarity with the Palestinian cause” and the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement.
Official ASUCD Instagram accounts platform an explicitly pro-Palestinian agenda with their profile pictures. Additionally, current ASUCD senators have tried to pass resolutions to steer all departments into political positions with the threat of intervention — essentially an attempt to force members to endorse anti-Israel positions or lose funding.
ASUCD originally passed a BDS resolution in 2015, but in 2019, that resolution was deemed unconstitutional. Despite this, in February 2024, ASUCD took further action by creating a new committee tasked with implementing the resolution. The committee now faces the sweeping challenge of divesting over $20 million from any company with even a tangential connection to Israel. For some reason, current ASUCD members don’t seem to care about their own constitution or the authority of the school’s judicial council.
Why was it struck down in 2019? Three reasons: it is impossible to implement, it is antisemitic, and it is illegal under state law.
BDS at UC Davis calls for total divestment from Israel and all companies that have supposedly committed human rights abuses. This goal is simply not possible. Israel is deeply connected within the global trade network, and many large companies like Google, Microsoft, and others have realized the opportunities presented within the “Start-Up Nation.” If somehow BDS is fully implemented to its extreme positions, basic services would no longer be available. ASUCD could not use Google, computers that use Intel, or even Amazon to order basic items for student events.
BDS is also antisemitic in both theory and practice. A co-founder of BDS, Omar Barghouti, explicitly denies the right of the Jewish people to self-determination and the legitimacy of the Jewish state. The membership of the National Committee of BDS includes members and people affiliated with Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine — all of which are designated as terrorist organizations by the United States and other nations.
Furthermore, research has shown that the existence of BDS activity on college campuses is both a predictor of — and strongly correlated with — increased antisemitic incidents and the specific targeting of Jewish students on campuses. BDS also directly prohibits peaceful dialogues or interactions between pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian people unless Israelis are all labeled as oppressors and colonizers.
California made BDS illegal in 2016 under AB 2844, which states that entities under contract with the government worth $100,000 or more must be compliant with the Unruh Civil Rights Act and the California Fair Employment and Housing Act. Furthermore, the act seeks to ensure that any policy that has been adopted against any sovereign nation or peoples recognized by the United States, including Israel, is not used to discriminate. BDS discriminates explicitly on the basis of national origin.
ASUCD relies on Federal funding in order to run the Unitrans unit, which provides bus rides across the city of Davis to all students. Unitrans received $2,922,243 in 2023-2024 from both the Federal CARES Act (2020) and the Urbanized Area Formula Grants or FTA 5307. In order to implement BDS within ASUCD, it would seem like our elected student representatives would have to shut down 32% of Unitrans’ budget, potentially crippling its critical service to the student community at UC Davis and the rest of the city.
In early February 2025, legislation was introduced in student government to force all units within ASUCD to adopt a singular political position. While the bill was withdrawn, it speaks to the priorities of certain members within the ASUCD legislative branch. In the proposed bill, ASUCD would be able to take positions on political issues and force departments without those positions to “make changes necessary to bring them in compliance with the official position.”
In layman’s terms, this means that the student government could punish student workers for not adhering to a specific political ideology. Not only is this authoritarian and contrary to the democratic nature of our country and student government, but it is plain wrong. Anti-Israel ideologues are literally trying to force their opinions onto the rest of the student body.
If BDS was ever implemented, Jewish students would face increased antisemitic incidents and targeting on campus, all students would face dramatic cuts to the vital bus network, and ASUCD would likely face legal repercussions for passing illegal policies that discriminate based on national origin.
We want our student fees to go toward improving our campus, not tearing it down in the name of supporting Palestinians (though this act does not support Palestinians, but rather only discriminates against Israelis and Jews). ASUCD should spend their vast budget and manpower dedicating themselves to their given mandate: the needs of all students.
Raphael Myers is an undergraduate student at UC Davis and is a fellow for CAMERA on Campus.
The post What Does Implementing BDS Mean for American College Students? first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Trump Should Be Wary of the Mirage in Doha
US President Donald Trump meets with the Emir of Qatar during their bilateral meeting on May 21, 2017, at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Photo: Official White House Photo/Shealah Craighead.
