40 years of Hebrew broadcasting
SBS is celebrating the 40th anniversary of SBS Radio, and 40 years as the voice of multicultural Australia.
SBS Radio Hebrew Executive Producer Nitza Lowenstein and Host, SBS World News Anton Enus
Established as Radio 2EA and 3EA in Sydney and Melbourne respectively in June 1975 and starting as a trial service tasked with informing Australia’s rapidly growing migrant population about the Governments new healthcare scheme, SBS Radio has since developed into the world’s largest multicultural media organisation with 74 language programs and four music channels producing over 265 hours of original, Australian focused news and information every week
The dynamic Australian Jewish community was one of the driving forces behind the establishment of 2EA & 3EA, with the SBS Radio Hebrew program, then known as the Jewish Hour, forming an integral part of the SBS Radio schedule since 1975.
Leading the program for the last 27 years is Executive Producer Nitza Lowenstein, who said her time at SBS Radio has been a “great challenge and incredibly interesting, with the program showcasing some incredible people who make a difference to the world and I’ve learnt a lot from all my guests”.
In particular she recalls an interview in the 1990’s with now Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu.
NSWJBD CEO Vic Alhadeff and SBS Chairman Nihal Gupta
Nitza is proud of the fact that SBS Hebrew/Shalom Australia radio programs are a trusted source of news and information to her community and that they continue to encourage dialogue, understanding and tolerance across Australia, whilst contributing to the audience’s sense of belonging and identity within Australia.
Whether in English, Hebrew or Yiddish, news and programs on Jewish culture, tradition and religion are an essential ingredient of SBS Radio multicultural programming.
On the anniversary SBS Managing Director, Michael Ebeid said: “SBS Radio has had a significant impact on the lives of so many people in the last 40 years, including my own parents who I remember listening to SBS Radio, when I was young. For them, as with many migrants, SBS was a trusted place where they could get impartial news and information in a language they were more familiar with, helping them participate in Australian society”
“We are still that trusted voice for the more than four million Australians who speak a language other than English at home. With that figure now double what it was 40 years ago; there is a greater need today for SBS’s services than ever before, which will only increase as Australia continues to grow in cultural complexity” said Mr Ebeid
To mark the anniversary, SBS Radio are celebrating 40 years of a multicultural Australia with specialised content looking back on the news that shaped Australia and the world over the last 40 years.
Allow me to recount another typical SBS / 2 EA radio scandal.
Some years ago I was employed as a journalist and broadcaster at 2EA.
At one stage station management appointed a “commissar” to vet the content of the English language segment news that I selected and broadcast.
On one occasion the “commissar” insisted that I include a report of an assertion that had been made by a UN soldier serving in the “peacekeeping force” on the Lebanese-Israel border; that soldier had declared that Israeli troops were “like Nazis.”
On the other hand, the “commissar” prohibited my broadcasting a statement that had been made by the Israeli Prime Minister of the time, Yitzhak Shamir, who had stated that when the Arab world used to threaten to throw the Jews into the sea, the world sympathised with Israel, but subsequently, when Arab propaganda became more sophisticated, the world turned against Israel.
Smiles in photos can hide a great deal, can’t they?
Smiles all around in these charming photos.
How lovely.
Did you know, however, that SBS radio censorship prohibits the use of the Jewish names, ” Judea and Samaria” even in the Jewish programmes? That I know from personal experience; possibly the same censorship is applied to their TV programmes, too.
Those geographical place names appear repeatedly in Australia’s official history of World War One, but SBS prohibits them. Too Jewish, SBS?