Toward an Anthropology of Nation Building and Unbuilding in Israel PDF
Preview Toward an Anthropology of Nation Building and Unbuilding in Israel
“This volume covers a wide variety of topics with considerable relevance for society in Israel today, written by well-trained and serious students of Israeli society and culture.” —Herbert S. Lewis, emeritus professor of anthropology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and author of In Defense of Anthropology: An Investigation of the Critique of Anthropology Toward an Anthropology of Nation Building and Unbuilding in Israel Toward an Anthropology of Nation Building and Unbuilding in Israel Edited and with an introduction by Fran Markowitz, Stephen Sharot, and Moshe Shokeid Afterword by Alex Weingrod University of Nebraska Press | Lincoln and London © 2015 by the Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska Portions of chapter 11 originally appeared in Shlomo Deshen, “Southern Tunisian Jewry in the Early 20th Century,” Journal of North African Studies 10 (2005): 183–99; portions of chapter 17 originally appeared in Fran Markowitz, Sarajevo: A Bosnian Kaleidoscope (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2010) and in Fran Markowitz, “Tales of Two Buildings: National Entanglements in Sarajevo’s Pasts, Presents and Futures,” Ethnologie Française 42, no. 4 (2012): 797–809. All rights reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Toward an anthropology of nation building and unbuilding in Israel / edited and with an introduction by Fran Markowitz, Stephen Sharot, and Moshe Shokeid; afterword by Alex Weingrod. pages cm—(Studies of Jews in Society) Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978-0-8032-7194-4 (hardback: alk. paper) ISBN 978-0-8032-7412-9 (pdf) ISBN 978-0-8032-7413-6 (epub) ISBN 978-0-8032-7414-3 (mobi) 1. Israel—Ethnic relations. 2. Minorities—Israel. 3. Ethnicity—Israel. I. Markowitz, Fran, editor. DS113.2.T69 2015 956.9405—dc23 2014024120 The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content. Toward an Anthropology of Nation Building and Unbuilding in Israel is a tribute to Alex Weingrod in honor of his eightieth birthday. All of us, the volume’s editors and authors, consider Alex Weingrod an inspiring and pioneering scholar of Israeli anthropology. He has influenced much of our work, and that influence is evident throughout the chapters of this book. Contents Introduction Fran Markowitz, Stephen Sharot, and Moshe Shokeid Part 1. Coexistence and Conflict 1. Living Together Separately: Arab-Palestinian Places through Jewish-Israeli Eyes Efrat Ben-Ze’ev 2. Landscapes of Despair, Islands of Hope: Social Working in the Unrecognized Arab-Bedouin Villages in the Negev Hagit Peres 3. Performing the People’s Army: The Israeli Military Manages Symbolic and Moral Boundaries Edna Lomsky-Feder and Eyal Ben-Ari 4. Another Item in the News: Normalcy and Distress at Sapir College Dafna Shir-Vertesh 5. From the Protest to Testimony and Confession: The Changing Politics of Peace Organizations in Israel Sara Helman Part 2. Migration, Ethnicity, and Identities 6. From Engaged Mediator to Freelance Consultant: Israeli Social Scientists in the Service of Immigrant Absorption Moshe Shokeid 7. A Different Mizrahi Story: How the Iraqis Became Israelis Esther Meir-Glitzenstein 8. Living Separately, Loving Tragically: Cross-Ethnic Romance in Israeli Films Stephen Sharot 9. Universalism and Particularism Revisited: Immigrant Physicians from the Former Soviet Union in Israel Judith T. Shuval 10. Israelis of Ethiopian Origin: New Identity Constructs and Research Models Lisa Anteby-Yemini Part 3. Religion and Rituals 11. Toward an Ethnography of a Mediterranean People: The Complex Culture of Southern Tunisian Jewry in the Early Twentieth Century Shlomo Deshen 12. “With Us More than Ever Before”: Making the Absent Rebbe Present in Messianic Habad Yoram Bilu 13. How Do We Know When a Society Is Changing? Reflections on Liberal Judaism in Israel Harvey E. Goldberg 14. More Dry Bones: The Significance of Changes in Mortuary Ritual in Contemporary Israel Henry Abramovitch 15. “Where It All Began”: Archaeology, Nationalism, and Fundamentalism in Silwan Michael Feige 16. Vehicles of Values: Souvenirs and the Moralities of Exchange in Christian Holy Land Pilgrimage Jackie Feldman Part 4. Comparative Perspectives 17. Reading and Redacting National Landscapes: Tales of Two Buildings from Israel and Bosnia Fran Markowitz 18. “I Love a Parade”: Ethnic Identity in the United States and Israel Abraham Rosman and Paula G. Rubel 19. Middle East Studies in Israel, Europe, and the United States: Trends and Prospects Dale F. Eickelman Afterword Alex Weingrod Contributors Illustrations Maya Neta Rivi Stav Introduction Fran Markowitz, Stephen Sharot, & Moshe Shokeid Offering a variety of fresh approaches to the perplexing issues surrounding the nation-building project in Israel, this volume explores key issues of sociocultural inclusion and exclusion in the state designated as the Jewish homeland. Nation building—a process that involves generating widely accepted understandings and institutions as well as a broad consensus among all segments of the society—is a continuing, often daunting project. Broadly speaking, the challenges of Israeli nation building have revolved around three problematics: (1) integrating Jewish immigrants from diverse backgrounds into Israel’s evolving society; (2) including, or excluding, growing resident Arab populations (Bedouin, Druze, Palestinians) as Israeli citizens; and (3) distributing power and controlling the frequent conflicts between Jewish religious and secular groups. Over and above its blue and white flag featuring the six-pointed Star of David and its national anthem, “Hatikva” (The Hope), Israel’s main nation-building mechanisms have included an immigration policy based principally on the Right of Return for all Jews, the standardization of modern Hebrew, and its use throughout the country as the major official language. The state has also established numerous national monuments (for example, Mount Herzl and the Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem, Masada in the Judean Desert), as well as a series of new civic holidays (Holocaust Memorial Day, Memorial Day, and Independence Day), which are interspersed with traditional religious Jewish celebrations. Ubiquitous use of the Hebrew language, Israeli state rituals, and the conscription of the majority of Jewish young men and women in the Israeli army continue to shape Israelis into a well-defined imagined community (Anderson 1991) and grounded citizenry (see Handelman 2004). And yet, in that these measures exclude even though they were designed to be all-inclusive and become hegemonic, they also contain the seeds of nation unbuilding. Anthropological research in Israel has been intertwined with the state project of nation building for decades, particularly with the process popularly known as the “ingathering of the exiles.” Strongly influenced by the modernization theory advanced by S. N. Eisenstadt’s The Absorption of Immigrants (1954), while also confronting and contesting its major assumptions, much early research by anthropologists focused directly on the changes undergone by new immigrants as
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