A Range of Products: Introduction

The instruments of collection that turned into means of propaganda, such as the stamps and the Blue Box, were only some of a whole range of activities of the Head Office’s Propaganda Department. The following can be seen as the basic premises of their work.

• 1. The desire to innovate.

• 2. The need to establish a permanent tradition.

• 3. The desire to be a recognised presence everywhere.

• 4. The desire to win the approval of all Jews.

These basic premises led the Propaganda Department to spread its work over a wide range of means of propaganda. Some were elaborate and expensive, for example, the production of films or regular series of books, journals, and various newsletters; others were simpler, such as aids for schools and youth movements, circulars for donors, and more.

In the mid-1920s two personalities came into contact: Julius Berger, the head of the Propaganda Department, who was meticulous in his work, and Nathan Bistritski, the visionary writer, who was the head of the Youth and Schools Department. This partnership, together with the rise in demand for JNF material for propaganda and information, caused a quantitative and qualitative change in the institution’s propaganda work. The heads of the Propaganda Department spoke of ‘methodical and steady work’, meaning the totality of propaganda: totality in time and target community. Good propaganda work could not be on a temporary or incidental basis, so a constant flow of propaganda materials must be available all year round, and geared for activity from young age to adulthood. The second principle is evident in their ideas about ‘The Eretz Yisrael way of life’ as a focus for propaganda content, a goal that guided the design of different propaganda materials—games, books, and short films. Emphasizing the way of life of Eretz Yisrael in propaganda had behavioural and educational purposes parallel to the tasks of propaganda for the institution. An additional factor that affected the patterns of propaganda was the constant feeling of the JNF personnel that their work was not adequately publicised among the nation’s masses; the operative conclusions of this feeling led to the expansion, sophistication, and variation of propaganda instruments.