THIS YEAR'S ENTRY

Israel became the first non-European country to enter the Eurovision Song Contest, back in 1973 and Israeli entries have since gone on to win the competition on three occasions, including back to back victories in 1978 and 1979.  

On November 14th 2007, Israeli national broadcasters IBA and Channel 2 announced that Boaz Mauda, the fifth winner of the Israeli television casting show "A Star Is Born", was going to represent his country at the Eurovision Song Contest 2008 in Belgrade, Serbia and that a combination of text voting and juries would choose the entry. Boaz is the second Israeli Eurovision performer to come to public attention through this television casting show, following Shiri Maymon in 2004. Shiri was the runner-up on the first series of the show in 2003.

Out of 450 entries, the IBA and Channel 2 hand-picked five potential entries for Boaz. On February 25th those songs, which included two duets were performed live on a special television show. The winning entry was chosen by SMS voting, an expert jury, two regional juries, a Eurovision fan club jury and a "Pop Idol" judges jury. The song chosen was "Ke'ilo Kan" (As If Here), but for Eurovision the English title of the bilingual song will be used; "The Fire In Your Eyes"

Boaz Mauda was born on April 23rd 1987,in Moshav Elyakim, where he still lives. He's the youngest son of his mother, who became disabled from complications of his birth. Boaz's mother is the young singer’s private symbol of persistance and willpower and his family will accompany him to Belgrade, as a fountain of strength and inspiration. A family guy, Boaz lives with his parents and two siblings in an agriculture cooperative in the middle of Israel. 

Without any history in the music industry, and unknown to Boaz, he was signed up by a friend for the auditions of the fifth season of Israel's most popular talent show. During the show, Boaz sang many Mizrahi and acoustic songs. His voice was loved by the audience and judges and Boaz went on to win the hearts of the Israeli public, taking the first prize in the Israeli version of "Pop Idol – A Star is Born" in August 2007. 

Boaz has sung since the early age of five. Going to the synagogue accompanied by his father, the young boy amazed the family when he sang the Jewish prayers. Since then, Boaz's goal was to become a professional singer - and moreover, his secret fantasy was to represent Israel in the Eurovision Song Contest, and to sing for all of Europe. When he performed in the TV talent show "A Star is Born", Boaz amazed the judges with his wide vocal range. 

Soon after, the whole country fell in love with the voice of the Yemenite nightingale, often refered to as the 'Israeli Joselito', and Boaz became a leading nominee and a favorite for the crowd at home. During the show, Boaz performed with worldwide famous Israeli singer and guitar player David Broza, giving a private interpretation to the hit song "Seniorita". His solo performance at the show's finale received more than 50% of the votes of the audience at home, more than his two rivals combined.

The songwriter behind this year's Israeli Eurovision entry is one of the contest's best known winners. Dana Intenational won the contest in Birmingham in 1998 with "Diva". Dana International received a huge amount of press coverage at the time as she was the first trans-sexual to win the competition. Since winning the contest, Dana International has remained a recording star in Israel and regularly makes public appearances in Europe and beyond, but took a four year break for the recording industury in 2003, before returning in 2007. Now a successful songwriter as well as a performer, Dana International makes a return to the contest and hopes to emulate the success of Ireland's Johnny Logan, who won the contest first as a singer and later as a songwriter. The co-lyricist on this year's Israeli entry is Shai Kerem, who is a newcomer to the Eurovision Song Contest, although he has worked with Dana International in the past.

The Israel entry is considered to be one of the favoured songs to qualify from the first semi-final, but is not considered among the favourites to win the contest and it has done reasonably well in fan polls. However the re-appearance of Dana International in the contest has been somewhat overshadowed by Charlotte Nilsson-Perelli who won the contest the year after Dana International.

SAMPLE LYRICS