Israeli Newspapers Research Articles

The Discursive Construction of Biometric Surveillance in the Israeli Press

In 2017, following vigorous public debate, Israel established a centralized biometric database for storing its citizens’ bodily information. This step, according to privacy advocates, signifies a critical phase in the development of Israel as a surveillance society. This study examines coverage of Israel’s biometric project by three leading Israeli newspapers. Drawing on the intersection of media studies and surveillance studies, it employs discourse analysis to understand how the Israeli press constructs this project in various contexts, asking which narratives are promoted and how they coalesce into a consistent story about Israel’s surveillance agenda. The analysis points to two competing sub-discourses – legitimizing and delegitimizing – each of which positions Israel differently, either as a vulnerable victim of external enemies or as an abusive state violating its citizens’ rights. Surprisingly, Israeli coverage is more critical than supportive, offering a strong and challenging criticism of Israel’s surveillance. I suggest two explanations for the difference between the Israeli case and other accounts, which tend to be supportive, poor, and superficial.

Müller, Margret: The World According to Israeli Newspapers. Representations of International Involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Müller, Margret: The World According to Israeli Newspapers. Representations of International Involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Communicative Resurrection: Letters to the Dead in the Israeli Newspaper

By studying letters written to the dead published in the popular Israeli press between 1997 and 2014, this paper examines the practices that constitute communicative acts toward a deceased person using interpersonal and mass media, in order to embody the recipiency of the dead. Using an analytical framework that draws on media ecology, communication theory, and discourse analysis, the paper demonstrates how the epistolary and mass media rhetoric operate to reconstruct the performance of the dead as an addressee. By exploring this understudied phenomenon and revisiting core notions of communication in light of written technologies, distance, and death, the paper argues that this communicative constellation, as a whole, is a performative act that offers a “communicative resurrection” to the dead.

The ripple effects of a partisan, free newspaper: Israel Hayom as disruptive media actor

During its 10 years of existence, the free newspaper Israel Hayom (Israel today) has come to play a pivotal role in Israeli national politics and to serve as what we define as a disruptive media actor among other, commercial, daily newspapers in Israel. The seemingly innocuous daily newspaper, founded in 2007 and distributed widely, has, since 2011, become the most widely read newspaper in Israel. We suggest that Israel Hayom be viewed as a “disruptive” actor in the areas of politics and the media in Israel. Adapted from Christensen’s (1997) concept of disruptive technology or innovation, we define as disruptive a media actor that significantly impacts the field of politics and media economy, essentially forcing a change, or changes, in the “rules of the game”. While this model is currently unique to Israel, it is likely that under similar conditions further cases shall present themselves in the future.

The United States and Israel

The United States and Israel

The Menorah: From the Bible to Modern Israel by Steven Fine

Reviewed by: The Menorah: From the Bible to Modern Israel by Steven Fine David B. Levy The Menorah: From the Bible to Modern Israel By Steven Fine. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2016. 304 pp. Steven Fine, an art and cultural historian, Jewish studies professor, archeologist, and rabbinics scholar, has written an outstanding new book, The Menorah: From the Bible to Modern Israel, that is a well-researched, vitally important contribution. It employs Fine's method of marshalling diverse sources with a broad chronological visionary scope toward a diachronic, object- and text-centered comparativist and international approach to interpreting the Jewish past with implications for the future. Fine, a master writer and storyteller, reveals the story of a living and transforming object of memory from antiquity through the medieval world to the present politics in Israel, "in the belief that all of these contexts are necessary for understanding each context individually as well as the whole picture." This book is a welcome, refreshing, and erudite piece of work that coherently and creatively integrates many diverse genres of primary and [End Page 138] secondary texts from piyyutim, midrash, and the whole corpus of the rabbinic treasury of wisdom to modern Israeli newspapers, classic literary works such as those by Agnon and Coynan Doyle, to pulp fiction and postmodern social media tweets, emails, interviews, and youtube videos. It is carefully illustrated with many important archeological finds and artistic and archival factoids that speak a million words in the concise representation that art can give. The book is written in a collegiate and inviting manner, avoiding technical academic jargon. Fine reveals his inner thoughts when standing in the presence of the Arch of Titus depicting the menorah, for instance, when personably noting, "It was as if the Romans marching forward, carrying the menorah and the other Temple vessels were actually moving as the field of the relief moved deeper and deeper in the white marble—and the vessels of the Jerusalem Temple disappeared forever into the stone. How much more vivid—and ghastly—would this scene have been in full color, I thought." Fine in his conclusion confesses, "This has been a personal history—the history of my own search to understand the menorah, and my attempt at using the tools of my discipline to make sense of my beloved lampstand for our own complicated times. It began as early in my life as I can remember, and reached its heights—quite literally—standing on scaffolding within the Arch of Titus, within centimeters of its grey stone. It has been a place of discovery—not just of the polychromy of the arch menorah, but also of the many paths and palimpsest that are the menorah. Having brought to bear primary sources from across the human experience, from biblical Israel to ancient Rome, medieval Europe to North Africa, America, and even Indonesia and Brazil, I conclude this exploration with an explicit primary source, of my own making, drawn from my own Facebook posts of a research trip I took with my then thirteen year old son, Koby, to Rome and Israel in May 2014." In this post Fine asserts, "You see, the Menorah IS at the Vatican—just not the one brought to Rome by Vespasian!" with the post climaxing in the tag, "we write this from the plane to Israel! Maybe the menorah is there after all! Shalom, the Menorah men." While Fine is a cultural historian, specializing in Jewish history in the Greco-Roman period, there is nothing truncated, narrow, or myopic about this book. Its scope is broad, multifaceted, diverse, and weaves a fascinating story that needs to be told, exploring the journey of how a Temple religious almost theurgic object, lit by the high priest, became over the course of 3000 years of Jewish history a unique symbol and indeed an icon signifying and speaking of Jews, Judaism, God of Israel, Torah, Jewish locals, and the modern Jewish state. [End Page 139] There are many scholars that know a lot about a little. Fine knows a lot about a lot. His work focuses mainly upon the literature of ancient Judaism, art, and archaeology and the ways that modern scholars have interpreted...

