Milk and Honey

Aliases: Milk & Honey
Country: Israel
Comments: (Hebrew: זָבַת חָלָב‎ Khalav U'Dvash) was an Israeli singing group consisting of Re'uven Gvitrz, Shmulik Bilu and Yehuda Tamir. The group performed with Gali Atari at the Eurovision Song Contest 1979, where they won with the song, «Hallelujah». Their track peaked in the UK Singles Chart at #5 in April 1979. They made two further attempts to represent Israel in the contest. In 1981 they sang the song «Serenada» which came fourth in the national final. 1989 saw them slip to eighth place with «Ani Ma'amin». On both occasions, the group were joined by the female vocalist Lea Lupatin. In 1988, two of the group (along with Lupatin) accompanied Yardena Arazi on stage at the Eurovision final in Dublin, Ireland, when she performed the song «Ben Adam», but were not credited for this appearance.

In 1980, after a year of working together, Gali Atari retired from Milk and Honey as a result of a lawsuit she filed against her manager, Shlomo Tasch. Atari claimed in court that she was not paid for about sixty performances on TV and in Europe and that once she left Milk and Honey a new vocalist (Lea Lupatin) was introduced and released an album with songs she recorded under the new vocalist’s name. The trial dragged on for 14 years and concluded with a win for Atari, who was awarded 800,000 Shekels (about $227,000).