How to Get to Sumsum Street: Entertainment for Today

Like the preschool child, television is constantly developing. Of the many children’s programs throughout TV history, one stands out as “televisionary” for its successful mix of entertainment and education, and by adapting to suit the needs of its audience. In its humble beginnings in 1969, Sesame Street was created as an experimental project to help children from disadvantaged homes prepare to embark on their school experience. Today it is aired in over 140 different countries, producing content to suit each country’s needs.

This year, Sesame Workshop is partnering with Hop!—the Israeli preschool channel—to make 12 new episodes of the beloved children’s classic Shalom Sesame. A co-production between Sesame Street and Rechov Sumsum (Sesame Street’s Israeli counterpart), Shalom Sesame brought snippets of Israeli life and Jewish culture to American audiences. Produced in the 1980s, the series was hosted by Itzhak Perlman and Bonnie Franklin, with guest appearances by Jewish celebrities such as Sarah Jessica Parker and Jeremy Miller (Growing Pains).

Those who watched Shalom Sesame as preschoolers in the 1980s are now young adults—some with preschoolers of their own. Shoshana Scheide Hurwitz, 32, a young mother who made aliyah with her family last summer, has been showing the 1980s version to her children and can’t wait for the new series. “It definitely made them proud to be Israeli, and it’s even helped my Hebrew,” she says.

“Shalom Sesame was a really cool supplement to religious school on Sundays,” Matt Peterson, 25, recollects how Shalom Sesame influenced his Jewish identity. “It was so funny to see my favorite Sesame Street characters teaching about Passover and Hanukkah and wearing tzitzit and kippot. I still remember the song about the aleph-bet.”

In today’s digital world, television watching can be supplemented with online interaction and virtual Jewish communitybuilding. “Whereas the previous Shalom Sesame allowed for only a passive engagement with the content via television, the new project includes a cross-platform, multimedia educational initiative utilizing print and digital media,” says Danny Labin, 35, who heads up Shalom Sesame’s creation as Sesame Workshop’s international project director. “The cornerstone of the project’s outreach will be a Shalom Sesame website, which will serve as a virtual Jewish community for families around the world.”

Hop! has been successful in reaching Israeli children through the digital media, reporting that more than 200,000 users visit the Rechov Sumsum website each month. Hop! has also reached out to the Israeli demographic through special Rechov Sumsum “conflict resolution kits” distributed to every kindergarten classroom in Israel. Through the new website, the project also aspires to bring American families closer to Israel and to create links between American and Israeli children.

“The shared familiarity with the characters offers a unique vehicle to engage Jewish families that transcends geographic space and boundaries. Shalom Sesame will also enable communitybuilding and mobilization for families living in the same neighborhood, but who may have not had another way of meeting each other,” Labin says.

Shalom Sesame has already impacted the digital world. Several Facebook groups are dedicated to the show, and even Moishe Oofnik (Oscar the Grouch’s Israeli Muppet cousin) has thousands of fans on the social networking site.

Although Shalom Sesame’s characters have not been officially announced, there will be a few familiar faces, including Moishe Oofnik, and Brosh and Noach, two Muppets similar to the original Sesame Street’s Bert and Ernie, as well as an Arab-Israeli Muppet named Mahboub and a precocious female Muppet named Avigayil.

The new Shalom Sesame will also have a different curricular focus than its predecessor and even its Israeli counterpart: to cultivate a greater understanding of Jewish life, traditions, and identity, and to explore the diversity of the Jewish people. Meanwhile, Rechov Sumsum plans to focus on concepts of cultural identity and self esteem, conflict resolution, respect for diversity and pluralism, as well as coping with emergency situations and fostering resiliency.

Just like the original, the new Shalom Sesame aspires to inspire preschoolers to visit Israel and learn about Judaism, Labin says. “While Shalom Sesame is an apolitical initiative, by portraying life in Israel as it exists for children and their families, and by highlighting Jewish experiences... the project is an opportunity to view and experience something that also resonates with viewers’ own lives. Shalom Sesame is meant as a means to spark imagination and lifelong curiosity about Jewish identity, traditions, customs, and the heritage of peoplehood that includes a physical place called Israel.”

Rachel Krauser, 32, says Shalom Sesame helped shape her view of Israel. “I was from an American family and had never been to Israel. I remember being completely mesmerized by the show. I specifically remember the puppets against the backdrop of Jerusalem. It gave me butterflies! I didn’t quite understand it then. But now, years later, I recognize this as the first spark I felt in this love I developed throughout my life for Israel, eventually making it my home.”

Shalom Sesame is to date the only adaptation of an international coproduction of Sesame Street made for English-speaking audiences. If Shalom Sesame is successful, however, Sesame Workshop plans to adapt other coproductions, such as Alam Simsim for Arab-American audiences.

This year, Sesame Street is celebrating a milestone of captivating audiences around the globe for 40 years (practically a millennium in television), yet the pioneering spirit of the original show is still present. As with the Jewish people, this willingness to adapt may be the key to Sesame’s survival. Here’s wishing Sesame another 40 successful years!