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Eden - Happy Birthday
Jerusalem, Israel
Eurovision position: 5th with 93 points

Eden at Eurovision 1999

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The committee
The succesful methood which was used to choose the Israeli entry in 1998, and brought Israel it's third victory, was used again this year instead of the traditional "Kdam". On the 17th on January 1999, the Israeli Eurovision committee had gathered inside of the "Dan Cesar" hotel in order to choose the Israeli entry for the 1999 Eurovision Song Contest.
The selection was divided into three steps; the first one was to select 57 songs outside of more than 900 nominated. This step was done few days earlier. The second step was to choose the four finalists out of the 57 selected songs.
The 14 members of the committe have then voted to choose the winner out of the four finalists. The results were:

Internal Selection 1 9 9 9
Pos.	Title	Artist	Pnt.	Dl
1	Yom Huledet (Happy Birthday)	Eden	64
2	Ze Karov (It Is Close)	Sharon Lavie & Shachar Ankry	40
3	Tfila La'elef Haba (A Prayer To The Next Millenium)	Efrat Rotem	30
4	Welcome Ya Salam (Welcome You Peace)	Sarit Hadad	24

"Eden" and their "Happy Birthday" had recieved 64 points out of 70 possible....
The desicion had turned out to be quite succesful, and Eden had reached the 5th and respected position in the contest that was held in Israel's capital, Jerusalem.

The Eden group
The group "Eden" was established two years before the contest, and consists of four members: Refael Dahan, Doron Oren, Gabriel Butler and Eddie Butler. "Yom Huledeth" (Birthday) and "Motek At Osa Li Tov" (Honey, You're making me feel good) were two songs the group has sent to the committee, and both were included in the group's debut album, which was released at the beginning of May 1999.

The song was co-written by group-member Gabriel Butler, the group's musical producer, Ya'aqov Lamay, Jackie Oved and singer Moshe Datz, which is also co-manager of the band, together with old-time producer Shlomo Tzach.
Moshe Datz is not new to the Eurovision Song Contest. He has participated in the 1991 ESC with the song "Kaan" (3rd place) together with his wife Orna. He was also the composer of the 1995 entry "Amen" (8th place).

"I still don't get it", said Doron Oren (blue shirt on picture), member of the Eden group. "It feels great. This is what you might refer to in sports as 'scoring a double'." Shlomo Tzach said yesterday: "I'm happy and proud of the group's achievement. Originally 'Yom Huledeth' was written and recorded in English, we made a couple of changes to it, wrote it some Hebrew lyrics, and to our joy it was selected".

Doron Oren is the most known member of the band, for us Eurovision fans mostly for his 1996 Kdam entry "Me'abed Tzora" (Losing my shape). It has reached the second last position back then.