Israeli Interior Minister Gideon Saar on Monday issued a statement saying he had decided to allow Rose Fostanes to work as an artist in the Jewish state.
The 47-year-old Filipina caregiver who won Israel’s X-Factor talent show just recently, came to Israel six years ago with a visa to work as a caregiver for the sick and elderly. Recall that after her success in the reality TV show, Israeli immigration officials said her visa did not allow her to work professionally as a singer.
Fostanes said she has been a caregiver since the age of 23 and is among the roughly 10 million Filipinos, or 10 percent of the overall population, who work abroad. The diminutive woman has emerged as the newest star of Israeli reality television taking “X-Factor Israel” by storm and is now mobbed by fans wherever she goes.
Fostanes currently lives in an area in Tel Aviv inhabited mostly by foreign workers, and has been saving money to support her family and girlfriend back home.
She has been compared to the Scottish singer Susan Boyle, who at 52, shot to fame in 2009 after appearing on the TV show “Britain’s Got Talent” and performing “I Dreamed a Dream” from the musical “Les Miserables”.