Artist selection
On 14 November 2007, IBA announced that the winner of season five of the reality singing competition Kochav Nolad, Boaz Ma’uda, was selected as the Israeli representative for the Eurovision Song Contest 2008. IBA previously revealed in July 2007 that one of the participants of season five’s Kochav Nolad produced by Tedy Productions and Keshet Media Group would represent Israel at the contest.It was also announced that a national final titled Kdam Eurovision 2008 featuring five songs would take place to select his song.
Kdam Eurovision 2008
IBA opened the public song submission following the announcement of Ma’uda as the selected artist with the deadline on 6 January 2008. IBA also directly invited composers to submit songs for the competition. 450 submissions were received at the close of the deadline, of which 350 were submitted by the public. Five songs were chosen for the competition by a professional committee with members from IBA and Keshet and announced on 23 January 2008. Among the competing composers was the winner of the Eurovision Song Contest 1998, Dana International. The members of the committee were Yoav Ginai (entertainment director of IBA), Haim Hador (radio presenter), Yaakov Naveh (IBA artists representative), Tamira Yardeni (Kochav Nolad producer), Yoav Tzafir (director of Kochav Nolad), Uri Selai (editor at Tedy Productions) and Tzedi Tzarfati (judging panel member of Kochav Nolad). Prior to the final, the songs were presented on 21 February 2008 during a special presentation programme broadcast online via IBA’s official Eurovision Song Contest website Eurovil, hosted by Jason Danino-Holt.
The final took place over two days at the Ulpaneii TV Studios in Herzeliya, hosted by Tzvika Hadar and broadcast on Channel 2 as well as online via Eurovil and keshet-tv.com. During the first show on 25 February 2008, all five competing songs were performed by Boaz Ma’uda with two performed in a duet with other Israeli singers, and the public was able to vote for their favourite song through SMS until the second show 26 February 2008, during which the winning song, „Ke’ilu Kan“, was selected by a combination of the votes from six voting groups: two regional juries (14%), two thematical jury groups (14%), an expert jury of IBA and Keshet representatives (36%) and the public vote (36%). In addition to the performances of the competing songs during the first show, 1973 Israeli Eurovision entrant Ilanit performed her song „Ey Sham“ as the opening act, while the participants of season five’s Kochav Nolad together with the winner of the Eurovision Song Contest 1978 Izhar Cohen performed as the interval act. A judging panel composed of Brotherhood of Man, Ralf Siegel, Carola Häggkvist, Moshe Datz (1991 Israeli Eurovision entrant), Nurit Hirsh, Kobi Oshrat, Michal Amdursky and Assaf Amdursky was also featured which provided feedback to the songs and selected „Ke’ilu Kan“ as their favourite song.
| Draw | Artist | Song | Songwriter(s) | Jury | Televote | Total | Place |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Boaz Ma’uda | „Masa Hayai“ (מסע חיי) | Itay Pearl | 52 | 30 | 82 | 5 |
| 2 | Boaz Ma’uda and Maya Avraham | „Hi’ne Ha’or“ (הנה האור) | Ovadia Hamama | 64 | 20 | 84 | 4 |
| 3 | Boaz Ma’uda | „Bli Ahava“ (בלי אהבה) | Henree | 80 | 40 | 120 | 2 |
| 4 | Boaz Ma’uda and Oshrat Papir | „Parparim“ (פרפרים) | Doron Gal | 60 | 50 | 110 | 3 |
| 5 | Boaz Ma’uda | „Ke’ilu Kan“ (כאילו כאן) | Dana International, Shay Kerem | 104 | 60 | 164 | 1 |
Boaz Mauda came 9th at the ESC. Amongst his backing singers at the ESC were Adam Yosef & Eran Mazor Hecht who were both members of the group ‚Gameboys‘ who came 3rd in the 2006 Israeli Final.