Risk Society and the Charedim - Ulrich Beck and religion in Israel
Many elements of World at Risk by Ulrich Beck have a parallel to the work I am doing in my MA thesis regarding the... more Many elements of World at Risk by Ulrich Beck have a parallel to the work I am doing in my MA thesis regarding the Charedi (ultra-Orthodox) community in Israel. For various reasons, ultra-Orthodox society is placed at risk in terms of society, physical safety, and politically. Beck notes that ""the class divide runs between those who have the power to define their self-produced risks and those who are exposed to, or at the mercy of, risks over which others decide ... thus risk is another word for power and domination," (Beck 142) this paradigm is particularly apt in a discussion of the ultra-Orthodox minority. The ways in which risk affects ultra-Orthodox society, and the way in which risk societies, as illustrated by Beck, come into play in the context of Israel, will be explored in this essay. Through an examination of Charedi society, social risk factors, and possible solutions to the challenges faced in Israel, as well as an overview of the complexities and risks facing this minority will be explored.
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Beitar Jerusalem appeals punishment for its fans’ racism
By James M. Dorsey
Beitar Jerusalem, the bad boy of Israeli soccer, has appealed an Israeli Football... more
By James M. Dorsey
Beitar Jerusalem, the bad boy of Israeli soccer, has appealed an Israeli Football Association (IFA) decision to dock it two points after fans shouted racist slurs against a Nigerian-born international striker Toto Tamez during a match against Hapoel Tel Aviv.
Beitar is likely in its appeal to argue that it is seeking to rein in its Sephardic Middle Eastern and North African Jewish fans, known for their dislike of Arabs Ashkenazi Jews of East European origin. The club is looking to hire a private security company to restrain its rowdy supporters.
The IFA's decision to activate a suspended two-point punishment of Beitar meted out last year because of its fan behaviour could prove disastrous as the club seeks to evade relegation because of poor performance.
Beitar this weekend scored much needed points with its defeat of Maccabi Netanya in a home match in Jerusalem's Teddy Kollek Stadium which it had earlier been ordered by the IFA to play behind closed doors because of racist chanting by its fans.
Israeli news reports quoted Beitar coach Yuval Naim as saying the IFA ruling was a disgrace. "They're killing us and demoting us a league. It's a death sentence for Beitar," Mr.Naim reportedly shouted.
Beitar was Israel's richest club until its owner, Russian-born billionaire Arkady Gaydamak, cut funding and failed to sell the club to two American Jewish investors who are widely viewed as critical of Israeli policies and doves when it comes to achieving an Israeli-Palestinian peace
The IFA said it was to penalising the club because "the Beitar management had not made an honest effort to combat the fans' chants."
That judgement was reinforced when Maccabi Haifa striker Mohammed Ghadir recently put Beitar on the spot by insisting that he wanted to join the club, which prides itself to be the only Israeli Premier League to have never hired a Palestinian player in a country whose population is for 20 per cent Palestinian and in which Palestinians play important roles in most other top league teams.
"Our team and our fans are still not ready for an Arab soccer player," Israel's liberal daily, Ha’aretz, recently quoted Beitar’s management as saying in response to Mr. Ghadir’s challenge.
Beitar's notorious racism prompted the IFA to become the only Middle Eastern soccer body to launch a campaign against.
Established in 1936 and supported by Israeli right wing leaders such as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Beitar traces its roots to a revanchist Zionist youth movement. Its founding players actively resisted the pre-state British mandate authorities. Its fans shocked Israelis when they refused to observe a national moment of silence for assassinated Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who initiated the first peace negotiations with the Palestinians.
Beitar has the worst disciplinary record in Israel’s top league. Since 2005 it has faced more than 20 hearings and has received various punishments, including points deductions, fines and matches behind closed doors because of its fans’ racist behaviour. The IFA recently ordered Beitar to play two home games behind closed doors and pay a $16,000 fine for fan rioting during a match against Bnei Yehuda.
Beitar’s matches often resemble a Middle Eastern battlefield. It’s fans revel in their status as the bad boys of Israeli soccer. Their dislike of Ashkenazi Jews rivals their disdain for Palestinians.
Despite the IFA's efforts, militant soccer fan racism is encouraged by far-right wing politicians such as National Union deputy Michael Ben-Ari, a proponent of expelling all Palestinians from Israel, who last year proposed legislation that would require members of Israeli national sport teams to sing the national anthem and recognise Israel as a Jewish state. The latter demand is rooted in an Israeli desire backed by Mr. Netanyahu to impose recognition of the Jews’ historic right to settle Palestine and block recognition of Palestinian rights to return to lands within Israel’s pre-1967 borders.
Similarly, Jerusalem mayor Nir Barkat, who cultivates an image as a tolerant, modern public servant, has largely remained silent about the racism of home soccer team. Ha'aretz recntly pointed out that approximately one third of Mr. Barkat's constituents are Jerusalem's 280,000 tax-paying Palestinians.
