On this day in 1979, the 24th edition of the annual Eurovision Song Contest 1979 took place in Jerusalem, Israel, following the country’s victory at the 1978 contest with the song “A-Ba-Ni-Bi” by Izhar Cohen and the Alphabeta. Organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and host broadcaster Israeli Broadcasting Authority(IBA), the contest was held at the International Convention Centre and was hosted by Israeli television presenter Daniel Pe’er and singer Yardena Arazi. This was the first time that the Eurovision Song Contest was held outside Europe.
Nineteen countries participated in the contest with Turkey deciding not to participate after Arab countries had pressured it into not participating in a contest held in Israel. Yugoslavia, who had missed the 1977 and 1978 contest, also did not want to take part nor transmit the show this year for political reasons, despite a poll held earlier in which almost 100,000 people declared that they wanted Yugoslavia to return to the contest.
For the second year in a row Israel won with the song “Hallelujah”, performed by the Israeli group Milk and Honey featuring Gali Atari.
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