Israel Affairs

This article was downloaded by:[Galily, Yair] On: 26 September 2007 Access Details: [subscription number 782012520] Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Israel Affairs Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=t713677360 Sport, Politics and Society in Israel: The First Fifty-five Years Yair Galily Online Publication Date: 01 July 2007 To cite this Article: Galily, Yair (2007) 'Sport, Politics and Society in Israel: The First Fifty-five Years', Israel Affairs, 13:3, 515 - 528 To link to this article: DOI: 10.1080/13537120701531593 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13537120701531593 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.informaworld.com/terms-and-conditions-of-access.pdf This article maybe used for research, teaching and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, re-distribution, re-selling, loan or sub-licensing, systematic supply or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae and drug doses should be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings, demand or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material. Sport, Politics and Society in Israel: The First Fifty-five Years YAIR GALILY The State of Israel is home to a widely diverse population from many different ethnic, religious, cultural and social backgrounds; a new society with ancient roots, which is still coalescing and developing today. 1 Downloaded By: [Galily, Yair] At: 13:34 26 September 2007 Throughout this article, a developmental approach, one that Elias describes as ‘indispensable for advances in the study of human society’, has been used to describe the process in which sport was developed in the State of Israel. Elias, in discussing the approach taken by himself and his collaborator Dunning, has suggested that: ‘Sociological enquiries into sport have the task of bringing to light aspects of sport which were not known before or which, if known, were known only vaguely. In such cases, the task is to give knowledge greater certainty. We were very conscious that knowledge about sport was knowledge about society.’2 And as Dunning puts it: Sport is something people tend to take for granted. They may like it or dislike it but they do not usually question it or see it as posing problems, which require an explanation. In particular, they rarely ask questions concerning its development or its role in society as a whole. ... It [Sociology of sport] seeks to understand the part played by sports in society and to unravel the complex social forces which have helped to shape and which are currently leading to transformations in their character.3 According to Weill, a review of any country’s cultural history over the last fifty years would show enormous changes—undoubtedly a quantum leap—and certainly more changes than in any other fifty year period in history. With the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, Israel was a country in the throes of absorbing the remnants of decimated European Jewry—concentrating on surviving and creating a new life in the one piece of land that was prepared to accept them. Each of the decades that followed was marked by yet more social and political convulsions. The 1950s were the years of the mass immigration of Jews from Arab lands Yair Galily is a sociologist at the Zinman College, Wingate Institute, Israel. Israel Affairs, Vol.13, No.3, July 2007, pp.515–528 ISSN 1353-7121 print/ISSN 1743-9086 online DOI: 10.1080/13537120701531593 q 2007 Taylor & Francis 516 ISRAEL AFFAIRS along with tens of thousands of Jews from some seventy-five other countries; all of them brought with them their own language, national heritage and cultural baggage. The 1960s were, above all, marked by the Six Day War of 1967, when a whole new national mythos and sense of euphoria engulfed not only the Jewish population of Israel, but indeed the entire Jewish Diaspora—only to be shattered to a large extent by the Yom Kippur War of 1973 and its aftermath, the effects of which are still very much here today. The 1970s and 1980s saw the first tentative bridges to peace with the Arab world, beginning with the epoch-making visit to Israel of President Anwar Sadat of Egypt in 1977. Since the 1990s the State of Israel has been involved in the continuing struggle for normalization with at least part of the Arab world. However, the assassination in November Downloaded By: [Galily, Yair] At: 13:34 26 September 2007 1995 of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, the change of government, and the slowing down of the peace process, are also events that have had a decisive influence not only on the political life of the country, but also on its cultural development.4 Israeli sport, maybe more than any other cultural phenomenon, changed radically since the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. Over the past four decades, Israeli sport has evolved from an amateur hobby of a few ‘sports freaks’, to a passion of the masses. The transformation into a major cultural phenomenon is the result of general developments in Israeli and international society, but also of the enthusiastic efforts of key individuals. Thousands, and perhaps tens of thousands of people—athletes, coaches, referees, politicians, officials, media people and many others—have contributed to the development of Israeli sport. Similar to Dunning’s view, it will be argued here that an individual’s personal development cannot be understood apart from the social positions he occupies and the differential scope for relative freedom of action which they entail.5 Therefore, this article will point out a few of these key people, and review the major developments that turned Israeli sport into a central and legitimate part of Israeli society. THE EARLY YEARS—LAYING THE FOUNDATION As Reshef and Paltiel have noted, Israel represents a unique case of an immigrant society formed on the basis of an ideological movement. This has had a profound impact on the development and organization of sport and has led to the institutionalization of sport within a highly politicized framework.6 Sport in Israel was first assimilated into the ideological framework of Zionism when Zionist parties appropriated sports clubs as tools for partisan competition. From the early 1920s football clubs started being incorporated into nationwide sports associations that were affiliated with a specific political organization: Hapoel was an organ of the General SPORT, POLITICS AND SOCIETY IN ISRAEL 517 Federation of Labour (Histadrut), Maccabi was affiliated with bourgeois political parties, Betar was associated with the right-wing ‘Revisionists’ and Elizur was related to the religious-Zionist party.7 According to Reshef and Paltiel, sport eventually became a metaphor for politics, and marginalized groups used loyalties in sport to demonstrate disaffection with the political establishment: From their inception, sport organizations have been an indispensable organ of the parties by providing concrete expressions of the respective political ideologies. The parties have used sport as a powerful weapon to increase their political influence. With the foundation of Israel, when Zionism was transformed from a vision into an institution, these organizations rather than losing their political coloration have been Downloaded By: [Galily, Yair] At: 13:34 26 September 2007 reinforced in the comparative arena of Israel politics.8 Nevertheless, other processes were also intertwined with Israel’s process of state-formation: the processes of secularization, population growth, urbanization, militarization and, most germane for present purposes, the development of sport. These are not isolated but rather interdependent processes and therefore of importance when discussing the development of sport. In 1947, the struggle between the members of the various sports organizations reached its peak. It was the Maccabi organization which dominated the Amateur Sport Organization in Palestine, but the Hapoel organization established its own programmes for basketball and volleyball while trying to gain international recognition. It was the Hapoel organization which eventually received an invitation to the youth sports festival in Prague in 1947. Its appearance at this festival was of immense significance, not only at the sporting level but at the political level as well. During the same period, the declaration of the establishment of the new State of Israel was about to be made (in May 1947) and the team’s appearance in the sports festival along with 67 other countries was of great propaganda importance to the state-to-be. The bitter negotiations between representatives of Hapoel and Maccabi regarding the composition of the team, specifically how many players from each sporting organization would take part in the festival, indicates the kind of relationship that existed between the two sports organizations. The solution, later dubbed ‘the fifty–fifty system’, marked the nature of Israeli national teams in the early days of the new state. Fourteen players were chosen to go to Prague: seven from Maccabi and seven from Hapoel. Two basketball coaches were nominated to the team: Joshua Rosin from Maccabi, and Dolk Oimshuf from Hapoel. The war of independence (1948–1949) brought sporting activities in Israel to a halt. The athletes, like the rest of the population (both men and women), were drafted into the recently assembled army and helped to 518 ISRAEL AFFAIRS protect the country from the invasion of the Arab forces.

Load more