Shalom Sesame

Shalom Sesame is an adaptation of "Sesame Street", the children's television show. It was produced in 1986 and 1990 for public television stations in the United States, aimed at introducing Israel and Judaism to children. Unlike the main "Sesame Street" series, "Shalom Sesame" was independently-distributed to PBS-member stations, and not by PBS themselves.

It includes characters from both "Sesame Street" and"Rechov Sumsum", the Hebrew/Arabic version of "Sesame Street", produced and aired in Israel, the Palestinian territories, and Jordan.

Also, as with the American series, the series featured special guests well-known to American viewers -- all of them either Jewish or having a Jewish angle. Guests included Itzhak Perlman, Bonnie Franklin, Mary Tyler Moore, Mandy Patinkin, Alan King, Joan Rivers, Nell Carter, Jerry Stiller & Anne Meara, Tracey Gold, B.B. King, Sarah Jessica Parker and Paul Schaffer.

Characters from "Rechov Sumsum"

* Kippi ben Kippod, a giant porcupine analogous to Big Bird
* Moishe Ufnick, Oscar the Grouch's own grouchy cousin

Books

* "Shalom Sesame Presents a Chanukah Party for Kippi" is a book written by Louise Gikow, based on the "Shalom Sesame" series. It was published by Comet International in August 1995 as a paperback (ISBN 1-884857-06-X).

Episode list

1986 series

# "The Land of Israel"
# "Tel-Aviv"
# "Kibbutz"
# "The People of Israel"
# "Jerusalem"

1990 series

# "Chanukah"
# "Sing Around the Seasons"
# "Journey to Secret Places"
# "Aleph-Bet Telethon"
# "Passover"
# "Kids Sing Israel"

Video and DVDs

In the 1990s, the entire series was released on home video, in the VHS format.

In the mid-2000s, SISU Entertainment released the entire series on a five-disc DVD set, available as a set or per disc.

Links

* [http://www.shalomsesame.com/ Shalom Sesame: official website]
* [http://israel21c.com/bin/en.jsp?enPage=BlankPage&enDisplay=view&enDispWhat=object&enDispWho=Articles%5El566&enZone=Culture&enVersion=0& Israel 21c" "Shalom Sesame"]