Navigation – Plan du site

AccueilNuméros10Dossier - Pluralité de l’histoire...Israeli Cultural History: Between...

Dossier - Pluralité de l’histoire culturelle

Israeli Cultural History: Between Nation Building and Individual Fulfillment

Review Essay
L’histoire culturelle israélienne : entre construction nationale et épanouissement individuel
Avner Ben-Amos

Résumés

L’objectif de cet article est de retracer l’émergence du sous-champ de l’histoire culturelle israélienne au sein du champ plus large de l’histoire israélienne, de mettre en lumière ses thèmes majeurs, et d’expliquer leur importance. En outre, l’article résume les principaux apports de ce sous-champ à l’histoire israélienne. L’histoire culturelle israélienne a émergé dans les années 1990, lorsqu’une nouvelle génération d’historiens israéliens a décidé de s’éloigner des approches plus traditionnelles de la génération précédente, qui comprenaient l’histoire politique, diplomatique et militaire. La nouvelle génération a été influencée par l’essor de la nouvelle histoire culturelle dans le monde académique anglophone et a maintenu une attitude critique envers le récit sioniste officiel. Depuis son émergence jusqu’au milieu des années 2000, l’histoire culturelle israélienne s’est concentrée sur divers aspects de la construction de la nation en Israël. Bien que les travaux sur ce thème aient continué après le milieu des années 2000, cette période a également marqué l’émergence de monographies abordant des aspects non nationaux, privés et individuels de l’histoire culturelle israélienne. L’importance exceptionnelle de la culture dans la construction de la nation juive explique la place prépondérante de ce thème dans l’histoire culturelle israélienne.

Haut de page

Texte intégral

Introduction

  • 1 See David N. Myers, Re-Inventing the Jewish Past: European Jewish Intellectuals and the Zionist Ret (...)
  • 2 See Georg Iggers, Historiography in the Twentieth Century: From Scientific Objectivity to the Postm (...)
  • 3 On the writing of Israeli history, see Derek Penslar, Israel in History: The Jewish State in a Comp (...)
  • 4 For the debate around the New Historians, see the special issue of the journal History and Memory, (...)

1The sub-field of Israeli cultural history emerged as a late addition to the broader field of Israeli history, not taking shape until the 1990s. Its practitioners are largely considered part of the second generation of historians of Israeli history. Until the 1970s, the topics that interested Israeli historians were external to Palestine/Israel territory, focusing on Jewish and non-Jewish history in Europe and North-America. The most prominent Israeli historians of this period – e.g. Gershon Scholem, Yitzhak Baer and Ben-Zion Dinur – belonged to the Jerusalem School” of historians of Judaism1 and became members of the Hebrew University during the British Mandate period (1920-1948). Others, including Jacob Talmon, Yehoshua Arieli and Joshua Prawer, were widely known for their research on non-Jewish topics in the same geographical areas, such as the French Revolution, American political thought and the Crusades. In contrast, the history of the Jewish-Zionist community in Palestine (the Yishuv) and the history of Israel after the establishment of the state in 1948 were not considered suitable subjects for academic historians until the 1970s. This was due to prevailing practices among historians at the time, whose research was based mainly on written archival documents and required a certain temporal distance from the research topic to maintain objectivity.2 Since archive files could typically be accessed only thirty or forty years after their deposition, this time period was also considered a safe historical distance” from the given subject. As a result, the first generation of Israeli historians to write about Palestine/Israel did not begin to publish their work until the 1970s.3 The most notable among them – Anita Shapira, Yosef Gorni and Israel Kolatt –studied the major political power of the Yishuv, the Labor movement. Certain members of the same generation studied other aspects of the Zionist movement during the British mandate period, but all remained within the traditional fields of political, diplomatic and military history. The next generation of Israeli historians, which began publishing during the 1990s, introduced several innovations. Some, such as Yechiam Weitz and Motti Golani, studied the history of Israel in the 1950s, albeit through the same lenses of political, diplomatic and military history. Others, such as Benny Morris and Ilan Pappé, also worked within these traditional fields but became known as the New Historians” due to their revisionist approach to the Zionist narrative surrounding the 1948 war and the Arab-Israeli conflict.4 A third group innovated by incorporating theoretical assumptions and new methodologies, leading to the creation of the sub-field of Israeli cultural history.

  • 5 See Lynn Hunt, ed., The New Cultural History, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1989; Peter(...)

2The aim of this article is to trace the emergence of this distinct sub-field and outline its main contours. My intention is not to provide an exhaustive survey of Israeli cultural history, but rather to highlight its major themes, explain their prominence and summarize some of the main contributions of cultural history to Israeli history. I will therefore focus solely on monographs, excluding articles and collective volumes, as monographs typically represent major scholarly trends and have greater impact due to their significance. The monographs under consideration belong to what is known in the English-speaking academic world as the domain of “new cultural history”,5 which came into being during the 1960s and 1970s. The wide diversity within this domain makes it impossible to define in a clear-cut manner. However, for the sake of convenience, I would argue that those aspiring to be new cultural historians should not only write about cultural subjects but also adopt a “culturalist, interpretive perspective, typically influenced by anthropology and literary criticism, and examine culture in its political and social contexts. Since the 1940s there has also been extensive research on various aspects of Hebrew culture in Israel: literature (prose and poetry); plastic arts (painting, sculpture, graphic design); performing arts (theatre, dance); music (classical and modern); film (fiction and documentary). However, most of this research has adopted an “internal” perspective of each artistic field, focusing on individual artists or lineages of artistic trends, movements and institutions, while addressing social and political contexts only in passing. Consequently, this vast body of scholarly work will not be included in the current article.

