About Shelanu TV

Shelanu TV

Shelanu TV was a Hebrew-language television channel operated in Israel by the international evangelical network GOD TV, launched on the HOT cable system on 29 April 2020 and ordered off the air by Israel's Cable and Satellite Broadcasting Council barely two months later, in one of the most contested broadcasting disputes in modern Israeli media history. Shelanu — the name means "ours" in Hebrew — was presented by its operators as the first Messianic Jewish Hebrew-language channel: programming made largely by Israelis, in Hebrew, in which Messianic Jews shared their faith in Yeshua, the Hebrew name for Jesus, through interviews, music and personal stories. Its supporters framed it as an exercise of religious freedom by Israeli citizens; its opponents, led by anti-missionary organisations and ultimately by the broadcasting regulator, framed it as a missionary channel that had obtained its licence under a false description. The council's chairman, Asher Biton, ruled that the licence application had characterised the channel as a station for Christians while its broadcasts in fact appealed to Jews with Christian content, suspended the licence, and gave HOT seven days to remove it. HOT declined to reapply, the channel left cable at the start of July 2020, and Shelanu moved its broadcast online.

GOD TV and its background in Israel

Shelanu's parent, GOD TV, is an evangelical Christian media network registered in the United Kingdom, with its international broadcasting licences held through a Florida-based non-profit, which says it broadcasts to hundreds of millions of homes around the world — around three hundred million homes, by the figure cited in American reporting of the Shelanu affair, in some two hundred countries. Its programming, broadcast twenty-four hours a day, ranges across the evangelical world, from Anglican to Pentecostal, including Full Gospel and Messianic Jewish content. GOD TV's involvement with Israel long predated Shelanu: the network had for decades hosted Holy Land tours of biblical sites and staged events in Israel broadcast worldwide, including its largest tour in 2008, when some eighteen hundred pilgrims attended a celebration of Israel's sixtieth anniversary at Jerusalem's Davidson Center beside the Western Wall. In 2009 it partnered with the Jewish National Fund on a tree-planting fundraising effort in the Negev, and its chief executive Ward Simpson addressed a Christian media summit in Jerusalem in October 2017 at the invitation of the Israeli government. Shelanu was therefore launched not by newcomers to Israel, but by a network with deep, publicly warm ties to the country and its institutions.

The licence and the launch on 29 April 2020

Shelanu went on air on HOT, Israel's cable platform, on 29 April 2020, under a seven-year licence granted through the Communications Ministry's Cable and Satellite Broadcasting Council, applied for by HOT on the channel's behalf in the spring of 2020 and approved by the council's chairman, Asher Biton. GOD TV announced the launch in historic terms. "Today we made history," the network declared on 29 April: for the first time, a Messianic television channel was broadcasting the gospel across Israel in the Hebrew language, reaching a potential audience reported at the time as more than seven hundred thousand HOT households. The channel's name carried its message: Shelanu, "ours," expressed the claim that Jesus was not a foreign messiah but a Jewish one — "We want every person in Israel to know, not a foreign Messiah, but a Jewish one. His name is Yeshua and He has not forgotten His people." In a launch video, chief executive Ward Simpson said the network had received permission from the Israeli government to broadcast the gospel of Jesus Christ — Yeshua the Messiah — in Israel on cable television in Hebrew, something he said had never before been done in the history of the world. That video, later taken down, became central to the controversy that followed.

Programming and the Messianic Jewish identity

Shelanu's operators insisted throughout the dispute that the channel was a Messianic Jewish service, not a foreign missionary import. Ron Cantor, GOD TV's regional director in Israel and the channel's spokesman, said that seventy percent of Shelanu's content was produced by Israelis, providing an outlet for Messianic Jews and Christian Arabs, and that its content providers were Israelis — "Sabras. Serving in the Army. Paying their taxes." The programming itself consisted of Messianic Jews sharing their faith in a variety of forms: interviews, music and personal testimony. Cantor stressed that this had been the stated intention from the first meeting with HOT: "From the first day we met with HOT, it was very clear what we wanted to broadcast: Messianic Jews sharing their faith in Yeshua in a variety of ways, from interviews, to music, to personal stories. And that's what we do to this day." Board member Avi Mizrachi described the channel as resolutely pro-Israel and Zionist, arguing that it was absurd for anti-Israeli content to be broadcast freely on Israeli cable while a pro-Israel channel of his community faced investigation. The dispute thus turned on identity as much as content: Messianic Judaism is regarded by the major Jewish denominations as a form of Christianity, while its adherents present themselves as Jews who believe Jesus is the Messiah.

Immediate backlash and the investigation

The reaction began within days. In early May 2020, roughly a week after launch, Communications Minister David Amsalem said he had not been aware that a licence had been granted to GOD TV, called the decision an oversight, demanded a thorough investigation by the Cable and Satellite Broadcasting Council, and declared that he would not allow any missionary channel to operate in Israel at any time and under any circumstances, and that if the channel did missionary work it would be removed immediately. The council opened an investigation into whether Shelanu was engaging in missionary activity prohibited by the terms of its licence. Israeli broadcasting regulations, as Biton explained them, permit religious programming but forbid content with the potential to influence viewers in an undue fashion, most certainly young and impressionable viewers; Israeli law more broadly permits proselytising except where directed at minors without parental consent or involving economic inducement. Simpson confirmed the investigation publicly in May, said complaints had been made about the channel's content, insisted GOD TV's Israeli staff and lawyers — from one of Israel's leading law firms — advised that the channel was in full compliance, apologised for any comments that appeared to suggest otherwise, and affirmed the network's intention to abide by the rules surrounding its licence.

