Deep-lomacy #18

Israeli Television from a Global Perspective
Dr. Gitit Levy-Paz

Television is a rising force in contemporary culture. Once considered inferior to film, today it has equaled and even surpassed the artistic caliber of cinema – and, of course, in viewer numbers and public acclaim. With the advent of COVID-19, the power of television became all the more evident. In an atmosphere of anxiety and menace generated by the mysterious pandemic, and against the background of fake news, conspiracy theories, and lockdowns that cut people off from each other across the globe, television re-networked the world and connected people and cultures. As a longtime viewer who has enjoyed programs from around the world via Netflix, I was certainly cognizant of the medium’s power to capture the imagination. However, in the course of a study I conducted at the Jewish People Policy Institute on the meteoric success of Israeli TV drama series internationally, I discovered the soft power of these programs – Israeli soft power and Jewish soft power.

The appeal of Israeli TV shows to both Jewish and non-Jewish viewers, especially those in the "quality drama" category (e.g., Shtisel, Fauda, Srugim, and Tehran) is a surprising development given the largely unstoried history of Israeli television. Due to ideological and political opposition, Israel lagged two decades behind the rest of the world in television broadcasting. While television became a global mass medium after World War II, Israeli public television broadcasting began only in 1968. However, thanks to a variety of fast-paced developments on the technological, regulatory, social, and cultural spheres, Israel has been closing the gap since the early 2000s and is now a major player in the international market.
The Israeli soft power embodied in these series is almost self-evident. There is national pride in the "blue-and-white" television taking the world by storm while also – and most significantly – conveying Israel's diversity. It isn't just "the conflict," and even when the conflict is part of the story, it is handled with far more complexity and depth than one finds in the news or at anti-Israel demonstrations. However, in my research I paid special attention to yet another unique and fascinating aspect of the Israeli programs' success – one related to the Jewish angle. I found a variation of Jewish soft power – a cohesive effect the series have had for Jewish viewers (primarily Americans).

In the course of my research it emerged that viewing these programs answers a Jewish-identity need for continuous contact with Israel. This need comes across clearly in the series' international Facebook groups – groups with thousands, sometimes even tens of thousands of members, Jews and non-Jews, from all over the world. One can see that Jewish viewers are especially interested in watching Israeli shows, and one can identify the various aspects of the Jewish experience evoked by the programs: yearning, memories, a sense of Jewish belonging, and connection to Israel. One of the findings was the notion that one Israeli series = multiple Israeli series. An analysis of posts and a survey I conducted among the various groups indicate that Jewish viewers generally watch more than one Israeli series (in contrast to non-Jewish viewers), and especially seek out Israeli shows, regardless of genre or specific story line.
Israeli series are creating a shared and meaningful Jewish discourse. For instance, Shtisel is generating an "imagined solidarity" within an American-Jewish community currently experiencing extreme polarization, especially with regard to the meaning of Jewish identity. Shtisel offers the community Jewish fellowship and solidarity: a Haredi family in Jerusalem is drawing Jews from other communities around itself – Jews with differing Jewish, religious, and cultural identities. Even if the solidarity created by Shtisel is essentially an imagined one – inasmuch as most viewers have no real familiarity with Haredi Jews, and there are major gaps between the different types of Jews who watch the show – still it is meaningful and unifying. The term imagined solidarity corresponds with the concept of imagined communities employed by Benedict Anderson to illuminate nationalism. Anderson argues that nationalism is an imagined phenomenon that is nevertheless highly meaningful as a social-psychological force. The Jewish solidarity generated by Shtisel is similarly meaningful.

The soft Jewish power that became evident in my research is an important and encouraging finding, given the processes of distancing and alienation currently underway between American Jews and Israel. Also in evidence is the power of culture, art, and serial dramas to address various aspects of the identity discourse, and even to connect Jews from all over the world.