Israeli Cultural History: Nation Building

3The historiography of Israeli cultural history can be divided into two distinct periods. During the first period, between the early 1990s and mid-2000s, all relevant monographs dealt with various aspects of Zionist nation building in Israel. While works on this theme continued after the mid-2000s, this period also marked the rise of monographs addressing non-national, private and individual aspects of Israeli cultural history. To understand the dominance of the nation-building theme within the sub-field of Israeli cultural history, one must consider both the nature of the subject matter and the historical context that made it particularly appealing to historians at the time.

  • 6 For the relation between culture and nation building, see Anthony Smith, National Identity, Reno, U (...)
  • 7 For settler-colonial theory and its application the Israel-Arab conflict, see Rachel Busbridge, “Is (...)

4Culture has always played a significant role in the process of nation building, but the cultural efforts involved in Zionist nation building seem to have been particularly notable.6 In European nations, the transition from pre-national to national identity was supported by elements of continuity, as it occurred within the same territory and among the same population, who also shared a common language – at least among the elite. In contrast, those who established the new, national Zionist identity in Palestine/Israel had to navigate several discontinuities: settling in a new territory and integrating a population of immigrants from various countries, each with different languages and customs. These immigrants did not wish to become integrated into the indigenous Palestinian society, but instead sought to build their own social, cultural and political institutions. Those exclusionary efforts, which ultimately led to a clash with the Palestinian population and its expulsion in the 1948 war, were typical of settler-colonial processes that precipitated conflict between the newcomers and the natives.7 Thus was created a need for a well-organized, intensive acculturation effort that could transform the new territory into a homeland and unify this diverse population into a cohesive nation. The significance of this endeavor makes it a highly compelling subject for historical research.

  • 8 Pierre Nora (dir.), Les Lieux de mémoire, vols.1-7, Paris, Gallimard, 1984-1990. For an assessment (...)

5The 1990s, during which the Oslo peace process took shape, was also a particularly favorable time for this kind of research. The rise of the New Historians during that decade demonstrated that a younger generation of historians, born around or after the 1948 war, was ready to take a critical stance toward the Zionist narrative. This narrative portrayed the members of the Jewish Yishuv as victims of the Palestinians, who violently opposed Zionist settlement efforts in Palestine and overlooked the beneficial impact of the Zionist enterprise. In contrast, the New Historians claimed that the true victims were the Palestinians, who were expelled from their lands in 1948. Additionally, the first Palestinian Intifada, which broke out in 1987 in the occupied Palestinian territories, prompted many Israelis to reassess their views on the Israeli-Arab conflict. With few exceptions, the newer monographs on Israeli cultural history were less critical than those of the New Historians. However, writing them did require a certain critical distance from the subject matter. This dynamic created the political ambiguity that characterizes this research, reminiscent of the ambiguity found in the seven collective volumes of Les Lieux de mémoire.8 While these monographs celebrated the new Hebrew national culture created in twentieth century Palestine/Israel, they also exposed the hidden political and social mechanisms that had produced this unifying culture.

  • 9 Emmanuel Sivan wrote his doctoral dissertation at the University of the Sorbonne on the Muslim reac (...)
  • 10 See Penslar, Israel in History, chapter 1.
  • 11 Saul Friedlander, Pie XII et le IIIème Reich : documents, Paris, Seuil, 1964.

6It is likely no coincidence that all the “pioneers” of Israeli cultural history, who published their monographs in the first half of the 1990s, either studied abroad or wrote their doctoral dissertations on topics unrelated to Israeli history.9 Conversely, during the 1970s and 1980s, the small sub-field of Israeli history remained relatively insular, as its practitioners were Israeli historians who had written their dissertations at Israeli universities, focusing on Israeli history.10 This parochialism contributed to the continued dominance of political, diplomatic and military history within the field. As a result, only those external to the field could introduce new subject matters and approaches. The most important figure who contributed to “importing” the concepts and ideas of cultural history to the Israeli academic system was Saul Friedlander, author of a dissertation at the Geneva Graduate Institute on the attitude of the Catholic Church toward the Holocaust, which was later published as a book.11 He was well versed in both European and American historiographies, and in 1989, while a member of the history department of Tel-Aviv University, created the journal History and Memory, where he served as senior editor, and which quickly became one of the central journals in the field. The editorial board of the journal included important cultural historians such as Natalie Zemon Davis, George L. Mosse and Pierre Nora.

  • 12 Id., Memory, History and the Extermination of the Jews in Europe, Bloomington, Indiana University P (...)

