Israeli radio propaganda fused cultural renewal with labor productivity for immigrants.

Evidence

In this spirit, Israel radio in the late 1950s featured a program of interviews with new oriental immigrants who were presented as having been transformed into productive citizens through their labor on projects sponsored by the Jewish National Fund. Cultural and economic renewal were inseparable; one laborer, speaking halting Hebrew but insisting on speaking only in the Jewish national tongue, proclaimed “I only eat Hebrew bread.” — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 686

Categorization

• CANDY: The phrase ‘I only eat Hebrew bread’ is a striking, quotable image of language assimilation as identity.
• XREF: Connects to Benedict Anderson’s imagined communities and to the broader theme of how language policy shapes national belonging.