New Article: Hercbergs, Storytelling and the Politics of Sephardi/Mizrahi Cultural Revival

Hercbergs, Dana. “Remembering ‘Old Jerusalem’: Storytelling and the Politics of Sephardi/Mizrahi Cultural Revival.” Journal of American Folklore 129 (2016): 146-70.

 

URL: https://muse.jhu.edu/article/619173

 

Abstract

This article interrogates the cultural politics of a series of storytelling performances in Jerusalem in light of an ongoing “revival” of Sephardi and Mizrahi Jewish heritage in Israel. An examination of performers’ on-stage narratives and interactions reveals three discursive approaches to defining authentic Jerusalem culture through descriptions of “old-time” lifeways: emphasizing the city’s cosmopolitan past; challenging contemporary social hierarchies in Israel via jabs at “Ashkenazim” and idealization of Sephardi culture; and through claims of underlying Jewish unity.

 

 

 

New Article: Barak-Brandes and Lachover, Mother–Daughter Discourse on Beauty and Body in an Israeli Campaign by Dove

Barak-Brandes, Sigal and Einat Lachover. “Branding Relations: Mother–Daughter Discourse on Beauty and Body in an Israeli Campaign by Dove.” Communication, Culture & Critique (early view; online first).

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/cccr.12111

 

Abstract

In March 2013, Unilever Israel, owner of the Dove brand, launched a new campaign calling for a dialogue between mothers and their adolescent daughters around the issue of self-esteem and body image. The Israeli campaign was part of the global “Campaign for Real Beauty” launched by Unilever in 2004. The Israeli campaign was run primarily on 2 Internet platforms that appeal to women, and was based mainly on the talk of “ordinary” mothers and daughters on online videos and blogs—ostensibly personal yet produced by advertisers. Based on discourse analysis and critical examination of the consumerist and postfeminist context in which the campaign was produced, this article explores how the mother–daughter relationship suggests a new sphere for processes of branding.

New Book: Mendelson-Maoz, Multiculturalism in Israel

Mendelson-Maoz, Adia. Multiculturalism in Israel: Literary Perspectives, Shofar Supplements in Jewish Studies. West Lafayette, Indiana: Purdue University Press, 2015.

 

 

URL: http://www.thepress.purdue.edu/titles/format/9781557536808

 

Abstract

By analyzing its position within the struggles for recognition and reception of different national and ethnic cultural groups, this book offers a bold new picture of Israeli literature. Through comparative discussion of the literatures of Palestinian citizens of Israel, of Mizrahim, of migrants from the former Soviet Union, and of Ethiopian-Israelis, the author demonstrates an unexpected richness and diversity in the Israeli literary scene, a reality very different from the monocultural image that Zionism aspired to create.

Drawing on a wide body of social and literary theory, Mendelson-Maoz compares and contrasts the literatures of the four communities she profiles. In her discussion of the literature of the Palestinian citizens of Israel, she presents the question of language and translation, and she provides three case studies of particular authors and their reception. Her study of Mizrahi literature adopts a chronological approach, starting in the 1950s and proceeding toward contemporary Mizrahi writing, while discussing questions of authenticity and self-determination. The discussion of Israeli literature written by immigrants from the former Soviet Union focuses both on authors who write Israeli literature in Russian and of Russian immigrants writing in Hebrew. The final section of the book provides a valuable new discussion of the work of Ethiopian-Israeli writers, a group whose contributions have seldom been previously acknowledged.

The picture that emerges from this groundbreaking book replaces the traditional, homogeneous historical narrative of Israeli literature with a diversity of voices, a multiplicity of origins, and a wide range of different perspectives. In doing so, it will provoke researchers in a wide range of cultural fields to look at the rich traditions that underlie it in new and fresh ways.

New Article: Ellis, Discursive Dilemmas for Israeli Religious Settlers

Ellis, Donald. “Three Discursive Dilemmas for Israeli Religious Settlers.” Discourse Studies 16.4 (2014): 473-87.

 

URL: http://dis.sagepub.com/content/16/4/473

 

Abstract

Israeli religious settlers live in contested territory that they claim is promised to them by God. The settlers are at the center of the Israeli–Palestinian dispute and are the recipients of international condemnation for their illegal behavior. Because the territories are neither sovereign nor legally recognized by Israel, their definition is open to construction. Religious settlers make arguments to satisfy three discursive dilemmas that must be solved in order to normalize their lives. They must 1) construct their own authenticity, 2) marginalize the native others, and 3) establish cultural authority. These dilemmas are explicated in this essay.