7Friedlander’s interest in memory resulted, at least in part, from his fascination with the memory of the Holocaust. Himself a Holocaust survivor, he wrote extensively about the relationship between history and memory in relation to this event.12 However, this was not unique to Friedlander. In fact, Holocaust memory was among the central themes that preoccupied Israeli cultural historians, as part of their general interest in the topic of collective memory. The significance of collective memory to nation building lies in its ability to unify citizens around a national past – whether real or imagined – during which the nation was a cohesive entity. This past, as a period of unity, can thus be projected as a model for a desired future, one that could replace a divided present. Additionally, the national past serves as a vast repository of heroes, stories and symbols that can be mobilized and reshaped to give meaning to the present. Yet memory was just one of the key topics explored by cultural historians interested in Zionist nation building. Another central focus, which somewhat overlaps with memory in its capacity to shape individual consciousness, was education – both formal and informal. It included elements, such as language teaching and contemporary role models, that were also essential components to nation building.

8What follows is a brief presentation of the two primary topics, memory and education, each divided by particular themes, as well as a sampling of monographs.

Memory

Memory of Fallen Soldiers

  • 13 Emmanuel Sivan, Dor Tashach: Mitos, Dyokan ve Zikaron [The 1948 Generation: Myth, Profile and Memor (...)

9The Israeli army (Israeli Defense Forces – I.D.F), formally established two weeks after the establishment of the State of Israel in May 1948, was among the most important symbols of the new nation-state, as it reflected the desired sovereignty of the Jewish people – the very goal of Zionism. This is why the state was highly invested in creating a cult of the army through various means, one of which was the commemoration of fallen soldiers. However, fallen soldiers were also intensively commemorated by Israeli civil society. Around six thousand soldiers fell in the 1948 war (roughly one percent of the Jewish population), and subsequent wars brought about many more military casualties (a total of about 25,000 as of 2024). The mourning of family members and friends, coupled with state initiatives, produced numerous commemorative projects – both official and unofficial. These included a National Day of Remembrance, war monuments, military cemeteries, memorial books and brochures and war museums.13

Memory of the Holocaust

10The Israeli approach toward Holocaust remembrance was initially ambivalent. On one hand, Israel saw itself as the leading force of the Jewish world post-WWII, and thus the sole guardian of the memory of Jewish Holocaust victims. On the other hand, the self-image of Israelis as fundamentally distinct from diaspora Jews became more pronounced after the military victory of 1948. In their view, there was stark contract between the brave Israeli soldiers who had fought the Arabs “few against many”, and the passive Jews who did not resist the Nazis and “went like sheep to the slaughter”. As a result, it was difficult for the Israeli public to identify with or commemorate the victims of the Holocaust. Thus, on one hand, the government acted quickly to establish the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum in 1953, effectively monopolizing Holocaust memory, and on the other, aligned national Holocaust memorial day with the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, naming it the “Holocaust and Ghetto Fighters Day”. This decision conveyed that only those who had resisted the Nazis with armed struggle were worthy of commemoration. Moreover, despite its official nature, the day was hardly observed during the 1950s.

  • 14 Moshe Zuckerman, Shoah baHeder haAtoum: ha”Shoaha” baItonout haIsraelit biTkoufat Milhemet haMifrat (...)

11The 1961 trial of Adolf Eichmann, which became a major public event, sparked a shift in attitudes toward the Holocaust. This change accelerated after the highly tense period leading up to the Six Day War (1967), during which Israelis felt as though they were on the brink of another Holocaust. From the 1970s on, the memory of the Holocaust became a major component of Israeli collective memory, and often served as a point of reference in contemporary debates.14

Memory of National Events

  • 15 The First Temple existed between (probably) 10th century BCE and 586 BCE; The Second Temple – betwe (...)
  • 16 Yael Zerubavel, Recovered Roots: Collective Memory and the Making of Israeli National Tradition, Ch (...)

12The Zionist claim on the territory of Palestine/Israel was rooted in its view of Jewish history as beginning in Biblical times, with the Exodus from Egypt and the conquest of the Land of Canaan, and continuing without interruption until present day. According to this narrative, the period of the diaspora – from the forced exile by the Romans in the first century A.D. to the rise of Zionism in the nineteenth century – was considered a humiliating, negative period, in which the Jewish people were dispersed among the nations and lacked political power. The events deemed significant for Zionist collective memory therefore occurred during the two periods in which the Jewish people inhabited the land of Israel, either having acquired national sovereignty or striving for it: the era of the First and the Second Temples in antiquity,15 and the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Until the 1948 war, most commemorated events had occurred in antiquity, e.g. the resistance to the Roman siege of Masada (72-73 AD) and the revolt of Bar Kokhba (132-135 AD). Only one modern event seemed heroic enough to be commemorated: the 1920 battle between Jews and Arabs in the northern Jewish settlement of Tel Hai, which resulted in eight Jewish casualties. After 1948, however, Zionist collective memory shifted its focus to the modern period, commemorating significant events in which Jews and Israelis were either victims or victors. These included the Holocaust, the declaration of independence, the wars between Israel and its Arab neighbors, and the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995.16

Commemorative Ceremonies

  • 17 Shoshana Sitton and Yaakov Shavit, Staging and Stagers in Modern Jewish Palestine: The Creation of (...)

