New Article: Shikhmanter, Contemporary Israeli Children’s and Young Adults’ Historical Fiction

Shikhmanter, Rima. “History as Politics: Contemporary Israeli Children’s and Young Adults’ Historical Fiction and the Israeli–Palestinian Conflict.” nternational Research in Children’s Literature 9.1 (2016): 83-97.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.3366/ircl.2016.0184

 

Abstract

Historical fiction serves as a powerful source for the dissemination of historical images and the determination of collective memory. These roles are of particular significance in the context of severe political conflicts. In these cases historical fiction shapes the narrative of the conflict, explains its source and central events, and therefore forms the readers’ political stances towards the conflict and its consequences.

This article examines the role contemporary Jewish Israeli historical fiction for young adults plays in presenting the Israeli–Palestinian conflict to young readers. It discusses two of the political perspectives this fiction addresses: the traditional hegemonic narrative and the left-wing narrative. Associated with the right-wing sector of Israeli politics, the former promotes the Zionist myth and seeks to justify the necessity and morality of its premises while ignoring and/or dismissing the legitimacy of the Palestinian narrative. The lack of a consensual Jewish historical narrative that does not negate the Palestinian narrative on the one hand, and the ongoing public delegitimisation of the left-wing on the other, forces historical-fiction authors to place their plots at a historical remove, locating them in other places and times.

New Article: Imhoff et al, Differences in Attributions for the Holocaust in Germany, Israel, and Poland

Imhoff, Roland, Michał Bilewicz, Katja Hanke, Dennis T. Kahn, Naomi Henkel-Guembel, Slieman Halabi, Tal-Shani Sherman, and Gilad Hirschberger. “Explaining the Inexplicable: Differences in Attributions for the Holocaust in Germany, Israel, and Poland.” Political Psychology (early view; online first).

 

URL: https://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0959353516647071

 

Abstract

Seventy years have passed since the Holocaust, but this cataclysmic event continues to reverberate in the present. In this research, we examine attributions about the causes of the Holocaust and the influence of such attributions on intergroup relations. Three representative surveys were conducted among Germans, Poles, and Israeli Jews to examine inter- and intragroup variations in attributions for the Holocaust and how these attributions influence intergroup attitudes. Results indicated that Germans made more external than internal attributions and were especially low in attributing an evil essence to their ancestors. Israelis and Poles mainly endorsed the obedient essence attribution and were lowest on attribution to coercion. These attributions, however, were related to attitudes towards contemporary Germany primarily among Israeli Jews. The more they endorsed situationist explanations, and the less they endorsed the evil essence explanation, the more positive their attitude to Germany. Among Germans, attributions were related to a higher motivation for historical closure, except for the obedience attribution that was related to low desire for closure. Israelis exhibited a low desire for historical closure especially when attribution for evil essence was high. These findings suggest that lay perceptions of history are essential to understanding contemporary intergroup processes.

 

 

 

New Article: Benski and Katz, Women’s Peace Activism and the Holocaust

Benski, Tova, and Ruth Katz. “Women’s Peace Activism and the Holocaust: Reversing the Hegemonic Holocaust Discourse in Israel.” In The Holocaust as Active Memory: The Past in the Present (ed. Marie Louise Seeberg, Irene Levine, and Claudia Lenz; Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2013, reprinted 2016): 93-112.

 

 

Extract

The present chapter focuses on Holocaust discourse among activists of the Coalition of Women for Peace, and is an unexpected outcome of a longitudinal study of women’s peace movements in Israel since the late 1980s. The chapter is divided into four parts: First, we present theoretical perspectives of collective memory and trauma. We then turn to the construction of cultural memory of the Holocaust in Israel. The third section examines the socio-political space of the Coalition of Women for Peace, offering a rich description of its constituent groups, their value orientations, and activities. The fourth part, which forms the core of the chapter, centers on the CWP and the Holocaust, and presents the somewhat ambivalent analogies made by the women activists between the Holocaust and the current phase of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, while identifying the various themes that dominate the specific Holocaust discourse that has evolved among these women.