As President Donald Trump prepares for his upcoming visit to Doha — the first by a sitting US president in more than two decades — he enters a carefully staged production. For Qatar, this is not just diplomacy; it’s branding.
Trump’s presence lends prestige, legitimacy, and a headline-grabbing affirmation of Qatar’s role on the global stage. But behind the polished welcome and rehearsed talking points, lies a regime whose actions often contradict its polished image.
Qatar has spent years cultivating influence not only in the Middle East, but across American institutions. Its strategy is subtle but pervasive. Billions have flowed from Doha into elite US universities, think tanks, lobbying firms, and real estate. Qatar is not merely investing in buildings or research — it’s investing in narrative control. From Ivy League campuses to policy roundtables in Washington, Qatari money shapes conversations, funds sympathetic analysis, and quietly steers public discourse in ways that protect its interests. This is soft power with sharp consequences.
In foreign policy, Qatar plays all sides. It hosts the largest US air base in the region, while maintaining open relationships with the Taliban, Hamas, and Iranian proxies. It markets itself as a mediator, yet many of the conflicts it “mediates” are ones in which it has a direct stake.
Its state-funded media outlet, Al Jazeera, speaks the language of press freedom while pushing deeply polarizing content across the region. These contradictions are not accidents — they are part of a broader strategy to appear indispensable to every player while being accountable to none. Trump, who built his political rise on challenging the foreign policy establishment and calling out global hypocrisy, should approach this visit with clear eyes.
He understands the cost of being used by regimes that speak the language of partnership while pursuing their own agendas behind closed doors. The president’s base expects candor, not ceremony. If this trip is to reflect the “America First” principles that Trump championed, it must not devolve into a PR victory for a country that has long evaded scrutiny.
Qatar’s defenders often point to its utility: its role in negotiating hostage releases, its open channels to groups no one else will speak to, its deep financial ties to the West. But utility is not the same as alignment. Hosting US troops does not entitle a regime to impunity. Providing access does not absolve complicity. Qatar’s ongoing ties to Hamas, framed as pragmatic diplomacy, have done little to disrupt the cycle of violence in Gaza. Its outreach to Iran has served its own hedging strategy, not American stability. These are not alliances — they are wagers.
This visit offers Trump the chance to reset expectations. He does not need to provoke or insult his hosts, but he must be direct. What has Qatar done to earn the deepening of strategic ties? Has it reined in the ideological extremism enabled by its networks? Has it improved transparency in its financial systems? Has it addressed legitimate concerns about its influence over American educational and policymaking institutions?
These are not hostile questions — they are the basic inquiries any serious leader should ask before elevating a partner.
Moreover, Trump must recognize how this visit will be used by Doha — not just regionally, but in Western capitals and media. Qatar excels at turning symbolism into leverage. A handshake becomes a headline, a summit becomes a signal. Trump’s image is powerful, and the Qataris know that projecting friendship with him bolsters their credibility far beyond the Gulf. But friendship requires mutual honesty, not staged harmony. If the visit glosses over core contradictions, it sends the wrong message — not just to Qatar, but to other authoritarian states watching closely.
While this trip is not focused on Israel, the implications are inescapable. Qatar’s longstanding support for Hamas — and its ambiguous stance toward normalization — reflect a broader refusal to take a definitive stand on peace. Its aid to Gaza, while framed as humanitarian, often functions as leverage over a population held hostage by its rulers. Trump does not need to lecture his hosts on Israel policy, but he must not ignore the regional impact of Qatar’s actions either. Any meaningful US-Qatar partnership must include a commitment to ending double-dealing with violent actors.
Qatar is not just a small Gulf state with money — it is a global operator with a sophisticated PR engine and an appetite for influence. From campus lecture halls to Capitol Hill, its footprint in American life is larger than most citizens realize. That influence deserves scrutiny, not celebration. Trump’s visit should be used to clarify boundaries, not blur them.
This moment gives Trump a choice: lend his brand to a carefully choreographed narrative, or reaffirm the disruptive clarity that has defined his foreign policy. Qatar needs Trump more than Trump needs Qatar. That leverage should be used not to flatter, but to demand more — more transparency, more accountability, and more alignment with the values that the US claims to defend.