Translator's Note: Translating Eli Eliahu's Difficult Efficiency

WORLDLIT.ORG 7 Ilike simple writing, straightforward and uncomplicated, and I try to write like that,” Eli Eliahu said, upon receiving Israel’s Matanel Prize in 2013. His work is characterized by this lack of pretension, and it lingers as much on the unsaid as it does on what is spoken aloud. In his poems, not is as present as what is; part of the challenge of translating his work is to catch the rhythm of the no, as it recurs in his poems, and convey it as seamlessly and easily as he is able to do in Modern Hebrew. Eliahu grew up in Ramat Gan, a suburb of Tel Aviv, but his roots are further east than Israel’s central coast, the narrow strip of land where he was born, went to university , and still resides. Eliahu is from an Iraqi Jewish family—his father was born in Baghdad—and the Mizrahi experience in Israel informs many of his poems. “Mizrahi” is a broad but important term in Israeli culture; literally translated as “Eastern,” it refers to Jews who immigrated to Israel mostly from Arab lands (and many Mizrahi families previously spoke Arabic as their primary language) but also includes Jews from Iran, India, Turkey, Central Asia, and other places. Israeli culture has traditionally been dominated by Ashkenazi Jews, and a sense of second-class status became fundamental to Mizrahi identity. Eliahu told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, “When you are a member of an Mizrahi family and you look at the peak of Hebrew poetry and see only people from Europe—who belong to another culture, who speak a little differently, who came from a different home from you—you feel a bit like you do at the cinema, seeing only blond people with blue eyes.” As a second-generation Mizrahi writer, Eliahu writes from a space of both success and loss: his own success in becoming Israeli; his parents’ loss of access to their culture, the spaces of their childhood, the sounds of their world; and the distance between his experience and theirs. There is a confidence in the straightforwardness of his language, a belief that he does not need to say more than necessary. This efficiency can be difficult to translate. Modern Hebrew is already a compressed language, combining into single words what might take three or four words to say in English . Additionally, Hebrew is based on a series of shoreshim (roots), so that multiple words branch off from the same core, maintaining a relationship to each other even as they shift into different meanings. Translating Eliahu requires honoring the efficiency of his language, and maintaining the directness of his speech, while allowing these resonances to be heard. He writes as if you’ve encountered him at one of Tel Aviv’s many cafés, speaking to you over a cup of strong coffee, before you both have to get on with your days, go home to your families, take stock of your pleasures and your failures. Like many Israeli writers, Eliahu does not exist only in the world of poetry. He works as a journalist and editor, but he recognizes a difference between the language of the everyday and that of poetry. “When you read an article or news brief, once you have read the words, they fall away and die, like carcasses on the roadside,” he has said. “But in poetry, the fourth line stands connected to the first, and all the words likewise stand connected to each other.” This sense of the beauty and solidity of poetry, which Eliahu has inherited from influences as disparate as the Hebrew Bible, Walt Whitman, and Wisława Szymborska, now comes to us distilled into the language of one of Israel’s most plainspoken poets. Kevin Haworth is the author of four books, including the essay collection Famous Drownings in Literary History. The director of the low-residency MFA program at Carlow University in Pittsburgh, he is at work on Rutu Modan: War, Love and Secrets, a study of Israel’s leading graphic novelist. Editorial note: Turn to page 59 to read two of Kevin’s translated Eliahu poems. translator’s note Translating Eli Eliahu’s Difficult...

