Page 108 - Religion, Media, and the Public Sphere

law is not being implemented—a complaint that cuts little ice with Shas, or with
any government in this connection. 9
The views of the Shas MKs quoted above are echoed by the pirate station
operators. The director of the Micol Halev (Giving with All Your Heart) station
also says that there are hundreds of pirate stations in the country but that only
the religious ones are troubled by the police. Asked whether there might be ad-
vantages to illegality, he responds guardedly: he does not see bene¤ts from le-
galization “in all situations,” especially because legal stations are watched by the
authorities and he does not want any authority looking over his shoulder or, as
he put it, “telling him what to say.” (This may re®ect anxiety over a law against
incitement that was passed in the wake of the Rabin assassination in 1995, de-
scribed by some, again with customary hyperbole, as a device for muzzling
right-wing voices.) A newspaper journalist explained to us that becoming legal
also involves bidding for a wave band, which would be far beyond the means of
any of these stations because of the heavy competition for the few legally avail-
able bands. Legality would also impose all sorts of time-consuming paperwork.
On the other hand, legal status would allow the stations to earn revenues from
advertising. In short, while authorities tolerate radio “piracy,” the attitude of
the radios themselves is neatly summed up in a broadcaster’s comment that “no
revolution is ever made in legality.”
Outside the of¤cially recognized media sector cash is scarce. It can be raised
from donors, and collections for the radios are often made at open-air public
meetings in support of the t’shuva movement. At Micol Halev the broadcast-
ers and workers, even the website designer, are volunteers, yeshiva students
or people who have returned to religion full time. The station receives many
offers—or approaches—from people who want to broadcast, but the director
only accepts those recommended by trusted individuals. For someone who
wants to build a reputation as a preacher the radio is a good opportunity, as in
the case of Rav Shalom Arush who heads a network of several yeshivas and
broadcasts on Kol HaChesed (The Voice of Charity). There are also degrees of
professionalization, exempli¤ed by Rav Gilles, an experienced broadcaster in
several different idioms on several stations, sometimes answering phone-ins,
sometimes delivering learned commentaries, sometimes interviewing a guest—
always adept at switching his accent and style of speech for different audiences.
Stations are now taking to recruiting media professionals who have made t’shuva
or are at least sympathetic to its cause. Rav Gilles’s ethnic/community identity
is of no concern to the stations, which are eager to put this well-known and
experienced voice on their own wavelengths.
The radios do not stand still. Micol Halev, which looks and sounds like a
shoestring operation, has a website that permits listeners to hear native-speaking
rabbis expounding in Hebrew, Spanish, French, and English. The size of their
audience is of course impossible to judge, and many wavering listeners, re-
sponding to an audience survey, might not admit they do listen until “they have
crossed a certain line.” Rav Gilles reckons he can tell by the number of callers—
on some stations he has long queues of callers while on others there are very

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