I am not sure that we, who have just seen Israel’s 70th birthday, can understand the heart-stopping thrill American Jews and admiring non-Jews experienced as they saw the fulfillment of a dream.
By AVRAHAM AVI-HAIUpdated: MAY 4, 2018 14:44President Harry Truman welcomes prime minister David Ben-Gurion and Israel’s ambassador Abba Eban to the White House on May 1, 1951(photo credit: FRITZ COHEN/GPO)
WHEN IT comes to TV, there are three kinds of parents. Some forbid it altogether, some limit the number of viewing hours and/or the broadcasts to be seen, and some use it as a child pacifier.When David Ben-Gurion had his way, there was no TV in Israel. Here goes why.The year is 1952. The government of Israel and leaders of the United Jewish Appeal (UJA) of America, and of Keren Hayesod-United Israel Appeal for the rest of the world, had jointly decided that philanthropic contributions were not enough to help a tiny economy absorb hundreds of thousand of immigrants. Israel would sell bonds.The Israel Bonds organization in the USA was headed by a brilliant organizer and outstanding public relations officers. The Israeli ambassador to Washington was the charismatic Abba Eban. In launching the Israel Bond drive in 1951, they arranged meetings with President Truman and other US officials, and then a triumphal coast-tocoast tour. It began with a ticker tape parade down Broadway Avenue in New York, in which 200 Israeli sailors who had arrived on an Israeli navy destroyer marched, along with US army units. That was almost exactly to this day, 67 years ago.I am not sure that we, who have just seen Israel’s 70th birthday, can understand the heart-stopping thrill American Jews and admiring non-Jews experienced as they saw the fulfillment of a Biblical dream, and the phoenix-like rise out of the ashes of a small, defiant remnant.Finally, the story goes, exhausted but exhilarated, Israel’s first prime minister reaches the West Coast. There naturally had to be a meeting with the major machers of Hollywood.I understand that the prime minister was not really au fait with the movies, and wondered why he was “wasting his time” with these movie moguls. And then, on return to his hotel suite, one of his entourage put on the small-screened 1952 television set.There were the black-and-white cowboys on their speeding steeds racing after the black-and-white Indians. “Bank bang bang!” Falling off their horses, firing pistols, shooting arrows! (This was obviously before color television, if the post-color generations can imagine such a thing.) BG, I have been told, said something like: “Close that idiotic stuff! If that’s TV, we shall never have it in Israel.”Well, there wasn’t TV in Israel till about three years after Levi Eshkol succeeded BG as prime minister in 1963. By 1966, educational TV started, and slowly Channel One began and then a couple of decades later, commercial channels opened.Many of us find today’s TV channels trashy beyond words. On the movie channels, there are almost identically plotted police procedurals, war and killing films with pyrotechnics, cars flying in the air, heros and heroines hugging at the end ... and, last but not at all least, hospital sagas, medical intrigue, and so on ad infinitum. How do I know? At night, to rest my weary eyes from the reading and writing that fill my daytime hours, I surf the channels looking for some solace: a serious film, like “Darkest Hour” (Churchill) or a funny film like “Mrs.Doubtfire.” But all I hear is the “F” word at least twice in one sentence, or couples coupling against walls, or the like (actually the dislike). It is not at all prudishness that I criticize what I do. It is the sleazy lazy script-writing, copy-catting and playing to the lowest common denominator. Occasionally, one finds a surprise, sometimes even a gem. Once in a Jubilee, maybe! Let’s turn to radio. It was a delight to listen to Kol Israel, the Voice of Israel radio.Why? There were no commercials. None.And an explanation fitting to the times, as in the following anecdote, which I witnessed.Dr. Yosef Burg was a member of the Israeli cabinets from 1951 to 1986. Thirty- five years. In the mid-1950s, when he was minister of postal services, Burg was asked why there were no commercials on Israel radio. His explanation: “There are many immigrants in the country, and among them very simple people. If they hear the official radio telling them to buy a product – any product – they will think it’s an order from the government.”Think of it. Obviously a reference to new immigrants, hinting at those from benighted cultures, probably immigrants from the Atlas mountains. (Miriam Peretz, a winner of this year’s Israel Prize for her work as an educator, began her acceptance speech by referring to her parents who lived in the foothills of the Atlas mountains, and who “did not know how to read or write.”) The interesting thing about this explanation, which seems far-fetched today, is how a large radio set was a sign of becoming Israeli. In 1957, I visited an immigrant family from those mountains whose home was literally bare of furniture except for what they had received from the Jewish Agency: wooden chairs, metal bed stands with thin mattresses atop, a few pots and pans.A child, half-naked walking around the house, on a barren hillside, his eyes drooling trachoma discharge. On the table, in all its glory stood a large – very large – radio set. I felt very uncomfortable to ask questions, but at that time, the lithe young father could probably have earned a pittance on road-building, or clearing fields of rocks.But what a large sparkling radio set.That’s how it was.And turning to today: I wonder how many readers would agree that life without raucous pitchmen and pitch women yelling, “Sale, sale, sale, only today!” would be much better. Even Kol HaMusica, the classical music station, carries commercials.The truth is that Israel radio in its origin was patterned after the BBC. The Americanization of Israel and the rush to “make money” have changed the country from top to bottom. That, rather than Dr. Burg’s explanation, ingenious as it was, is the reason for the change.To close with a smile: Every government in Israel for 35 years – that is from the time of David Ben-Gurion as prime minister through to Yitzchak Shamir’s tenure – had Dr. Burg in the cabinet. One day in the 35th year of his being a minister, the Israel Museum was able to revive a mummy from ancient Egypt.The mummy asked, “Where am I?” “In Israel,” came the answer.“Oh yes, Israel. Tell me, is Yosef Burg still a cabinet minister?” Well, it was funny then.Avraham Avi-hai served two terms as World Chairman of Keren Hayesod-United Israel Appeal from 1978 to 1988, and as deputy director general of information and WZO-Agency spokesman in 1957-58
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