Translator's Note: Translating Eli Eliahu's Difficult Efficiency

WORLDLIT.ORG 7 Ilike simple writing, straightforward and uncomplicated, and I try to write like that,” Eli Eliahu said, upon receiving Israel’s Matanel Prize in 2013. His work is characterized by this lack of pretension, and it lingers as much on the unsaid as it does on what is spoken aloud. In his poems, not is as present as what is; part of the challenge of translating his work is to catch the rhythm of the no, as it recurs in his poems, and convey it as seamlessly and easily as he is able to do in Modern Hebrew. Eliahu grew up in Ramat Gan, a suburb of Tel Aviv, but his roots are further east than Israel’s central coast, the narrow strip of land where he was born, went to university , and still resides. Eliahu is from an Iraqi Jewish family—his father was born in Baghdad—and the Mizrahi experience in Israel informs many of his poems. “Mizrahi” is a broad but important term in Israeli culture; literally translated as “Eastern,” it refers to Jews who immigrated to Israel mostly from Arab lands (and many Mizrahi families previously spoke Arabic as their primary language) but also includes Jews from Iran, India, Turkey, Central Asia, and other places. Israeli culture has traditionally been dominated by Ashkenazi Jews, and a sense of second-class status became fundamental to Mizrahi identity. Eliahu told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, “When you are a member of an Mizrahi family and you look at the peak of Hebrew poetry and see only people from Europe—who belong to another culture, who speak a little differently, who came from a different home from you—you feel a bit like you do at the cinema, seeing only blond people with blue eyes.” As a second-generation Mizrahi writer, Eliahu writes from a space of both success and loss: his own success in becoming Israeli; his parents’ loss of access to their culture, the spaces of their childhood, the sounds of their world; and the distance between his experience and theirs. There is a confidence in the straightforwardness of his language, a belief that he does not need to say more than necessary. This efficiency can be difficult to translate. Modern Hebrew is already a compressed language, combining into single words what might take three or four words to say in English . Additionally, Hebrew is based on a series of shoreshim (roots), so that multiple words branch off from the same core, maintaining a relationship to each other even as they shift into different meanings. Translating Eliahu requires honoring the efficiency of his language, and maintaining the directness of his speech, while allowing these resonances to be heard. He writes as if you’ve encountered him at one of Tel Aviv’s many cafés, speaking to you over a cup of strong coffee, before you both have to get on with your days, go home to your families, take stock of your pleasures and your failures. Like many Israeli writers, Eliahu does not exist only in the world of poetry. He works as a journalist and editor, but he recognizes a difference between the language of the everyday and that of poetry. “When you read an article or news brief, once you have read the words, they fall away and die, like carcasses on the roadside,” he has said. “But in poetry, the fourth line stands connected to the first, and all the words likewise stand connected to each other.” This sense of the beauty and solidity of poetry, which Eliahu has inherited from influences as disparate as the Hebrew Bible, Walt Whitman, and Wisława Szymborska, now comes to us distilled into the language of one of Israel’s most plainspoken poets. Kevin Haworth is the author of four books, including the essay collection Famous Drownings in Literary History. The director of the low-residency MFA program at Carlow University in Pittsburgh, he is at work on Rutu Modan: War, Love and Secrets, a study of Israel’s leading graphic novelist. Editorial note: Turn to page 59 to read two of Kevin’s translated Eliahu poems. translator’s note Translating Eli Eliahu’s Difficult...

Viewpoint, Testimony, Action

In the production of news, the frames presented by selected sources play a critical role. However, to create coherent, authoritative, and relevant news stories from the selected input, journalists need to actively transform the available material and fit it within a journalistic news frame. In our study, we investigate how Israeli, Palestinian, and foreign (US, UK, German) newspapers made use of highly salient source statements in their coverage of the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli and one Palestinian teenager in summer 2014. Performing a qualitative analysis, we identify three characteristic ways in which journalists reposition selected sources’ frames within their coverage: journalists can rely on selected source frames to present specific, subjective viewpoints; they can present multiple source frames as testimonies about newsworthy events; and they can interpret them as communicative actions in sources’ struggle for recognition in the public arena. Each strategy contributes to the construction of a different, broad class of news frames, reflecting different journalistic styles and norms. We discuss implications for the study of news frames and the different roles of political sources within the news.