 

 

 

New Article: Elbaz & Bar-Tal, Dissemination of Culture of Conflict in the Israeli Mass Media

Elbaz, Sagi, and Daniel Bar-Tal. “Dissemination of Culture of Conflict in the Israeli Mass Media: The Wars in Lebanon as a Case Study.” Communication Review 19.1 (2016): 1-34.
 
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10714421.2016.1128185
 
Abstract

Societies involved in intractable conflicts develop cultures of conflict because of experiences that have lasting effects on every aspect of collective life. One product of these cultures is conflict-supporting narratives that provide illumination, justification, and explanation of the conflict reality. These narratives are selective, biased, and distortive, but play an important role in satisfying the basic sociopsychological needs of the society members involved. In these societies, journalists often serve as agents in the formulation and dissemination of these conflict-supporting narratives. The present study analyzes the presentations of narratives of the culture of conflict among Jewish Israeli journalists during Israeli wars in Lebanon. It elucidates the dominant themes of the narratives by content analysis of the news published in newspapers and broadcast on television. In addition, in order to reveal the practices used by journalists in obtaining, selecting, and publishing the news, in-depth interviews with journalists and politicians have been conducted.

 

 

 

New Article: Harpaz & Jacobsen, EU Funding of Israeli Non-Governmental Human Rights Organizations

Harpaz, Guy, and Elisha Jacobsen. “The Israeli Collective Memory and the Masada Syndrome: A Political Instrument to Counter the EU Funding of Israeli Non-Governmental Human Rights Organizations.” Mediterranean Politics (early view; online first).

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13629395.2016.1151136

 

Abstract
The EU’s practice of funding Israeli non-governmental human rights organizations (hereinafter ‘HRNGOs’) has in recent years encountered a counter-strategy, pursued by certain Israeli NGOs and members of the Israeli government, media and academia. This counter-strategy has succeeded in discrediting the HRNGOs and the EU and rendering their mutual collaboration less effective. The purpose of this article is to contextualize the counter-strategy within the sphere of Israel’s collective memory. The article analyses the manner in which certain politicians and various members of the Israeli society (agents of memory), who themselves are the product of the evolving Israeli collective memory and identity (structure), attempt to draw on Israel’s collective memory/structure in order to advance their particular political agenda.

 

 

New Book: Sharvit & Halperin, A Social Psychology Perspective on The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Sharvit, Keren, and Eran Halperin, eds. A Social Psychology Perspective on The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. Celebrating the Legacy of Daniel Bar-Tal, volume 2. Cham, Switzerland: Springer, 2016.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been waging for decades, resulting in mass losses, destruction, and suffering with profound effects on the members of the involved societies. Furthermore, its effects reach beyond the involved societies and influence regional and global stability. Many attempts have been made to bring this conflict to peaceful resolution, but so far without success. Due to its intensity and extensive effects, this conflict has drawn the attention of scholars from numerous disciplines, who attempted to explain the causes of the conflict and the reasons for the difficulties in resolving it. Among these one can find historians, geographers, political scientists, sociologists, and others. Social and political psychologists have also addressed this conflict, and one of the most influential among them has been Daniel Bar-Tal.

This is the second of two volumes intended to pay tribute to Daniel Bar-Tal’s scholarly contribution upon his retirement from his position at Tel Aviv University. While the first volume was devoted to Bar-Tal’s general theory of the sociopsychological foundations of intractable conflict and the theory’s relation to other prominent theoretical frameworks, this volume is devoted to applying Bar-Tal’s theory to the specific case of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In his most recent book, published in 2013, Bar-Tal acknowledges the immense effects that living in Israel, being exposed to this conflict, and taking part in it have had on his thinking, theorizing, and empirical research regarding intractable conflicts. We too, as his former students, have been inspired by living in Israel and by Bar-Tal’s work to continue to investigate the sociopsychological dynamics of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and through them to advance the understandings of intractable conflicts in general.