The importance of Palestinian players to Israeli soccer was driven home to Israelis in 2005 when Abbas Suan, a devout Muslim who refused to sing the Hatikva before a game, achieved for a brief moment what politicians in more than a half-century had not: he united Israeli Jews and Arabs by securing with a last minute equalizer against Ireland Israel’s first chance in 35 years to qualify for a world cup. The game earned him the nickname The Equalizer and made him an Israeli hero; his cheery face and toothy smile featured in ads for the state lottery.
That sense of unity was short-lived. When Suan set foot on the pitch in Israel a week later as captain of Bnei Sakhnin, an Israeli Palestinian team, Jewish fans of Beitar Jerusalem, Israel’s most nationalistic club, booed him every time he touched the ball. “Suan, You Don’t Represent US,” blared a giant banner in the stadium. Fans shouted, “We hate all Arabs.”
James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and the author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer.
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Striker Mohammed Ghadir puts Israeli anti-racism to the test
By James M. Dorsey
Maccabi Haifa striker Mohammed Ghadir believes that he and Beitar Jerusalem, the bad boy... more
By James M. Dorsey
Maccabi Haifa striker Mohammed Ghadir believes that he and Beitar Jerusalem, the bad boy of Israeli soccer, are a perfect match.
"I am well suited to Beitar, and that team would fit me like a glove. I have no qualms about moving to play for them," Mr. Ghadir is quoted by Israeli daily Ha’aretz as saying. Beitar has a large squad, a significant fan base, wide media coverge and lacks talented strikers, he says.
There is only one hitch: Beitar doesn’t want Mr. Ghadir. Not because he’s not an upcoming star and not because they wouldn’t need a player like Mr. Ghadir but because the striker is an Israeli Palestinian. "Our team and our fans are still not ready for an Arab soccer player," Ha’aretz quotes Beitar’s management as saying. The club prides itself on being the only top league Israeli club to have never hired a Palestinian player in a country whose population is for 20 per cent Palestinian and in which Palestinians play important roles in most other top league teams.
The Beitar management may be right in its approach, not because the team has a point in picking its players on racial grounds but because it prides itself on its bad-boy racist image and is under no pressure to change its ways despite Israeli legal restrictions on discrimination in the work place, the Israel Football Association being the only Middle Eastern soccer body to have launched a campaign against racism and Palestinian tax money contributed to the funding of this year’s refurbishing of Jerusalem stadiums.
Beitar has argued that it has broken no laws by not having hired Palestinian players because no Palestinian has ever solicited at the risk of being a target of the club’s racist attitude. Mr. Ghadir’s desire to play for Beitar puts paid to that argument.
“Now an extraordinarily courageous Arab player has stood up, and fearlessly indicated that he is not afraid to play for Beitar. The Jerusalem squad did not assent to his request - not because he lacks sufficient talent, but because he is an Arab. This is a mark of Cain for Beitar Jerusalem and its fans, and also for the city of Jerusalem, the state of Israel and its legal system, the Israel Football Association and also for the media, which continues to cover this soccer team. Day by day, we reinforce and popularize this loathsome form of racism,” said Ha”aretz columnist Yoav Borowitz in a recent article entitled ‘Kick racism out of Beitar Jerusalem soccer team.’
Established in 1936 and supported by Israeli right wing leaders such as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Beitar traces its roots to a revanchist Zionist youth movement. Its founding players actively resisted the pre-state British mandate authorities. Its fans shocked Israelis when they refused to observe a moment of silence for assassinated Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who initiated the first peace negotiations with the Palestinians.
Beitar has the worst disciplinary record in Israel’s top league. Since 2005 it has faced more than 20 hearings and has received various punishments, including points deductions, fines and matches behind closed doors because of its fans’ racist behaviour. Beitar’s matches often resemble a Middle Eastern battlefield. It’s mostly Sephardic fans of Middle Eastern and North African origin, revel in their status as the bad boys of Israeli soccer. Their dislike of Ashkenazi Jews of East European extraction rivals their disdain for Palestinians.
In some ways, Mr. Ghadir’s interest in transferring from Maccabi Haifa to Beitar has an element of going from bad to worse. Israeli police said in October that it suspect militant right-wing Jewish fans of Mr. Ghadir’s own team of painting slogans reminiscent of language used by Jewish settlers on buildings in the town of Bat Yam and Muslim and Christian graves in Jaffa, the formerly Palestinian part of Tel Aviv that today is home to both Israelis and Palestinians. The slogans asserted that "Maccabi Haifa doesn't want Arabs on the team," "Death to Arabs," and "Rabbi Kahane was right," a reference to the late leader of the outlawed extreme right-wing Jewish Defence League (JDL) who was assassinated in New York in 1990. The perpetrators signed the slogans as “Haifa supporters.”
