Israel can certainly pat itself on the back.
With four wins so far, ranked 7th in the number of wins by country (with 20 countries behind us), there is no doubt that we are doing something right in the European song contest.
But having established the fact that we are happy, and promising not to raise any allegations of anti-Semitism, we have to admit that there are some hits we sent to the Eurovision Song Contest and just missed.
Why?
It is not clear.
Maybe there were too strong competitors that year, maybe it's something in the adaptation or performance, and maybe we really fell victim to an antisemitic conspiracy (okay, that promise collapsed faster than we thought).
But hey, if I do not have who I am - then just before the 2022 Eurovision and the performance of Michael Ben David, who will hopefully make it to the finals, get the Israeli songs that we think should have won first place.
Ofra Haza - "Live" (Eurovision 1983, Germany)
It is common to think of the Eurovision Song Contest as a competition full of noise and ringing, but the truth is that you can also find songs with depth that tell touching stories.
Such is for example the song "Chai", performed by Ofra Haza.
The Eurovision Song Contest took place that year in Germany, which had won a year earlier with the song "Ein Bisschen Frieden" (A Little Peace).
This was the first time the Germans had won the Eurovision Song Contest, and the performance there for Israel was charged with not simple historical significance.
Ehud Manor decided to go for the whole box office - he wrote a kind of victory song of the people of Israel over the Nazi oppressor, which will be honest precisely where they tried to destroy us.
Apart from the song with the strengthening lyrics and the powerful melody of Avi Toledano, the costume also addressed the issue when the singer's escorts were dressed in yellow - as the patchwork color of the Jews in the concentration camps.
It bought us second place, but for us, as the cliché article, we are totally the winners.
The Idler Duo (Avi Kushnir and Natan Datner) - "The Idler Song" (1987 Eurovision Song Contest, Belgium)
This choice may raise an eyebrow or two, but for us "The Song of the Idlers" ("Hoppa Hula") performed by Avi Kushnir and Natan Datner and written by Zohar Laskov is one of the brightest and funniest departures Israel has sent to the Eurovision Song Contest.
The song was born out of a shared desire of the two to work on a comedy show, and after a lot of incarnations that can be found here, the two found themselves, a little surprised, winning the Eurovision Song Contest.
The song in question, in which the two played a pair of idlers (not to mention idiots) first aroused quite a few emotions, when among others the then Minister of Science and Development Gideon Pat, made it clear that it is inconceivable that a country established by hard work and sweat would send a song.
Despite the protest, the two flew to a competition held that year in Belgium, delivering a humorous performance full of nonsense and slapstick.
That was enough to bring them only the eighth place, when the first place that year was picked by whoever is considered Mr. Eurovision, the Irish singer Johnny Logan, with the song "Hold Me Now".
When canceled then there are results.
Orna and Moshe Datz - "Here" (Eurovision 1991, Italy)
Another song that celebrates Israeliness and was one of the great hits of the 90s is "Here" created by Uzi Hitman, performed by Orna and Moshe Datz.
It was the year of the Gulf War and the atmosphere in Israel was not simple: a sense of war over the house was in the air.
Orna and Moshe, who were still a married couple at the time, represented a beautiful and united Israeliness at the Eurovision held that year in Italy.
Despite this, the global media did not make life easy for them.
As part of the "Israel at the Eurovision - The Stories Behind the Songs" project, which was held about three years ago in "Israel Today", Datz said: "The door and why say 'hello' in Arabic, when you are sitting on occupied lands. It bothered me terribly."
Despite the press reactions, the song was a success and reached number three that year, and more importantly, became a soundtrack that every girl and boy in the years that followed were able to hum.
Eden Band - "
Happy Birthday
" (Eurovision 1999, Israel)
A year after Dana International won the Eurovision Song Contest, Israel hosted the Eurovision Song Contest when the song chosen to represent us was the unforgettable hit "Happy Birthday" by the Eden band consisting of Israelis and Americans from the Hebrew community in Dimona.
The song was a great success in the competition that year with fifth place, when the first place was taken by the Swedish Charlotte Nielsen with the successful song "Take Me to Your Heaven".
Although he did not win first place, "Happy Birthday" won another honor when in the following decades it became the unofficial anthem of the masses of birthdays in Israel, for children and adults alike.
It turns out that the years really passed for him with fun, joy and happiness.
Financing songs - "The silence that remains" (Eurovision 2005, Ukraine)
Like the Broadcasting Authority in those days, the pre-Eurovision was an unstable institution that came and went.
That year, it actually happened.
Married on the waves of sympathy of "A Star Is Born", Maimon managed to beat veteran singers like Zehava Ben and Zvika Pick who competed that year, when she is armed with a winning hit - "The Silence That Remains" (written by Pini Aronbayev and Eyal Shachar, and composed by Aronbayev).
On the way to the Eurovision Song Contest held that year in Ukraine, Maimon had to deal with trouble at home when singer Ravit Harel filed a restraining order to perform the song on the grounds of infringing her copyright, but the order was soon lifted and Maimon flew to Kiev.
She scorched the stage in a captivating performance that shook the hall.
The hard work paid off and Maimon took fourth place, which came after a streak of years in which we reached particularly low places, so that Maimon's achievement was seen as a huge success.
But with all due respect to the official rating - for us this song could definitely have picked up first place.
The winner that year, by the way, was the Greek Helena Paparizo, with the song "My Number One".
Surely the name of the song confused the voters.
Boaz Meuda - "Like Here /
The Fire in Your Eyes
" (Eurovision 2008, Serbia)
The fifth season of "A Star Is Born" ended with the victory of Boaz Meuda, a young singer with the sound of bells.
Carried on the waves of glory of the win, he was also announced a few months later as Israel's representative for the Eurovision Song Contest (in what may have been a future inspiration for the future incarnation of the program - "The Next Eurovision Star").
As part of the pre-Eurovision mini, he performed five more songs, one of which was the sweeping "Like Here", which was created by Dana International (together with director Shai Kerem).
By the time he reached the Eurovision stage that year, in Serbia, the song had undergone quite a few incarnations, re-arrangements to the melody, passages and lines that had been inserted and left as in a Lego game and also renamed "The Fire in Your Eyes".
Although the result was a bit confusing to the Israeli ear, in the end it is still one of our favorite Eurovision songs in particular and for us it deserved more than ninth place.
Were we wrong?
Fixed!
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