Without Kol Israel and its popular music network Reshet Gimel (רשת ג׳), there would have been no Israeli official music chart. For 36 years, from August 1961 to September 1997, Reshet Gimel was the broadcast home of the מצעד הלועזי — the institution that made international pop music part of weekly Israeli life.
Kol Israel: The Voice of Israel
Kol Israel (קול ישראל — literally "Voice of Israel") was established as Israel's state broadcasting service in 1948, the year of the country's founding. Over the following decades, it grew into a multi-channel radio network serving diverse audiences across the country.
Reshet Gimel was the network's popular music station — the Israeli equivalent of BBC Radio 1. It broadcast pop, rock, disco, and chart music, and its audience was primarily young Israelis who wanted connection to global music culture. The decision to launch a weekly chart format in 1961 was a recognition of that audience's appetite.
The Chart Format: How It Worked on Air
The מצעד הלועזי (foreign language chart) aired as a live broadcast on Reshet Gimel, typically in a primetime slot. The format was a classic hit parade countdown — position by position, from the lowest-ranked down to the #1 song of the week.
The broadcast combined music playback with presenter commentary, chart position announcements, and analysis of new entries and major movers. For Israeli listeners of the 1960s, 70s, 80s, and 90s, it was the primary way to discover new international music and track their favourite songs' chart fortunes.
The Legendary Presenters
The chart's presenters became household names — their voices inseparable from the weekly ritual of tuning in to hear where your favourite song had placed.
- Ofer Nachshon (עופר נחשון) — One of the chart's most iconic hosts, Nachshon's name is synonymous with the Israeli chart for many listeners who grew up with the broadcast in the 1970s and 80s.
- Benny Dudkevich (בני דודקביץ) — A beloved radio personality who presented the chart across key eras, Dudkevich brought warmth and encyclopedic musical knowledge to the weekly broadcast.
- Raz Nitzan (רז ניצן) — Among the presenters of the chart's later years, Nitzan was part of a generation that took the chart into the 1990s before its 1997 conclusion.
The Cultural Impact
The Reshet Gimel chart was more than a radio programme. For generations of Israelis, it was a shared cultural experience — a weekly moment of connection with the wider world through music. Before the internet, before MTV Israel, before streaming, Reshet Gimel and the מצעד הלועזי were how Israel stayed connected to global pop culture.
Songs that topped the Israeli chart became national touchstones. "Stayin' Alive" in 1978. "Come On Eileen" in 1982. "Don't You Want Me" in the early 80s. These weren't just chart positions — they were the soundtrack of Israeli life, mediated through Reshet Gimel's weekly broadcast.
The End of an Era: 1997
When Kol Israel's Reshet Gimel ended the מצעד הלועזי on September 23, 1997, it marked the close of a broadcasting era. The rise of television music channels, the proliferation of commercial radio, and changing listener habits had transformed the landscape. The state radio chart format that had defined Israeli pop culture for 36 years gave way to a more fragmented, pluralistic music media environment.
But the archive endures — 1,982 weekly charts, preserved and searchable on IsraeliCharts.com, as a permanent record of what Reshet Gimel and Kol Israel built across three and a half decades.