Almost no one was more successful musically. There are even those who will insist decisively and unequivocally that Israel has never seen a more successful singer. He was actually given the regal title of “National Singer” recently, because of his rare ability to win the love of most Israelis. In a society where poetry and song are too often sequestered in their particular sectors, he transcended those sectors as well as gender and age. There was no singer before him who filled the Caesarea Amphitheater so often, or whose audience consisted of such a diverse spectrum of Israelis: men and women, old and young, Sephardim [of Middle-Eastern origin] and Ashkenazim [of Eastern European origin], religious and secular, Arabs and even more than a few ultra-Orthodox.

That was Eyal Golan. To a large degree, he represented Israel’s hope of bringing all the different social groups under a single umbrella. Few others received the honors heaped upon him. He was invited to sing before closed audiences far from the public eye, such as Israel’s intelligence and defense communities. He was voted “Singer of the Year” on eight separate occasions by the Reshet Gimmel radio station’s Hit Parade, and he was the first singer of Middle Eastern origin to win a similar title from the Galgalatz Army Radio, the country’s leading music station. His audience stood up to applaud him at the end of each performance, as if he was a beloved guru, from whom they could not part. Wherever he went, he was surrounded by adoring fans who showered him with love to no end. When performers were ranked by their earnings, he left everyone else far behind.

Then came the big fall, with reverberations that refuse to fade away. While he was still soaking up the fresh breeze at the mountain top, he was called by the police for interrogation. So as not to damage his stately status, his interrogators kept the whole thing under wraps. Still, in a country as intimate as Israel, where everybody knows everybody else, the secret leaked within just a few hours. Although the judge placed a ban on making the case public, the social networks seethed with stories about a “famous singer” who was being interrogated under the suspicion of having sexual relations with minors, even though his name was not mentioned. 

Then a blogger revealed the identity of the star, sending the entire country into turmoil. It was as if a war had just broken out. Newspapers devoted more pages to the Golan incident than they did to covering the outbreak of the Yom Kippur War. Even Egyptian President Anwar Sadat’s historic visit to Israel did not merit as many dramatic words and pictures. Nothing excites the press more than when leading icons come crashing down with a loud bang, and the Golan episode did just that and more. The story contained all the juicy details of a titillating plot that captured the imagination.