"Without cinema there is no life": Israeli Movie Magazines and Fan Culture during Early Statehood

ABSTRACT: Within the field of Israeli Cinema Studies, the period of early statehood has been discussed mainly in terms of production, which in turn led to the highlighting of Israeli film's role as a tool for Zionist indoctrination. Israeli spectators—the presumed primary audience for Israeli cinema—were not given as thorough an analysis as the films themselves. Consequently, they emerged in research as not much more than Israeli cinema's textual-ideological effect: the un/willing receptacles of Zionism's powerful nationalist propaganda. This essay aims to counter such a reductive reading by fleshing out the Israeli audience, at least to the degree that it was reflected on the pages of Israel's postwar film magazines— Kolnoa and Olam HaKolnoa . Focusing principally on both magazines' "letters to the editor" section, my analysis reveals readers to be ardent movie fans, fully devoted to the pleasures of a cinema from elsewhere (Hollywood in particular), even as this commitment conflicts with the values of Israeli high nationalism and the requirements of Israeli citizenship.