MasterChef Israel

The program searches for Israel's best home cook and has aired since 2010.[1][7] The Israeli edition is broadcast by Keshet, produced by Gil Productions, and based on the international format held by Shine.[2] The main competition has reached a twelfth season, while VIP versions and other specials are counted separately.[8][9] The program has won three Israeli Television Academy awards in the reality-program category.[1]

The first season launched in 2010 with a judging quartet of Haim Cohen, Rafi Adar, Eyal Shani, and Michal Ansky.[7] Cohen set the tone for the program at the outset, saying of contestants: "I don't want imitations. I'd like to see the person inside the plate."[7] The finale, broadcast in November 2010, drew a 41.6% rating, peaking at 45.5% of Jewish households when winner Ina Kravetsky was announced.[2] The season averaged above 30% and reached approximately 750,000 viewers per episode.[2] The finale was also the first in the format's history to incorporate live broadcast elements, which Keshet executives planned to present to the format holder.[2]

Before the second season launched in June 2011, more than 10,000 people had auditioned over the preceding six months, roughly 3,000 more than for the previous season.[10] The first season's success prompted Keshet to expand the brand, including a children's version and a recipe book that sold more than 10,000 copies before the second season aired.[10] Content editor Dorit Gevirtsman described the show's underlying philosophy: "The food is only an excuse to tell a story about human beings."[10]

The third-season finale in 2013 averaged 46.6% among Jewish households, peaking at 52.3% and drawing 1.3 million viewers, with 1.85 million people watching at least five minutes of the broadcast.[3] That season, German-born convert Tom Franz — a 34-year-old attorney and observant Jew living in Tel Aviv — won the final against Arab nurse Salma Fiyumi of Kafr Kassem and Jackie Azoulay of Elad.[11] In the final cook-off, Franz prepared deboned spring chicken rolled with spinach and seasonal desert truffles, while Fiyumi made maklouba, an Arab baked chicken dish served on bulgur wheat.[11] On receiving the title, Franz said: "Thank you to my wife, thanks to the creator of the world."[11]

The fourth season, in 2014, saw Dr. Nof Atamna-Ismaeel — a 33-year-old microbiologist and mother of three from Baqa al-Gharbiya — win against finalists Ido Kronenberg of Savyon and Meseret Woldimikhal, an Ethiopian-born immigrant to Israel.[5] The preceding semifinal was watched by 37.8% of Israeli households, and MasterChef was described at the time as Israel's most-watched television show.[5] Atamna-Ismaeel called her victory "one of the most exciting experiences of my life" and announced plans to use her winnings to open a Jewish-Arab cooking school for students from across the country.[5]

A celebrity edition filmed in early 2013 was broadcast in February 2015, with producers offering no clear explanation for the delay.[12] It featured twelve celebrity contestants, including actors, models, writers, singers, and television personalities, and retained judges Eyal Shani, Yonatan Roshfeld, Michal Ansky, and Haim Cohen.[12] One challenge required contestants to present dishes to the judges blind, then create a second dish using only a single additional pantry ingredient.[12]

By 2022, the main format had reached its tenth season, excluding VIP versions and other specials.[9] The judging panel that year comprised Haim Cohen, Eyal Shani, Israel Aharoni, Michal Ansky, and Ruthi Brodo. The season introduced a blind-tasting audition in which the judges sampled a dish and attempted to identify its maker before meeting selected contestants face to face.[9] Each judge held one veto that could advance a contestant without full unanimity.[9]

The twelfth season concluded with Yuval Rosen winning the title ahead of finalists Hadas Bendel and Nitzan Aharon in the first all-women final in the program's history.[8] In 2026, a "Dream Team" edition brought former contestants back for another chance at the title. Eliahav Sasson won ahead of contestant Haim Cohen and Gal Kaspres.[13]

The show is filmed on a large set described as a hangar at Neve Ilan, where a filming day can last approximately 21 hours.[14] The production requires specialized plumbing and cooking equipment, a medical team, a kitchen crew, and roughly ten production workers.[14] The pantry is stocked in three stages: the production team spends a week preparing it at the start of each season, replenishes it in a full day's work before each filming day, and adds perishables such as fish and meat shortly before contestants arrive.[15] The pantry has reportedly held eight types of lemons and ten varieties of sprouts, with fresh vegetables delivered from the fields on filming days.[14]

Only the judges are permitted to taste contestants' dishes; contestants cannot sample one another's food, and production staff are also barred from eating it.[14] Haim Cohen said the food must taste good, while Yonatan Roshfeld characterized the principle as winning through culinary skill rather than personal narrative.[14] After the judges' tasting and deliberation, contestants face an elimination ceremony.[14]

The show's core judges have included prominent figures in Israeli cuisine. Haim Cohen, described by My Jewish Learning as a famed Israeli chef and MasterChef judge, was called "the prophet of local knafeh" by Haaretz.[16] Eyal Shani and Michal Ansky were members of the first-season panel and remained among the show's judges in 2022.[7][9]

The panel has evolved over the years. Rafi Adar appeared as a first-season judge alongside Cohen, Shani, and Ansky.[7] Yonatan Roshfeld served on later panels, including the celebrity edition broadcast in 2015.[12] Israel Aharoni joined during the seventh season.[15] By 2022, Ruthi Brodo had been added as a fifth panelist.[9]

Scholars at Ben-Gurion University have examined MasterChef Israel as a vehicle for broader cultural dynamics, describing a phenomenon they call "gastro-emotivism" — the way the show links food with emotion and therapy to articulate emotional-therapeutic selves, collective identities, and social categories.[4] The research situates the show within a wider Israeli public discourse in which emotional-therapeutic language has become prominent in how Israelis "cook, taste and feel" their collective affiliations.[4]

A Jerusalem Post commentary said Keshet sought to tailor the show "for local tastes" and emphasized cultural differences among participants, an approach it described as resonant in a country where 36% of the population was born overseas.[17] Across its seasons, the competition has included a German-born Jewish convert, Muslim Arab contestants, and an Ethiopian-born immigrant to Israel among its finalists and winners.[11][5]

The unexpected friendship between two contestants in the third season became a noted example of this cross-community dimension. Elinor Rahamim, a Jewish settler from Tekoa in Gush Etzion, and Salma Fayumi, a Muslim nurse from Kfar Qasm, formed a close bond that confounded expectations of conflict. The women attributed their friendship to thinking alike about people: "I guess we've disappointed all those who were expecting action and quarrels. The good bond between us was formed because we think alike about people."[18]

In an opinion essay, Sapir Journal identified Dr. Nof Atamna-Ismaeel as the first Muslim Arab to win Israel's MasterChef and described her as pursuing the goal of bringing Jews and Arabs together through food.[6] Her announced plan to establish a Jewish-Arab cooking school extended that ambition beyond the competition.[5]

Academic attention to the show has not been uniformly celebratory. A National Library of Israel bibliographic record lists a 2017 Hebrew-language article in Lehem Huk: Studies in Law and Food, a volume published by Tel Aviv University's Buchmann Faculty of Law, whose title examines MasterChef Israel in terms of hegemony and exclusion. The record establishes the subject of the scholarship but does not provide the article's arguments or conclusions.[19]

The third-season finale in 2013 was accompanied by racist comments on the program's Facebook page after Arab contestant Salma Fayyumi advanced to the final.[3] Globes reported that page administrators deleted the comments as they appeared. The incident showed how the program's prominence as a national cultural event could intersect with social tensions surrounding its contestants.