 

Table of Contents

• Sociopsychological Foundations of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Applying Daniel Bar-Tal’s Theorizing
  Keren Sharvit
• Stereotypes and Prejudice in Conflict: A Developmental Perspective
  Yona Teichman
• Young Children’s Experiences and Learning in Intractable Conflicts
  Meytal Nasie
• The Israeli Collective Memory of the Israeli-Arab/Palestinian Conflict: Its Characteristics and Relation to the Conflict
  Rafi Nets-Zehngut
• The “Silenced” Narrative of 1948 War Events Among Young Palestinians in Israel
  Eman Nahhas
• Perceptions of Collective Narratives Among Arab and Jewish Adolescents in Israel: A Decade of Intractable Conflict
  Anan Srour
• “Seeing Through a Glass Darkly”: Israeli and Egyptian Images of the Other During the Nasserite Period (1952–1970)
  Elie Podeh
• The Jewish–Israeli Ethos of Conflict
  Neta Oren
• Ethos of Conflict of the Palestinian Society
  Ronni Shaked
• Harmed by Our Protection: Exposure to Political Violence and Political Preferences in the Range of Fire
  Daphna Canetti
• Emotions and Emotion Regulation in Intractable Conflict and Their Relation to the Ethos of Conflict in Israeli Society
  Ruthie Pliskin
• When Jewish and Zionist Identities Encounter Otherness: Educational Case Study
  David Ohad
• Peace Education Between Theory and Practice: The Israeli Case
  Soli Vered
• Containing the Duality: Leadership in the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process
  Nimrod Rosler
• The Role of Peace Organizations During Peacemaking Processes: The Case of the Jewish-Israeli Society
  Tamir Magal
• The Road to Peace: The Potential of Structured Encounters Between Israeli Jews and Palestinians in Promoting Peace
  Ifat Maoz
• Addressing Israelis’ and Palestinians’ Basic Needs for Agency and Positive Moral Identity Facilitates Mutual Prosociality
  Ilanit SimanTov-Nachlieli
• Transitional Justice in Societies Emerging from Intractable Conflicts: Between the Right to Truth and Collective Memory
  Ofer Shinar Levanon
• Index
• About the Authors

 

New Article: Nasie et al, Young Children in Intractable Conflicts

Nasie, Meytal, Aurel Harrison Diamond, and Daniel Bar-Tal. “Young Children in Intractable Conflicts: The Israeli Case.” Personality and Social Psychology Review (early view; online first).

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1088868315607800

 

Abstract

The article examines the political socialization of young Jewish-Israeli children who live under the Israeli–Palestinian intractable conflict. It proposes arguments and presents empirical evidence to suggest that the way in which political socialization of young children happens in this context contributes to the development of conflict-supporting narratives of ethos of conflict and collective memory by the youngest generation. As a result, the conflict solidifies adherence to these narratives in adulthood, thereby serving as a major obstacle to the processes of peace-making and peace-building. Specifically, as evidence for showing how the political socialization works in Israel, a series of studies conducted in Israeli kindergartens and elementary schools are presented. These studies recount the contents acquired by young children, as well as contents delivered by teachers, related to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. This indicates the serious consequences of acquiring conflict-supporting narratives at an early age in societies involved in intractable conflict.

 

 

New Article: Even-Tzur, Israeli Social Unconscious and the Palestinian Nakba

Even-Tzur, Efrat. “‘The Road to the Village’: Israeli Social Unconscious and the Palestinian Nakba.” International Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies (early view; online first).

ְְ 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/aps.1478

 

Abstract

This paper tackles the paradox inherent in Israeli attempts to silence the Palestinian Nakba: despite massive effacement efforts, the traces of the Nakba remain all-pervasive in Israeli culture and collective memory. Several silencing practices are described and discussed from a Freudian perspective, as instances of collective repression of anxiety provoking material. Furthermore, it is suggested that as far as the Nakba is concerned, this repression might be the result of collective perpetrator trauma. Finally, the paper offers several intriguing examples of “social traumatic symptoms”, which are understood as signs of the return of the repressed. According to LaCapra, collective post-traumatic symptoms serve as obstacles to the formation of just and responsible societies. Thus, the paper concludes with a discussion of the socially therapeutic value of the current analysis and its potential contribution to long term processes of collective working through and decolonization.

