Ram Loevy (; August 1, 1940 – November 30, 2025) was an Israeli television director and screenwriter. He wrote and directed documentary films that challenged the status quo on such issues as class conflict, torture, the prison system, and the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. In 1993, Loevy was awarded the Israel Prize in Communication, Radio and Television in 1993 for his life's work.
Loevy was Professor Emeritus of Cinema and Television at Tel Aviv University.
Background Ram Loevy was the son of Theodor Loevy, a journalist and his wife Elisa, originally from Poland. His father was the editor of the Danziger Echo, a prominent Jewish newspaper in the Free City of Danzig, who had been jailed for publishing anti-Nazi articles in his paper. Upon his release he fled to Poland, but that country later expelled him in the months leading up to World War II, under pressure from the authorities in Nazi Germany. He and his wife arrived in Mandatory Palestine just three months before Ram Loevy was born.Penny Starr, "ITV pioneer Ram Loevy still searching for reel truth", in the "Focus" section of the Jerusalem Post, April 2–8, 1993.
Loevy grew up in Tel Aviv, where he attended the Carmel School and Municipal High School A. As a boy, he was active in the Scouts and in the paramilitary Gadna program, in which high school age boys and girls undergo paramilitary training in preparation for military service. It was in the Scouts that he met his wife Zipora. Upon being drafted to the Israel Defense Forces, he served in a Nahal unit that combined military training with agricultural work on a kibbutz. He was sent to Kibbutz Gal'ed in northern Israel, near the large Israeli Arab town of Umm al-Fahm. He later worked on Kibbutz Sde Boker in the Negev.
Upon completing his military service, Loevy majored in Economics and Political Science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. At the same time, he dabbled in theater by participating in student productions, and worked at the national Voice of Israel radio station as a program editor, actor, producer, director, and skit-writer.. In 1967, upon completing his degree, he traveled to London to attend the London Film School (then known as the London School of Film Technique). Loevy's stay in London was cut short by the Six-Day War. Loevy returned to Israel to serve in the army. Soon after the war, he returned to London to continue his studies and worked as an assistant director at Elstree Studios for the British espionage/science fiction adventure series The Champions. At the same time, he was also an announcer for the BBC's Hebrew-language department.
Loevy suffered from Parkinson's disease, and died on 30 November 2025, at the age of 85.
Media career Loevy made his first foray into film as the assistant director for a documentary film, Sand Screen by Baruch Dinar, with American journalist Drew Pearson. This was immediately followed by work on the documentary I Ahmad (1966), directed by Avshalom Katz, for which he served as the executive producer and co-screenwriter. The film told the story of an Arab laborer's journey from the Triangle to Tel Aviv.
In 1968, while in London, Loevy proposed to create a documentary film about the rifts in Israeli society. Though the BBC expressed interest in the project, Loevy abandoned it in order to return to Israel and help the Israel Broadcasting Authority launch the country's first attempt at television broadcasting, Channel 1,Gil Sadan, "Mourning on Both Sides of the Barricade", in Yediot Ahronot, 1 August 1972. which began broadcasting on 2 May 1968. In addition to his work on the new channel's weekly shows, he also directed a number of documentary films for it:All basic information about Loevy's films is derived from his Curriculum Vitae in this author's possession, and abridged version of which can be found here . Additional information has been annotated. Note that in some instances, the dates given in the CV refer to the production, whereas the dates given here refer to the screening dates. Barricades (1969), which examined the Arab-Israel conflict from the perspective of two families, one Jewish and one Palestinian. Israel in the '80s, (2 films, 1971), speculating on the future of Israeli education. Don't Think Twice, (1972), about preparations by the Habima Theatre for a new stage production by Nisim Aloni. The film was nominated for the prestigious Prix Italia for Radio and Television. Time Out (1975), on encounters between young Arabs and Jews.
Already in these early works, Loevy focused on two themes that would dominate his later projects: the tense relationship between Arabs and Jews in Israel, and the role of education and art in shaping a society. His next documentary would introduce another key theme: the inequities of class disparity and discrimination between Jews and Arabs in Israel, and between Jewish Israelis. Second Generation Poor, (1976), was a two-part series that offered a chilling look at the effects of poverty in Israel.
In 1971, he directed seven short films based on the poetry of Yiddish writer Kadya Moldovsky.