13One of the most effective tools for shaping collective memory is the celebration of commemorative rituals. Participants of these rituals undergo powerful experiences while also receiving information about the past in a simplified and easily digestible manner. The Zionist movement has employed commemorative rituals since its inception, and has infused traditional Jewish holidays with national and militaristic meaning. A pertinent example is the religious holiday of Hanukkah, which commemorates the Maccabean conquest of the Second Temple in Jerusalem (164 BC), and was traditionally celebrated in the diaspora in a modest, family-oriented way. During the British Mandate period, however, it became a major public event in the Yishuv, emphasizing the heroism of ancient Jewish fighters. After the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, Jewish holidays were gradually eclipsed by new national, secular ones that honored modern heroes and events. Most of these holidays took shape during the early 1950s, including Holocaust Remembrance Day, Memorial Day for Fallen Soldiers and Independence Day. While the dates of these holidays were set separately, together they formed a coherent national narrative that unfolded each spring in April and May (the dates were set according to the Jewish calendar). It is a simple, binary narrative, that tells the Zionist story of the Jewish people as a movement through time and space – from slavery to redemption and from diaspora to the land of Israel. The narrative begins with Passover, which presents the ancient version of this movement, and continues with its modern counterpart: The Holocaust, which represents the catastrophic outcome of diasporic life; the inevitable sacrifice of the Israeli soldiers; and redemption in the form of long-desired independence. Jerusalem day, added to this holiday cycle after the Six Day War and set on June 6th, signified the next redemptive step – the expansion of the territory of the land of Israel.17

Effacing the Memory of the Palestinian Nakba

14One of the major outcomes of the 1948 war was the displacement of approximately 750,000 Palestinians, who either fled the country or were expelled by force, and were not permitted to return to their homes after the establishment of the State of Israel. Moreover, all of their property was confiscated by the state without any compensation. This event is known among the Palestinians as the Nakba (“the catastrophe”). The newly established state, seeking to legitimize rule over its territory and continue the process of nation building, undertook extensive efforts to efface the pre-1948 presence of the Palestinian population within its borders. The effacement was initially physical: many of the 450 deserted Palestinian villages were destroyed in the first years after the war, and during 1965-1967, an intensive effort was made to demolish those that had remained intact. The symbolic effacement extended to several social and cultural domains:

  • Cartography: In the early 1950s, two government committees had replaced all Arabic names of geographical sites (rivers, mountains, villages, etc.) with Hebrew names, which were subsequently incorporated into Israel’s official maps and publications.

  • Education: The national history curriculum and most textbooks excluded any mention of the Nakba. The displacement of the Palestinian population during 1948 was attributed by the official narrative to their own leaders, who had allegedly instructed them to leave temporarily due to the fighting, with the expectation of returning as victors.

  • Law: In 2011, the Israeli parliament (Knesset) passed the “Nakba Law,” which prohibited any institution receiving government funding from commemorating Nakba Day (May 15).

  • 18 Noga Kedman, Erased from Space and Consciousness: Israel and the Depopulated Palestinian Villages o (...)

15Nevertheless, despite these efforts, the memory of the Nakba persisted. Among Palestinians who remained within Israel’s borders, it was first preserved within family circles and later, after 1980, also by civil society organizations. Among the Jewish population, the publications of the New Historians and the activity of civil society organizations such as Zochrot, sparked fierce public debate in the 1990s regarding the origins of the State of Israel and the role of the Nakba in its establishment.18

Education

Formal and Informal Education in Schools

  • 19 Yoram Bar-Gal, Propaganda and Zionist Education: The Jewish National Fund, 1924-1947, Rochester, Th (...)

16A successful nation building process depends on a robust educational system in which, through both formal and informal education, pupils are instilled with knowledge and love for the homeland. The voluntary educational system of the Yishuv had already become autonomous by the early 1920s, allowing it to advance Zionist values through the formal instruction of Jewish history, the geography of the land of Israel and the study of the Bible, as well as through informal events such as school ceremonies and tours. After the establishment of the state, education became centralized and compulsory, and continued in the same vein with even greater efficiency. Despite the introduction of new pedagogical methods and computer-based learning since the 1980, school curricula, textbooks and informal education have remained centered around the Zionist narrative. For instance, the curriculum for the history matriculation exam still mirrors the Zionist view of the diaspora as a dark period by omitting it entirely.19

Children’s Literature: Books and Magazines

  • 20 Yael Dar, OuMisafasl haLimoudim Loukachnu: haYishouv leNochach Shoah veLikrat Medinah beSafrout haY (...)

17The educators of the Yishuv made a clear distinction between educating adults and children. Since adult Jewish immigrants had already been shaped by their countries of origin and many did not speak Hebrew, it was deemed more effective to invest in the education of their children, who could learn Hebrew in kindergartens and be instilled with Zionist values there. A vast effort was therefore made to translate European children’s literature into Hebrew, and to encourage Hebrew-speaking writers and educators to create works specifically for children. Additionally, several daily newspapers published weekly supplements for children, featuring the typical content of such publications: short stories, poems, puzzles, letters to the editor and comic strips. While each journal had its own political affiliation, they all shared a common Zionist outlook. Many poems and short plays were written specifically for Jewish-Zionist holiday ceremonies and distributed to schools and kindergartens to engage children in the celebrations. The establishment of the state did not lessen the demand for children’s literature as a way to reach children during their leisure time, and children’s magazines continued to be published. However, a shift occurred after the 1980s, with the rise of children’s televisions programs and, later, various electronic media. Children paid less attention to the written word, and nation building efforts were increasingly directed toward these new media.20

Visual Culture

  • 21 Elik Mishori, Shuru Habitou ouReou: Ikonot ve Semalim Chazoutiyim Tziyonim baTarbout haIsraelit [Lo (...)

