`The pillar of fire by night, to shew them light': Israeli broadcasting, the Supreme Court and the Zionist narrative

Abstract

This article discusses cases in which the Israeli Supreme Court was asked to block the broadcasting of television programs produced by the national broadcaster – the Israel Broadcasting Authority (IBA) – on the grounds that they purportedly misrepresented historical truths. The article shows, through various examples, how the court uses its ideological biases in order to serve the dominant interpretation of the history of Zionism and to perpetuate this interpretation by providing it with a judicial stamp of approval. Providing relevant background to the events portrayed in these television programs and the ideological controversies surrounding them, the article describes how the court’s traditional interpretation of Zionism, as well as its long-established view of the role of media in society, contribute to its decisions, and, consequently, how the court has joined the media in creating the ‘mediated/imagined’ Israeli community.

The Mizrahi Pillar of Fire: memory policy-actors’ perceptions of the role of media and memory

“…The Biton Committee’s most celebrated recommendation was to produce a new documentary series: The Mizrahi Pillar of Fire . The original Pillar of Fire , produced by the Israel Broadcasting Authority (IBA) in the early 1980s, is a well-known documentary series comprising 19 episodes that portrays the history of Zionism while ignoring the Mizrahi narrative (Schejter, 2007). This oversight has been an open wound for the Mizrahi community ever since, especially after the Israeli Supreme Court’s 1981 rejection of their petition to block the broadcast of the series until it was amended to reflect a ‘balanced’ version of history (Schejter, 2007).…”

“…According to a study conducted by the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, Jews of ‘Asian-African’ background are less likely than Israelis of European origin to earn an academic degree (Dobrin, 2015: 37). Other studies have shown that Mizrahi Jews predominate in Israel’s development towns, located at the geographical and social periphery (Schejter, 2007), and that Mizrahi Jews earn less than their Ashkenazi counterparts (Swirski et al, 2015).…”

“…The recommendation aimed at ‘balancing’ a 1980s television series produced by what was then the only television service in Israel, the quasi-governmental Israel Broadcasting Authority (IBA). That series, The Pillar of Fire , presented the history of Zionism while purportedly ignoring the role of Mizrahi Jews as part of the Jewish national renaissance (Schejter, 2007). The new series, the committee members hoped, would counter the ongoing marginalization of the Mizrahi narrative in the Israeli public sphere.…”

Managing multiple identity challenges and the origins of Israeli national television (in Arabic)

“…This has been addressed by communications scholars in cases where such challenges are quite obvious – such as the cases of Ireland (e.g. Barbrook, 1992; Watson, 2002) and Israel (Jamal, 2007; Schejter, 2007). Since identity challenges are intensified in the specific context of Third World states, popular culture products like television are of even greater political importance there, as Katz and Wedell elaborate in their work.…”

To break down the wall

“…Hannah's narrative maneuvers between the hegemonic Zionist story of redeeming the ignorant immigrants, teaching them the basics of modern life, and the Mizrahi counternarrative of prejudice against the non-European immigrants, of forced assimilation that planned to eradicate all traditional values in exchange for tokens of modernity, e.g., literacy (Schejter, 2007;Goldberg, Porat & Schwarz, 2006). 7 Nevertheless, the story told by Hannah and other women is multilayered -they accepted some things while rejecting others.…”