An El Al flight attendant from Jerusalem was voted the winner of Israel’s “Big Brother.”
Shifra Cornfeld, 27, the daughter of an American immigrant, won the prize of 1 million shekels — about $268,500 — on a reality show that has enjoyed the highest ratings of any TV program in Israel over the past decade.
Hundreds of thousands of Israelis tuned in to see what was happening in the house, where contestants from many walks of Israeli life lived in front of television cameras 24 hours a day for 3 1/2 months, cut off from the rest of the world. Each week the television audience voted off one contestant.
Cornfeld, who left a religious lifestyle to pursue a secular one, garnered nearly 50 percent of the final vote, in which the final five contestants were evicted from the house during a live broadcast. The show started with 16 housemates and added four more after nearly two months.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
