Miss Israel says this year’s contest will be bogus, sparking break with organizers

The US-based organizers of the Miss Israel pageant were planning to appoint a winner of their choosing this year without the involvement of independent judges or holding a full-on pageant, the current titleholder, Melanie Shiraz, said this past week.

The accusation, backed up by video evidence, came alongside other charges from Shiraz, including that non-Israeli contestants had been encouraged to apply and acquire Israeli citizenship later, meaning that the contest would have little connection to Israel, despite Miss Israel representing the Jewish state on a major global platform.

The allegations sparked a public dispute between Shiraz and the Miss Israel organization, which cut her off on Friday.

The Miss Israel organizers have denied all misdeeds, called the charges “inaccurate,” and said they are adhering to contest rules and signed contracts.

“The public is about to be presented with what appears to be a national competition, despite no meaningful nationwide search ever having taken place under the current non-Israeli, non-Jewish directorship of Miss Israel,” Shiraz said. “Non-citizens have been actively encouraged to enter the system and establish eligibility afterward, while Israeli women were never given a genuine opportunity to compete for their country’s crown.”

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Miss Israel serves as Israel’s representative to the Miss Universe competition, one of the world’s leading pageants. The winner is granted a prominent platform and significant publicity, which Shiraz has used for pro-Israel advocacy.

Miss Universe, and the Miss Israel organization, are independent companies. Miss Universe grants franchises to firms in each country, allowing the franchises to select a contestant for the worldwide competition.

The Miss Israel competition began in Israel in 1950. In 2022, the Israeli organizers shut down the program due to criticism that it was objectifying women.

That left the Israeli franchise available. Miss Israel went dormant for two years before being acquired by firms in the US. Florida state filings showed that the production company Edgar Entertainment and a company in Puerto Rico manage Miss Israel LLC, which was set up last year.

Edgar Entertainment handles the Miss Israel contest production, and also runs Miss Uzbekistan and Miss Armenia, according to its website.

Edgar Entertainment and its CEO, Edgar Saakyan, do not appear to have any other connection to Israel. The competition took place in English in Miami for the past two years.

Shiraz, who is Israeli, said that last year, the organizers held a formal competition, with judges selecting the winner.

This year, though, organizers were planning to crown a winner, without holding a competition with a professional selection process, according to a leaked video shared with The Times of Israel.

A producer for Edgar Entertainment described the plan in the footage from a video meeting.

The candidate will be told they have “been selected as Miss Universe Israel, do the crowning moment, and that’s kind of how it’s going to happen,” the staffer said in the clip.

“We did it last year with Estonia, they made it look like a pageant, and we did it with Armenia, they made it look like a pageant,” she said.

The connection to Estonia was unclear, but after Shiraz made public allegations against Edgar Entertainment in an Instagram video on Wednesday, Miss Estonia 2025, Brigitta Schaback, said in a comment on the post: “Sounds all very familiar.” Schaback renounced the Miss Estonia title in November, saying her “values and work ethic” did not align with the franchise’s director.

In the video of the Edgar Entertainment staff, the producer said the candidate for Miss Israel would not know ahead of time that they would win, and would be invited under the false pretext of a “promotional photoshoot.”

“For us, the surprise element was a big thing because we look at a lot of these crowning moments and there is no excitement or joy or surprise element behind winning, like in a real pageant,” she said. “We did kind of want to have that moment, at least, of the excitement of, ‘You didn’t know you were going to win, and now you won.'”

Edgar Entertainment told The Times of Israel in a Friday statement that the “information regarding this year’s candidates is inaccurate.”

“The only possible source of that information is confidential material that had been shared with one particular individual as part of measures intended to protect the safety, privacy and integrity of the actual candidates,” the statement said, without denying the video’s authenticity.

There was no publicly available information on this year’s Miss Israel selection event. Shiraz said it had been scheduled for this past week.

Shiraz also said some of the candidates were not Israeli, which the producers denied.

The Miss Israel website stipulates that candidates must hold Israeli citizenship. However, previous contestants were not Israeli citizens; organizers said last year that non-Israeli Jews were eligible, presenting the decision as a positive way for a Diaspora Jewish contestant to represent Israel.

Other countries, such as Cuba, have entered candidates born outside the country into the Miss Universe pageant, and some countries appoint candidates without a contest, but it does not appear that any other national franchises have been accused of orchestrating a pageant.

“Miss Israel 2026 will be selected in accordance with the rules and regulations of the Miss Israel Organization and Miss Universe, and she will be an Israeli citizen,” Edgar Entertainment said.

It wasn’t clear if false pageantry violated the Miss Universe competition rules. Miss Universe’s rules for franchises say that each country’s national director must “conduct a national pageant” to determine a winner. Miss Universe did not respond to a request for comment.

Shiraz also alleged in a statement that she had been forced to pay many competition expenses herself and had been “pressured, intimidated and threatened for speaking out in support of my country” by Miss Israel organizers. She had set up a GoFundMe account to help cover the costs.

WhatsApp messages showed Shiraz asking organizers to reimburse her $900 for travel expenses, and the producers telling her she might need to pay $45,000 for the full competition costs instead.

Miss Israel organizers denied any misconduct, said Shiraz had received “extensive organizational support,” and that all financial decisions had been made in accordance with a contract between the company and Shiraz. The company said Shiraz had not done enough to promote the company, as was required by the contract.

“The organization has always sought to operate in a fair, responsible and transparent manner. It is therefore deeply concerning when one party presents a selective or fabricated version of events in a way that creates a false public narrative,” the Miss Israel organization said.

On Friday, the organization said Shiraz had been stripped of the title, citing “significant disagreements.”

“Melanie Shiraz is no longer authorized to represent, speak on behalf of, or act in an official capacity for the Miss Israel organization,” the organizers said in a statement. “The organization considers this matter closed and will remain focused on supporting the next generation of Israeli representatives rather than engaging in ongoing public disputes.”

On Saturday, Shiraz said in a statement that the organization was “focused on threats” instead of evidence, and that she had “represented Israel on the Miss Universe stage and spent my year advocating for my country and my people during one of the most difficult periods.”

“No attempt to rewrite history or distort the narrative can take that away,” she said.