The Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation (IPBC) — KAN — announced on Monday that its professional committee for the Israeli representative for Eurovision 2023 has chosen pop singer and actress Noa Kirel to represent Israel in the competition.
"We received the news with complete surprise. We are happy and thankful for the choice of Noa and are proud to represent the State of Israel with dignity," Kirel's representatives said.
"We received the news with complete surprise. We are happy and thankful for the choice of Noa and are proud to represent the State of Israel with dignity."
Noa Kirl's representatives
According to a statement from the IPBC, the committee members narrowed down to Kirel from a list of 78 names of male and female singers "with rich and proven experience in standing in front of a large audience."
The list was composed of the names of the most common artists in Israel, as per Israel's KAN Reshet Gimel and Army Radio radio stations' nominees for Singer of the Year and Ensemble of the Year in 2019, 2020 and 2021.
In the second stage, each member of the committee suggested two names from the list — up to 20 names in total.
At the end of the discussion, KAN offered the artist who was ranked first on the list to represent Israel in the competition, under conditions to be determined by the corporation.
How is Israel's Eurovision representative chosen?
Last month, the Broadcasting Corporation announced that Israel's representative in the 2023 Eurovision contest will be selected through a professional committee — for the first time since 2014.
From 2015 to 2020, Israeli representatives were selected to compete in the reality show "The Next Eurovision Star."
This year, Michael Ben-David was chosen to represent Israel in Turin, after winning the "X Factor for Eurovision" program that aired on Network 13. Ben-David did not qualify for the finals of the Eurovision competition.