Israel Song Festival

The Israel Song Festival grew out of a trip to Europe. In October 1959, Israel Daliyot, a radio editor and producer at Kol Yisrael, witnessed a celebration in Rome for singer Domenico Modugno, a winner of Italy's Sanremo Music Festival. The scene inspired him to propose a comparable Israeli competition. Kol Yisrael accepted the idea, while Jerusalem mayor Teddy Kollek approved and helped finance the event as part of the official Independence Day celebrations.[1]

Daliyot wanted a prestigious radio broadcast that would encourage original Hebrew songs, not merely a showcase for "pop tunes." Inspired by the Sanremo format, he proposed that each song be performed twice by different singers so audiences would judge the composition rather than the popularity of an individual performer. Under his original plan, the winning song would then be sung by both performers together.[1]

An institutional effort to cultivate a distinct Israeli musical culture also shaped the festival. A scholarly account says the Israel Broadcasting Authority sought compositions "in the Spirit of the Land" rather than imitations of foreign styles such as the Twist and Mambo, which officials regarded as a harmful influence on young people.[2] At the same time, the festival celebrated musical plurality: Israel's rapid absorption of immigrants from varied backgrounds had produced distinct musical currents, and the competition offered a national stage on which to share them.[3]

The inaugural festival took place on May 2, 1960, after Independence Day, at Tel Aviv's Culture Hall. A public call drew hundreds of entries, from which a committee selected nine songs. The committee included Health Minister Israel Barzilai, composer Paul Ben-Haim, poet Yehuda Amichai, and arranger Yitzhak "Ziko" Gradzyani. The event was broadcast live on radio, conducted by Gary Bertini with the Kol Israel Orchestra, hosted by Yitzhak Shimoni, and lasted three and a half hours.[1][4]

Each song was performed once by a man and once by a woman, keeping the emphasis on the composition. The audience in the hall selected the winners, and monetary prizes went to the songs' creators. First prize was awarded to "Erev Ba" ("Evening Comes"), with lyrics by Oded Avishar and music by Arie Levanon, performed in alternating versions by Shimon Bar and Aliza Kashi.[1]

In its established form, the festival generally presented twelve competing songs, followed by a break containing guest or noncompetitive performances while votes were counted. Voting took place in the auditorium and at stations around the country, after which the results and prizes were announced. The songwriters' identities were concealed until voting ended, and a large orchestra and formal presenters reinforced the event's official character.[4]

The Israel Broadcasting Authority did substantially more than transmit the program. It selected or commissioned material, influenced the choice of performers and arrangers, financed recordings, and effectively produced the festival. The event moved to Binyanei HaUma, Jerusalem's International Convention Center, in 1965. When the 1969 festival was broadcast live on television as well as radio, five regional broadcasting and voting stations were opened around the country.[1][4]

The radio-era format produced two recurring problems: leading composers often declined to compete, and counting votes took at least 45 minutes after every song had been performed twice. In 1967, Kol Yisrael program director Dr. Yishayahu Shapira and composer-arranger Gil Aldame addressed both problems by commissioning five prominent composers to write songs for performance outside the competition during the counting interval.[5] The same year, organizers abandoned the double-performance rule because repeating every entry made the broadcast excessively long and tiring.[1]

After the 1960 and 1961 editions, criticism of the songs' quality contributed to a two-year interruption. In 1963, the alternative program "Anu Nihye Rishonim" marked eighty years since the First Aliyah. The competition returned in 1964 and moved to Binyanei HaUma in 1965; during this renewed period it became widely known as the Israeli Festival of Song and Chanson.[1]

The mid-1960s made the festival a significant career platform. Arik Einstein placed first in 1965 with "Ayelet ha-Chen" and in 1966 with "Leil Stav," helping to make him a household name. He was then a member of the Yarkon Bridge Trio, described as the most successful act on the Israeli pop scene during that period.[6] A style that dominated many early festivals was a new form of country-and-shepherd song, featuring exclamations such as "Ho, Ho," simple melodies in minor scales or modes, and accompaniment by guitar, accordion, and drum. It was associated with folk-dance audiences and immigrants living in camps and development towns.[7]

