37 countries participated in the 2024 Eurovision Song Contest in Malmö, Sweden, with Switzerland winning the competition with the song The Code by Nemo. The contest has been taking place since 1956, with Israel first participating in 1973. Israel has won the contest four times–in 1978 with Izhar Cohen and the Alphabeta performing the song A-Ba-Ni-Bi, in 1979 for the song Hallelujah by Milk and Honey, in 1998 with Dana International singing Diva, and in 2018 when Netta won with the song Toy. This year’s Israel entrant was the song Hurricane, performed by Eden Golan, which came in fifth. Controversy surrounded her song and performance as there were protests over the war in Gaza. The song Hurricane was originally titled October Rain, with some allusions to the Hamas terror attack of October 7. Songs in the Eurovision contest are not allowed to be political, and ultimately the lyrics were revised and the song was renamed Hurricane. There were additional protests among some other Eurovision participants and others over Israel’s presence in the contest, but contest organizers rejected requests to disqualify Israel.

There has been a parallel song contest in Europe for more than 20 years where young Jewish students compete, singing pop songs adapted to Jewish content, or in some cases original Jewish songs. The competition was first created by Rotem Abecassis, an Israeli shaliach in Sweden, to bring together chapters of World Bnei Akiva (a religious Zionist youth movement). This year’s contest took place in Hanover, Germany in March, and was won by Halev Stuttgart Youth Center. What is the name of this annual Jewish song competition?

The International Eurovision contest for 1979 was held in Jerusalem (FL45813625) (contest winners Milk and Honey) by Danny Gotfried is licensed under CC BY 4.0 DEED via Wikimedia Commons

A. Shir Ha-Shirim.

B. Euro-Jewish Idol.

C. Let My People Sing.

D. Shir Shalom.

E. Jewrovision.

Click here for the answer.

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