Return in Real Time    

For Israeli television viewers, Elad Kuperman is synonymous with some of the most creative programming over the last three decades. As a producer, he’s the behind-the-scenes guy who makes things happen — yet over the last few years, the Great Producer started pulling on his soul strings. And that’s why Elad often finds himself in the inner sanctum of the Biala-Beit Shemesh Rebbe. “Here,” he says, “is where I make my most important life decisions”

The last place you’d expect to run into award-winning veteran Israeli television producer Elad Kuperman is in Ramat Beit Shemesh, on the outskirts of the kanoi neighborhood of Kiryat Ramah, with its “Don’t pass through our neighborhood in immodest clothing,” and “Zionists out” graffiti. But Kuperman isn’t fazed — he’s got a large black kippah on his head, and he’s here on one of his regular visits to his rebbe. “Ich fur tzum rebbin,” he says in Yiddish.

His eyes light up as he nears the sign Beis Medrash d’Chasidei Biala Beit Shemesh. “This is like my home,” he explains, and as he enters, it looks like he’s not exaggerating. He’s greeted warmly by longtime gabbai Reb Leibel Porush, and a minute later he kisses the Rebbe’s hand and is embraced like a long-lost friend.

For Israeli television viewers, the name Elad Kuperman is synonymous with the developing industry over the last three decades. He began his career at a time when, after decades as a one-channel monopoly, Israeli TV incorporated cable television as well as the country’s first commercial channel. From the beginning, he seemed to have an innate sense of what the Israeli public wanted to watch, and was the creator of the reality TV genre, Israeli-style.