Kol Yisrael

Kol Yisrael or Kol Israel (קול ישראל‎ lit. "Voice of Israel", also "Israel Radio") was Israel's public domestic and international radio service. It operated as a division of the Israel Broadcasting Service from 1951 to 1965, the Israel Broadcasting Authority from 1965 to 2017, and the radio stations it used to administer are currently administered by the Israeli Broadcasting Corporation.

History

Kol Yisrael was originally an underground

Kol Yisrael pioneered the use of FM transmission. In the early years, stations were operated in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Haifa.^[2] The PBS had had its transmitter in Ramallah, but this transmitter was lost to Kol Yisrael due to Ramallah being in the Arab sector.^[3]

In March 1950, international broadcasting began under the name Kol Zion La Golah ("The Voice of Zion to the Diaspora.") The broadcasts were produced at Kol Yisrael by the

Between 1958 and 1965, the "Kol Yisrael" international services expanded rapidly, inaugurating new shortwave services in Afrikaans, English, French, Hungarian, Italian, Persian, Romanian, and Yiddish.^[5] Between 1960 and 1963, the service also broadcast daily programs in English, French and Swahili for African audiences and began distributing tapes for rebroadcasting across the continent.^[6] This appeal to international audiences was closely tied to Israel's Periphery doctrine, which sought to align Israel with states on the fringes of the Middle East to avoid 'encirclement' by the Arab states and counteract international support for Palestinian nationalism.^[7] Programs on the international services ranged from news and commentary programs to competitions, documentaries and readings from the Bible and Quran.^[8] However, the technical quality of the international services was often poor beyond Israel's immediate neighbors in the Middle East.^[9]

In 1965, the Israel Broadcasting Authority, an independent public entity, was created and took over responsibility for Kol Yisrael from the Prime Minister's Office. In 1973, the IBA adopted the name Shidurei Yisrael ("Israel Broadcasting") for the service's domestic radio and television services. The name Kol Yisrael was revived for the domestic and international radio service in 1979.

Kol Yisrael's shortwave services have gradually been discontinued over time. The last remaining shortwave service, the Persian programme for Iran, ceased transmissions on June 30 2013. However, Israel continues to broadcast international services in fourteen languages under the label of Israel Radio International.^{[citation needed]}

Name: meaning and significance

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A previous station named Kol Yisrael had briefly been operated by the Haganah in 1940 on the 42-meter band. However, the station was soon renamed when the Haganah decided that the Kol Yisrael name should be reserved until independence.

Besides meaning "voice of Israel", Kol Yisrael is also a wordplay which in Hebrew sounds like the phrase "all of Israel" (although spelled differently), known to many Jews as part of the Talmudic expression כל ישראל ערבים זה בזה (kol Yisra'el arevim ze ba'ze, roughly translated "all of Israel are responsible for one another").

An internet radio station was launched in 2014 and operated through 2015 under the name of "Voice of Israel". This station is not connected to the official Kol Yisrael run by Israel Radio International.

Broadcast channels

Current Kol Yisrael channels include:

• Kan Tarbut ("The Culture Network"), also referred to as Kol Yisrael – General talk and cultural programming.
• Kan Bet ("Network B") – Popular radio station with news and current affairs programming, as well as sports coverage. There are news bulletins on the hour in Hebrew.
• Kan Gimel ("Network C") – Radio station devoted for promoting
  Israeli music
  . There are news bulletins in Hebrew at the same times as Kan Bet.
• Makan ("Network D") –
  Arabic: صوت إسرائيل, lit.
   'Voice of Israel')
• Kan REKA (Acronym of REshet Klitat Aliya" - lit. "Immigrant absorption network") – Radio for olim (immigrants) to Israel. Broadcasts in 14 languages, including English at 0430, 1030, 1830 UTC (+1 hr during the Summer).
• Amharic, Tigrinya, Ladino, Hungarian, Romanian, and Russian.^[10]
  The international services are currently only available via online streaming and rebroadcasts through the domestic REKA network.
• Kan 88 – "High Quality" music (their terminology). Jazz, blues, electronic music and more, plus traffic news
• Kan Kol Ha Musica ("The Voice of Music") –
  Classical music
  and drama.
• Kan Moreshet ("The Heritage Network") – Religious broadcasting on Kan Tarbut's network.

• 
  Broadcaster microphone in Kol Yisrael studios near Sarona
• 
  "Reshet Gimel" studio commemorating Ehud Manor
• 
  Live show in Kol Yisrael Studios
• 
  Control and Monitoring room in Kol Yisrael facilities in Tel Aviv
• 
  Kol Yisrael Studio

See also

• IBA News
• Israel Broadcasting Authority
• Israel Radio International, the official radio service for immigrants and for listeners outside Israel
• Kol Yerushalayim
  , the Hebrew program of Jerusalem Calling, the radio station of the British Mandatory Authority
• Media of Israel

References

Further reading

• Mann, Izi (2008). This is the Voice of Israel broadcasting from Jerusalem...: A Nation Behind the Microphone. Israel Broadcasting Authority. (in Hebrew)

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Kol Israel.

• Official site (in Hebrew)
• Frequencies to receive Kol Israel networks