Militant soccer fan racism is encouraged by far-right wing politicians such as National Union deputy Michael Ben-Ari, a proponent of expelling all Palestinians from Israel, who this year proposed legislation that would require members of Israeli national sport teams to sing the national anthem and recognise Israel as a Jewish state. The latter demand is rooted in an Israeli desire backed by Mr. Netanyahu to impose recognition of the Jews’ historic right to settle Palestine and block recognition of Palestinian rights to return to lands within Israel’s pre-1967 borders.
Mr. Borowitz noted that “Jerusalem mayor, Nir Barkat, who cultivates an image as a tolerant, modern public servant, has yet to utter a word on this topic. He has done nothing to alter Beitar's racist, discriminatory policy. Avi Luzon, chairman of the Israel Football Association, also remains inert on this issue; and the association's court has never lifted a finger to challenge Beitar's racism. Meantime, Israel's media continues to cover the team's games, and barely addresses the racism issue. Could an English or French soccer squad get away without putting a black or Jewish player on the field throughout its history? How would its fans respond to that? Would football associations in such countries countenance such blatantly racist policy?”
Mr. Borowitz notes further that Jerusalem’s 280,000 Palestinian residents contributed to the NIS 100,000,000 ($27 million) in taxpayer’s money allocated for stadium renovations this year. “Yet this contribution does not entitle the city's Arabs to representation, even of the most minimal sort, on Jerusalem's sole team in the nation's top league,” Mr. Borowitz said.
The importance of Palestinian players to Israeli soccer was driven home to Israelis in 2005 when Abbas Suan, a devout Muslim who refused to sing the Hatikva before a game, achieved for a brief moment what politicians in more than a half-century had not: he united Israeli Jews and Arabs by securing with a last minute equalizer against Ireland Israel’s first chance in 35 years to qualify for a world cup. The game earned him the nickname The Equalizer and made him an Israeli hero; his cheery face and toothy smile featured in ads for the state lottery.
That sense of unity was short-lived. When Suan set foot on the pitch in Israel a week later as captain of Bnei Sakhnin, an Israeli Palestinian team, Jewish fans of Beitar Jerusalem, Israel’s most nationalistic club, booed him every time he touched the ball. “Suan, You Don’t Represent US,” blared a giant banner in the stadium. Fans shouted, “We hate all Arabs.”
James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and the author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer.
Israeli MP drafts legislation obliging players to recognize Israel as a Jewish state
Monday, November 7, 2011
By James M. Dorsey
Proposed legislation by extreme nationalist Israeli... more
Monday, November 7, 2011
By James M. Dorsey
Proposed legislation by extreme nationalist Israeli parliamentarian Michael Ben-Ari that would require members of Israeli national sport teams to sing the national anthem and recognise Israel as a Jewish state threatens to weaken the country’s soccer team and further isolate Israel internationally.
Mr. Ben-Ari, a member of the far-right National Union, who is widely seen as having inherited the mantle of Rabbi Meir Kahane, the assassinated racist leader of the Jewish Defence League, tabled his proposal as the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, returned from a three-month recess.
The proposed bill is part of a slew of nationalist legislation on the Knesset’s agenda that includes a draft law tabled by Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu (Israel is our Home) Party that would make a commitment to Israel and its Jewish character a condition for citizenship.
An estimated 20 per cent of Israelis are Palestinians who are largely committed to the existence of the state, but feel that it discriminates against non-Jews and that emphasizing its Jewish character is intended to exclude them. Mr. Ben-Ari’s proposal as well as other draft legislation is certain to reaffirm that sense.
Mr. Ben-Ari’s proposal is in line with Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu’s demand that the Palestinians recognise Israel as a Jewish state as part of any Israeli-Palestinian peace settlement.
The demand, rooted in an Israeli desire to impose recognition of the Jews’ historic right to settle Palestine and block recognition of Palestinian rights to return to lands within Israel’s pre-1967 borders, goes far beyond earlier Israeli demands for recognition of Israel as a state. That recognition by the Palestine Liberation Organisation and the Palestine Authority formed the basis for the last two decades of failed Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
Mr. Ben-Ari’s proposal, which has sparked intense debate in Israel, would contrast starkly with accepted practice in soccer powerhouses such as Germany and France. Immigrant and foreign players in the French and German national teams often refrain from singing their team’s national anthem. German national team coach Joachim has Low noted that the players identify with Germany as much as they do with their heritage.
If adopted Mr. Ben-Ari’s law would mean that the three Israeli Palestinian members of the 21-man national soccer team – Beram Kayal, Taleb Twaitha and Ali Ottman – would withdraw.
In a stinging commentary in the liberal Israeli daily Haaretz entitled ‘Sport and Racism / Hatikva ueber alles?’ – a word play on the Israel national anthem and the German anthem at the time of the Nazis -- prominent Israeli sports writer Uzi Dann warned that Mr. Ben-Ari’s proposal “is as surreal as it is dangerous. The second part of Ben-Ari's proposal - that Israeli Arabs players be forced to sign an oath of allegiance - is the epitome of fascism.”
