{"id":36398,"date":"2017-05-15T05:11:56","date_gmt":"2017-05-15T11:11:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/?p=36398"},"modified":"2021-08-14T05:14:03","modified_gmt":"2021-08-14T11:14:03","slug":"meet-miss-israel-2017-a-social-media-savvy-beauty-queen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/meet-miss-israel-2017-a-social-media-savvy-beauty-queen\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet Miss Israel 2017, a social media savvy beauty queen"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By ANDREW TOBIN<\/p>\n<p>TEL AVIV (JTA) &#8212;&nbsp;To become the Jewish state&#8217;s reigning beauty queen, Rotem Rabi first had to conquer&nbsp;the internet.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_36399\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/ShowImage-2.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-36399\" class=\"wp-image-36399 size-medium lazyload\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/ShowImage-2-300x198.jpg\" alt=\"ShowImage-2\" width=\"300\" height=\"198\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/ShowImage-2-300x198.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/ShowImage-2.jpg 880w\" data-sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 300px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 300\/198;\" \/><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-36399\" class=\"wp-image-36399 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/ShowImage-2-300x198.jpg\" alt=\"ShowImage-2\" width=\"300\" height=\"198\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/ShowImage-2-300x198.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/ShowImage-2.jpg 880w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/noscript><\/a><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-36399\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Rotem Rabi brought in a bevy of online backers on her way to the Miss Israel crown. (Moshe Sasson\/Courtesy of La&#8217;isha)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>The 21-year-old Jerusalem-based model recently won the coveted Miss Israel crown and sash with the help of an army of online supporters.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I want to thank all of you for the kindness and support I received from you,&#8221; Rabi wrote Wednesday on Facebook and Instagram. &#8220;Appreciate it and love you very much!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Her social media savvy helped Rabi&nbsp;beat out 15 contestants. This was the first year online voting was combined with judges&#8217; votes to pick Miss Israel, and social media was central to the contest.&nbsp;Each contestant was given profile pages on the contest&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/missisrael.ynet.co.il\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">website<\/a>,&nbsp;complete with bios, photos and Instagram-inspired modeling videos.<\/p>\n<p>While her competitors waged similar get-out-the-vote efforts on social media,&nbsp;they could not compete with Rabin&#8217;s reach. Her <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/rotem_rabi27\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Instagram<\/a> following alone topped&nbsp;14,000 &#8212; more than double that of any of the other women who made the final four.<\/p>\n<p>Beauty contests&nbsp;have&nbsp;been a part of Zionist culture since well before &#8220;selfie&#8221; was a word. In the late 1920s, Tel Aviv hosted the Queen Esther&nbsp;Beauty Pageant centered on the holiday of Purim. Part of a budding Jewish folk culture, it brought together&nbsp;Ashkenazi and Mizrahi contestants and helped officials select an unofficial representative of the Yishuv, or prestate Jewish community.<\/p>\n<p>The Miss Israel pageant has been around since 1950, and has launched some its winners&#8217; careers. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jta.org\/2016\/07\/27\/news-opinion\/israel-middle-east\/wonder-woman-gal-gadot-attacked-as-zionist-on-twitter\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Gal Gadot<\/a>, the Israeli actress who brought Wonder Woman to the big screen, won the crown in 2004.<\/p>\n<p>According to Rabi&#8217;s bio, she served as a medic in the Israeli Air Force and has worked as a model while starting the process to join the&nbsp;Israel Police&#8217;s investigative division. She dropped out of the Miss Israel contest&nbsp;last year to accept a modeling contract in Milan.<\/p>\n<p>As customary, Rabi will represent Israel in the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.missworld.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Miss World<\/a> pageant, which will be held in December in China. She will try to add to Israel&#8217;s single win, in 1998.<\/p>\n<p>The Miss Israel pageant has been criticized in recent years for its focus on women&#8217;s appearances and allegedly superficial standards \u2014 for example, contestants must be 5-foot-6 or taller and never have been married or had children.<\/p>\n<p>Its increased online presence has given Israelis a convenient &#8212; and sometimes strange &#8212; way to voice their displeasure. When Yediot Acharanot, the Israeli newspaper behind the contest, posted photos of the Miss Israel finalists on its <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/yediotahronot\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Facebook<\/a> page Sunday and asked people to vote, commenters responded with a string of shirtless photos of controversial lawmaker <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jta.org\/2015\/11\/25\/news-opinion\/politics\/meet-oren-hazan-israels-most-scandalous-lawmaker\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Oren Hazan<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI admit I&#8217;m excited to be the public\u2019s choice of Israel\u2019s beauty queen,\u201d Hazan posted on his&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/orenhazanlikud\/photos\/pb.500681436740099.-2207520000.1494446231.\/914430268698545\/?type=3&amp;theater\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Facebook<\/a>&nbsp;page. \u201cI plan to work to reduce world hunger and to bring world peace.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As for Rabi, she took to social media, too, after her victory.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I write this post with tears of excitement,&#8221; she wrote. &#8220;For after a long journey and an amazing experience, today came the big moment.&#8221;<\/p>\n<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_toolbar\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" data-src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" class=\"lazyload\" \/><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/noscript><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_t=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"Tumblr\",\"Email\");var hupso_background_t=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border_t=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_toolbar_size_t=\"medium\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_url_t=\"\";var hupso_title_t=\"Meet%20Miss%20Israel%202017%2C%20a%20social%20media%20savvy%20beauty%20queen\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share_toolbar.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":36399,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1884],"tags":[8781,8790,8795,8503,8788,8502],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36398"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36398"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36398\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62776,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36398\/revisions\/62776"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}