Kol Yisrael

Kol Israel (The Voice of Israel) is the international broadcasting service of the state of Israel.

Kol Israel began as a domestic service, however, inaugurated upon Israel's independence on May 14 1948 and was a department of the Ministry of the Interior responsible for both domestic and international broadcasts. Subsuently, responsibility for the service moved 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. Kol Israel's staff was made up both of former PBS personnel as well as former staffers at the underground radio stations run by the Haganah.

Kol Israel pioneered the use of FM transmission. In the early years, stations were operated in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Haifa [1]. The PBS had had its transmitter in Ramallah but this was lost to Kol Israel due to Ramallah being in the Arab sector and under Jordanian governance.

In March 1950, international broadcasting was begun under the name Kol Zion La Golah (The Voice of Zion to the Diaspora"). The broadcasts were produced at Kol Israel by the World Zionist Organization in cooperation with the Jewish Agency. In 1958, the international service was merged with the domestic broadcaster with both services operating under the Kol Israel name.

In 1965, the Israel Broadcasting Authority, an independent public entity, was created and took over responsibility for Kol Israel 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 while Kol Israel was retained for the international radio service.

A previous station named Kol Israel had briefly been operated by the Haganah in 1940 on the 42 metre band. However, the station was soon renamed when the Haganah decided that the Kol Israel name should be reseved until independence.