Mr. Dann noted that “to demand that Beram Kayal sing ‘The Land of Zion and Jerusalem’ is ridiculous; to insist that Taleb Twatiha joins in when his teammates sing about the yearning of the Jewish spirit is a cheek; and to force Ali Ottman to mumble something about being a free nation in our land is an own goal.”
The journalist went on to say that “once, we could be sure that such surreal proposals were thrown onto the parliamentary garbage heap. Today, however, anything is possible. If Ben-Ari's bill becomes law, Israel, which once took pride in the separation of sports and politics, will be the only country on earth with such a discriminatory and racist law. And soccer is one of the areas in which the authorities have made a genuine effort to inculcate equality among all Israeli citizens.”
If adopted, Israel would likely be sanctioned by world soccer body FIFA and European soccer body UEFA – Israel plays since 1994 in European competitions after it was booted out of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) several years earlier because Middle Eastern teams refused to play against it – and would likely face legal challenges in the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).
“That's all we need. But the point here … is that the national team needs its Israeli Arab players more than they need the national team. Israel depends on them and relies on them and is a far worse team without them. Not only is Ben-Ari a racist, he's damaging the national team,” Mr. Dann said.
The importance of Palestinian players was driven home to Israelis in 2005 when Abbas Suan, a devout Muslim who refused to sing the Hatikva before a game, achieved for a brief moment what politicians in more than a half-century had not: he united Israeli Jews and Arabs by securing with a last minute equalizer against Ireland Israel’s first chance in 35 years to qualify for a world cup. The game earned him the nickname The Equalizer and made him an Israeli hero; his cheery face and toothy smile featured in ads for the state lottery.
That sense of unity was short-lived. When Suan set foot on the pitch in Israel a week later as captain of Bnei Sakhnin, an Israeli Arab team, Jewish fans of Beitar Jerusalem, Israel’s most nationalistic club, booed him every time he touched the ball. “Suan, You Don’t Represent US,” blared a giant banner in the stadium. Fans shouted, “We hate all Arabs.”
Mr. Suan, an advocate of Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation, an independent Palestinian state and a solution for Palestinian demands to recover land and homes lost when Israel was founded, took the insults in his stride. “I ignore them,” he insisted. “They’re not worth my attention. They portray me as an Arab in a Jewish country. They try to put me in one group, but I represent both."
Mr. Suan’s Beit Sakhnin is a story in itself. So is that of Beitar Jerusalem. Together their stories chart the fault line between Israelis and Palestinians. Beit Sakhnin is a model of coexistence: a majority of Israeli Arabs with some Jews and foreigners.
The club, the first Israel-Arab team to become an Israeli champion, and Mr. Suan did wonders for Arab pride and self-confidence. They also spotlighted the divisions in Israeli and Arab society. "Our problem is that the Arabs say we are traitors and Israelis think we are Arabs," said Palestinian building contractor Mazen Ghaneim and former Bnei Sakhnin chairman.
Bnei Sakhnin’s success has nonetheless enabled it to build bridges where heads of state and diplomats have failed. It won the club funding from oil-rich Qatar to build its own stadium, the Arab world’s only direct investment in Israel, and prompted Arabs from countries formally at war with the Jewish state to defy bans on travel to Israel to attend the team’s matches.
Beitar Jerusalem’s matches often resemble a Middle Eastern battlefield. It’s mostly Sephardic fans of Middle Eastern and North African origin revel in their status as the bad boys of Israeli soccer. Their dislike of Ashkenazi Jews of East European extraction rivals their disdain for Palestinians.
Supported by Israeli right wing leaders such as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Beitar traces its roots to a revanchist Zionist youth movement. Its founding players actively resisted the pre-state British mandate authorities. Its fans shocked Israelis when they refused to observe a moment of silence for assassinated Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who initiated the first peace negotiations with the Palestinians.
Beitar’s war reaches a feverish pitch when the team plays Bnei Sakhnin. Fans chant racist, anti-Arab songs and denounce the Prophet Mohammed. In response, Beit Sakhnin’s predominantly Palestinian fans sing Islamic and anti-Israeli chants. The outbursts have prompted the Israeli Football Association to become the Middle East’s only governing soccer body to launch a campaign against racism and discrimination and made Israel the only nation in the region to have charged fans with shouting racist remarks.
James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and the author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer.