The council's ruling in June 2020

On Sunday 28 June 2020 the council announced its decision. Chairman Asher Biton informed HOT the previous Thursday that Shelanu must come off the air within seven days. His reasoning was administrative as much as theological: an examination by the council's supervision wing, he said, showed that the channel did not appeal to the Christian population in Israel but rather to the Jews, and therefore the characterisation of the channel submitted for approval did not reflect its broadcasts. "The channel appeals to Jews with Christian content," Biton wrote. "Its original request stated that it was a station targeting the Christian population." In later explanation, reported by Kehila News, Biton maintained that he had approved the licence himself rather than convening the full council because he understood it to be a Christian channel for Christian viewers; had the application stated clearly that it addressed Jews, he said, he would have called a hearing before the full council — such a channel not being necessarily forbidden, but requiring that process. The licence was suspended rather than the channel formally outlawed, and GOD TV was given the option of reapplying — but a fresh application had to be submitted by the cable network carrying it.

Shelanu's response and the dispute over the licence text

Shelanu and GOD TV rejected the ruling's premise entirely, and published their evidence. Ward Simpson called Biton's account extremely misleading, pointing to the licence he had himself approved: section 1.2 stated that "the channel is intended for the audience of viewers in Israel," and section 1.5 that it would produce content suitable for an "audience in Israel" — with, Simpson stressed, nothing anywhere stating that the audience was Christian. Christianity Today, which obtained a copy of the original application and approval, reported the same: Shelanu had identified itself as "a Christian religion channel broadcasting Christian content for the audience of Israeli viewers in Hebrew and English," and nowhere stated it was for Christian viewership; the approval itself stated that the channel was intended for the Israeli viewing audience. The channel added a linguistic argument: most Christians in the Holy Land speak Arabic, so a licence for Hebrew broadcasting could never sensibly have meant a Christians-only audience. Cantor attributed the cancellation to relentless pressure on Biton from anti-missionary groups, said Shelanu was considering legal action against Biton for knowingly deceiving the public about the licence he had granted, and argued that in a free and democratic society the channel would have received approval on reapplication — or won in court.

HOT withdraws and the move online

The decisive blow came not from the regulator but from the platform. Although GOD TV was entitled to seek a new licence, the application had to come from HOT — and HOT, under what Shelanu described as immense pressure, chose not to reapply. GOD TV announced the outcome with notable restraint toward the cable company: it thanked HOT for standing by the channel as long as it had, said it had in truth expected to be dropped two months earlier when the controversy began, and held no ill will, since HOT had been in a no-win situation and Shelanu was a small client. Simpson said GOD TV had decided to stand down and not contest the cancellation, in order to avoid political fallout for the millions of Christians worldwide who support Israel and to deny ammunition to those who would use the affair against the Jewish people. HOT ceased broadcasting Shelanu TV on 2 July 2020, and GOD TV moved the channel's feed to the internet as quickly as possible — Shelanu's era on Israeli cable, just over two months long, was over, while the service itself continued online.

The campaign against the channel

The Shelanu affair cannot be understood without the organised campaign that preceded the ruling. Yad L'Achim, Israel's leading anti-missionary organisation, waged what it described as a persistent campaign over the preceding months: it said it had revealed the channel's intention to reach Jews with Christian teaching, lobbied outgoing Communications Minister David Amsalem and Biton directly, and enlisted the support of Sephardic Chief Rabbi Yitzchak Yosef, who wrote an appeal to Amsalem, and of Knesset member Rabbi Moshe Gafni of United Torah Judaism, who met the minister personally to press for cancellation. When the decision came, Yad L'Achim called it a huge victory for its behind-the-scenes efforts. On the other side, Cantor warned of a severe diplomatic incident with hundreds of millions of pro-Israel evangelical Christians worldwide if the channel were silenced by pressure rather than law, and GOD TV's statements throughout balanced defiance on the facts with conspicuous loyalty to Israel, urging supporters not to let the investigation deter them from blessing and championing the country against antisemitism and boycott campaigns.

Legacy of a two-month channel

Shelanu TV broadcast on Israeli cable for barely nine weeks, yet it produced one of the fullest public arguments Israel has held about the boundaries of religious broadcasting: what a licence describes versus what a channel is, whether Hebrew-language Christian content aimed at the general public is missionary activity, who counts as Jewish for broadcasting purposes, and how far a regulator may go in revisiting his own approval. The documentary record it left is unusually complete, because both sides published their texts — the council its reasoning, the channel its licence — allowing the public to judge the gap between them. For GOD TV, Shelanu demonstrated both the reach and the limits of its long cultivation of Israel: a seven-year licence for a Hebrew gospel channel was granted, celebrated as a world first, and then suspended within two months. For Israeli broadcasting, the affair established that a channel's stated target audience in its licence application is a substantive regulatory commitment, enforceable after launch. Shelanu itself survived its expulsion from cable in the form its operators chose at the end: an internet service, beyond the reach of the Cable and Satellite Broadcasting Council, still addressing Hebrew-speaking Israelis in the terms that had caused the controversy.