The 1967 festival was the last of the exclusively radio-broadcast era. No festival was held in 1968; instead, "Pizmon Hozer—20 Years' Hit Parade" marked the state's twentieth anniversary.[1]

The 1969 festival opened the television era. Yehoram Gaon won with "Balada La-Hovesh" and also took second place, after which organizers limited each performer to one competition song. The event also began relying more heavily on commissioned works from leading creators rather than solely on open submissions.[1][4]

The 1970 competition again accepted public submissions, and Shlomo Artzi won with "Pit'om Achshav, Pit'om Hayom," receiving 1,509 votes. Across the five festivals held from 1969 through 1973, sixty songs competed: twenty-four were obtained through direct approaches to professional composers and thirty-six through open competition. A scholarly classification found thirty-two songs on universal subjects and twenty-eight with specifically Israeli or Jewish themes.[4]

The 1973 festival was presented under the heading "25 Years to the State of Israel." Its songs included "Shir Baboker Baboker," performed by Shlomo Artzi and later widely known by its opening words, "Pit'om kam adam"; it placed second. "Lil Haniya" ("Night Parking") was performed by Hanan Yovel, Yardena Arazi, and Efraim Shamir. The winning song was Edna Lev's "At Va'Ani Noladnu Ba-Tashah."[8]

The 1974 festival, held on Yom Ha'atzmaut less than a year after the Yom Kippur War, produced one of the event's most memorable scenes. Shlomo Artzi won with "The Ballad of Baruch Jamili," about a Harel Brigade fighter who had served in the Palmach during the War of Independence. After the result was announced, Jamili appeared onstage and was greeted by shouts, whistles, and prolonged applause. The song helped bring his story into Israel's collective memory.[9] Matti Caspi also wrote two entries for the festival. One, a humorous song about Noah and the Flood, used lively Latin rhythms, illustrating how the festival's aspiration to cultivate a native style free of international influences was never fully realized.[2]

After 1974, the festival's continuity fractured. A National Library thesis reports that Israel Broadcasting Authority director-general Yitzhak Livni discontinued the tradition after calling it a "cultural nuisance."[4] No official festival was held in 1975, although an independently produced alternative took place. The noncompetitive "Hagigat Hazemer" followed in 1976, and the festival returned in 1977 on Shushan Purim rather than Independence Day.[1]

The festival's defining moment occurred on May 15, 1967, the night after Israel's nineteenth Independence Day, when Shuli Natan performed "Yerushalayim Shel Zahav" ("Jerusalem of Gold") at Binyanei HaUma.[10][11]

The song emerged from the decision to commission five prominent composers to fill the vote-counting interval. Gil Aldame asked the composers to consider writing about Jerusalem, an idea connected to the influence of Mayor Teddy Kollek. Naomi Shemer initially struggled and asked to be released from the assignment. Aldame replied: "Don't write about Jerusalem, write about anything you want, but don't leave us without a song for the Festival." Shemer wrote "Jerusalem of Gold" that night.[5]

Shemer drew on the Talmudic legend of Rabbi Akiva promising his wife Rachel a "city of gold." She selected the then-unknown Shuli Natan, a twenty-year-old soldier-teacher, to perform the song accompanied by a guitar.[12]

The song was written while Jews could not enter Jerusalem's Old City or worship at its holy places. Its original stanzas expressed longing for the divided city rather than military triumph.[10] Natan's first performance received what the Bar-Yaacov thesis calls "praise and tempestuous applause."[5] At the end of the evening, Kollek invited her to perform the song again, and the audience joined the refrain despite having heard it only once before.[1]

The Six-Day War began exactly three weeks later, on June 5, 1967.[11] After Israeli paratroopers reached the Temple Mount and Western Wall during Jerusalem's reunification, they sang "Jerusalem of Gold."[13] Shemer added a fourth verse marking the Jewish return to the Old City and the road to Jericho. The National Library of Israel preserves her handwritten draft of the added stanza in a page from her pocket diary.[14] The song was broadcast widely, translated into numerous languages, and came to function as an unofficial anthem. Some people proposed that it replace "Hatikva" as Israel's national anthem.[5][12]

The festival developed a connection with Eurovision in 1977, when Israel's selected entry was introduced during the program, but the decisive format change came in 1978: the festival winner would represent Israel at the Eurovision Song Contest. Israel had first entered Eurovision in 1973. The new role encouraged composers to tailor submissions toward musical styles considered likely to appeal to a European audience.[4][15]