إسرائيل والقدس وأزمة الهوية Israel, Jerusalem, and the Identity Crisis
Jurnal Antarabangsa Kajian Asia Barat
International Journal of West Asian Studies
Volume 3 No 1 2011
ISSN : 2229-8924
EISSN : 2180-4788
After more than 62 years of its formation, Israel is now facing a crisis in one of the major
aspects of its... more
After more than 62 years of its formation, Israel is now facing a crisis in one of the major
aspects of its entity, namely its identity; many of the members of Jewish-Israeli public, in
particular, are facing a crisis in identifying their character within the contemporary world,
especially with the rise of rejection of Israel in the Arab and Muslim worlds. The Israeli
people are facing a problem in defining their tie, and thus, there has been a crucial need to regather the Israelis on one symbol that represents “‘Ām Ysra’il” (i.e. the People of Israel). This
symbol is Jerusalem. Therefore, it is noted that Israel has intensified work towards Judaizing
Jerusalem and insisting on its Jewish character recently, in addition to the insist on requesting
the Palestinians and the Arab and Muslim world to admit “The Jewish Israel”, which reflects
Israel’s fear of demolishing of the whole Zionist project in that area from inside. This paper
analyzes the current identity crisis that Israel faces and the procedures taken by Israel towards
solving this problem through “bringing the symbol to life”, i.e. Jerusalem in particular, in
addition to touch upon the reaction of the PLO and the Palestinian Authority to this
challenge.
PAPER IN ARABIC LANGUAGE
البحث باللغة العربية
Gender differences in psychological distress among family caregivers of chronically-ill parents: a comparison between veteran Israelis and immigrants from the former Soviet Union.
The aim of this study is to examine gender differences in psychological distress among adults caring for a... more
The aim of this study is to examine gender differences in psychological distress among adults caring for a chronically-ill parent at home, with particular reference to cultural backgrounds (comparing these differences among new immigrants from the former Soviet Union - FSU - and veteran Israeli residents). Previous research has shown gender differences in the stress and coping processes among adult children caregivers. These are expressed in differences in perceptions of caregiving stressors, personal and social resources, coping patterns and, consequently, distress.
It is well known that care of a family member at home is shaped to a great extent by the cultural background of the family. During the nineties about one million new immigrants arrive in Israel from the FSU. The proportion of the elderly among them is higher than among veteran Israelis. The new immigrants brought with them distinctive cultural patterns of care of the elderly. However, being in a stage of transition and adaptation to the new country the availability of resources (such as social support) to the elderly and family members may be more limited and influence their perception of caregiving stressors and psychological distress. For the immigrant adult children, caring for the chronically-ill parent may be an additional stressor that increases their risk for psychological distress in comparison to veteran Israelis. The proposed research will examine the gender differences in the care process of the chronically-ill parent using a cultural comparison.
The study has four research questions:
1. Are there gender differences in caregiving stressors, psychological distress and the psycho-social variables in each of the cultural groups?
2. Are there gender differences in the association between caregiving stressors and psychological distress in each of the cultural groups?
3. Are there gender differences in the association between the psycho-social variables and psychological distress in each of the cultural groups?
4. How do the intervening psycho-social variables influence the gender differences in the association between the caregiving stressors and psychological distress in each of the cultural groups?
The design of the proposed study is cross-sectional. To overcome the known under-representation of men in caregiving studies, equal numbers of each gender in each cultural group will be recruited, reaching a total sample size of 240. The participants will be recruited from home care units of the four health maintenance organizations (sick funds) or private nursing care companies. The sample will include 60 male and 60 female veteran Israeli adult child caregivers and 60 male and 60 female new immigrant adult child caregivers. Data will be collected in face-to-face interviews using a structured questionnaire.
The study will contribute to better understanding of gender differences in caregiving stressors and psychological distress in the specific context of care. It will also clarify the implications of gender differences in distinct cultural contexts. The results of the study may have important implications for identification of unique problems in each cultural group and for the design of culturally-specific psychosocial interventions to respond to the needs of son or daughter caregivers.
L’identità di Israele tra laicità e religione (The Israeli identity between laicity and religion)
by Matteo Miele
in “Mondoperaio”, numero 2, marzo-aprile 2008, pp. 74-85
Narrative, Interpersonal Communication, and Social Construction
by Chaim Noy
Book chapter. In Israeli Backpackers and Their Society: A View from Afar. Noy, c. and Cohen, E. (Eds.), pp. 111-158. (2005).
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Life in the other Promised Land
Haaretz Books, April 2009
Zuckermann, Ghil'ad 2009. Life in the other Promised Land - Review Article of Nava Semel, Khatuna Ostralit (An... more
Zuckermann, Ghil'ad 2009. Life in the other Promised Land - Review Article of Nava Semel, Khatuna Ostralit (An Australian Wedding). Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 2009. Haaretz Books, April 2009.
Life in the other Promised Land
By Ghil'ad Zuckermann
"An Australian Wedding," by Nava Semel, Am Oved (Hebrew),
An Israeli applies for an Australian visa. When the immigration officer of the former penal colony asks if he has any prior convictions, the Israeli innocently responds: "Why, is that still a requirement for getting in?"