 

 

 

ToC: Israel Studies 21.1 (2016; Narratives of the 1948 war)

Volume 21, Number 1, Spring 2016

Table of Contents

Representations of Israeli-Jewish — Israeli-Palestinian Memory and Historical Narratives of the 1948 War

Edited by Avraham Sela and Alon Kadish

Preface and Acknowledgements

pp. V-VI

Israeli and Palestinian Memories and Historical Narratives of the 1948 War—An Overview

pp. 1-25
Avraham Sela, Avraham Kadish

 

The 1948 Palestine War on the Small Screen: A Comparative Analysis of its Representation in Two Israeli Television Series

pp. 27-53
Bosmat Garami

 

Israel’s Publications Agency and the 1948 Palestinian Refugees

pp. 54-81
Rafi Nets-Zehngut

 

The War of Independence Exhibited: A Study of Three Israeli Museums

pp. 82-108
Offer Boord

 

Contested Urban Memoryscape Strategies and Tactics in Post-1948 Haifa

pp. 109-131
Ziva Kolodney

 

The Making of a Myth: The Story of Kfar Etzion in Religious Zionism 1948–1967

pp. 132-156
Dror Greenblum

 

Descending the Khazooq: “Working Through” the Trauma of the Nakba in Emile Habibi’s Oeuvre

pp. 157-182
Assaf Peled

 

Wa-ma Nasayna (We Have Not Forgotten): Palestinian Collective Memory and the Print Work of Abed Abdi

pp. 183-208
Tal Ben-Zvi

 

ToC: Jewish Social Studies 21,1 (2015)

Jewish Social Studies 21.1 (2015)

Table of Contents

 Front Matter

•  A Modern (Jewish) Woman in a Café: Leah Goldberg and the Poetic Space of the Coffeehouse (pp. 1-48)

  Shachar Pinsker
• The Missing Beat Generation: Coming of Age and Nostalgism in Arik Einstein’s Music (pp. 49-88)

  Arie M. Dubnov
• Shame as an Existential Emotion in Modern Kabbalah (pp. 89-122)

  Jonathan Garb
• Yad Vashem and the State of Holocaust Education in Israeli Schools in the 1960s (pp. 123-150)

  Jeffrey C. Blutinger
• Jewish Liberal, Russian Conservative: Daniel Pasmanik between Zionism and the Anti-Bolshevik White Movement (pp. 151-180)

  Taro Tsurumi

New Article: Berenson, Social Justice Protest’s Narrative in Israeli News

Berenson, Alonit. “‘Painting with Words’: ‘Social Justice’ Protest’s Narrative in the Israeli’s News”. Journalism and Mass Communication 5.8 (2015): 373-87.

 

URL: dx.doi.org/10.1177/0044118X15606157/ [PDF]

 
Abstract

This article analyzes the role of the media during the 2011 social protests in Israel, in order to examine why the “Social Justice” protest proved more effective than any other social protest organized previously in Israel. Scholars have shown that media framing has a powerful effect on citizen perception and policy debates. The social protests focused on the political-social-economic policy based on a neo-liberal ideology. They signified the beginnings of resistance to the system and became the focus of public and media identification via reports published by leading Israeli newspapers: Yedioth Ahronoth and Israel Hayom. Using content analysis, the author explore how the media plays an important role to shape the public perception of how to think and act about the protest. Due to the results, we evident the expand media capacity and influence, and that these effects are mediated in presenting positive and supportive coverage, including connotations and metaphors expressed by means of familiar slogans and events in the collective memory of Israeli society. Additionally, the expression “social justice” that became the protest’s slogan, offered a broad common basis with which each citizen could identify, including journalists.

