Got immunity?
Photo: Government Press Office
Herzl, you’re going home
In a new Israeli reality television show, celebrities will build an Israeli settlement just like in yesteryears. Is that an innovative concept? Is it Zionism in the 21st Century?
The filming for the Zionist reality show that will follow celebrities in a settlement is due to begin in September. “The Pioneers” will be aired by “Keshet” and produced by Kupperman Productions (“The Ambassador”), and in it the contestants will be asked to build a settlement under the same conditions the Halutzim founded the first settlements in Israel.
The general idea is to get the participants familiarized with the lives and feelings of the first settlers in Israel.
The second season of The Ambassador failed to garner impressive ratings, and now there is another attempt to combine between Zionism and patriotism on the one hand, and commercial television and the reality show genre on the other.
“I do not believe that the tremendous affect the program The Ambassador had will work also in this case,” says journalist Rina Matzliah, who was a judge on The Ambassador, “although the ratings in the second season were slightly lower, the program did something special to the Israeli perception and I hear about many places that replicate the program’s model, and also appreciate the serious manner in which it was conducted. The show displayed talented young people, and here it is just about celebrities that are put in unfamiliar situations.”
And still perhaps the talents themselves might be the ones who will rake in the ratings this time? Many Israeli celebrities were invited to take part in the show, including Dan Turgeman, Yuval Abramovich, Orly Bauman, Einat Sarouf, Pnina Rosenblum, Ran Dankner, Gila Gamliel and Oded Katash. Ynet has discovered that the show’s production team told the celebs that will be participating in the show, that the series is expected to be rich in Zionist content. The participants will have to express their Zionist and political opinions, and try to communicate a moral message to the viewers.
A Zionist gimmick?
“This idea turns the settlement movement into a gimmick,” says Professor Oz Almog of the University of Haifa. “Just like the celebrities are really over-the-counter-celebrities, so will the settlements turn into a type of over-the-counter-settlements? The first settlers founded the settlements for heaven’s sake and not for publicity and money. This is somewhat absurd, because it is exactly a program such as this one that symbolizes the dissolution of the idealism of that period in time.”
“On the level of a reality television show it may be interesting,” Almog adds. “Through the film content, the audience will be able to absorb the experience of the isolated settlement, subject to terrible conditions. One of the problems in studying history is that the way it is taught is very flat. People were told about the founding of the settlement but not with great detail regarding the personal, psychological and everyday significance of such a thing. It actually began to change through artists who described the personal experiences from that time. In recent years there may have been talk about the experience beyond the flags, slogans and national people, but there was no use of film content. So from a visual perspective, perhaps this program can add color and illustrate that period, but overall it’s just a gimmick.”
“When the pioneers arrived here, they left behind communities and family. They entered the unknown, which was very difficult and heroic. None of the celebrities is disconnecting from anything, but rather enters it like a Vipassana workshop. Each celebrity knows that at the conclusion of the show he or she will return to the Jacuzzi. If there is a term that summarizes the Zionist settlement movement it is the term “victim”. Here, the only victims are the celebrities who will be crucified by the television critics after the show airs.”
Currently, it is not clear when the show is expected to air. It is believed that the production team is debating whether to turn the show into a daily spot that will stretch over Keshet’s four broadcast days, and on Saturday there will be a live episode when someone is kicked off. Or perhaps it is best to broadcast it once a week. Additionally, there is a possibility that during the live episodes, a live audience will be included in the filming of the show.
