Israeli Singer Amir Will Be Representing France at Eurovision

Image by Amir Haddad

By Lior Zaltzman March 1, 2016

Amir Haddad, simply known as Amir, a French-Israeli dentist turned pop-singer will be representing France in the 2016 Eurovision contest.

He will be singing his single “J’ai Cherché,” which means “I Have Been Looking For.” The song has an English language chorus and a catchy pop melody. We already have it stuck in our heads.

Amir was born in France and made aliyah with his family at the age of 8. He competed in the fourth season of Israeli song contest “A Star is Born”, while he was still an IDF soldier. He did not win the competition but he did make some headlines for passing out during one of the performances, while he was singing a duet of a French song, Michel Fugain’s “Belle Histoire” (beautiful story).

After the army, Haddad attended and graduated from dentistry school in Jerusalem. In the meantime, he kept on singing, even performing with famous Jewish French singer Patrick Bruel when he preformed in Israel in 2008.

In 2014, Amir auditioned for the French version of “The Voice” where he turned all four of the judge’s chairs (including famous British Lebanese singer Mika), he chose to join the team of pop singer Jennifer, whose father is an Algerian Jew. Amir made it all the way to third place.

As for Israel, it will announce its representation on March 3. Last year’s contestant, Golden Boy Nadav Guedj was elected by TV audiences from the finalists of reality TV contest “Rising Star.” Guedj made it to the top 10, quite a significant achievement. Following his success the Israeli contestant will be chosen March 3 from the 4 finalists of this year’s season of the show.

Lior Zaltzman was the Forward’s Digital Fellow. Follow her on twitter @liorca.

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