 

 

 

ToC: Journal of Israeli History 34.2 (2015)

Journal of Israeli History, 34.2 (2015)

No Trinity: The tripartite relations between Agudat Yisrael, the Mizrahi movement, and the Zionist Organization
Daniel Mahla
pages 117-140

Judaism and communism: Hanukkah, Passover, and the Jewish Communists in Mandate Palestine and Israel, 1919–1965
Amir Locker-Biletzki
pages 141-158

Olei Hagardom: Between official and popular memory
Amir Goldstein
pages 159-180

Practices of photography on kibbutz: The case of Eliezer Sklarz
Edna Barromi Perlman
pages 181-203

The Shishakli assault on the Syrian Druze and the Israeli response, January–February 1954
Randall S. Geller
pages 205-220

Book Reviews

Becoming Israeli: National Ideals and Everyday Life in the 1950s

Deborah Bernstein
pages 221-224

The “Magic Carpet” Exodus of Yemenite Jewry: An Israeli Formative Myth

Ari Ariel
pages 224-227

The Bride and the Dowry: Israel, Jordan, and the Palestinians in the Aftermath of the June 1967 War

Itamar Radai
pages 227-230

Editorial Board

Editorial Board

.

New Article: Alon-Mozes, National Parks for a Multicultural Society

Alon-Mozes, Tal. “National Parks for a Multicultural Society: Planning Israel’s Past and Present National Parks.” In Landscape Culture – Culturing Landscapes: The Differentiated Construction of Landscapes (ed. Diedrich Burns et al; Wiesbaden: Springer, 2015): 173-83.

 

 

Extract

Both case studies demonstrate the power of the landscape as an agent fostering first national and later communal identity. Early planning of Gan HaShlosha and Zippori national parks emphasized the role of the biblical/Hellenistic pastoral landscape in reinforcing a common national identity among the Jewish settlers of Israel. Consequently, the Palestinians’ past was erased from Zippori grounds, as in other places in Israel, and their narrative was silenced.

Due to the failure of the melting pot policy and the emergence of Israel as a multicultural society, contemporary Israeli national parks are designed and managed in order to address the needs of various communities of visitors, and not solely the hegemonic ones. The new clientele includes veteran Jews and new immigrants, various Jewish ethnic groups, ultra-orthodox Jews, Christian pilgrims, and the Palestinians Currently, panning strives to increase the profitability of the parks by recruiting new communities, by enabling mass gatherings and communal cultural events, and by mitigating conflicts among participants. Various stakeholders promote parallel narratives within and surrounding the parks, advancing the parcelization of the area based on time or space zones. Within this relatively enabling system, even the Palestinian narrative of Zippori is marked on the land, in spite of objections based on nationalistic considerations.

 

 

New Book: Schilling, Emotional State Theory. Friendship and Fear in Israeli Foreign Policy

Schilling, Christopher L. Emotional State Theory. Friendship and Fear in Israeli Foreign Policy. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2015.

 

 

This book develops “emotional state theory” as a new contribution to international relations theory (IR). The text addresses the State of Israel vis-à-vis the rest of the world. The rationale for this research perspective stems from the trajectory of Israeli state-building since its foundation in May 1948 to the present date. This trajectory is constructed reflecting the trauma of the past and dreams about the future. Both contribute decisively to a better understanding of the current image and position of the state of Israel. The reference builds on two great Jewish thinkers’ works, Theodor Herzl and his book The Jewish State and Sigmund Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams.

The author argues that despite the fact that both never met, taken together their ideas lend themselves to shed light on and offer an explanation for Israel’s troubled and uncertain position in current international relations. The resulting question underlying this work on the emotionality of states and its impact on international relations is therefore “whether Israel is still in a process of dreaming” and whether it is therefore to be understood a “state which has not yet woken from the trauma of the Jewish past. Not a dream’s fulfilment of an end of the Diaspora, but a nightmare based on this experience.” Drawing on these two parallel and rather influential texts, Schilling rephrases the leading questions of this book as this: “Has Israel developed an understanding of itself which sees the country as a modern state among the nations, which is dealing with its neighbors, or rather, does Israel understand itself more as being like a ghetto that is still surrounded by a hostile world? Has Israel become a strong, self-confident country, or has it continued with the nervousness of the Diaspora Jews to become a state with an emotional problem?”.

