Page 110 - Religion, Media, and the Public Sphere

of rabbis from different traditions and tendencies. The wider impact of such an
approach should not, however, be exaggerated. Sectarian attitudes to secular
Jews are de¤nitely not softened, as witness the barely concealed fury at the
persecution the Natanya radio activists say they suffered from the Rabin gov-
ernment.
Partly because of its doubtful legal status, pirate broadcasting creates an in-
timacy with its audience: callers are not all that numerous, so they have time to
chat, they are invited to make their needs known, and the speakers follow up
through their religious or political networks to satisfy urgent personal needs.
Most programming consists of homilies or phone-ins, with musical interludes
of varying length. Micol Halev is hosted every morning by a former ice-cream
seller known as Ovadia Mehaglida (Ovadia Ice-Cream), for whom nothing is
too much trouble. While we were there, someone rang in with a request for
thirty items of religious apparel for a group of students who want to begin
adopting religious dress. They sounded like candidates for t’shuva, and the ra-
dio’s prompt call brought immediate offers of money or donations in kind.
Once a week there is a program to match buyers and sellers of anything from
household goods to real estate. Many stations reserve extensive airtime for re-
quests from individuals for help in emergencies. They also broadcast on health
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issues and (not surprisingly in this connection) alternative medicine. Whereas
previously the stations tended to shy away from explicit political statements, in
the increasingly polarized context of the second Intifada (from late 2000) some
stations have become more vociferous and partisan on the subject of Jewish re-
lations with Arabs and Palestinians. Sephardim may express occasional nostal-
gia for the North Africa of their ancestors where Jews and Arabs coexisted in
peace, and “everyone was religious,” but they do not transpose that into the
context of contemporary Israel.
The radios, therefore, ¤t into the dense undergrowth of the t’shuva move-
ment. The Sephardi element is not explicitly played up but is an implicit pres-
ence through references to Shas or to Ovadia Yosef, through the accent of broad-
casters and their chatty style which stands in contrast to the formalism of the
state channels, characteristic of the Ashkenazi (secular) elite. Boundaries are
redrawn by bringing listeners into new networks, which at ¤rst may be only
virtual; but, if the radios achieve their aims, they eventually will reshape social
lives as people enroll children into religious school, start attending synagogue,
and become ever more involved in religious life. The content of the broadcasts,
like the videos and tapes directed to the popular, less-educated sectors, could
be described as “folksy.” They make a point of using images, proverbs, and ex-
amples from everyday life, and these produce conclusions in the manner of folk
wisdom. There is a similarity with Pentecostal preaching, and a contrast with
the heavily text-centered disquisitions of fundamentalist Christians and of the
more erudite, especially Ashkenazi, haredim. Indeed, it is a trademark of Ovadia
Yosef himself that he peppers his addresses—though not his writings—with
popular language and anecdotes.
It is clear that women are an important section of the audience, and that sta-

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