Bulb to light all Ramat Gan

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The bulb to light all Ramat Gan (Hebrew: נורה שתאיר את כל רמת גן, Nura she-tair et kol Ramat Gan) was a political misstep in Israel of the 1980s. It took this humorous form within the collective memory of the Israeli public.

On June 28, 1981, the eve of elections to the tenth Knesset, Yaakov Meridor gave an interview to radio networks. He was one of the top candidates on the party list of Likud. He announced that a scientist working with him had invented an improvement in energy production on a chemical basis, with extraordinary efficiency and yield. As an illustration of the nature of the invention, "a global revolution that is yet to be grasped", he told an interviewer, "It's as if you took an ordinary household light bulb and, with this lamp, you illuminated the whole city of Ramat Gan."

In March 1982, while serving as Minister of Economics and Inter-Ministry Coordination, Meridor gave publicity to the invention in a special television broadcast. For a few days he captured the top newspaper headlines. When it was revealed that the inventor might be brought up on charges, the minister was held up to ridicule, and the incident was mockingly recalled for years afterward.

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Much of the content of this article was translated from the article הנורה שתאיר את כל רמת גן (The bulb to light all Ramat Gan) in the Hebrew-language Wikipedia, acknowledged here under terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. Retrieved January 30, 2006.