 

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Theoretical Framework
Chapter 2: Methodological Strategy
Chapter 3: Jewish Identity Constructions in Israel
Chapter 4: Israeli Foreign Policy
Chapter 5: Conclusion

 

Christopher L. Schilling is political scientist and lawyer.

 

 

New Article: Goldstein, Olei Hagardom: Between Official and Popular Memory

Goldstein, Amir. “Olei Hagardom: Between Official and Popular Memory.” Journal of Israeli History (early view; online first).

 

URL: https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13531042.2015.1068974

 

Abstract
This article examines the interaction between official memory and popular memory through the case study of Olei Hagardom – Jewish underground fighters executed by the British in Mandatory Palestine. Studies of collective memory usually maintain that the ruling elite, with its control of state resources, dominates collective memory formation. However, the case of Olei Hargardom demonstrates the potentially limited power of institutional commemoration and exclusion in a democratic society. David Ben-Gurion and his government’s attempt to exclude these right-wing heroes from the national pantheon had limited impact. Menachem Begin’s persistent, partisan political efforts to include them were only partially successful. Ultimately, Olei Hargardom became entrenched in Israeli collective memory as a result of apolitical literary works, popular culture, and the establishment of a site of memory by spontaneous, grassroots efforts.

 

 

New Article: Nets-Zehngut et al, Self-Censorship in Conflicts: Israel and the 1948 Palestinian Exodus

Nets-Zehngut, Rafi, Ruthie Pliskin, and Daniel Bar-Tal. “Self-Censorship in Conflicts: Israel and the 1948 Palestinian Exodus.” Peace and Conflict 21.3 (2015): 479-99.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/pac0000094

 

Abstract
The typical collective memories of societies involved in intractable conflicts play a major role in the eruption and continuation of the conflicts, whereas the positive transformation of these memories to being less self-serving promotes peacemaking. A major factor that inhibits such transformation is self-censorship. Self-censorship, practiced by members of a society’s formal institutions, inhibits the dissemination of alternative, more accurate narratives of the conflict that may change dominating biased conflict-supporting memories. Despite the importance of formal self-censorship in maintaining collective memories of conflicts, little empirical and theoretical research has examined this phenomenon. The present study addresses this omission. It examines the self-censorship practiced from 1949 to 2004 in 3 formal Israeli institutions (the National Information Center, the IDF/army, and the Ministry of Education) regarding the main historical event of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: the causes of the 1948 Palestinian exodus. This is done by analyzing all of these institutions’ publications produced throughout the 56-year research period and interviewing their key position holders. The results show that the institution gatekeepers practiced self-censorship for 5 reasons: garnering international support, mobilizing citizens, the impact of Zionist ideology, institutional norms, and fear of sanctions. The empirical findings are used to elicit theoretical insights, such as a definition for formal self-censorship, the difference between self-censorship practiced by gatekeepers (from formal and informal institutions) and that practiced by ordinary individuals, the 5 reasons for such self-censorship (distinguishing between 2 categories—intrinsic and extrinsic reasons), and the reasons that led the gatekeepers to admit that they had self-censored.

 

 

New Article: Harris, Through the Lens of Israeli Cinema: A Review

Harris, Rachel. “Through the Lens of Israeli Cinema: A Review.” Jewish Film & New Media 3.2 (2015): 220-31.

 

URL: https://muse.jhu.edu/journals/jewish_film_new_media_an_international_journal/v003/3.2.harris.html

 

Abstract
This review essay examines three recently published books on Israeli cinema. Raz Yosef’s The Politics of Loss and Trauma in Contemporary Israeli Cinema; Anat Y. Zanger’s Place, Memory and Myth in Contemporary Israeli Cinema; and Miri Talmon and Yaron Peleg’s edited volume, Israeli Cinema: Identities in Motion. It considers the ways in which Israeli cinema is inextricably linked to the history of Israeli nationalism and reflects on the treatment of this issue within these three texts. Examining major issues in the field and considering theoretical models relevant to the individual essays, chapters, and books, this essay offers a context from which to explore Israeli cinematic scholarship.

