The ways in which culture works in America are not the same as the ways it works in Israel or, perhaps, anywhere else. Israel, it seems, never takes the best of what America has to offer culturally and what it does take seems to backfire in its local adaptation. The range of topics that are part of the transmission of culture to Israel is both intimidating and large, from Israel's ever-growing number of radio stations and internet mania to local talk shows and its attempt to professionalize sports. If we were to overhear the following, among people named Tom, Dean, Shirley, Shaun or Ben,' we might reasonably make certain assumptions about our geographical and cultural locations. Walk straight ahead until you reach the neighborhood which has a TV soap opera named after it. On your right you'll see a McDonald's. Turn left at the McDonald's until you reach King. There you can take the number 13 bus into the city. Get off at the corner where you see 'Dunkin' Donuts,' just a half a block up the street from `Ben and Jerry's.' That's where you'll find the mall you are looking for. The city where all this takes place, we may imagine quite reasonably, is any one of thousands in America, but in fact, this imaginary exchange took place in the Ramat Aviv neighborhood of Tel-Aviv, Israel. We could continue to wander through Israeli geography using the icons of popular culture to mark our way. We might make use of Haagen Dazs ice cream, Bagel, and even Toronto Bagel. (This is not an authorial lapse in geography, but rather, to the dismay of Canadians, Canada is merely a geographic and cultural continuation of America for most Israelis, if not for most Americans as well.) Israel also has local versions of fast foods, like Burger Ranch, McDavids, and American Chicken. Unfortunately, local adaptations of institutions often seem to boomerang, in terms of quality, and I am not referring merely to food, or even to Israel's very own Baywatch, which is no worse than the original. The essence, if I may use such a term, is lost in the transmission of culture and something strikingly different from the prototype seems to emerge. One needs only examine Channel Two of the Israeli Broadcasting Association to illustrate this point. Channel Two has granted franchises to three different companies and they split the TV-programming week among them. It appears they feel it necessary to make up for lost opportunity, so a prime time presentation, something like NYPD Blue or Chicago Hope, imports, of course, takes up to an hour and seven minutes to present. prime time presents a TV series in 60 minutes, of which twelve are commercial. The extra time in Israel, of course, does not signify a longer show; that time means simply over 50% more commercial minutes. And the ads themselves leave a lot to be desired. Grapefruits, oranges, and tomatoes abound, as parts of the female anatomy rather than as fruits and vegetables, with women sucking on everything from beer bottles to containers of yogurt. I do not claim that commercials are less dependent on sex or sexual tension, but the Israeli versions are outright sexist. Here is one area lacking in influence. Thus, it is unfortunate the feminist movement has not had more effect on Israeli culture. Even in cultural areas specifically Israeli (Jews, after all, imagine themselves to be the people of the book), culture has changed what and the way people read, but not necessarily for the better. Israel has lately become inundated by a number of original Hebrew best sellers, written in the style used by popular writers who sell millions of copies of their books, something previously unthinkable in Israeli culture. Reading was a high culture activity and was not meant to carry over into the popular realm. The people of the book had never imagined they would one day be reading pulp fiction, so to speak, or not reading at all; scanning, instead, the cable stations, hoping against hope that something more interesting than the home shopping channel would be on TV. …