After a career spanning six decades, at age 76, Dutch Eurovision winner Lenny Kuhr is making aliyah (immigrating) to Israel, as the future of Jewish life in the Netherlands and across Europe has become increasingly uncertain amid rising antisemitism.
“I refuse to go on living in this country any longer,” Kuhr wrote in April, in a farewell message that spread rapidly across social media. “This country where my home, my family and friends are dear to me, where Jews can no longer live without worry; always careful, always timid. I see it, I feel it, and my husband and I are leaving for Israel. For good. The farewell is painful. Goodbye, my once so beloved Netherlands. Goodbye, my dear audience. Goodbye to all the dear people I know and love. All of this I carry in my heart, to the land where we are so warmly welcome. To the land where we are expected!”
Kuhr’s path to stardom
At just 19 years old, Kuhr won the Eurovision Song Contest in 1969, in one of the competition’s most unusual outcomes: four contestants tied for first place. Her entry, “De Troubadour,” was a ballad Kuhr had co-written about a medieval troubadour and the effect of his music on those who heard him. She was the first woman to write a winning Eurovision song and the first female winner to accompany herself onstage with an instrument.
The win launched a career that took her far beyond the Netherlands. In the early 1970s, she toured France with Georges Brassens and scored a number-one hit there with “Jesus Cristo.” Back home, her biggest commercial hit came in 1980 with “Visite,” a duet with the French group Les Poppys. In 2007, marking 40 years in music, she was appointed a Knight of the Order of Orange-Nassau, one of the Netherlands’ highest civilian honors. She performed “De Troubadour” again at Eurovision 2021, when the contest returned to Rotterdam for the first time since 1976.
Last month, Kuhr performed the song once more at the Eurovision in Concert event in Amsterdam, a farewell of sorts ahead of her departure for Israel. Her final performance in the Netherlands is scheduled for May 31.
An early connection with Judaism
Kuhr’s connection to Judaism began long before her conversion in the 1970s. She grew up in Eindhoven in a secular, non-Jewish household, but from an early age she found herself drawn to Hebrew and Yiddish music, buying booklets of folk songs and seeking out anyone who could help her understand the words.
“I sang songs in all kinds of languages,” she told Benjamin online. “I sang English, I sang Hebrew; in the beginning, I didn’t even know what I was singing.” The Jewish owner of the clothing shop where her father worked helped her with the Yiddish. For Hebrew, she turned to a teenage boy in her neighborhood. “I think he was 15 years old,” she recalled. “That was my first real encounter with Judaism. I walked into his home, and out of the corner of my eye I saw books with Hebrew letters on the shelf, and I thought: everything I want to know is in there.”
A visit to Auschwitz at age 12 made a deep and lasting impression on her. In a recent interview with Israel’s national broadcaster, KAN, she connected that experience with her current feeling that antisemitism is “never over and that I feel really that it is coming again, getting bigger and bigger.”
In May 1973, Kuhr was violently attacked at a railway station in Haarlem. The Israeli doctor who treated her injuries would become her first husband. They married in 1974 and moved to Israel, where they had two daughters: Sharon and Daphna. The marriage ended in 1981, and Kuhr returned to the Netherlands with both children, where she raised them largely on her own. Sharon and Daphna eventually made aliyah themselves and have lived in Israel ever since. In 2003, she married Rob Frank, who became her manager and co-songwriter.
The turning point: October 7, 2023
On the morning of October 7, 2023, Hamas launched its assault on southern Israel. Kuhr’s eldest grandson, Oz, went with his unit to protect towns near the Gaza border and was shot in the abdomen amid clashes with Hamas terrorists. He was operated on twice.
Kuhr told Christenen Voor Israel that the attacks were a turning point for her. “I felt it immediately. That day changed everything. I took the first available flight to Israel. I wanted to go to my children and grandchildren. The stories I heard from my grandson, who was injured on October 7 and was rehabilitating at home, were terrible and beyond words. What hate can do, I cannot comprehend.”
The wave of antisemitism that exploded across the globe in the wake of October 7th affected Kuhr directly as well.
In March 2024, pro-Palestinian activists stormed one of her performances in Waalwijk, unfurled a Palestinian flag, and shouted “Free Palestine,” calling Kuhr a “terrorist and a Zionist” and accusing her grandchildren of being “complicit in genocide.” Kuhr’s husband intervened, telling the activists in no uncertain terms to leave.
The incident prompted a swift political response, with 13 parties in the Dutch House of Representatives issuing a joint statement condemning the activists’ behavior.
We moeten ons als samenleving uitspreken tegen Jodenhaat. Altijd.
Dat is wat de geschiedenis ons leert. En wat de toekomst van ons vraagt.
Wij staan op, kunnen we op jou rekenen? pic.twitter.com/q4EXOkfaPu
— Dilan Yesilgöz – Zegerius (@DilanYesilgoz) March 26, 2024
“We watch with horror as antisemitism returns to places where everyone must be able to gather freely and safely,” the statement read. “Antisemitism has proven to be not merely something from the distant past, it is flaring up again. This is not protest; this is intimidation. It must stop. And it must stop now.”