I was reminded of this joke reading Nava Semel's travel diary, "Khatuna Ostralit" ("An Australian Wedding"), in which she focuses on the Israeli community in Australia's Byron Bay, where her son, Iyar, has chosen to live.
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"[My husband and I] were adamantly against Iyar's decision to study in Australia, of all places," Semel writes candidly. "Harvard or Cambridge would have been just fine - some prestigious establishment, which Jewish parents could show off to the world. But [the SAE Institute in] Byron Bay? Why go to a young continent, which still lacks any time-honored culture - what can one learn there?"
I, on the other hand, often find myself amused - in a sort of anachronistic, way - by the fact that the British sent robbers to this antipodean paradise instead of leaving them in gray Britain, and moving themselves to the Land of Milk and Honey Down Under. English weather reminds me of Iraq: partly Sunni, mostly Shiite. On the other hand, I refer to Brisbane as "Bris bein habesorim," which is Ashkenazi Hebrew for "covenant between the parts" (see Genesis 15, where God promises Abram/Abraham that the Holy Land will belong to his descendants).
As for that other Promised Land, Israel - if I may be permitted to make a gross generalization, it's a sad place. Furthermore, Israelis are unfortunately sad no matter where they live. The main causes for this are past grievances ("too much history, too little geography," as the late philosopher Sir Isaiah Berlin wrote in 1953). In the psyche of the wandering Israeli who travels the world in search of himself, it does not matter whether those grievances are justified. Australia is "the lucky country," a place of broad expanses and fertile soil, which makes "desperation just a little bit more comfortable," to quote a phrase from Hanoch Levin's well-known song, performed by the exquisite Chava Alberstein.
Still, Australia cannot make a sad and complex people happy and uncomplicated. There may be less corruption of the sort Israeli pop-rock band Tislam sings about in its hit "Face of a Nation" ("Wait, Gedaliah, maybe we'll make you our ambassador to Australia"), but how many Israelis can really sound natural when saying, "No worries, mate!"? How many restless Israelis will, like Kenneth, the surfer-brother of Iyar Semel's Aussie girlfriend, calmly state that "every wave is unique and is its own experience." For me, every wave carries a memory from home - to quote a phrase from a famous Russian-Israeli song.
Most Israelis in Byron Bay, the antipodean New Age capital, also known simply as Byron, and in the less expensive communities in its vicinity (such as Ocean Shores, Mullumbimby and Lismore), are not the kind the late prime minister Yitzhak Rabin once criticized for being "wimpy dropouts," but are rather the salt of the earth. They don't hate Israel. On the contrary: They love/loved her too much. Luckily, there are many good Israelis whose opinions aren't as extreme as those of Israel-basher George Steiner ("Israel has a great future - in New York!" he once told me at Churchill College, Cambridge, England) or of Diaspora-basher A.B. Yehoshua (~"A good Jew should live in Israel"). These Israelis simultaneously love their homeland and the global shtetl, and are aware of the limitations of both. Is it easy being an Israeli in Israel? No! Is it easy being an Israeli in the Diaspora? No! Iyar Semel, the son of the author of "An Australian Wedding" is one of those latter Israelis.
Antithesis of Israeliness
"I vowed not to be judgmental and won't comment on anything," Nava Semel writes. "I will not lock horns. I promised not to fall into the trap of chanting slogans about the irreplaceable homeland, but what am I to do if I am suddenly struck by sadness? They're all young, kind and beautiful, exuding energy and the passion of youth. There's no anger or bitterness in them when they speak of Israel, just a sense of quiet acceptance. And that's what's so sad about it."
It is indeed sad. But, ironically, in Australia, Semel's son can live in a commune more reminiscent of the old kibbutz than any locale in Israel, where socialist communities have been emptied of content thanks to the Americanized capitalistic environment. He also works the land like his pioneering grandparents did in Israel.
"Mom, doesn't this orchard remind you of Grandma Rivka's?" Iyar asks his mother in Australia. Moreover, with an overbearing lineage - singer Shlomo Artzi is his uncle, and his father is theater director Noam Semel - no wonder Iyar has a much easier time expressing himself and working on his music on the other side of the world.
Iyar Semel lives in Lismore with his fair-complexion girlfriend Lucy, who symbolizes all that is good in Australians: purity, kindness, wholesomeness, innocence, happiness, joy, virginity - the antithesis of Israeliness. Even on the cover of the book, Iyar evokes an aura of familiarity with the woes of the world, in comparison to Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds standing beside him.
"Arrogant and blunt - that's how Israelis are perceived here," Semel writes. "Lucy has learned to understand them. She likes their bluntness. Israelis tell it to your face and don't beat about the bush ...
