Kol Yisrael was originally an underground
Haganah radio station that broadcast from
Tel Aviv. It started consistently broadcasting in December 1947 under the name
Telem-Shamir-Boaz, and was renamed to
Kol HaHagana ("Voice of the Haganah") in March 1948. With Israel's
declaration of independence on May 14, 1948, it was transformed into the official station
Kol Yisrael. Another station named
Kol Yisrael operated in
Haifa, and was renamed
Kol Tzva HaHagana ("Voice of the Defense Force"). The first
Kol Yisrael transmission was a live broadcast from
Tel Aviv of
David Ben-Gurion reading the declaration of independence. It was operated by a department of the
Ministry of the Interior responsible for domestic and international broadcasts. Responsibility for the service was later transferred to the Office of Posts and Telegraphs and then to the
Prime Minister's Office. The station inherited the facilities of the former
Palestine Broadcasting Service, which had been founded as the official broadcaster of the
Mandate of Palestine in 1936, and had run the
Kol Yerushalayim radio station.
Kol Yisrael staff was made up of both former PBS personnel and former staffers at the Haganah underground radio stations.
Kol Yisrael pioneered the use of
FM transmission. In the early years, stations were operated in
Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Haifa. The PBS had had its transmitter in
Ramallah, but this transmitter was lost to Kol Yisrael due to Ramallah being in the Arab sector. In March 1950, international broadcasting began under the name
Kol Zion La Golah ("The Voice of Zion to the Diaspora.") The broadcasts were produced at
Kol Yisrael by the
World Zionist Organization in cooperation with the
Jewish Agency, and aimed to foster communication between the Israeli state and the
Jewish diaspora. The service broadcast readings from the
Torah alongside documentary programs on life in Israel. In 1958, the international service was merged with the domestic broadcaster, with both services operating under the
Kol Yisrael name. Between 1958 and 1965, the "Kol Yisrael" international services expanded rapidly, inaugurating new
shortwave services in
Afrikaans,
English,
French,
Hungarian,
Italian,
Persian,
Romanian, and
Yiddish. Between 1960 and 1963, the service also broadcast daily programs in English, French and
Swahili for African audiences and began distributing tapes for rebroadcasting across the continent. This appeal to international audiences was closely tied to Israel's
Periphery doctrine, which sought to align Israel with states on the fringes of the Middle East to avoid 'encirclement' by the Arab states and counteract international support for
Palestinian nationalism. Programs on the international services ranged from news and commentary programs to competitions, documentaries and readings from the
Bible and
Quran. However, the technical quality of the international services was often poor beyond Israel's immediate neighbors in the Middle East. In 1965, the
Israel Broadcasting Authority, an independent public entity, was created and took over responsibility for
Kol Yisrael from the Prime Minister's Office. In 1973, the IBA adopted the name
Shidurei Yisrael ("Israel Broadcasting") for the service's domestic radio and television services. The name
Kol Yisrael was revived for the domestic and international radio service in 1979.
Kol Yisrael's shortwave services have gradually been discontinued over time. The last remaining shortwave service, the Persian programme for Iran, ceased transmissions on June 30, 2013. However, Israel continues to broadcast international services in fourteen languages under the label of
Israel Radio International. ==Name: meaning and significance==