 

 

New Article: Steir-Livny, Holocaust Humor, Satire, and Parody on Israeli Television

Steir-Livny, Liat. “Holocaust Humor, Satire, and Parody on Israeli Television.” Jewish Film & New Media 3.2 (2015): 193-219.

 

URL: https://muse.jhu.edu/journals/jewish_film_new_media_an_international_journal/v003/3.2.steir-livny.html

 

Abstract
The politicization of the Holocaust has been reflected in Israeli culture from the late 1940s in cinema, literature, theater, and poetry; in the last several decades, it has also been depicted on Israeli television. Most of the representations of the Holocaust in the first decades of Israel’s existence were dramatic. But from the 1990s onward, Israelis also began to address the subject through satire. The case studies in this article focus on the satirical skits performed on episodes of The Chamber Quintet (Hahamishia Hakamerit; Matar Productions, Channel 2-Tela’ad, Channel 1, 1993–1997) and Wonderful Country (Eretz Nehederet; Keshet Productions, Channel 2-Keshet, 2003–2014). Diverging from arguments that these humorous skits addressing the Holocaust disrespect the Holocaust and its survivors, this article maintains that they instead articulate the powerful position the Holocaust holds as a constituting event in the consciousness and identity of younger generations in Israel.

 

 

New Book: Bar, Reinternment of Renowned Men in the Land of Israel, 1904-1967 (in Hebrew)

Bar, Doron. Ideology and Symbolic Landscape. The Reinternment of Renowned Men in the Land of Israel, 1904-1967. Jerusalem: Magnes, 2015 (in Hebrew).

 

 

Why was Theodor Herzl buried on a desolate mountaintop in West Jerusalem and why did his resting place remain many years with no tombstone?

What is the reason that Judah Leib Pinsker was buried in an ancient burial cave of the Second Temple period?

How was Ramat Hanadiv designed as a burial ground for Edmond Benjamin James de Rothschild?

Why was Otto Warburg buried in Degania?

Doron Bar’s new book examines these issues. Through detailed documentation and accompanying photographs, it delineates the journeys of these figures and other prominent leaders – visionaries of Zionism, political leaders, heroes, intellectuals and pioneers – from the diaspora to their reinternment in the Land of Israel. It examines the question regarding the reasons for the great efforts to bring their remains to burial in Israel, as well as the conduct of the necessary procedures in Israel and abroad. It discusses what made the graves of these prominent men – in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Zikhron Ya’akov and Kinneret – a pilgrimage site, that contributed to the design of the symbolic and civic landscape of the State of Israel
.

 

 

Reviews: Roberts, Contested Land, Contested Memory

Roberts, Jo. Contested Land, Contested Memory: Israel’s Jews and Arabs and the Ghosts of Catastrophe. Toronto : Dundurn Press, 2013.

 

Reviews

• Esber, Rosemarie M. “In New Book, Palestinians, Israeli Jews Reflect on History of Ethnic Cleansing.” Electronic Intifada, January 17, 2014.
• Shuman, Ellis. “We Have to Talk about the Nakba.” Times of Israel, May 26, 2014.
• Davis, Brandon. “Violence in Paradise: Jo Roberts Probes Israeli Memory and Myth.” Mondoweiss, June 26, 2014.
• Ronan, Marian. “The Middle East: Where One Catastrophe Begets Another.” National Catholic Reporter, August 13, 2014.
• Christiansen, Drew. “Building An ‘Ethnocracy’.” America – The National Catholic Review, September 29, 2014.
• Adas, Jane. “Review.” Americans for Middle East Understanding.
• Riegle, Rosalie G. “Review.” Oral History Review.