The annual Grammy Awards is the most prestigious event in the music industry.
Taking place each year in early February, the Grammys honor the most outstanding recordings and artists, as chosen by the members of the Recording Academy.
Although the Academy is United States-based, the Grammys honor and celebrate artists from all around the world, including from Israel.
In honor of the 67th Annual Grammy Awards, scheduled for February 3, ISRAEL21c compiled a list of the best Israeli moments at the Grammys throughout the years.
1. Tributes to Nova music festival victims
The massacre that took place at the Nova electronic music festival on October 7 accounted for the largest percentage of victims out of the 1,200 people murdered in the Hamas attacks. At least 360 people were killed and another 40 taken hostage by Hamas from the festival grounds. It was also the largest terror attack at a music festival, ever.
Despite the magnitude of the tragedy, not many international artists or music events expressed any solidarity with the victims, in contrast to the support for those killed in the attack at the Bataclan concert hall in Paris in 2015, or the Manchester Arena bombings in England in 2017.
At the award ceremony last year, Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason Jr. eulogized the victims while accompanied by a string quartet made up of Israeli and Palestinian musicians.
2. Tributes to the hostages
At international events following the attacks, there were also very few tributes to the hundreds of hostages abducted from Israel into Gaza on October 7, 2023.
Jewish social media influencer Montana Tucker, who has been a vocal supporter of Israel since the tragic events of that day, and visited the site of the attacks multiple times, made a bold statement at the Grammys ceremony last year.
Tucker wore a massive yellow ribbon pinned to her dress, covering most of her torso, as a nod to the hostages who were still held by Hamas.
3. Best Video Game Soundtrack
Tatran, a Tel-Aviv based instrumental fusion rock band, helped compose the music for the official “Star Wars” video game. Last year, that compilation won the Grammy Award for the Best Video Game Soundtrack.
It’s unclear whether the group members — Tammuz Dekal, Dan Mayo and Ofir Binaminov — were awarded the Grammys personally. But it is an amazing achievement nonetheless.
4. Technical Grammy
Waves Audio, an Israeli developer of professional digital audio signal processing technologies, won the Technical Grammy Award in 2010.
The prize is a Special Merit Grammy Award presented to individuals or companies who have made contributions of outstanding technical significance to the recording field. Among previous winners is the electric lightbulb inventor Thomas Edison, who was awarded the prize posthumously.
Waves Audio’s technology has been used by the industry’s biggest artists, including U2, Lady Gaga and Beyonce.
5. Israeli designers

Speaking of Beyonce, the singer made headlines around the world when she wore a wedding dress as an evening gown to the 58th Grammy Awards in 2016.
The white lace frock was designed by none other than Inbal Dror, an Israeli fashion designer known for her contemporary wedding gowns. Since launching her eponymously named brand in 2005, Dror designed gowns for a host of celebrities, including Bar Refaeli and Ivanka Trump.
6. Israeli tech

At the same Grammys in 2016, another piece of Israeli invention shined bright. The 3D vision technology created by Intel’s RealSense technologies, whose R&D center is based in Haifa, was utilized in a unique performance piece by Lady Gaga.
During the singer’s tribute to David Bowie, Gaga’s face was transformed in real-time to reflect Bowie’s various phases of his long career, thanks to the RealSense technology.
7. Sharing a Grammy with Ye
Among the most unlikely Israeli moments at the Grammys would be seeing an Israeli artist sharing a Grammy Award with Kanye West, a controversial rapper with a history of making outrageous antisemitic remarks.
Exactly 20 years ago, West, who now goes by “Ye,” won a Best Rap Song award for his hit single “Jesus Walks.” The song was cowritten by Israeli-American violinist Miri Ben-Ari, who in the early 2000s cowrote and was featured on several hip-hop hit singles. Tel Aviv-born Ben-Ari consequently shared the Grammy with West as a cowriter.
We’re not sure about Jesus, but Ye has definitely walked a long way since that win.