Naturally, the phrase "Made in Israel" did not only refer to agriculture. Essentially, any popular everyday product was promoted by virtue of the fact that it was produced locally: beer and matches, soft drinks, ceramics and shoes, as well as locally made textiles. Very quickly all industrial products in Eretz Yisrael and in the young State were included under this description.
The rhetoric was unambiguous. Designers used all of the tools at their disposal: biting proclamations with an abundance of exclamation marks, figures of workers drawn in the ideals of the time, and silhouettes of smokestacks and factories, which were popular in socialist iconography all over the world. Form and color, illustrations of fruits and vegetables, flowers and workers and the happy faces of people enjoying Israeli products – all of these are prominent in the posters. However, there are two verbal aspects that stand out: the term "Made in Israel" and the modifier "Hebrew". "Made in Israel" was promoted as a national value in and of itself, and referred to the entire economic production – agricultural, industrial and labor – of the Jewish Yishuv in Eretz Yisrael. The modifier "Hebrew" was attached to everything, a sort of all-encompassing national label: Hebrew eggs, Hebrew bananas, Hebrew butter, Hebrew watermelon and melon, Hebrew cloves, Hebrew roses, Hebrew ships – all of them were part of the Hebrew economic output that needed to be produced and marked with the "Hebrew Tag" – a tag that very quickly became a brand marking products made in Israel.
A look at the posters allows us to take a peek at an era of national ideology of agriculture, economy and industry – an ideology that eventually transformed into the widespread belief that if we are able to provide for all our physical needs, we will be able to exist as a free nation and as a distinct national body with a concrete raison d´être.