First features for television These films can be divided into two groups: two films released in 1972, and two released in 1975. They are: Rose Water from Port Said (1972), based on a story by Gideon Talpaz, tells of a landlady who runs a boarding house in Jerusalem at the time of the British Mandate. One day, she receives a Black slave from the Sudan as a gift. Though the film was set in the relatively distant past, in 1932, this first attempt at drama already hints at two of the major themes that appear throughout Loevy's later work: class distinctions and ethnic differences. The Fifth Hand, also from 1972, breaks from the serious nature of Loevy's themes to tell the story of a group of people addicted to the game of bridge. Nevertheless, his insights into the role that leisure activities play in people's lives would be echoed over thirty years later in one of his most riveting documentaries, Sakhnin, My Life, about the Bnei Sakhnin football club from the Arab town of Sakhnin. The Bride and the Butterfly Hunter (1974) is a quirky, surrealistic film version of a play by Nisim Aloni about a bride who flees her wedding and a clerk who flees his humdrum existence by escaping to the park every Wednesday afternoon to hunt—and release—butterflies. The encounter between the two takes place in a park, where political propaganda is broadcast over a loudspeaker system. Though this is not integral to the story, it indicates that even in the most whimsical encounters it is impossible to escape the overbearing presence of political forces exploiting the conflicts in Israel for their own advantage. This film was selected to represent Israel at the Prix Italia. Stella (1975) is a love story about an affair between a piano teacher and a messenger boy. It was also selected to represent Israel at the Prix Italia.
Khirbet Khize
In 1978, Loevy was propelled into the spotlight for his dramatization of the novella Khirbet Khizeh (חרבת חיזעה) by S. Yizhar. The story, written in May 1949, tells of how Israeli soldiers expelled the Palestinian inhabitants of the fictional village of Khirbet Khize from their homes toward the end of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. Though controversial, the story was well-known, and had been incorporated into the Israeli curriculum. S. Yizhar was a highly respected author, a recipient of the Israel Prize, and served in the Knesset from 1949 to 1967.
Loevy first proposed the dramatization of the story in 1972, but was rejected by the Israel Broadcasting Authority. He submitted the proposal again in 1977, this time with a script by Daniella Carmi, hoping that the film would be used to mark Israel's 30th Independence Day. This time the film was approved, and he was given a budget of IL700,000, an enormous sum at the time. He filmed in the West Bank and completed the film in August of that year. There was some debate over whether the film should be screened because of its controversial nature, but after a screening before the board of the IBA, it was decided to go ahead. In 1977, while the film was being produced, a new government headed by Menachem Begin was voted into power, Anwar Sadat visited Jerusalem, and people from across the political spectrum began to question whether it should be screened, given the sensitivity of potential peace negotiations. Khirbet Khize was originally planned to be aired on 16 January 1978, but on that day the joint Israeli-Egyptian Political Committee first met in Jerusalem, and it was deemed inappropriate. When the talks broke down in February, it was decided to screen the film in the context of a political talk show to enable a public debate. A decision was made to reconvene the IBA board to make a final decision, as two members were opposed, but in the end, Minister of Education Zevulon Hammer stepped in and blocked the film from being aired at all.
This prompted a bitter debate in Israel, with Knesset member Yossi Sarid of the Labor Party declaring that "Freedom of expression in Israel has been brought to half-mast!".Amos Carmel, "Khirbet Khize: "A Festival of Demagoguery", in the Davar newspaper, 10 February 1978 Some reports even claimed that Begin himself was stunned that the film was being censored.Gideon Alon, "Begin Expresses His Surprise over the Minister's Decision to Delay the Screening of Khirbet Khize", in the Haaretz newspaper, 8 February 1978. In protest at the ministerial decision, IBA employees decided to black out the broadcast for 48 minutes during the night that Khirbet Khize was to be screened (February 6, 1978) to protest the IBA's decision to allow the government to intervene in television broadcasting. The next week, the Board of the IBA decided to screen the film. It aired on 13 February 1978, and Ram Loevy earned the reputation of an iconoclast who was willing and able to fight a deeply politicized system. This was a turning point in his career, and his later films continued to challenge the established mythology of modern Israel.Most of the information about the Hirbet Hiza'aa incident is described by Anita Shapira in Alpayim, a leading Israeli literary journal, vol. 21, 2000.
Loevy then made two documentary films about the theatre and its role in society. It was a theme he had addressed in Don't Think Twice, but these films highlighted the role he believed theatre plays in the political discourse.
Playing Devils, Playing Angels (1979) followed a Haifa theatre troupe to the development town of Kiryat Shmona on the tense northern border with Lebanon. The border town had been the site of a massacre of eighteen people (including nine children) in 1974, and had long been the target of Katyusha rocket attacks from across the border. What distinguished this film however, was its depiction of the encounter between volunteers from the relatively affluent cities and what became known as the "Second Israel": impoverished Mizrahi Jews of Middle Eastern and North African descent. Attitudes toward this underclass would emerge as a major theme in Loevy's work.