Israel’s Netta Barzilai Advances To Eurovision 2018 Finals
JERUSALAM (JTA) — Netta Barzilai and her high-energy song “Toy” took Israel to the finals of the 2018 edition of the Eurovision song contest.
Ten of the 19 performers advanced to the finals on Tuesday night. Another 10 performers will be chosen on Thursday. The Eurovision finals will be held in Lisbon on Saturday night.
The other nine countries that passed through were Albania, Austria, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Lithuania, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland and Ireland. This is the fourth year in a row that Israel has qualified for the finals.
Barzilai performed without using her trademark Looper, which allows her to layer multiple vocal sounds on top of each other in real time, though it was onstage with her as a prop.
Israel’s song, which is performed in English, has consistently been ranked on betting sites in first place or at least in the top three, but earlier on Tuesday slipped to fourth place.
Three Israeli songs that have won the contest — “A-Ba-Ni-Bi” in 1978, “Hallelujah” in 1979 and Dana International’s “Diva” in 1998 — were written in Hebrew.
The winning country hosts the next year’s contest.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30