18In the same way that the old/new Hebrew language served Zionism in unifying the nation, old/new visual symbols helped mobilize the people of the Yishuv. Symbols such as the white-and-blue flag with the Star of David and the Menorah (candelabrum) were ubiquitous – found in public spaces, school manuals and the private sphere. Additionally, Jewish graphic artists who immigrated from Europe used modern graphic design, influenced by movements like Russian social realism and German Bauhaus, to create posters and images that served Zionist propaganda. These images often contrasted the modern aspects of Jewish settlements in Palestine with an orientalist depiction of “traditional” Palestinian villages, highlighting the benefits of technological progress introduced by the Jews. The State of Israel continued to use the same old/new symbols in the national flag and emblem, as well as on paper currency, coins and stamps. However, from the 1960s onward, the style of Zionist graphic design has continually evolved, incorporating newer trends such as pop art.21

Role Models

  • 22 Moshe Shamir, Hou Halach ba’Sadot [He walked Through the Fields], Tel-Aviv, Sifriyat Poalim, 1947. (...)
  • 23 Oz Almog, The Sabra: The Creation of the New Jew, translated by Haim Watzman, Berkeley, University (...)

19The contrast between Jewish life in the diaspora and Zionist life in Palestine/Israel was most evident in the symbolic figures that embodied each phase. The Zionist anti-diaspora attitude portrayed European Jews as weak and feminine, focused either on intellectual or commercial pursuits, and displaying a subservient attitude toward non-Jews. Conversely, the Zionist figure was strong and masculine, rooted in the land, proud and prepared to defend itself. Its most common representations were the Pioneer, who worked the land of the kibbutz, and the Soldier, his rifle at the ready to defend his settlement. The figure that encapsulated this ideal was the Sabra – the anti-intellectual, native-born hero who spoke fluent Hebrew and was driven by collectivist ideals. These figures appeared in literature and the arts, including theatre and film, and while often portrayed realistically, they remained prototypes. A typical example was Uri, the protagonist of Moshe Shamir’s novel He Walked Through the Fields, published in 1947. Uri was a young Sabra who grew up on a Kibbutz, fell in love with a Jewish refugee who had survived the Holocaust, joined the Yishuv’s paramilitary forces, and was killed by British soldiers while helping bring illegal Jewish immigrants to Palestine – leaving behind his pregnant sweetheart. The novel was later adapted for the stage (1948) and the cinema (1968), both versions gaining enormous popularity.22 During the 1950s and 1960s, as urban culture and industry gained prominence, the figure of the agricultural pioneer lost its appeal. However, the image of the brave soldier persisted, largely due to the ongoing Israeli-Arab conflict. The Sabra, once a novel symbol in the 1930s and 1940s, also lost its status as a role model, as the majority of the population had become native-born.23

Israeli Cultural History: Local, Familial and Individual

  • 24 Richard Grassby, “Material Culture and Cultural History”, The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, (...)

20Starting in the mid-2000s, Israeli cultural historians began publishing monographs focused on non-national aspects of life in Palestine/Israel. Although they were outnumbered by the nation-building monographs, they nevertheless constituted an important new departure. What accounts for this shift? Some of these historians had already published works on the cultural history of Zionist nation building and likely sought to explore other domains within the same historical sub-field. Others were younger cultural historians who seemed intent on forging their own paths, rather than following in the footsteps of their predecessors. Lastly, the growing emphasis on material and consumer cultures within European and American cultural history, which gained traction in the 1990s, influenced some of these new monographs.24

  • 25 Maoz Azaryahu, Tel-Aviv, haIr haAmitit: Mitographia Historit [Tel-Aviv, the Real City: Historical M (...)
  • 26 Ophra Tene, HaBatim haLevanim Yimalou: Chayey Yomyom beDirot Tel-Aviv biTekoufat haMandat [The Whit (...)
  • 27 Anat Helman, A Coat of Many Colors: Dress Culture in the Young State of Israel, Boston, Academic St (...)
  • 28 Michal Hacham, Habayit sheBaBayit: Siah Domesti ve Hamtzaat haAshkenaziyout haModernit, 1920-1970 [ (...)

