Another Article on Madonna in Israel
Here’s another article on Madonna in Israel similar to the one we already published this morning. It comes from israelinsider.com
Madonna will perform twice at Tel Aviv’s Bloomfield Stadium in September as part of her upcoming world tour, defying a U.S. State Department warning advising citizens to refrain from traveling to Israel, media sources reported this week.
According to Shuki Weiss, Madonna’s Israeli producer, details with the Bloomfield Sports Center, which manages the stadium, have already been worked out. Weiss toured the Bloomfield facilities a number of times and is satisfied that the stadium fulfills all the necessary requirements, Maariv reported.
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Thanks to Liz
Last week, Weiss told Haaretz, “The artist has promised to perform in Israel and this is certainly going to be a bigger show than she has ever done. The performance will be set for August or September, but details have not yet been finalized. A number of ideas regarding the location of the show as well as Madonna’s other activities in Israel have been put on the table.”
According to the Maariv report, the Bloomfield arrangements have now been finalized. “The huge stage the singer uses in her concerts will be set up between gates 7 and 8. Most of the audience will stand on the grass, but there will be seating up in the balcony. Some 16,000 tickets will be sold for each performance,” the paper said.
Guy Ritchie, Madonna’s husband and manager, was supposed to land in Israel this week to check out the stadium and confirm it as the location for the concerts. For personal reasons, Ritchie has delayed his visit until next week, Maariv reported.
Madonna, 45, previously performed in Israel at Hayarkon Park in October, 1993, but apparently now prefers the grass at the soccer stadium.
Officials at the Israeli Foreign Ministry said earlier this month that discussions were underway regarding the possibility of welcoming Madonna as an official guest of the ministry, in what would presumably be a solidarity visit as well as an opportunity to perform, Yediot Aharonot reported.
Madonna’s “Re-Invention Tour” is slated to kick off in Los Angeles on May 24 and will include shows in San Francisco, New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, Atlanta and Miami. Madonna will then head to London for an August 18 performance followed by shows in Paris, Israel and Ireland.
Tour dates for Madonna’s Israeli concerts are not yet listed on her official website. Many of the tour dates elsewhere are already sold out.
“Madonna has already started rehearsals and she can’t wait to get back on stage to recreate her songs from the earliest days of her career up until the present,” her manager Caresse Henry said. “There is no doubt that this tour will be the pinnacle of her long standing and well deserved reputation as one of the most exciting live performers of our time.”
Following Israel’s killing of Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin on March 22, the U.S. State Department called on American citizens to reconsider visits to Israel at this time. “U.S. citizens are reminded to maintain a high level of vigilance and to take appropriate steps to increase their security awareness,” an official statement said.
“Madonna will be most welcome in Israel,” an Israeli official told the Israel News Agency. “Her presence here is a clear statement to every citizen in the free and democratic world not to give into terrorism, to maintain your normal routine and to keep our economies functioning.”