Israel's Eurovision contestant, Yuval Raphael, says she's focused on the music, not the protests

(JTA) - If she found it unnerving to see someone make a throat-slitting gesture at her as she walked the carpet at the first event in the Eurovision song contest, Yuval Raphael wasn't letting on.

"It was a stressful situation, scary at times," Raphael, Israel's competitor in this year's song contest, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in an interview Monday. She was speaking a day after the competition's "turquoise carpet" kickoff, when Israel filed a police report accusing a pro-Palestinian demonstrator of making the threatening gesture and spitting at her.

She added, "But I keep reminding my...