21While the nation-building monographs could be grouped into relatively neat categories, the subjects of the new monographs were more diverse, defying easy classification. However, it is possible to broadly divide them into three main themes, corresponding to three social spheres that lie beneath the national: the local, the familial and the individual. Local monographs focused primarily on Tel-Aviv, which rapidly became the urban center of the Yishuv during the 1920s. Unlike other major cities in Palestine such as Jerusalem, Jaffa and Haifa, which were mixed Arab-Jewish cities, Tel-Aviv was designed as an exclusively Jewish urban center. Due to its size and central location, it also emerged as a cultural hub, offering its residents various forms of urban entertainment – cafes, cinemas, theaters, cabarets, galleries and street carnivals – that were unrelated to Zionist culture.25 The intimate sphere of family life was another focus of study, with scholars examining how family traditions brought by Jewish immigrants from their places of origin were transformed upon their arrival to Palestine/Israel and adapted to the new social reality.26 Finally, the needs and interests of the individual were studied through material culture and consumption, notably clothes and personal accessories, which were part of a growing process of Americanization. The emphasis in these studies was on the post 1948 period, when the collectivist spirit that characterized the mandate era gradually gave way to ideals of individual fulfillment.27 However, the study of these social spheres reveals that the presence of the nation could never truly be avoided. Despite evident resistance to the pressures of national culture, that culture remained – at least until the 1970s – an inescapable backdrop. This point is well illustrated in a book by Michal Hacham, where she demonstrates how Zionist culture also shaped the intimate, domestic sphere of Ashkenazi families between the 1920s and the 1970s, creating a European-based model of domesticity that was contrasted with the Palestinian and Mizrahi (Jewish communities from Arab countries) models.28 The dividing line between the public and the private, in terms of national culture, thus remains anything but clear-cut.

Conclusion

  • 29 Kfir Teomim-Frenkel, Adom Ole, Adom Yored: Keytsad Ne’elmu Mishakei haPoel? 1928-1995 [Red Rising, (...)

22The sub-field of cultural history emerged in Israel during the 1990s, alongside the more traditional histories of various literary and artistic domains. Historians who applied the insights of this sub-field to Israeli history were influenced by parallel developments in the English-speaking academic world, while also taking into account the particular traditions of Jewish and Hebrew cultures. Given the central role of Zionism in Israeli historiography, it is not surprising that Israeli cultural historians initially focused on the cultural history of state and nation building. Only later, during the 2000s, did they begin to explore other aspects of Israeli cultural history. Gradually, its scope has expanded to include diverse fields such as sports, food and psychiatry.29

23However, due to the relatively small size of the community of Israeli historians, there is no dedicated institutional support for cultural history. The institutional frameworks of the history discipline in Israel – university departments, academic journals and professional associations – remain organized according to temporal, spatial and national divisions (e.g. medieval/modern, Europe/Middle East, Jewish/Non-Jewish), rather than by theoretical approaches. As a result, cultural historians rely largely on individual initiatives and informal networks to advance this sub-field.

Haut de page

Notes

1 See David N. Myers, Re-Inventing the Jewish Past: European Jewish Intellectuals and the Zionist Return to History, New York, Oxford University Press, 1995.

2 See Georg Iggers, Historiography in the Twentieth Century: From Scientific Objectivity to the Postmodern Challenge, Middletown, Wesleyan University Press, 2005.

3 On the writing of Israeli history, see Derek Penslar, Israel in History: The Jewish State in a Comparative Perspective, New York, Routledge, 2006.

4 For the debate around the New Historians, see the special issue of the journal History and Memory, Vol. 7, 1, 1995.

5 See Lynn Hunt, ed., The New Cultural History, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1989; Peter Burke, What Is Cultural History?, London, Polity Press, 2004.

6 For the relation between culture and nation building, see Anthony Smith, National Identity, Reno, University of Nevada Press, 1991; Anne-Marie Thiesse, La Création des identités nationales, Europe XVIIIe-XXe siècle, Paris, Seuil, 2001. For Zionist nation building in Israel, see the special issue of Israel Studies Review, Vol. 36, 2, 2021.

7 For settler-colonial theory and its application the Israel-Arab conflict, see Rachel Busbridge, “Israel-Palestine and the Settler-Colonial ‘Turn’: From Interpretation to Decolonization”, Theory, Culture & Society, vol. 35, 1, 2018, p. 91-115; Areej Sabbagh-Khoury, Colonizing Palestine: The Zionist Left and the Making of the Palestinian Nakba, Stanford, Stanford University Press, 2023.

8 Pierre Nora (dir.), Les Lieux de mémoire, vols.1-7, Paris, Gallimard, 1984-1990. For an assessment of Nora’s project, see Nancy Wood, “Memory’s Remains: Les lieux de mémoire”, History and Memory, Vol. 6, 1, Spring-Summer 1994, p. 123-149; Huang Yanhong, “Les lieux de mémoire and Pierre Nora’s writing of French national history”, Chinese Studies in History, Vol. 53, 2, 2020, p. 150-170; Patrick Hutton, The Memory Phenomenon in Contemporary Historical Writings: How the Interest in Memory Has Influenced Our Understanding of History, New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2026, chapter 2, “Pierre Nora’s Les lieux de mémoire 30 Years after”, p. 29-48.

9 Emmanuel Sivan wrote his doctoral dissertation at the University of the Sorbonne on the Muslim reaction to the Crusades; Moshe Zuckerman, at Tel-Aviv University, on the German historiography of the French Revolution; Maoz Azaryahu, at Tel-Aviv University, on the state symbols of East-Germany; Yael Zerubavel, at the University of Pennsylvania, on the shaping of Israeli collective memory.

10 See Penslar, Israel in History, chapter 1.

11 Saul Friedlander, Pie XII et le IIIème Reich : documents, Paris, Seuil, 1964.

12 Id., Memory, History and the Extermination of the Jews in Europe, Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1993.

