State radio’s modernist Hebrew project suppressed the very pronunciation it formally championed

Evidence

Powerful social forces, however, worked against the dissemination of the type of pronunciation that Kol Yisrael putatively championed. The Hebrew accent of Jews of Moroccan origin was frequently a target of abuse by veteran Ashkenazic Israelis, yet one of this accent’s most striking features is the clear distinction between aspirated het and guttural khaf. In 1963 two members of the Knesset complained of widespread neglect on Kol Yisrael of these distinctions and of a refusal to hire Mizrahi broadcasters. Broadcasters such as the Yemenite Reumah Eldar were exceptions to the rule, and even Ben-Gurion, replying to the criticisms, grumbled that she did not pronounce the het and ‘ayin properly. Moreover, outside of the rarefied world of news and cultural programming, the language of talk shows and documentaries was the casual, tight-lipped, “dugri” style developed by sabra youth of the interwar period. Dugri Hebrew—straightforward, clipped, and monotonous—was seen as the antithesis of oriental linguistic filigree, with elaborate form but dubious intrinsic worth. — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 704

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s existing knowledge of how state institutions claim one standard while enforcing another — parallels the radio silence chapter’s themes of institutional enforcement of a dominant accent.