Who Will Be Crowned Miss Holocaust Survivor 2021?

A pressing question for our times: Which Holocaust survivor has kept it tight? Tuesday morning, Israeli nonprofit Yad Ezer l’Haver will give us an answer. The Haifa-based organization, dedicated to services for Holocaust survivors, are providing 10 women who escaped genocide yet another service — ranking their hotness in a livestreamed beauty pageant on a scale of one to ten “yellow stars.”

“The public in Israel and around the world will be able to take part,” read an official government press release, reported by the Daily Beast, ​​“in selecting the beauty queen to be crowned Miss Holocaust Survivor.”

Around 400 women, who survived concentration camps like Dachau, Auschwitz, or Buchenwald, were put up for consideration in the “Miss Holocaust Survivor” pageant, but not everyone had what it takes. Just ten European refugees — all approaching or past their ninth decade — made it to the finals, where hair, make-up, and wardrobe specialists dolled them up for a full week of events. Tuesday morning, they’ll deliver speeches and walk the runway before a panel of judges that includes “Miss Israel 2021” Noa Cochba and Yarin Buzaglo, “Israel’s Maiden of Beauty.”

The pageant, which aired Tuesday at 11:30 A.M. EST (they have yet to formally announce a winner), was hosted at the Friends of Zion Museum in Jerusalem — an institution dedicated to Christian Zionists, or as the museum’s About page puts it, the “brave non-Jews” who helped establish the state of Israel. The museum, like the non-profit, is largely funded by Mike Evans — an Evangelical Zionist who has self-published some two-dozen books, including Christopher Columbus: Secret Jew and The Protocols: The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

Evans has close ties to both Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu. He made headlines over the summer when he called Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid — Netanyahu’s successor as Prime Minister and the current foreign minister respectively — “rabid dogs” who would lose Evangelical support should they “crucify” Netanyahu. When Trump visited Israel during his presidency, the Daily Beast noted, Evans “welcomed” him “with building-sized banners all over” Jerusalem.

The “Miss Holocaust Survivor” contest, which was featured in this documentary, has taken place semi-annually since 2009. Yad Ezer l’Haver CEO Shimon Sabag told the Daily Beast that he initially had “trouble swallowing” the idea. Notably, this was not because the contenders had endured the humiliation and cruelty of concentration camps: “It seemed odd,” Sabag said, “women in their 80s and 90s.”