Stanford University Libraries Acquires Extensive Photo Archive of Israeli Popular Culture

From SUL’s Remix Newsletter:

The Stanford University Libraries announce the acquisition of an extensive archive of Israeli popular culture from the files of the magazines ‘Olam ha-kolno‘a [Cinema World; 1951-1974] and Lahiton [Hit Parade Newspaper; 1969-1987]. The 20,000-plus photographs in the Lahiton-Cinema World collection (in both black-and-white and color) document the Israeli popular music scene from the 1950s to the 1980s. This archive complements other holdings at Stanford relating to Israeli society and culture, including the Israel Cohen Collection and the Eliasaf Robinson Collection on Tel-Aviv.
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According to Israeli researcher Etan Bloom, Lahiton and Cinema World were the first Israeli magazines “to instill the Western models of the ‘star’… It produced and distributed a new set of cultural models which furnished the Israeli entertainment world with symbolic fortune and legitimization.” In the words of Professor Amir Eshel (Comparative Literature), this collection “impressively demonstrates the evolution of Hebrew culture and the genealogy of Israel’s cultural-political discourse.” The Lahiton-Cinema World photo archive is an extensive journalistic and iconographic resource, documenting Israeli society at a pivotal stage in its development.
At Stanford, the archive is being processed and will soon be made accessible for scholarly research. Funding permitting, we also intend to digitize major portions of the collection.

Read the Complete Announcement, View a Few Images from the Collection

Filed under: Funding, Libraries, Resources