Dafna Dekel

This biography of a living person needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately from the article and its talk page, especially if potentially libelous. Find sources: "Dafna Dekel" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (February 2019) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Hebrew. (February 2024) Click [show] for important translation instructions. Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing Hebrew Wikipedia article at [[:he:דפנה דקל]]; see its history for attribution. You may also add the template {{Translated|he|דפנה דקל}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

Dafna Dekel
Dekel in 2015
Background information
Born	(1966-05-07) 7 May 1966 (age 58) Ashdod, Israel
Genres	Pop, Rock
Occupation	Singer
Instrument	Vocals

Dafna Dekel (Hebrew: דפנה דקל; born 7 May 1966, in Ashdod, Israel) is an Israeli singer.

Dafna Dekel was born in Ashdod, Israel. She was discovered while serving in the Nahal entertainment troupe of the Israel Defense Forces in 1985-1986. After her release from the army, Dekel was cast in the Israeli musical Salah Shabati produced in honor of Israel's 40th anniversary. In 1989, she released her first self-titled album. Although the album had 4 songs written and/or composed by Dekel, her biggest hits were songs written for her by others. In 1989, she sang in the children's holiday show "Festigal" with the song "Mah koreh li?" (What's happening to me?) and performed a Yemenite medley with the Yosefi Sisters and Margalit Tzan'ani.

In 1992, Dekel won the "Kdam" (the Israeli pre-selection to the Eurovision Song Contest with "Zeh raq sport" (It's just sports). Dekel represented Israel in Sweden, winning 85 points and reaching 6th place. For the next three years, she was a regular on "Pilei Klaim" (Stage Wonders), a popular children's show. She released her second self-titled album in 1994.

She took part in the 1995 Festigal, coming in third, and the 1999 Festigal. Dekel also hosted the Eurovision Song Contest 1999 held in Jerusalem, along with Yigal Ravid and Sigal Shachmon.^[1][2] She appeared in several children's videos and then hosted "Dafna and Doo-Di-Doo," a television show for children.

In 2001, Dekel starred in the musical "Shilgiya" (Snow White) and composed the songs. Towards the end of the run, she continued to perform despite the death of her mother. She appeared in "Agadat Deshe" (A Grass Tale), a drama series that ran for two seasons.^{[citation needed]}

In March 2008, Dafna Dekel released the single "Yoman yakar" (Dear Diary), the first song from her third album "Yoman" (diary). She wrote and composed most of the lyrics in collaboration with her brothers, who are also musicians.

• List of Eurovision Song Contest presenters

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Dafna Dekel.

• Dafna Dekel at IMDb

Awards and achievements
Preceded by Ulrika Jonsson & Terry Wogan	Eurovision Song Contest presenter (with Yigal Ravid & Sigal Shachmon) 1999	Succeeded by Kattis Ahlström & Anders Lundin
Preceded by Duo Datz with Kan	Israel in the Eurovision Song Contest 1992	Succeeded by Sarah'le Sharon & The Shiru Group with Shiru