Israeli state radio deliberately denied Arabic-language programming to Mizrahi Jewish immigrants

Evidence

This occlusion of Arabic was not limited to Jews from the Maghreb but from the Mashrek as well. Kol Yisrael’s Arabic-language service was staffed by Iraqi Jews, one of whom was Shaul Bar-Haim, the divisions’ director. He lobbied in vain with his superiors to authorize immigrant programs in the Judeo-Iraqi dialect. Immigrants from Iraq and Yemen had to make do with broadcasts in simplified Hebrew (ivrit kalah). In the early 1950s, Kol Yisrael broadcast a daily “special program for immigrants from Yemen” that was entirely in Hebrew. Not only was the Hebrew difficult for the immigrants, but the meanings of words were explained via translation into a pan-Western idiom, e.g., ‘ikroni was said by the news reader to mean “printsipiyoni.” Middle Eastern Jews hungering for programming in Arabic had to turn to Kol Yisrael’s Arabic service, which was directed at Israel’s Arab population and had no nationalizing mission whatsoever—quite the opposite, as it was designed to maintain Arab cultural separation. — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 697

Categorization

• SEED: Article angle: how a nationalizing broadcaster systematically linguistically excluded its own citizens while simultaneously serving Arabic content to the Arab population — a state radio actively reinforcing cultural separation within its own Jewish immigrant base.