“This is not an isolated incident. A line has been crossed, a line we hoped would never be crossed in our country again. The safety and freedom of Jewish Dutch citizens are at stake. The freedom to gather, to commemorate, to celebrate, to express oneself culturally, to live,” the parties added. “That is why we are standing up, and why we are asking you to stand up too. Let us stand squarely behind our Jewish community and behind the great good of freedom and safety. Do not stay silent; speak out forcefully against antisemitism. Because when Jewish Dutch citizens are unsafe in our own country, we all have a duty to stand up. Let no one remain silent any longer. Stop antisemitism now, in every form: today, tomorrow, and in the future. We are standing up; can we count on you?”
Only two parties refused to sign: Denk and Forum for Democracy (FVD). A Denk spokesperson stated that the party did not consider the incident antisemitic.
The Eurovision boycott
Despite that shared stance in favor of the freedom “to express oneself culturally,” the Netherlands decided to boycott Eurovision this year, alongside Ireland, Spain, Slovenia, and Iceland.
The country’s public broadcaster, AVROTROS, stated that participation would be “incompatible with the public values that are essential to us.” AVROTROS cited “the serious humanitarian suffering in Gaza, the suppression of freedom of the press, and political interference during the last edition of the Eurovision Song Contest” as reasons for boycotting the event.
In an interview with KAN, Kuhr expressed shock at how many Eurovision participants treated Israeli singers in recent years. “I cannot understand that colleagues, other singers and songwriters, are turning their backs on Israeli singers. Who does that?”
Antisemitism in the Netherlands
Antisemitism has skyrocketed in the Netherlands in recent years, similar to the trend in other European countries and around the world.
In 2025, police in the Netherlands recorded 867 antisemitic incidents, a slight decrease from the 880 incidents reported in 2024, but still much higher than before October 7, when about 548 cases were reported annually. While Jews make up less than 0.3% of the Dutch population, 26% of all discrimination offenses recorded by the Public Prosecution Service were against Jews.
Eddo Verdoner, National Coordinator on Antisemitism Combating, warned that “We have been counting hundreds of antisemitic incidents every year for years. What I fear is that we are slowly becoming used to figures that are unacceptable, that hatred becomes the new normal.”
In March, several Jewish institutions were targeted by bombing attacks, including a synagogue and a school. Similar attacks were reported in Belgium, Germany, and the United Kingdom. Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamiya (the Islamic Movement of the Companions of the Right), an Iran-linked terrorist group, claimed responsibility for several of these attacks, although the credibility of some of these claims is still uncertain.
In 2024, the Dutch government presented a Strategy to Combat Antisemitism, and in light of recent incidents, it has stressed that it is intensifying its efforts to implement the plan’s recommendations. Earlier this month, the Dutch government added €700,000 (about $820,000 USD) to the national budget to increase security around Jewish institutions in the Netherlands. The government also received a report from the national Taskforce on Combating Antisemitism about rising antisemitism, especially on college campuses, and discussed ways to increase Holocaust and coexistence education and to crack down on antisemitic offenders.
A leap into the unknown
With antisemitism in the Netherlands only getting worse, Kuhr decided it was time to head to Israel. In February, she announced that she would be ending her career in the Netherlands, partially due to antisemitism and partially due to her husband’s declining health.
“It really hurts, you know? I have to say goodbye to so many things. It’s also making me sad because I have to stop singing here,” Kuhr told KAN. She stressed that she is “not afraid, but when I know that Jews here cannot live in a safe way in a relaxed way, and it’s becoming worse and worse, and in this country, then I say I don’t want to live here anymore.”
She also explained that her husband had undergone open-heart surgery. “Right now, he really wants to go to Israel. He has never felt this way before. If we wait any longer, we might never do it.”
Kuhr stressed that she’s always wanted to make aliyah, “Because Israel is calling me. My children live there. But it is more than that. It is a leap into the unknown. I am leaving everything behind: my comfort, my friends, my audience. In Israel, I cannot simply walk along on the arm of my daughters and their children. I have to build a life again from scratch. That feels like dying a little. You break your patterns, you open yourself to what is new. And that can be a very good thing.”
Alongside her love for Israel and her excitement to be closer to her family, Kuhr acknowledged that life in Israel is not easy. “I am not changing something uncomfortable into something very comfortable. Perhaps it’s the other way around. All the time I knew that the bombs were falling, I was watching on my iPhone. I was also worried here, so when I’m [already] worried here, it is better to be worried in Israel. I know it’s not easy, but I love it.”
She does not yet know exactly what her musical life will look like in Israel, but she has one clear aspiration. “Perhaps the only dream I have still is to make one or two beautiful songs in Hebrew,” she told KAN. In an interview with Christenen Voor Israel, she added, “I am curious to see how my art of song will express itself there. I will let myself be surprised by what is to come — and by myself. But one thing I know for certain: I am listening to that voice inside me that says: Israel is your land, that is where you belong.”