State radio gave European immigrants far more airtime than Arabic-speaking Mizrahi Jews

Evidence

The public pressures that led to the expansion of Mizrahi programming points to one of the most challenging aspects of the study of popular culture: gauging the reception, rather than merely transmission, of cultural products. Thanks to listeners’ surveys, we can get at least some understanding of the gaps separating oriental and Ashkenazic Israelis’ access to and use of radio. Ashkenazim were far more likely to listen to the radio regularly than oriental Jews. In 1950, in the early phases of the great wave of immigration from the Middle East, less than 30 percent of oriental immigrants listened regularly, as opposed to 51 percent of immigrants from Poland. In 1956, the percentage of oriental Jewish listeners was about the same as in 1950, but the numbers for Polish and German Jews were 71 percent and 78 percent respectively. By 1965, although 90 percent of the Israelis in the sample listened to the radio regularly, more than two-thirds of nonlisteners were of Middle Eastern origin. Finally, in 1956 veteran Israelis and recent immigrants from Europe were more than twice as likely to own radios than immigrants of Middle Eastern origin (78 percent versus 39 percent). — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 708 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Ashkenazi Jews listened to radio far more than Mizrahi immigrants into the 1960s. — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 708; State radio deployed Yiddish to absorb immigrants while excluding Judeo-Arabic entirely — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 699; Israeli state radio deliberately denied Arabic-language programming to Mizrahi Jewish immigrants — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 697 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Ashkenazi Jews listened to radio far more than Mizrahi immigrants into the 1960s. #complicates (0.78) — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 708