This year marks the 50-year jubilee of Israel at Eurovision. Now the question is whether this will be Israel’s last ever year.
Just as there was dancing in the streets of pre-state Israel on November 29, 1947, in the immediate aftermath of the UN General Assembly vote on the partition of Palestine – thereby passing the final obstacle to the establishment of a Jewish state – there was also dancing in the streets, accompanied by the ongoing blare of car horns, in 1978.
That was when Izhar Cohen, who sang “A-Ba-Ni-Bi,” was the first Israeli winner of the Eurovision Song Contest in Paris, only five years after Israel first entered the competition.
This year marks the 50-year jubilee of Israel at Eurovision.Israel’s history at the Eurovision Song Contest
Although it is rare for any country to win the European Song Contest in two consecutive years, Israel was one of the very few countries that did, with Gali Atari and Milk and Honey winning with “Hallelujah” in 1979.
Amazingly, Israel hosted the 1979 contest in the conservative environment of Jerusalem long before an LGBTQ lifestyle was legalized. Yet it is a well-known fact that a considerable number of the Eurovision contestants are members of LGBTQ communities and make no secret of their sexual orientation.
