Gali Atari, who won the 1979 Eurovision Song Contest for Israel together with the group Milk & Honey, will make her debut as a television presenter tomorrow, hosting a special tribute to Israel's Song Festivals.
Israel's Song Festival was established in 1960 by the Israeli government, and lasted until the beginning of the 1980's. In 1978 and 1979 the Song Festival also functioned as the national Eurovision selection. Gali Atari herself participated at the 1978 festival but lost to Izhar Cohen (who eventually won that year's Eurovision Song Contest with A ba ni bi). A year later she joined forces with Milk & Honey and won the song festival with Hallelujah. The song also went on to win the Eurovision Song Contest in Jerusalem.
After unsuccessful attempts in the 1980's and 1990's to revive it, Israel's Channel 2 decided to take the challenge and bring Israel's Song Festival back this year. Nevertheless, it wouldn't have any relevance to this year's Eurovision Song Contest. As a tribute to the return of the song festival on December 29th, Gali Atari will present tomorrow magical moments from song festivals of the past and will host singers who took part in them, such as Ilanit, who won the song festival in 1971 and went on to be Israel's first Eurovision entrant, in 1973.
Meanwhile, Israeli Eurovision fans are still waiting for news from the IBA concerning the 2005 Kdam-Eurovision which is scheduled for the last week of February, 2005.
