Eurovision Song Contest 1979

Eurovision Song Contest 1979
Dates
Final	31 March 1979
Host
Venue	International Convention Center Jerusalem, Israel
Presenter(s)	Daniel Pe'er Yardena Arazi
Musical director	Izhak Graziani
Directed by	Yossi Zemach
Executive supervisor	Frank Naef
Executive producer	Alex Gilady
Host broadcaster	Israel Broadcasting Authority (IBA)
Website	eurovision.tv/event/jerusalem-1979
Participants
Number of entries	19
Debuting countries	None
Returning countries	None
Non-returning countries	Turkey
Participation map      Competing countries     Countries that participated in the past but not in 1979
Vote
Voting system	Each country awarded 12, 10, 8–1 point(s) to their 10 favourite songs
Winning song	Israel "Hallelujah"
1978 ← Eurovision Song Contest → 1980

The Eurovision Song Contest 1979 was the 24th edition of the annual Eurovision Song Contest. It 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 the Israel Broadcasting Authority (IBA), the contest was held at the International Convention Centre on 31 March 1979, 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.^[1] Yugoslavia, which had missed the 1977 and 1978 contests, also did not take part in or broadcast the contest this year for political reasons,^[2] despite an earlier public poll in which almost 100,000 people supported a Yugoslav return to the contest.^[3]

For the second year in a row, Israel won with the song "Hallelujah", performed by the Israeli group Milk and Honey featuring Gali Atari.