Programs Broadcast by Israeli Educational Television

Israeli Educational Television's documented output covered several audiences and formats, including classroom instruction, preschool enrichment, youth magazines, language education, drama, documentaries, current affairs, and programs for immigrant communities. The titles below are a sourced selection rather than a complete schedule: the National Library's preservation project describes an archive of approximately 14,000 episodes, of which only hundreds had been made available when its collection page was prepared.[1]

Israeli Educational Television was established by the Rothschild Foundation in 1964 and conducted experimental educational broadcasts for schools beginning in 1966, reaching 32 schools over a three-year trial period.[1][4] Sources differ slightly on the exact date of the first broadcast: the National Library of Israel's collection page gives 15 March 1966, while a separate National Library historical item records 24 March 1966.[1][5] Responsibility for the station was later transferred to the Ministry of Education and Culture.[6] From 1968 to 1986, it shared Israel's single television channel with the Israeli Broadcast Authority.[4]

At the outset, the station's schedule consisted of school-learning programs, preschool programs, and afternoon enrichment programs.[1] Over time its mandate broadened considerably. Its output eventually included documentaries, interview programs, drama, telenovelas, entertainment, sports, cooking, and current affairs.[2] Distribution occurred across Channel One, Channel Two, and cable television.[6]

IET combined classroom-use productions with programming for the wider public. Its pedagogical schedule was directed mainly toward audiences from toddlers through teenagers, while its broader output included adult courses, entertainment, documentaries, and news.[7][2] Programs were distributed through Channel One, Channel Two, and cable television, allowing educational material and general-interest productions to appear across several broadcast settings.[6]

Children's programming was a major part of IET's output and included several series remembered in Israeli popular culture.

Parpar Nehmad (Nice Butterfly) was one of the station's recognized productions and was noted as a well-known example of IET's color production.[5] It was described as a classic preschool program that continued for more than 20 years despite recurring threats of cancellation due to budget cuts.[3]

Ma Pitom? (No Way!) first aired in 1976 and featured Kishkashta, a talking felt-cactus puppet.[8] A 2002 compilation release, The Friends of Kishkashta – Magical Moments of Educational Television, was catalogued by the National Library of Israel with IET listed among its creators.[9]

Rega Im Dodli (A Moment with Dodly) was associated with the Educational Television Center of the Ministry of Education and Culture from approximately 1979.[10] It centered on a child character named Rega and neighborhood children in Dodly's old-fashioned store, where lessons in tolerance and friendship were embedded in each episode.[3] During the station's 40th-anniversary celebrations, Rega Im Dodli was voted IET's most popular program.[3]

Rehov Sumsum was IET's version of Sesame Street, featuring characters including Kippi Ben Kippod, a hedgehog, and Moishe Oofnik.[8] The program was later brought to the United States under the title Shalom Sesame.[11] A Hebrew version of Sesame Street is also specifically cited as an example of IET's Ministry of Education-produced programming for toddlers through teenagers.[7]

Doberman Hahevreman featured a friendly Doberman known as the Traffic Rules Doctor and promoted road-safety messages, including the slogan "diagonally is dangerous."[3]

Additional children's programs recorded in the sources include Fistuk's Home, Pupik's Yard, The Children of the Haim Neighborhood, Gabby and Debby, and Here We Are.[3] Israeli Instructional Television also produced A Passover Adventure, a videotape program intended for children and their families, though no broadcast date is available.[12]

Zehu Zeh! (This Is It!) became a highly popular youth-oriented magazine program in the late 1980s.[3] Its recurring characters included Baba Booba, a parody of a kabbalistic figure, as well as Yatzek and the Polaniot, a comic rendering of Polish mothers.[3] Its place in popular culture was reinforced during the 1990 Gulf War, when viewers watched it in sealed rooms with gas masks at hand.[3] The National Library of Israel archives document several Zehu Zeh! episodes, including a holiday special for Hanukkah, an Independence Day special, a studio-format episode (תוכנית אולפן), and a primaries special.[1]

The 17 November 1983 studio episode — catalogued as episode 39 of the 1978–1985 series — included a weekly song segment, a biblical quiz, a news segment about the new 1,000-shekel note and inflation, cooking, and coverage of youth issues and sports.[13] That episode also featured a guest appearance by singer Shimi Tavori, including a segment in which a blind teenager who admired Tavori met and toured with him, and an interview with actor Rock Hudson, who said "Zehu Zeh" in Hebrew.[13]

