Israel’s Noam Dadon comes in 14th place at Junior Eurovision

Israel’s Noam Dadon placed 14th at the Junior Eurovision competition in Minsk, Belarus on Sunday evening.

The big winner of the night was Poland’s Roksana Wegiel, a 13-year-old singer who performed “Anyone I Want to Be.” The song, in Polish and English, was an upbeat power anthem with lyrics like “Life’s never really black or white/ There’s more to it than meets the eye/ I speak my mind and now I know I can be/ Anyone I want to be.”

While Dadon came in just 14th out of 20, the 13-year-old from Yeruham performed his sweet, simple Hebrew song “Children Like These” admirably. Among just the online voters, Israel came in 11th out of 20.

Twenty countries participated in the Junior Eurovision competition this year – a song contest for 9-to-14-year-olds organized by the European Broadcasting Union. This is the largest number of participating countries since the contest began in 2003.

Dadon, a shy teen whose father owns a pizzeria, performs at weddings and bar mitzvah celebrations of friends and family – and loves playing soccer.

“My dream is by age 20 to appear at the Caesarea Amphitheater,” Dadon said in a short video introducing him produced by Israeli public broadcaster KAN.

And at age 30? “To appear again at the Caesarea Amphitheater.”

Earlier this year, Dadon beat out five other Israeli children for the right to represent Israel this year at the Junior Eurovision.