Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Miss Israel 2017 Rides Social Media Savvy To Crown

To become the Jewish state’s reigning beauty queen, Rotem Rabi first had to conquer the internet.

The 21-year-old Jerusalem-based model won the coveted Miss Israel crown and sash Tuesday with the help of an army of online supporters.

“I want to thank all of you for the kindness and support I received from you,” Rabi wrote Wednesday on Facebook and Instagram. “Appreciate it and love you very much!”

Her social media savvy helped Rabi beat out 15 contestants. This was the first year online voting was combined with judges’ votes to pick Miss Israel, and social media was central to the contest. Each contestant was given profile pages on the contest’s website, complete with bios, photos and Instagram-inspired modeling videos.

While her competitors waged similar get-out-the-vote efforts on social media, they could not compete with Rabi’s reach. Her Instagram following alone topped 14,000 — more than double that of any of the other women who made the final four.

As for Rabi, she took to social media, too, after her victory.

“I write this post with tears of excitement,” she wrote. “For after a long journey and an amazing experience, today came the big moment.”

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.