The Military Bands (MB) were established in 1948, soon after the establishment of the IDF. The glory days of the MB began soon after the Six Day War when each unit and each infantry brigade established a band of its own. The most prominent bands were those of the central commands (north, center and south, as well as the Naval Corps Band). The MB were dismantled at the end of the 1970s by the IDF Commander in Chief at the time, Rafael "Raful" Eitan, and later attempts to renew them failed.
The MB were very important as a didactic tool and a way of keeping the high morale of the soldiers, and their success endowed prestige and "team spirit" to the different units and brigades. The investment in the MB was enormous and the highest ranked commanders were involved in their design. The MB were accepted with enthusiasm and gained a great success within a short time, both in the army and among the general public. Many of their shows were performed outside of the IDF, they produced records, their songs were frequently played on the radio and many of them became hits. The MB shows included songs in Hebrew, most of them original, and short sketches, as a comic relief. The directors of the MB emphasized in particular the arrangements of the songs, and the singers’ body movements harmoniously and rigorously, in order to convey the meaning of the words by acting and pantomime; this particular style became their identifying feature.
Many of the leading artists in Israel contributed songs to the MB, among them: Naomi Shemer, Haim Hefer, Yair Rosenblum, Yoram Teharlev, and together with them leading directors like Naomi Polani, Danny Litai, Yossi Banai and many others.
In the 1970s the veteran members of the MB returned to the bands as a part of their reserve duty, in which they worked with the new MB members. Thus, for example, we can find in The Armored Corps Band show program from 1973, leading artists like Yehonatan Geffen, Shalom Hanoch, Boaz Davidson and many others. These artists were recruited for reserve duty in order to write for the MB.
The enthusiastic acceptance of the MB among Israeli civilian audiences, as well as the fact that the initiation stage of most of the Israeli entertainers in the 1970s and the 1980s were in military frames, is a unique cultural phenomena, reflecting the vague borders between the military sphere and the civilian one in Israeli culture. A typical example for such a vague model, is The Dizengoff Command Band (active in 1969-1970), which was an assembly of MB veteran stars.
The collection includes material which documents the MB activities since the 1960s until the beginning of the 1980s, the singers-actors and the artist who wrote, directed and produced the shows, photographs of their auditions, rehearsals, everyday life and shows, in different places and settings and in times of peace and war.
The material reveals the extraordinary investments of the army in nurturing the MB and the importance they had for the Israeli generals in their chase after prestige. Beyond the reflection of the military and cultural systems, we can detect in the materials the initiation processes and the creative atmosphere of the artists who played a crucial role in Israeli music, theater and cinema since the 1960s. This aspect of the collection, depicts the unique hybrid model of the military and civilian spheres, crystallized in Israeli culture, and may provide a deeper understanding of the modernization process of Israeli society.
The collection includes 780 photographs and 7 negatives of the Military Bands.
The bands which appear in the collection are: The Cheezbatron, The Air Force Band, The Naval Corps Band, North Command Band, South Command Band, Central Command Band, Armored Corps Band, The Nahal Brigade Band, Artillery Corps Band, The Combat Engineering Entertainment Team, The Paratroops Entertainment Team, Golani Entertainment Team, Nahal Brigade Entertainment Team, Armored Corps workshop soldiers [mechanics] Entertainment Team, Sinai Entertainment Team, The Dizengoff Command [a civilian group which operated in a MB model], and a collection of entertainment crews from the early eighties as well as the IDF orchestra. The collection also includes photographs of artists from Israel and abroad performing in front of soldiers, and of Israeli generals with various artists.