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1 Jewish Practice and Popular Culture in Israeli Society Yaacov Yadgar Jewish Practice and Popular Culture in Israeli Society Yaacov Yadgar and Charles Liebman It is commonplace to categorize Israeli Jews as dati, masorti, hiloni. To the great satisfaction of social scientists, Israeli Jews don’t seem to have much trouble locating themselves in one of these three categories. The trouble is that we don’t know what these categories mean to the people who so identify themselves and while we do know that there is certainly a correlation between how one defines oneself and how observant one is in religious practice, the relationship falls far short of perfect. (Bring evidence from Guttman study about the overlap) The reason, as we have learned in a series of interviews we have just begun to conduct, is that many people identify themselves as hiloni, masorti, or dati because of their own preconceived notions of how others identify themselves. For example, we have learned that there are ashkenazim whose level of religious observance is like that of most masortiim but who refuse to identify themselves as masortiim because that is a category reserved for mizrahim. On the other hand, we have interviewed mizrahim who identify themselves as masortiim for the same reason. All ashkenazim, they have told us, are either hiloniim or datiim. This kind of imagining can work in the opposite direction as well. Mizrahim who want to be like ashkenazim are likely to define themselves as hiloniim. We would guess that there are probably mizrahim who reject their own mizrahi identity and therefore define themselves as hiloniim. Such definitions, in turn, may impact on behavior. That is especially the case for mizrahim 1 (mostly women) who marry or want to marry ashkenazi men, choose to call themselves hiloni and as a consequence behave like non-observant hiloniim. We are not urging sociologists to abandon the categories of hiloni and masorti. It is too late for that. Understood in a limited sense of generally predicting religious observance they are still valid. Furthermore, we have no substitute terms to offer. But it ought to be acknowledged that the more widely the terms are employed, the less meaning and validity they posses. We do know a great deal about Jewish practices among Israeli Jews without regard to the categories of dati, masorti, or hiloni. We prefer to label these practices Jewish rather than religious practices precisely because they remain in the eyes of some who practice them religious whereas in the eyes of others they are Jewish rather than religious. According to the latest Guttman report, 85 percent of Israeli Jews indicate that they participate in a seder , 71 percent light candles on the Sabbath, 67 percent fast on Yom Kippur, 55 percent have a special Sabbath meal, 48 percent recite (or hear) Kiddush before the Friday night meal and 41 percent build a succah. Forty one percent also report that they refrain from working in public on Shabbat. (Get more statistics,) Hadas Franco and Ezra Kopelowitz conducted a survey of students at Michlelet Ruppin, who identified themselves as hiloni. They found that among the hiloniim…... (do you have the statistics; I erased my copy of the report. Obviously you should only cite this study if it shows a high percentage of hiloniim doing something Jewish.). The conclusion is inescapable. The majority of Israeli Jews observe many Jewish practices in their home, including practices which are not always pleasant ones. Whether this stems from a belief that God has commanded one to observe these practices, or whether it is a sense of obligation to one’s family, or a sense of Jewish peoplehood, or something else, or all or 2 some of these, we do not know and we are not certain that those who observe these Jewish practices know, even when they have an answer ready at hand. A question of another sort is how important are these practices in the lives of those who observe them. This too is something we don’t know. A reasonable assumption is that it varies among the non-datiim. For some it is very important and for some of trivial importance. But we can make an educated guess. It seems reasonable to assume that among the non-datiim, observing Jewish practices are linked, in some way to sense of Jewish peoplehood. And Israeli Jews claim that belonging to or being part of the Jewish people is very important in their lives. (cite Guttmann statistics) A decade ago, in his book Zehut Yehudit-Yisraelit, Yair Auron, published the results of his interviews with second and third year students in teachers seminaries. He sampled students from haredi, from mamlachti-dati and from mamlachti seminaries. Sixty eight percent of the students in mamlachti (non-religious) seminaries reported that their Jewishness played a very important or an important part in their lives. (p.61). (We note, as an aside that Auron’s study was widely understood to demonstrate the weak link between future Israeli teachers and Jewishness. This tells us a great deal about the expectations of the Israeli establishment at the time.) We are reluctant to argue that Jewish practices are important in the lives of the majority of non-religious Israelis. Without careful and intensive interviewing this can not be established. But there is no evidence that the opposite is the case. In the light of all this, it is surprising to find that Israeli media, whose programming presumably reflects popular culture in Israel, gives very little expression to characteristic Israeli-Jewish practices. To understand our point we must recall that there is a distinction 3 between state culture (the culture generated by the state itself) and civic or public culture which in democratic societies exists independently of the state. Israeli State culture, the culture surrounding the laws themselves, state ceremonies and emblems, pronouncement by state leaders, can be distinct from the culture expressed by the media. In Israel today, we will argue, unlike thirty years ago and more, there are considerable differences in the values expressed by the two cultures and the state culture has lost the impact and influence it once had. Our interest, however, is the public or civic culture. Our focus is on the public media which is directed to the broad spectrum of the Israeli-Jewish population rather than a specific segment of the population.1 Yaacov; Note that I have made a few changes in the section that follows. I tried to make as many changes as possible although most are quite minor. I think you should follow the same procedure. Don’t simply lift what you wrote from our Hebrew version and insert it here. As far as the media is concerned one is either dati or a hiloni who observes no Jewish practices. Israel is a Jewish state and Judaism- Jewishness continues to play a role in its public culture – in the media, in art, in music in literature. But at the risk of oversimplification we think a fair generalization would be that that in the eyes of the producers of middlebrow Israeli culture, the agents of cultural transmission, Judaism-Jewishness is distinguished from Israeli culture. It has an assigned place in the cultural agenda but it is not to be confused with “real” culture. For example, 1 The section that follows draws upon our forthcoming article, “Israeli Identity: The Jewish component,” which will appear in Iyunim in Hebrew and in Anita Shapira (ed.), Israeli Identity in Transition 4 in both Israeli cinema and television, Jewish practices do not appear a natural, daily, “normal” element in the life of the Israeli protagonist. Compare this with the manner in which daily life is portrayed in the American media. The Simpson family is a good example. Church attendance on Sunday is a regular part of the family schedule. The Simpson’s are not a religious family. Homer can’t stand church attendance. He presents a constant challenge to the pastor whenever the pastor extends his sermon. The pastor in turn represents corruption and religious close mindedness. The religious character in the show, Ned Flanders, is grotesque and negative. In other words, the show hardly flatters organized religion. But this is our point. Religion is part of the American scene whether one likes it or not. Homer, the average American, does go to church. There is no counterpart in Israeli television serials. We would not expect Israeli television serials to show the average Israeli attending synagogue. Only a quarter do so according to the Guttman survey referred to above. But as we noted above the majority of Israeli Jews participate in a Passover Seder, fast on Yom Kippur, light candles on the Sabbath, have a special Shabbat meal, and almost half recite (or hear) Kiddush before the Friday night meal and build a succah.. But this activity finds little place in the behavior of those portrayed on Israeli television screens or the Israeli cinema. The notable exception is the portrayal of the older generation of mizrahi Jews. Scenes that depict mizrahim are likely to express some form of religious traditionalism. Some will wear kipot, the family might sit around the Sabbath table and hear the patriarch invoke traditional blessings, and one even finds scenes depicting a visit to the synagogue. But these practices are played out by the older parental generation. The media makes clear that the protagonists are uncomfortable in such settings and find them inappropriate, and unsuitable 5 We are not arguing that Jews, Judaism and even religion are ignored (although, see below, this too happens). They have their place in both television and the cinema, indeed in literature as well, but they are representative of the religious other.
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