In 1978, Yizhar Cohen and Alpha-Beta performed "A-Ba-Ni-Bi," written by Ehud Manor and composed by Nurit Hirsh. The song, originally intended for a children's song festival, tied Hedva Amrani's "B'Lev Echad" on total points but prevailed under the festival's tie-breaking rule because it received more top scores at the voting stations. Cohen then gave Israel its first Eurovision victory.[1][16]

In 1979, Gali Atari and Milk and Honey won the festival with "Hallelujah," with lyrics by Shimrit Or and music by Kobi Oshrat. The song also won Eurovision, which was held in Jerusalem for the first time. The two songs therefore produced Israel's first and second Eurovision victories in consecutive years.[15]

The final festival of the original run took place in 1980. Israel had not participated in that year's Eurovision, and the event returned to a format independent of the European competition. It was subsequently discontinued, while a separate preselection program, Kdam Eurovision, assumed the task of choosing most later Israeli entries.[1][4]

For roughly two decades, the Israel Song Festival occupied a central place in Israeli popular music. Its broadcasts—first on radio and then on television—became part of the national calendar, while songs introduced through the program were sung in homes and schools. This helped create a shared cultural repertoire among new immigrants and veteran Israelis.[4][17]

The festival also documented changes in Israeli popular music. Early editions prominently featured country-and-shepherd songs with folk modes and acoustic accompaniment. By the late 1960s and 1970s, youth culture, rock influences, pop, and increasingly entertainment-oriented styles entered an official Independence Day setting produced by the state broadcaster.[4][7]

Several leading performers achieved important career milestones through the festival. Arik Einstein's successive first-place finishes helped establish him as a household name.[6] Shlomo Artzi won in 1970 and 1974, while Yehoram Gaon's 1969 victory reinforced his place among the country's most prominent singers.[4][9]

The festival's cultural ambitions also contained tensions. Its effort to promote a distinctly Israeli style did not prevent international influences from entering the competition; Matti Caspi's Latin-inflected 1974 song about Noah was one clear example.[2] Questions of representation accompanied that musical history. N12 reports that Mizrahi singers were largely excluded from the principal festival's venue and performer roster, while graduates of military ensembles featured prominently. A separate Mizrahi Song Festival, launched in 1971, gave exposure to performers including Avihu Medina, Ofra Haza, Shimi Tavori, and Zohar Argov, although it was initially placed within Arabic-language broadcasting rather than prime-time cultural programming.[18]

The conclusion of the original run did not end attempts to revive the festival. A new edition appeared during the 1987 Hebrew Song celebrations in Arad, followed by further Independence Day versions in 2000 and 2001.[1]

Another revival was staged in 2013 at the Culture Hall in Kiryat Motzkin, thirty-three years after the 1980 edition. Viewers' text-message votes were combined with scores from professional judges. Peer Tasi won with "Tachzri" ("Come Back") and received a prize of 100,000 shekels.[17] Although these revivals did not restore the festival's former place as a single national cultural gathering, they demonstrated the endurance of its name and musical legacy.

Accounts frame the festival's founding differently. One Ynet retrospective calls it a government initiative conceived by Teddy Kollek, whereas Maariv credits Israel Daliyot with proposing the format after his 1959 European trip and describes Kollek's role as approving and financing it. The accounts can be reconciled by distinguishing Daliyot's creative proposal from Kollek's institutional and financial support.[1][17]

Sources also use different starting points for the festival's Eurovision connection. The National Library thesis identifies 1977 as the year a link first appeared, because Israel's Eurovision entry was introduced during the festival. The formal rule making the festival winner Israel's Eurovision representative began in 1978, as described by the Batterman thesis and contemporary retrospectives.[4][15]

The status of "Jerusalem of Gold" is clearer than one thesis's wording suggests. The Batterman thesis describes it as one of five songs "submitted to the contest," but also states that another song won the 1967 competition.[15] The Bar-Yaacov thesis and festival retrospectives consistently describe the five songs as commissioned works performed outside the competition while votes were counted.[1][5] The outside-competition account is therefore the more fully supported chronology.