An Israeli reality television show that is similar to Big Brother will put the process of making aliyah onto the international screen.
HaOlim (The New Immigrants) is set to launch this fall and will introduce the concept of Israeli immigration into the burgeoning synthesis of television and reality.
“We want to share the experience with people who haven’t made aliyah and want to know what it means,” said Noam Shalev, managing director of Highlight Films, which is producing the show.
HaOlim will follow eight English-speaking Jews as they attempt to begin their lives as Israeli citizens. The contestants, half of them men and half women in their 20s, will share a Tel Aviv home and pool their finances in partial simulation of the kibbutz lifestyle.
Equipped with little or no knowledge of Hebrew, the olim must compete against one another in various tasks that mirror the different challenges olim faced building the State of Israel. As the show progresses, contestants will be eliminated based on votes cast by the Israeli audience, as well as by online viewers in the Diaspora. The process will also include three judges, who interview and evaluate the participants.
“The candidates we’re looking for are mostly young and single, and want to start their adult life in Israel,” said Shalev. “Younger audiences will be attracted to it, but I think every Jew with some Zionist connection, or who wants to know more about Israel and what it means to live here, will find a lot of interest in the show.”
The series will conclude with the crowning of the Ultimate Oleh, a title supplemented by a golden ticket into Israeli society, complete with a luxurious beachfront apartment in Tel Aviv, a new car and a dream job.
Because Highlight Films is still conducting the final stages of the candidate interviews and the show has yet to air, the potential contestants are legally prohibited from offering any insight into the future of the series.
However, HaOlim will soon be accessible to people all over the world through online streaming.
According to Shalev, many Jews, although familiar with the idea, do not understand the reality and implications of moving to Israel.
“It’s an abstract term,” he said. “If you live outside of the country and all you know about Israel comes from the news, then you think it’s a place of war and violence on the edge of survival. It’s not like that. People do live good lives here, and I think Jews around the world should know that.”
Kessia Lurie, 20, who is seriously contemplating making aliyah from Los Angeles, said that HaOlim may not portray the harsher realities of the process and therefore may not be consistent with the producers’ initial goals.
“Although it will promote aliyah to the broader audiences, it might minimize the difficulties that people face as olim in this country without the constant support of a TV series,” she said. “When you’re an oleh, you might not have any support to fall back on.”
Although somewhat skeptical of the program’s ability to encourage people to move to Israel, recent oleh Debbie Katz is hopeful that it will indeed affect positive change in the Jewish community.
“I really hope that the show does fulfil the goal of promoting aliyah because this country needs people to come, along with all of their education, ideas and ideologies, to help the state progress,” Katz said.
For more information visit www.haolim.tv