Amine Ayoub, a fellow at the Middle East Forum, is a policy analyst and writer based in Morocco. Follow him on X: @amineayoubx
The post Trump Should Be Wary of the Mirage in Doha first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Exposed: The AP Sells Pictures By Photojournalist Identified as Hamas Terrorist, Kissed by Sinwar
Yahya Sinwar, head of the Palestinian terror group Hamas in Gaza, in Gaza City on April 14, 2023. Photo: Yousef Masoud / SOPA Images/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
The Associated Press sells photos by a Gazan photojournalist whom Israel identified as a Hamas terrorist, an HonestReporting investigation revealed on Tuesday, in what legal experts say may be considered material/financial support of a designated foreign terrorist organization in violation of US law that prohibits such conduct.
Hassan Eslaiah was targeted and wounded in an Israeli strike on southern Gaza in early April, with the IDF publicly identifying him as a member of the Hamas Khan Younis Brigade who has been posing as a journalist.
This should have come as no surprise to the AP, which officially cut ties with the Gazan freelancer after our November 2023 exposé of his infiltration into Israel during the October 7 massacre, which also brought to light a photo of former Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar kissing him on the cheek.
However, the agency still offers for sale on its global platform more than 40 photos taken by Eslaiah inside Gaza during October-November 2023. Their prices range between 35 and 495 U.S. dollars.
HonestReporting has reached out to the AP for comment.
Hassan Eslaiah (r) with former Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar (l)
Whether Eslaiah still gets royalties when his remaining photos are purchased is unclear, but the credit he gets on a respected news outlet is certainly a reputation booster. And either way, AP can still make money off of his propaganda for Hamas:
Legal Questions
Disturbingly, AP staff seem to have known about Eslaiah’s Hamas links years before October 7, 2023. According to documents released in a US lawsuit in early April, they were worried about his reliability since 2018, but still used his work.
The AP is also the only Western agency that still platforms Eslaiah’s tainted work. Reuters and Getty Images have removed his content due to HonestReporting’s public campaigns, which proved effective even before his confirmation as a Hamas member.
But now, the AP must explain and follow suit. This is no longer just an ethical violation, but possibly also a legal one, particularly if US authorities come to determine that Eslaiah is sufficiently connected to Hamas and/or acts of terrorism.
Legal experts told HonestReporting that in purchasing Eslaiah’s content, the AP may well be in direct violation of anti-terrorism laws or financial sanctions enforced by the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). These laws prohibit transactions with entities or individuals that are on terrorism-related lists, and these regulations extend to payments for content or goods. Violation of OFAC sanctions has the potential to result in both civil and criminal penalties, including hefty fines and possible imprisonment. Purchasing the material and continuing to publish Eslaiah’s work, with direct attribution, may also be a violation of Section 2339B of Title 18 of the United States Code, which makes it a federal crime to knowingly provide material support or resources to a foreign terrorist organization.
In December 2023, following HonestReporting’s exposure of photojournalists who infiltrated Israel on October 7, 14 state attorneys general wrote a letter to The New York Times, AP, CNN, and Reuters calling them out for using hires with ties to Hamas and reminding them that providing material support to terrorists and terror organizations is a crime.
The letter specifically mentions the case of Hassan Eslaiah and ends by calling on the media outlets to “ensure that you are taking all necessary steps to prevent your organizations from contracting with members of terror organizations. We urge you in the strongest terms to take care that your hiring practices conform to the laws forbidding material support for terror organizations.”
Subsequently, it may be time for US Attorney General Pam Bondi to take an interest.
The AP is based in New York. Will the Attorney General consider the possibility that, despite this warning, the AP may have been providing material support for a terrorist organization, even by continuing to feature the “work” of an alleged Hamas member who may have used it as a cover?
We think the answer is clear, if not legally, then morally. The AP should do the right thing, apologize, and remove all of Eslaiah’s content, unless they want to continue being associated with a terror-linked “journalist.”
HonestReporting is a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.
The post Exposed: The AP Sells Pictures By Photojournalist Identified as Hamas Terrorist, Kissed by Sinwar first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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