Books and Politics: On Polish- Israeli Commercial and Diplomatic Relations, 1948–1958

Abstract This article describes the distribution of Polish books in Israel in the context of postwar Polish- Israeli diplomatic relations, which developed under pressure exerted by the Soviet Union and by its relationship with the Arab world. Because a large number of Israeli citizens were of Polish origin, cultural exchange was one of the main points of commercial contract that governed the importation of Polish books to Israel. The arrival of a large number of Polish Jews, mainly as part of the “Gomułka aliyah,” created huge demand for books in Polish, not only fiction but also scientific books and specialist literature. The Israeli newspapers used this large inflow of publications in Polish to present the Jewish state as one that was close to Poland, related to Poland throughout history, and also to contrast this world with the Arab world—distant and lacking close cultural connections to the country on the Vistula River.

DENATURALIZING CULTURE: SAYED KASHUA'S NEWSPAPER COLUMNS ON THE TOPIC OF PREJUDICE

Abstract Discrimination is a recurrent topic in the work of the Israeli-Arab writer Sayed Kashua. In the last couple of years, Sayed Kashua has moved away from writing about the prejudice expressed by his own Israeli Muslim community towards the Israeli Jewish population to focus his attention instead on the prejudice shown by Jews against Arabs in Israel. Self-criticism has always been a hallmark of Sayed Kashua's work so this shift indicates a significant change in the columnist's perception of his own society. Based on a survey of various issues relating to Israeli society, such as the law, the educational system and language, as well as a theoretical review of authors who observe a mutual alienation of Arabs and Jews in Israel, this article analyses several of Sayed Kashua's recent columns in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. It also investigates how the author understands prejudice and, in a singular and surprising way, expresses his concerns and solutions to this problem.

‘Victims vs Terrorists?’ The Discursive Construction of Palestinians in Two Online Israeli Newspapers during the 2014 Gaza War

This article is a critical discourse analysis (CDA) of the representation of Palestinians in two online Israeli newspapers published in English during the 2014 Gaza War. The study attempts to conduct a language-based analysis of the political and ideological workings that underpin the representation of social actors. It employs tools from the Discourse Historical Approach (Reisigl & Wodak 2001) to explain the discursive characterization of fighters/ Hamas and civilians. Since the huge number of Palestinian civilian fatalities was a major aspect of controversy in the last war, this article tries to reveal the linguistic choices and discursive strategies used in representing each group of social actors. More importantly, the article detects the linguistic and discursive differences between two newspapers and explains how they may reflect different political orientations.

Is cannabis an illicit drug or a medicine? A quantitative framing analysis of Israeli newspaper coverage

BackgroundVarious countries and states, including Israel, have recently legalized cannabis for therapeutic purposes (CTP). These changes have received mass media coverage and prompted national and international dialogue about the status of cannabis and whether or not it can be defined as a (legitimate) medicine, illicit and harmful drug, or both. News media framing may influence, and be influenced by, public opinion regarding CTP and support for CTP license provisions for patients. This study examines the framing of CTP in Israeli media coverage and the association between media coverage and trends in the provision of CTP licenses in Israel over time. MethodsAll published news articles relevant to CTP and the framing of cannabis (N=214) from the three highest circulation newspapers in Israel were content analyzed. Articles were published between January 2007 and June 2013, a period in which CTP licenses granted by the Ministry of Health increased substantially. ResultsIn the majority of CTP news articles (69%), cannabis was framed as a medicine, although in almost one third of articles (31%) cannabis was framed as an illicit drug. The relative proportion of news items in which cannabis was framed as an illicit drug fluctuated during the study period, but was unrelated to linear or curvilinear trends in CTP licensing. ConclusionThe relatively large proportion of news items framing cannabis as a medicine is consistent with growing support for the expansion of the Israel's CTP program.

Men and Boys: Representations of Israeli Combat Soldiers in the Media

ABstrA ct : In this article we examine the representation of combat soldiers in Israel through their media image. Using two major national Israeli newspapers, we follow the presentation of the Israeli combat soldier over three decades. Our findings indicate that the combat soldier begins as a hegemonic masculine figure in the 1980s, shifts to a more vulnerable, frightened child in the 1990s, and attains a more complex framing in the 2000s. While this most recent representation returns to a hegemonic masculine one, it includes additional, ‘softer’ components. We find that the transformation in the image of the Israeli soldier reflects changes within Israeli society in general during the period covered and is also indicative of global changes in masculinity to a certain extent. We conclude by analyzing two possible explanations: the perception of the threat and changes in the perception of masculine identity.