"Even though he told her the meaning of it, she wanted to know why we chose to name him Iyar. I told her he was born on the eve of Israel's Independence Day, which is also our Israel Defense Forces memorial day. We wanted a pure Hebrew name for our firstborn - a 'pre-Israeli' name, a pedantic person might say. A name that meant 'light' in ancient times. I tried to explain to Lucy our aversion toward anything tainted by the Diaspora experience and our obsessive yearning to recreate ourselves as 'new Jews.'"
But Zionism's rejection of the Diaspora failed and the Canaanist movement fell to pieces. Iyar is, in fact, the direct descendant of the wandering Jew, a peripatetic, not to say pathetic, traveler, who yearns to roam endlessly in the "Go forth from your land" tradition of the Bible, which is encoded in our genes. Nevertheless, few will be able to escape their Israeli shackles, the excess baggage. An Israeli will always remain an Israeli no matter how much he tries to repress his identity. A part of him will remain Israeli abroad - the same way Israelis have not been able to rid themselves of the Diaspora experience within themselves, even though they have tried hard to do so; the same way Yiddish has survived hidden beneath Israeli "revitalized" Hebrew.
Israeliness is a palimpsest embodying many different influences from the Diaspora. That is not to say it hasn't introduced anything new, only that we must recognize its complexity and try not to whitewash it with one-dimensionalism.
Lux et veritas
Nava Semel is an informed Israeli, who cares about and conducts a dialogue with Jewish history, admitting that "the backpack I'm carrying contains a novel by Spanish author Adolfo Garcia Ortega's [whose hero is] 3-year-old Hurbinek, who died at Auschwitz." At the same time her language is up-to-date, contemporary. Indeed, her love of the beautiful, multilayered Israeli language is apparent, and she is interested in a broad range of linguistic issues.
Too bad Nava didn't tell Lucy that her name means the same thing as Iyar's: Lux in Latin is "light," and the Hebrew biblical phrase "urim ve tummim" ("light and truth") is translated as "Lux et veritas," which happens to be the motto of Yale University. As Yale students tell their Harvard peers: "Your veritas sucks if it ain't got no lux!"
Thus, Iyar and Lucy are a match made in heaven. But will they stay together, or will Iyar end up marrying someone just a little bit more Israeli? "I've seen such couples before who come from different worlds," Semel writes , "and I've realized that a mental gap exists between Israelis and foreign partners. Can it be bridged? After all, two partners are never perfectly matched even if they do come from the same background. Will there not come a point where Lucy and Iyar will be inevitably torn apart by some basic misunderstanding arising from their different cultural backgrounds?" Iyar asks a more universal question, in a song he writes for Lucy: "Which is the greatest gift: freedom or me?"
Iyar's grandmother hopes his relationship with the shiksa won't last. "Did I survive Auschwitz so that my great-grandchildren will not be Jewish?" she asks. My blunt, arrogant and impertinent answer is, first, that the reason she survived Auschwitz is to have great-grandchildren, whether Jewish or not. Period. Second, she survived so that she can accept people as they are - regardless of their race - and she should thus be happy if Iyar should marry an Australian, Chinese, Argentinean or, God forbid, a German or Palestinian. Imagine!
"The drum circle, a microcosm of the world's races, routinely meets at 3 o'clock. Iyar blends in among two Native Americans, an Aborigine, four Japanese, a Chinese couple and three Africans. Everyone plays the same beat with no conductor or plan," Nava writes. "The drum beat is a dazzling sound," Iyar tells her, and rightfully so.
There are moments in life which make an Israeli - even if he is an officer in a commando unit or an enthusiastic supporter of the hawkish Avigdor Lieberman - feel like "nobody has ownership over land" and want to lash out against the idea of "nationality." I personally experienced that feeling at the drum circle at the Sunday market in Byron, as well as on the majestic Tioman Island in Malaysia. "I, too, was filled with awe and amazement in the face of the majestic panorama, which constantly changed colors and shapes," Semel writes. Such moments of "hypnotic beauty" remind us of the wastefulness of focusing on the negative.
What, then, is the key characteristic of the Israeli community in Byron Bay, which differentiates it from most other expatriate communities, including Israeli ones? Unlike their compatriots who settle in cities (say, Los Angeles and Melbourne), Byron-based Israelis are spiritualists seeking peace, calm and serenity. I know of many Israelis who moved there even though they made more money back home. Some suffer from war-related trauma or post-traumatic stress disorder, either personal or collective: "He left following [the Lebanon war], which he considered to be miserable and futile. He left confused and heartbroken, but did not slam the door behind him," Semel describes Avshalom, an Israeli living in Byron. Elsewhere, she comes across Odayah, who split her time between Israel and Australia. After a year's absence, she returned to Byron, where "she can leave a package on a bench without it being blown up because it looks like a bomb."
But, like the author and her mother-in-law ("who, despite living in Israel's coastal area for 70 years until the day she died, continued to insist she was from Jerusalem in spirit"), most people can never detach themselves from their motherland. "Michal keeps in touch with Israel over the Internet and is engrossed in Israeli culture day and night in real time," Semel writes, and she also quotes Yariv, in Byron, as saying: "I'll return to Israel only if a war breaks out. I'll catch the first flight back and enlist. I will not abandon my friends."
