Who is Noa Kirel? Meet the Eurovision 2023 representative from Israel

Israel kicked off Eurovision 2023 in July, surprising everyone by announcing their representative internally: Noa Kirel, who was herself surprised as she hadn’t even given her final approval to represent the country in Liverpool.

Eventually, everything worked out and the Israeli superstar accepted the challenge of representing Israel in the current edition of the Song Contest. Israel broke with the preselection process of the last two years where their representative came from the music program X factor, and it was the first time since 2014 that they chose internally.

The decision was made through a committee formed for the occasion, with experience in the fields of culture, music, television, and Eurovision itself. The members who make it up are: Ofri Gopher (president), Kobi Nussbaum (Chief Producer of the Corporation, produced the Eurovision Song Contest 2019), Sharon Drix (director of Culture here), Tali Katz (Content Editor and director of the Eurovision Song Contest in 2019), and Tal Argaman, music editor. They also sought the opinions of musical personalities such as Yossi Gispen, Eden Darso, Avia Farhi, Leon Feldman, and Yuval Cohen (chief director of the Eurovision Song Contest 2019).

They started with a pre-list of 78 singers, both women and men, who had demonstrated experience in music and on stage to face a large audience. They also examined the list of the most listened to artists in Israel since 2019. Once the names were discussed, each member of the selection committee selected two names from the list, giving a final list of 20 candidates. The finalists included: Ilanit, Rita, and the winner of Eurovision 1998: Dana International, who would have been her third time in competition, after her failure in 2011, where she didn’t make it past the semifinals.

According to Kan, there seemed to be early consensus, and everyone involved in the process agreed on choosing Noa Kirel as their representative.

Get to know Noa Kirel (Eurovision 2023 Israel)

She was born on April 10, 2001 in the city of Ra’nana, north of Tel Aviv, and has always had a passionate life. In fact, her birth name was Noya, but with a significant kidney disease, a rabbi recommended changing her name to Noa “movement,” and moreover, this rabbi predicted that she would be a great dancer, and he was right.

The 21-year-old is a musical powerhouse, seven years ago she released her first track “Talking” when she was just 14 years old. It became a great success in Israel and opened the door to the music industry in her country. She has followed up with great hits such as “Killer”, “I Have Love”, “Pouch”, “Million Dollar”, “Diamonds” and “Bell”. In 2016, at just 15 years old, she was already a superstar in Israel, winning the Singer of the Year award, which is awarded by the children’s channel Arutz HaYeladim.

She continued to consolidate her emerging star status with high-level collaborations such as “Lirkod” with the beatboxer Sagi Breitner, Avior Malasa with “Makom Leshinui” and the rock group Red Band accompanied her on “Wow” a song for a super successful advertising campaign.

At just 16, she won the prestigious recognition of being the Best Israeli Artist at the MTV Awards, something she has also achieved again in 2018, 2020 and 2021.

These successes led her to be the youngest artist to be a judge on the international talent contest Got Talent at just 18 years old. Or to star in her own series: Kfula, in which she played herself and blogger Kitty Popper.

In 2020, she took the definitive step to stardom by signing with Atlantic Records, one of the most important record labels in the world, which includes artists such as Ed Sheeran, Bruno Mars, Sia, David Guetta or Coldplay. And all at just 19 years old! That same year, she opened the 70th edition of the Miss Universe beauty pageant, with a super show befitting musical superstars.

But her success didn’t stop there, in February, the prestigious People magazine considered her the second most promising artist in the world. Despite her youth, she is very clear that her success is not casual and she knows the woman she wants to be: “to be an independent woman, defend what you have and work hard to make your dreams come true” In addition, her references are great musical divas such as Beyoncé, Jennifer Lopez and the Spanish singer, Rosalía, “they dance, sing, write and do everything” Besides being a big fan of Justin Bieber.

Her latest track, released two months ago, is called “Gone” and has already amassed over 18 million plays. This is just one example of her impressive numbers on social media, where she has 1.3 million followers on Instagram and almost 1.5 million monthly listeners on the music platform Spotify.

«Unicorn» – Noa Kirel’s song for Liverpool

Noa Kirel’s entry to win the crystal microphone is called “Unicorn” and has been written by Doron Medalie, Mai Sepadia, Yanon Yahal and Noa Kirel herself. The writing process for the song began after the singer contacted several authors that she chose herself, in the framework of artistic freedom granted by the broadcaster. Kirel participated in the writing of several songs and finally chose “Unicorn” as the song with which she will represent Israel in Eurovision 2023.

KAN, the Israeli public television is willing to host the Festival again and is fully convinced that they can win again. Specifically, Daron Medalie, one of the songwriters said this about the entry “Noa is not here to waste time, we are here to win. This is a rhythmic and very exciting song. We made a surprise like we haven’t seen in the history of Eurovision.”

The name of Daron Medalie will not be unknown to us, as he was a judge in the pre-selection gala where Miki won with “La Venda”, and also wrote Israel’s entries “Golden Boy” (2015), “Made Of Stars” (2016), “Feker Libi” (2020) and “Toy”, which won the country the victory in 2018. 

Lyrics of «Unicorn»

Original lyrics

Israel in Eurovision

Israel made its debut in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1973 and has participated in 40 occasions since then. Despite not being geographically located within the European continent, Israel is an active member of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and thus participates in Eurovision.

Israel has a great track record, having won the contest four times. Its first victory was in 1978 with Izhar Cohen and Alphabeta’s iconic “A-ba-ni-bi”. The country won again the following year, in Jerusalem, with Gali Atari & Milk and Honey’s “Hallelujah”, leading the scoreboard for most of the contest but only securing the victory in the last vote, with Spain’s jury awarding them 10 points. Israel’s third victory was in 1998 with Dana International’s timeless “Diva”, which caused controversy both inside and outside the country, with many orthodox Jews feeling offended. However, this victory also highlighted the freedom and visibility of rights for homosexuals, lesbians, and trans people. Israel’s latest victory to date was in 2018 with Netta’s “Toy”.

Israel has entered the top 10 on 20 occasions out of 40, meaning that half of its participations have been among the ten best of each year. However, in 2011, the country entered a difficult stage, failing to qualify for the final for four consecutive years. Since 2015, however, Israel has always made it to the final, including its victory in 2018.

Last year, Israel was represented by the controversial Michael Ben David and the song “I.M”, but the country failed to qualify for the final, finishing 13th in the semi-final and with the shadow of possible disqualification for interrupting the work of the presenters during the semi-final.