13 Emmanuel Sivan, Dor Tashach: Mitos, Dyokan ve Zikaron [The 1948 Generation: Myth, Profile and Memory], Tel-Aviv, Maarachot, 1991; Mazoz Azaryahu, Poulhanei Medina: Hagigot haAtzmaout ve Hantzahat haNoflim beIsrael 1948-1956 [State Cults: Independent Celebrations and the Commemoration of the Fallen Soldiers, 1948-1956], Sede Boker, Ben-Gurion University Press, 1995; Ilana Shamir, Hantzaha ve Zikaron: Darca shel haHevra haIisraleit beItzouv Nofei haZikaron [Commemoration and Remembrance: Israel’s Way of Molding Landscapes of Memory], Tel-Aviv, Am Oved, 1996.

14 Moshe Zuckerman, Shoah baHeder haAtoum: ha”Shoaha” baItonout haIsraelit biTkoufat Milhemet haMifratz [Shoah in the Sealed Room: The “Holocaust” in Israeli Press during the Gulf War], Tel-Aviv, Author’s Press, 1993; Tom Segev, The Seventh Million: The Israelis and The Holocaust, translated by Haim Watzman, New York, Picador, 2000; Idit Zertal, Israel’s Holocaust and the Politics of Nationhood, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2010; Doron Bar, Yad Vashem: The Challenge of Shaping a Holocaust Remembrance Site, 1942-1976, translated by Deena Glick, Oldenbourg, De Gruyter, 2021.

15 The First Temple existed between (probably) 10th century BCE and 586 BCE; The Second Temple – between 516 BCE and 70 AD.

16 Yael Zerubavel, Recovered Roots: Collective Memory and the Making of Israeli National Tradition, Chicago, Chicago University Press, 1997; Vered Vinitzki-Seroussi, Yitzhak Rabin’s Assassination and the Dilemmas of Commemoration, Albany, SUNY Press, 2009; Udi Lebel, Politics of Memory: The Israeli Underground’s Struggle for Inclusion in the National Pantheon and Military Commemoration, London, Routledge, 2013.

17 Shoshana Sitton and Yaakov Shavit, Staging and Stagers in Modern Jewish Palestine: The Creation of Festive Lore in the New Culture, 1882-1948, Detroit, Wayne University Press, 2004; Hizky Shoham, Carnival in Tel-Aviv: Purim and the Celebration of Urban Zionism, Boston, Academic Studies Press, 2014; Doron Bar, Landscape and Ideology: Reinternment of Renowned Jews in the Land of Israel, 1904-1967, Oldenbourg, De Gruyter, 2016.

18 Noga Kedman, Erased from Space and Consciousness: Israel and the Depopulated Palestinian Villages of 1948, Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 2015; Yifat Gutman, Memory Activism: Reimagining The Past for the Future in Israel-Palestine, Nashville, Vanderbilt University Press, 2017; Rafi Nets-Zehngut, HaZikaron haCollectivy haYisraeli shel Beayat haPlitim ha’Palestinim [The Israeli Collective Memory of The Palestinian Refugee Problem], Tel-Aviv, Tammy Steinmetz Center – Tel-Aviv University, 2020.

19 Yoram Bar-Gal, Propaganda and Zionist Education: The Jewish National Fund, 1924-1947, Rochester, The University of Rochester Press, 2003; Avner Ben-Amos, Israël : La fabrique de l’identité nationale, Paris, CNRS Éditions, 2020; Tali Tadmor-Shimoni, Shiour Moledet: Hinuch Leumi ve Kinoun Medinah, 1954-1966 [A Lesson in Homeland: National Education and State Building, 1954-1966], Sede Boker, Ben-Gurion Institute Press, 2010.

20 Yael Dar, OuMisafasl haLimoudim Loukachnu: haYishouv leNochach Shoah veLikrat Medinah beSafrout haYeladim haEretz Israelit, 1939-1948 [Called Away from Our School Desk: The Yishuv in the Shadow of Holocaust and in Anticipation of Statehood in Children’s Literature of the Land of Israel], Jerusalem, Magnes Press, 2005; Rima Shichmanter, Chaver meNiyar: Itonout Yeladim Israelit baAsor haRishon laMedina [A Paper Friend: Israeli Children’s Press in the First Decade of the State], Sede Boker, Ben-Gurion Institute Press, 2014; Yael Dar, The Nation and the Child: Nation Building in Hebrew Children’s Literature, 1930-1970, Amsterdam, John Benjamins Publishing, 2018.

21 Elik Mishori, Shuru Habitou ouReou: Ikonot ve Semalim Chazoutiyim Tziyonim baTarbout haIsraelit [Look Ahead: Zionist Visual Icons and Symbols in Israeli Culture], Tel-Aviv, Am Oved, 2000; Dalia Manor, Art in Zion: The Genesis of Modern National Art in Jewish Palestine, London, Routledge, 2010; Galia Bar Or, Chayeynou Mechayvim Omanout: Binyan Tarbout keBinyan Chevra – Mouzeonim leOmanout beKibbutzim, 1930-1960 [Our Life Demands Art: Culture Building as Social Building – Art Museums in Kibbutzim, 1930-1960, Sede Boker, Ben Gurion Institute Press, 2020.