Iyar Semel came to Australia in search of himself. His mother visits him to learn about the world, as well as about herself. "During my travels I've learned to love foreign places. Their strangeness frightens and attracts me at the same time. Everything is a contradiction: the fear of loneliness and the fascination of discovering an unknown world ... Perhaps that's why my soul is so tied down, shackled, to corrupt, normalized, and not necessarily in the positive sense toward Israel. I have within me a desire to cut myself off from it and go to foreign lands."
But, again, it is very hard for someone who is an Israeli through and through to separate from their country.
"I sink into a book that I took off a shelf," Semel writes, "which tells the history of Lismore, the city founded by Scottish settler William Wilson in 1845, the very same year Iyar's great-grandfather, Azriel-Zelig Hoizdorf, immigrated from Germany to Jerusalem."
And elsewhere: "There are no security guards here,' I comment. 'There's hardly a police patrol to keep an eye on the flow of traffic. Nobody to rummage through your bags with bomb detectors.'" And she naively asks three young Germans from Munich: "Have you learned about the Holocaust?"
I have yet to come across a German who has not learned about the Holocaust. Usually he even has a Holocaust "complex," as though it were his fault that his grandfather cold-bloodedly massacred innocent Jews.
There are some inaccuracies in Semel's book that should be corrected. The name is Mount Warning, not Warning Mountain. The local festival is Mardi Grass, not Mardi Gras (named thus because it supports legalization of marijuana). The Kookaburra, whose call resembles human laughter, is not a "rare" bird in Australia.
In regard to: "the possum has great acting skills and can sometimes play dead. They cunningly escape trouble by pretending indifference, anything to avoid a fight. Some say they're cowards, while others say they have advanced strategic skills" - this would be correct if Semel were talking about the North American Opossum (Didelphis virginiana), rather than the Australian species. No Australian marsupial feigns death (thanatosis).
The bottom line: "An Australian Wedding" is an enjoyable, intimate travel diary documenting the Israeli experience in Byron Bay and its environs. May there be more like it.
Prof. Ghil'ad Zuckermann, a linguist, splits his time between Israel and Australia. His most recent book, "Israeli - A Beautiful Language: Hebrew as Myth," was published by Am Oved (Hebrew).
Welcome to the Sitcom School: A Globalized Outlook for the Study of Television History
Extending back the insight offered by the emerging framework of global television formats, this
article examines... more
Extending back the insight offered by the emerging framework of global television formats, this
article examines the production and public reception of the first Israeli sitcom, Krovim-Krovim,
produced by Israeli Educational Television (IETV) between 1982 and 1986. As the first fullblown
Israeli series and a show modeled on the globally popular sitcom formula, Krovim-Krovim
was simultaneously celebrated for its Israeliness and condemned as a potential source of Western
‘cultural contamination’. The concerns converging around Krovim-Krovim in 1980s Israel are
representative of a larger global trend in that period that witnessed ‘the second wave of
globalization’. The simplistic media imperialism scenario that still dominates scholarship of these
trends fails to grasp the complexities typifying the process of globalization. Representing as they
do simultaneous standardization and heterogenization of form and content across borders, global
television formats seems to embody these complexities. By reevaluating IETV’s sitcom
production as an early case of format adaptation this article demonstrates the promises of this
fresh outlook for the study of historical as well as contemporary trends in television globalization.
By foregrounding the perspective of ‘local’ producers and critics, this article explores the cultural
significance of format adaptation for marginal and belated broadcast systems - like 1980s Israeli
television.
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Prime Time Postzionism: Negotiating Israeliness Through Global Television Formats
Prime Time Postzionism - Negotiating Israeliness through Global Television
Formats looks at the Israeli reality... more
Prime Time Postzionism - Negotiating Israeliness through Global Television
Formats looks at the Israeli reality competition show – Kohav Nolad (“A Star is Born”)
as a key text to help explore the ways in which Israeli broadcasters in the contemporary
commercial television environment, adapt globally dominant televisual forms as models for the
production of extremely popular local series. This program, widely perceived as epitomizing
contemporary Israeli national identity, is simultaneously also debated as the product of
globalization, and as marker of a post-national/post-Zionist era. In these discussions, perceptions
of the proper Israeli national culture and identity are juxtaposed with assumptions about the
nature and perceived influence of the shift from public state monopoly in television broadcast to a globalized commercial multichannel broadcast environment. Combining production ethnography
with analysis of industry, texts, and public reception discourses, this project explores the
significance of global format adaptations for marginal and belated broadcast systems like Israeli
television.
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Women in the Changing World of the Kibbutz
Translation from Hebrew to English
Original article was written by Michal Palgi Original article was written by Michal Palgi