Bli Sodot (Without Secrets) was a video series developed in 1990 to build reading and reading-comprehension skills and was approved by the Ministry of Education.[14] Presenter Hani Nahmias appeared in both Bli Sodot and its follow-up Besod Ha'inyanim, before hosting Heder shel Hani (Hani's Room), in which she interviewed children and adults.[3] Nahmias later co-hosted Mo'adon with Dalik Volinitz, a program targeting viewers aged 50 and over.[3]

Open Cards was a program series that addressed social issues for a teenage audience. One episode concerned homosexual teenagers and was originally scheduled for broadcast on 10 October 1996.[15]

Krovim Krovim (Close Neighbors) portrayed a typical Israeli family spread across three floors of the same apartment building and was billed as the "first Zionist family sitcom."[3] Set at Rehov Vittek 9, the show featured actress Hanna Marron as Aunt Hanna, whose recurring line upon answering the doorbell — "Pa-tu-ah!" ("It's o-pen!") — became a cultural touchstone.[3]

Sheriff Goodman of Hollywood Hills is also recorded among the programs associated with the station's history.[3]

Hello, Penina (הלו, פנינה) was an 18-episode Hebrew-language drama series designed to teach Hebrew and improve the language skills of relatively recent immigrants. Each episode ran 10–12 minutes, and the series continued to be broadcast in reruns.[16]

IET's news programming began during the 1982 First Lebanon War. During Operation Peace for Galilee, the station began broadcasting a program called Shalom HaGalil (Peace for Galilee), whose name was subsequently changed to Erev Hadash (A New Evening).[1] The program marked a turning point as IET began combining entertainment programming with current-affairs content.[1]

Erev Hadash became IET's flagship news program and attracted a very high audience share.[2] It was anchored by journalist Dan Margalit and was frequently mistaken for a Channel 1 production because it was screened there.[3] It was also described as a highly regarded news program within the Israeli media landscape.[17]

The station began adding news programs produced in cooperation with Galei Tzahal during the 1980s.[5]

IET produced a range of programs devoted to Jewish cultural heritage, Israeli identity, and adult education. The Kashet VeAnan (Rainbow and Cloud) series addressed Jewish religious topics, with episodes introducing viewers to Rashi as a Torah commentator, teaching the Purim custom of mishloach manot through halakhic sources, depicting the seven traditional Sukkot guests (ushpizin) visiting a character in a dream, and examining the life of Rabbi Hayyim ben Attar.[1]

Hakol Anashim (Everybody) was a biographical documentary series; episode 7 profiled singer Bracha Zefira and her creative and life partner Nahum Vardi, examining their contribution to a distinctly Israeli sound rooted in local identity. The episode, produced in 1997, ran 30 minutes.[18]

IET also produced the documentary Without a Homeland There Were Films – Early Israeli Cinema (באין מולדת היו סרטים), a studio discussion about the first Israeli color film, with participants including Yehuda Shtau, Shoshana Damari, and Aryeh Hashavia.[19]

A Bar-Ilan University profile of Prof. Yael Katzir states that the Open University course Jerusalem Throughout the Ages, which she designed and led, included six films on the history of Jerusalem that were aired on IET; the profile does not give their broadcast dates.[20]

Recognizing its role in immigrant absorption, IET broadcast several programs targeting specific linguistic communities. Through Our Eyes (דרך העיניים שלנו) was an Amharic-language program for Israel's Ethiopian-immigrant community, broadcast every Friday at noon for 27 minutes; a survey found a viewership rate exceeding approximately 85 percent.[16] A Russian-language program was planned for Channel 3 as a one-hour-per-week broadcast on Saturday afternoons, though its title is not recorded in the available sources.[16]

The National Library of Israel has undertaken a preservation and cataloguing project in cooperation with Israeli Educational Television.[1] At the time of the collection page's description, hundreds of episodes had been made accessible, with the full archive estimated at approximately 14,000 program episodes to be exposed progressively as cataloguing and preservation work continued.[1] The scale of this archive illustrates the breadth of IET's educational and cultural production, while the collection's ongoing ingestion means that the programs and episodes listed here cannot constitute a verified exhaustive list.

The postponement of the Open Cards episode on homosexual teenagers generated significant public and legal controversy. Education Minister Zevulun Hammer postponed the episode, originally scheduled for 10 October 1996, citing his view that its message was inappropriate for an educational medium and that the program was one-sided.[15] Experts supporting his position argued that it lacked balance, ignored social values, and encouraged homosexual experimentation.[15] Petitioners brought the matter to the High Court of Justice, which ruled that the episode qualified as educational content and ordered it to be aired, while allowing opponents to express their views in a complementary discussion.[15]