22 Moshe Shamir, Hou Halach ba’Sadot [He walked Through the Fields], Tel-Aviv, Sifriyat Poalim, 1947. The play, based on the novel, was adapted by Shamir and staged at the Cameri Theatre in 1948. The film was directed by Yosseph Milo in 1968. For the stage production, see Avner Ben-Amos, “L’Invention du ‘nouveau juif’ en Israël : la pièce de théâtre Il marchait dans les champs (1948)”, in the online Encyclopédie d’Histoire Numérique de l’Europe:

https://ehne.fr/fr/eduscol/terminale-g%C3%A9n%C3%A9rale/la-multiplication-des-acteurs-internationaux-dans-un-monde-bipolaire-de-1945-au-d%C3%A9but-des-ann%C3%A9es/la-fin-de-la-seconde-guerre-mondiale-et-les-d%C3%A9buts-d%E2%80%99un-nouvel-ordre-mondial/l%E2%80%99invention-du-%C2%AB-nouveau-juif-%C2%BB-en-isra%C3%ABl-la-pi%C3%A8ce-de

23 Oz Almog, The Sabra: The Creation of the New Jew, translated by Haim Watzman, Berkeley, University of California Press, 2000; Michal Sadan, HaRoeh haIvry: Gilgulam shel Dimouy veSemel miSafrout haHaskala laTarbout haIvrit beEretz Israel [The Hebrew Shepherd: The Transformation of an Image and a Symbol from the Literature of the Haskala to the New Hebrew Culture in the Land of Israel], Jerusalem, Yad Yitzhak Ben Zvi, 2011; Tali Silverstein, Kacha Tzarich Laasot Hayalim: Dmout haChayal baTeatron ouvaKolnoa haIsraelim, Tahanot Nivharot [That’s the Way to Make Soldiers: The Image of the Soldier in The Israeli Theatre and Cinema, Selected Examples], Tel-Aviv, Resling, 2013.

24 Richard Grassby, “Material Culture and Cultural History”, The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Vol. 35, 4, Spring 2005, p. 591-603; Paul Glennie, “Consumption within Historical Studies”, in Daniel Miller, ed., Acknowledging Consumption, London, Routledge, 1995, p. 163-202.

25 Maoz Azaryahu, Tel-Aviv, haIr haAmitit: Mitographia Historit [Tel-Aviv, the Real City: Historical Mythography], Sede Boker, Ben-Gurion Institute Press, 2005; Anat Helman, Young Tel-Aviv: A Tale of Two Cities, translated by Haim Watzman, Waltham, Brandeis University Press, 2010.

26 Ophra Tene, HaBatim haLevanim Yimalou: Chayey Yomyom beDirot Tel-Aviv biTekoufat haMandat [The White Houses Will Be Filled: Daily Life in Tel-Aviv Apartments during the Period of the Mandate], Tel-Aviv, Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 2013; Hizky Shoahm, A Moving Feast: The Bar and Bat Mitzvah across Jewish Cultures, translated by Leon Scharann, Oldenbourg, De Gruyter, 2024.

27 Anat Helman, A Coat of Many Colors: Dress Culture in the Young State of Israel, Boston, Academic Studies Press, 2011; Id., Degania Pinat Hollywood:Tarbout Zericha ve Pnay beReshit haMedinah [Degania Corner of Hollywood: Consumption Culture and Leisure at the Early State], Jerusalem, Shazar Centre, 2020.

28 Michal Hacham, Habayit sheBaBayit: Siah Domesti ve Hamtzaat haAshkenaziyout haModernit, 1920-1970 [Home at Home: Domestic Discourse and the Invention of Modern Ashkenazi Identity, 1920-1970], Tel-Aviv, Gome, 2020.

29 Kfir Teomim-Frenkel, Adom Ole, Adom Yored: Keytsad Ne’elmu Mishakei haPoel? 1928-1995 [Red Rising, Red Dimishing: How Did HaPoel Games Disappear? 1928-1995], Ramat Efal, Yad Tabenkin, 2024; Nir Avieli, Medina Al haEsh: Ochel veKoach beIsrael [A State on Fire: Food and Power in Israel], Ramat Gan, Afik Books, 2024; Oded Heilbruner, HaDor Shel 1940: Mitabdim uPegouey Nefesh baHevra haYisraelit [The Generation of 1940: Suicide and Mental Health Problem in Israeli Society], Jerusalem, Carmel, 2020.

Haut de page

Pour citer cet article

Référence électronique

Avner Ben-Amos, « Israeli Cultural History: Between Nation Building and Individual Fulfillment »Revue d’histoire culturelle [En ligne], 10 | 2025, mis en ligne le 15 septembre 2025, consulté le 11 décembre 2025. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/rhc/14500 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/14z4g

Haut de page

Auteur

Avner Ben-Amos

Avner Ben-Amos is a historian of education and emeritus professor at the School of Education, Tel-Aviv University. His research interests include the formation of collective memory and the teaching of civic education in Israel and France. Among his books: Israël: La fabrique de l’identité nationale, Paris, CNRS Éditions, 2010.

Articles du même auteur

Haut de page

Droits d’auteur

CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0

Le texte seul est utilisable sous licence CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Les autres éléments (illustrations, fichiers annexes importés) sont susceptibles d’être soumis à des autorisations d’usage spécifiques.

Haut de page
Rechercher dans OpenEdition Search

Vous allez être redirigé vers OpenEdition Search