Avi Toledano

Avraham (Avi) Toledano was born in Meknes, Morocco. At the age of 16, in 1965, he immigrated to Israel, and settled on Kibbutz Ruhama.

His debut as a singer was on a radio show to which he sent a tape of "This is Yafo." In 1969, he participated in the Song Festival with the songs "You are The Wind" (Rimona Dinur / Rafi Ben-Moshe) and "The way Back" (Ehud Manor / Nurit Hirsch), which won the third place. His second album "My father" included two songs by Manor and Hirsch, "How Time Passes" and "I Saw the Summer". Another song was a Hebrew cover of Mary Hopkin's "This is the Day", translated by Mickey Hartaby (Hebrew original version was recorded first by Shuli Natan). Hartaby also translated Tom Jones's "Delilah", the Hebrew version was called "When Night Falls". Toledano's successes that year led to winning the title "Singer of the Year".

In 1970, his third album "Misty Garden" came out and he won the children's song festival held for the first time, with the song "Why this way," written and composed Dudu Barak and Shaike Pycov. His winning partner was the 10-year-old Irit Anavi.

That same year Toledano published his fourth album called "At Nations Songs", with songs from different countries, translated to Hebrew.

He continued performing and making albums during the seventies, and acted in a number of movies. Towards the end of the seventies, he toured Europe, and in 1978 came out with a solo performance, "La Boheme," singing songs by Charles Aznavour, who attended the premiere.

In 1982, Toledano represented Israel in the Eurovision Song Contest in Harrogate, UK with Hora which was written by Yoram Taharlev. He finished in second place, after the German winner, Nicole.

In 1983 Toledano composed the Israeli song at the Eurovision Song Contest in Munich. Chai (Alive) was performed by Ofra Haza and also won second place.

In the 1981 finals in Israel, Toledano sang Carnival, a song he co-wrote with Shimrit Or which won third place. In 1986, Toledano wrote Lechaim for Haim Moshe, which came in third. In 1989, Toledano performed in the Israeli final himself and won second place with Dayenu.

• Music of Israel
• Culture of Israel

• Avi Toledano's channel on YouTube
• Avi Toledano at IMDb