Lior Narkis (; born November 8, 1976, in

Holon Holon (, ) is a city in the Tel Aviv District of Israel, located south of Tel Aviv. Holon is part of the Gush Dan, Gush Dan metropolitan area. In , it had a population of , making it the List of cities in Israel, tenth most populous city in Isra ...

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

) is an Israeli singer.

Biography

Lior Narkis was born in

. His father, David Narkis, was of Iraqi-Jewish origin. His mother Hanna Narkis, was of Serbian-Jewish descent and also had Greek-Tunisian-Jewish ancestry. Narkis speaks Hebrew, Serbian and French. He is married to Sapir Vanunu, who is thirteen years his junior. They have two sons and a daughter, and live in

Savyon Savyon () is an affluent town in the Central District of Israel, bordering the cities of Kiryat Ono and Yehud. Ranked 10/10 on the Israeli socio-economic scale, it is one of the wealthiest municipalities in Israel. In it had a population of . ...

Music career

Narkis dreamed of becoming a singer since childhood. He released his first album, ''Tfilat Chayay'' (''The Prayer of My Life'') at the age of 16. A few years later during his military service in the

Israel Defense Forces The Israel Defense Forces (IDF; , ), alternatively referred to by the Hebrew-language acronym (), is the national military of the State of Israel. It consists of three service branches: the Israeli Ground Forces, the Israeli Air Force, and ...

(IDF), Narkis joined Tamir Tzur to form the first

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea ( ) is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the east by the Levant in West Asia, on the north by Anatolia in West Asia and Southern ...

musical group. His sixth album, ''Rak Itakh'' (Only with You), which includes the hit "Lekhol Ekhad Yesh" (Everyone Has), placed Narkis at the center stage of Israeli music. This song was also chosen as the "Song of the Year" in

, and was very popular among

football (soccer) Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 Football player, players who almost exclusively use their feet to propel a Ball (association football), ball around a rectangular f ...

fans. In 2001, Narkis released his album ''Ze Mehalev'' (''Straight from the Heart''). As with his previous albums, this was a great success and many of its songs became hits. In 2003, the song " Words for Love" (

Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...

: "Milim La'Ahava"

Hebrew script The Hebrew alphabet (, ), known variously by scholars as the Ktav Ashuri, Jewish script, square script and block script, is a unicase, unicameral abjad script used in the writing of the Hebrew language and other Jewish languages, most notably ...

מילים לאהבה) won at the national finals organized by the

Israeli Broadcasting Authority The Israel Broadcasting Authority (IBA; ) was Israel's public broadcaster from 1948 to 2017, succeeded by the Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation. History The Israel Broadcasting Authority was an outgrowth of the radio station ''Kol Yisr ...

("IBA") television channel, Channel One, against three other songs for the right to represent Israel in the

Eurovision Song Contest 2003 The Eurovision Song Contest 2003 was the 48th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest. It took place in Riga, Latvia, following the country's victory at the with the song " I Wanna" by Marie N. Organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) ...

, The song ended up 19th out of the 26 Eurovision finalists. At the age of 26, Narkis released his eighth album ''Milim La'Ahava'' (''Words for Love''), named after his

Eurovision The Eurovision Song Contest (), often known simply as Eurovision, is an international song competition organised annually by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) among its members since 1956. Each participating broadcaster submits an origina ...

entry. Narkis performed at the Opening Ceremonies of the

2017 Maccabiah Games The 2017 Maccabiah Games (), also referred to as the 20th Maccabiah Games (), were the 20th edition of the Maccabiah Games. They took place from 4 to 17 July 2017, in Israel. The Maccabiah Games are open to Jewish athletes from around the world ...

on July 6, 2017. In December 2023, Narkis was included in a '' New Arab'' list of "openly racist musician touring Israel at the moment", reflecting "Israel's military-pop complex", for his purported anti-Palestinianist comments.

Discography

Albums

*Prayer of My Life (1994) *The World Is Like a Wheel (1995) * (1997) * (1998) * (1999) * (2000) * (2001) * (2003) * (2005) * (2006) *Sleepy (2008) * (2010) *If You Want (2012) *Diamond (2014) *We Made History (2016)

Singles

*"Lekhol Ekhad Yesh" (Everyone Has) *2003: " Words for Love" (

: "Milim La'Ahava"

מילים לאהבה)

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Narkis, Lior Israeli pop singers 1976 births Living people People from Holon 21st-century Israeli male singers 20th-century Israeli male singers Jewish singers Israeli people of Iraqi-Jewish descent Israeli people of Serbian-Jewish descent Israeli people of Tunisian-Jewish descent Serbian-language singers English-language singers from Israel Eurovision Song Contest entrants