19-year-old Arab Israeli Lina Makhoul won the final of the second season of Israel’s singing reality show “The Voice”.
Lina Makhoul, a Christian who lives in the city of Acco, in northern Israel, is a biology student at the Technion Institute who has put her studies on hold.
She won the prize of a music school scholarship and a record contract.
It was her performance of Hallelujah, a song by Jewish-Canadian musician Leonard Cohen, that ultimately gave Lina Makhoul the victory over Ofir Ben Shitrit, a religious teenager.
"I'm happy with people who are voting for me because they think I sing well, but I'm also happy for people who vote for me because I'm representing a sector in Israeli society," she said.
Although she is not the first Arab-Israeli to have won a prominent singing competition in Israel, she was the first to take the top prize in a prime-time TV show on the leading commercial Channel Two tv station.
The Arab Israelis make up around 20% of the country’s population.