Michael Ben David will represent Israel at the 2022 Eurovision Song Contest in Turin in May. Ben David was chosen in a broadcast of The X Factor for Eurovision on Reshet 13 on Saturday night.
Ben David sang his song, “I.M.,” a catchy, danceable self-acceptance anthem.
He was chosen out of the four finalists. On Thursday night, the contestants’ potential Eurovision songs were winnowed down from eight to four and on Saturday night, the contestants competed against each other. The selections were made by tallying votes from a panel of Israeli entertainers – Margalit Tzan’ani, Miri Mesika, Aviv Geffen and Ran Danker, as well as the 2018 Eurovision winner, Netta Barzilai – along with a board of music professionals and votes from viewers.
The two finalists, Ben David and Eli Huli, performed the songs they planned to sing in Eurovision. In an earlier round, Ben David and Inbal Bibi competed against each other, as did Huli and Sapir Saban. In this earlier round, they all sang different songs from their official Eurovision numbers. Ben David sang Omer Adam’s “Two Crazy People,” while Huli chose “I’ll Be There For You,” the theme song from the Friends series, which he chose to sing in a slow, mournful arrangement.
In a contest between the two runners up, Saban and Bibi, Bibi was chosen as an alternate and came in third in the final voting.
There were no clear favorites and the judges’ verdicts were quite contentious. All agreed that the finalists, most of whom already have successful recording careers, were talented and it was difficult to choose among them.
Israel has won Eurovision four times, most recently in 2018.