Filming for a new Zionist reality show that will follow celebrities building a settlement is due to begin this month.
“The Pioneers” will be aired by Israeli TV station Keshet, and was produced by Kupperman Productions. Kupperman previously produced “The Ambassador,” in which contestants competed to become the new global face of Israel.
The second season of “The Ambassador” failed to garner impressive ratings, and “The Pioneers” is another attempt to combine Zionism with the commercial nature of reality TV.
On the show, celebrity contestants will be asked to build a settlement under the same conditions the Halutzim faced when they founded the first settlements in Israel. The idea is to familiarize participants with the lives and struggles of the first Israeli settlers.
Already, the show has its detractors.
“I do not believe that the tremendous effect the program ‘The Ambassador’ had will work also in this case,” says journalist Rina Matzliah, who was a judge on “The Ambassador.” “The show displayed talented young people, and here it is just about celebrities that are put in unfamiliar situations.”
The show’s production team told the participating celebrities that the series is expected to be rich in Zionist content. The participants will have to express their Zionist and political opinions, and try to communicate a moral message to the viewers.
“This idea turns the settlement movement into a gimmick,” says professor Oz Almog of the University of Haifa. “The first settlers founded the settlements for heaven’s sake, and not for publicity and money.
“On the level of a reality television show it may be interesting,” he adds. “Through the film content, the audience will be able to absorb the experience of the isolated settlement, subject to terrible conditions … So from a visual perspective, perhaps this program can add color and illustrate that period, but overall it’s just a gimmick.”
Almog also noted that while the pioneers left behind communities and family to enter the “unknown,” the celebrities know “that at the conclusion of the show he or she will return to the Jacuzzi.”