“They Are All Good Boys”

This paper analyzes the construction of incidents of gang rape in Israeli newspapers between the years 2000 and 2010. The study examines the differences between the news media framing of gang rape and individual rape. Results indicate that the coverage of gang rape significantly differs from that of individual rape. Newspaper coverage over-emphasizes instances of gang rape in relation to individual occurrences of rape by means of sensational headlines and “yellow” journalism. Moreover, the construction of gang rape reflects a convergence of gender, race, and class oppression through the blaming and marginalizing of victims, criminalizing rapists from socially marginal groups, and absolving offenders most closely associated with the upper middle class. These findings suggest that the Israeli media play a key role in perpetuating patriarchal hegemony and social inequality.

My Promised Land

My Promised Land

Mediatization, Legal Logic and the Coverage of Israeli Politicians on Trial

This paper investigates the characteristics that point to the mediatization of legal coverage in Israel, and the adoption of media rather than legal logic in the coverage of five trials of key political figures between 1961 and 2012 in two leading Israeli newspapers. Using insights from the literature on the mediatization of political coverage, our analysis focused on the changes over time in the type of dramatization of trial news; in the nature of criticism expressed in the press; in the forms of journalists' interventions and judgments; in the context of the meta-coverage of media advisors and media initiatives by legal actors; and the media's own reflections about these interventions. We found that the mediatization of the legal sphere resulted in a “trial by media” where journalists pass judgments on defendants and present media alternatives to legal procedures. Moreover, meta-coverage of the media strategies of legal actors was accompanied by “counter-interventionism”, i.e., journalistic criticism of their own role in cooperating with the media interventions of legal actors. We suggest that this “counter-interventionism” is tied to the defense of the legal sphere by legal journalists.

‘Bad girls’: the use of gendered media frames in the Israeli media's coverage of Israeli female political criminals

The study examined news media coverage of Israeli female political criminals to determine how the media construct and portray women who commit ideological crimes against the state, ultimately to discern what these framing choices suggest about women involved in political crimes. Studies show that the media tend to rely on stereotypical gender frames to portray female criminals and their motivations to the public. These frames depict women perpetrators as motivated to commit political crime for personal reasons as opposed to political reasons, which are often cited for male criminal behavior. The study examined the Israeli news media's use of stereotypical gender news frames when reporting on three Israeli women who committed ideological crimes against the state. The study compared the coverage of these cases among three Israeli newspapers representing different political affinities. As a country with a long history of political conflict, Israel offers a unique opportunity to examine gender bias in the media's coverage of female actors in the public sphere. The study's theoretical contribution lies in its analysis of Israeli female political criminals who, by definition of their crime, acted within the political sphere. The study confirms previous research on the subject – mainly that the media rely on gender frames and explanations of personal motive in its portrayals of female criminals.

Margaret Mead Film Festival 2013

Research Article| September 01 2013 Margaret Mead Film Festival 2013: Encounters of the First, Second, and Third Kind Neta Alexander Neta Alexander Neta Alexander is a doctoral student at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. As a New York-based journalist, she writes for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Film Quarterly (2013) 67 (1): 58–61. https://doi.org/10.1525/fq.2013.67.1.58 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Neta Alexander; Margaret Mead Film Festival 2013: Encounters of the First, Second, and Third Kind. Film Quarterly 1 September 2013; 67 (1): 58–61. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/fq.2013.67.1.58 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentFilm Quarterly Search This content is only available via PDF. © 2014 by the Regents of the University of California2014 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Taming the shame: Policing excretions and body fluids in advertisements for hygiene products

Despite recent burgeoning interest in the body as a culturally constructed project, little research attention is paid to bodily excretions (sweat, urine, faeces, menstrual blood, saliva, mucus, skin oil) and their social implications. The present study addresses this lacuna. Since advertising for hygiene products reflects prevailing ideas regarding the body and the regulation of its excretions, this research focused on two questions: what messages are conveyed by advertisements for products that regulate excretions, and how is shame constituted? The study analysed 159 adverts published in Israeli newspapers. The results indicate that shame or regulation of the body’s orifices and waste do not constitute a frame for promoting hygiene products: cleaning one’s body for hygienic purposes is covert, and adverts reflect a hedonistic cult of the self. This apotheosis of the body implies that pampering oneself requires constant investment, including the purchase of products that serve a hygienic purpose only incidentally.