Israeli Media and the Framing of Internal Conflict The Yemenite Babies Affair

The Yemenite Babies Affair is the emotionally laden, yet still unresolved, story of the alleged kidnapping of hundreds of Yemenite babies upon their arrival to Israel during the 1950s. This book examines bias within the state of Israel and the media at large, through the lens of the news coverage of the Yemenite Babies Affair. In analyzing fifty years of public narratives, Shoshana Madmoni-Gerber argues that the media played a major role in the concurrent framing and silencing of this story. This eye-opening study exposes the clash between the European Zionist ideology of unity and the reality of Israel's diverse society, where at least half of the Jewish population is of Arab descent.

Shoshana Madmoni-Gerber is Assistant Professor of Journalism and Media at Suffolk University, USA. She was born and raised in Israel to parents of Yemenite descent. She has worked as a freelance journalist in Israel for several newspapers and has published in journals such as Cultural Studies.

Preface to the Paperback EditionIntroduction: The Personal, the Political, and the Theoretical
1. Present But Absent: Official Narratives and the Untold Mizrahi History
2. Israeli Media: History, Ownership, and the Politics of Mizrahi Representation
3. Mapping the Media Coverage of the Yemenite Babies Affair
4. Media Discourse: Coverage, Cover-up, and Criticism
5. Israeli Media and the Articulation of Resistance: Rabbi Meshulam's Revolt
6. Multiculturalism and Unity: Future Implications of the Unresolved Yemenite Babies Affair