The Politics of Interpretation: Tel Hai in Israel's Collective Memory

AJS Review ◽  
1991 ◽  
Vol 16 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 133-160 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yael Zerubavel
Keyword(s):  
Collective Memory ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Israeli Society ◽  
Historical Study ◽  
National Myth ◽  
National Values ◽  
Jewish Settlement ◽  
New Nation ◽  
Hebrew Culture

In 1920, a brief but fatal battle between Arabs and Jews took place at the Jewish settlement of Tel Hai in the northern Galilee. The defense of Tel Hai soon became a landmark in the history of Israeli society. The story of Tel Hai was regarded as a major symbolic text of the pioneering ethos and an important step toward the development of a new national Hebrew culture. Highlighting the theme of collective death and rebirth, Tel Hai offered a modern, secular text that sanctified the new nation and dramatized the emergence of a new type of Jew. For the Jewish pioneers in Palestine, Tel Hai embodied the ideals of settlement and defense, providing a concrete example of their resolute determination to hold on to new settlements at all costs.The present study examines the role of Tel Hai as a national myth, name-ly, a symbolic narrative relating to an important event in the nation's past that embodies sacred national values and is used as a charter for political action.1 Following Halbwachs's pioneering approach to the study of collective memory,2 this article explores the meaning of Tel Hai as it was constructed in public discourse, focusing upon two periods of conflict within Israeli society. Thus it is not a historical study of the event that took place at Tel Hai in 1920, but a study of how this event has been remembered and reinterpreted in Israeli culture.

scholarly journals The Nineties: Establishment of Polity

2021 ◽  
Vol 102 (3) ◽  
pp. 40-71
Author(s):  
S. I. Kaspe
Keyword(s):  
Public Discourse ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Radical Change ◽  
Political Community ◽  
Political Order ◽  
Stable Set ◽  
The Political ◽  
Freedom Of Association ◽  
The Status ◽  
Territorial Organization

In the 1990s, after the collapse of the USSR, was established the Russian polity, which continues to exist to this day. In this paper polity is understood as a macro-social community, united by a certain political order i.e., by a stable set of institutions and actors, as well as normative standards for organizing their interactions, both formal and informal. Establishment is understood as a series of events that establish these most fundamental frameworks for political action, as well as a repertoire of its scenarios, behavioral stereotypes, strategies, and tactics. The negative myth about the nineties, which has dominated the Russian public discourse in the recent years, describes the 1990s as a time of catastrophe and degradation. It certainly has its reasons, but this myth almost completely ignores the fact that the same decade was also a time of creation. Thus, the current state of Russia cannot be understood without paying attention to the circumstances of its establishment. The article describes some of the key features of the modern Russian polity that emerged in the 1990s — the “main takeaway” of the constituent era. They are the following: the electoral legitimacy of the supreme political power; non-partisan presidency; capitalism as the economic foundation of the political order; federalism as a principle of territorial organization of political space; freedom of association; freedom of religion; open borders. This list is not exhaustive: there are other elements of the design of the Russian polity that can claim the status of constitutive ones. However, a radical change in all these institutions together or in any one of them individually would mean another re-establishment of the political community as a whole.

Memory as National Values

2021 ◽  
pp. 120-148
Author(s):  
Kathrin Bachleitner
Keyword(s):  
Collective Memory ◽  
Refugee Crisis ◽  
Collective Memories ◽  
Course Of Action ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
National Values ◽  
Conscious Choice ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter places collective memory at the source of a country’s values. In that regard, it enquires into the nature of normative obligations arising from memory. Based on moral-philosophical considerations, it finds normativity in the ‘processes surrounding memory’ described in the temporal security concept. Over time, the relationship between collective memory, identity, and behaviour generates a ‘duty to act’ for countries in the sense of ‘ought’. This last and most diffuse impact of collective memory unfolds and persists into the long run. Through it, collective memory, entirely outside the realm of conscious choice, channels behaviour towards one good course of action. To illustrate this, the empirical study picks up the case countries, Germany and Austria, at a late point in time. In 2015, large numbers of refugees arrived at their borders during what became known as the ‘European refugee crisis’. In this ‘critical situation’, both countries were required to react and thus position themselves vis-à-vis the highly normative issue of asylum. With the help of a content analysis of official speeches, the case study demonstrates how German and Austrian politicians came to identify different versions of what a good response entails based on their country’s diverse collective memories.

Leaders and Foreign Policy: Surveying the Evidence

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Benedict Dyson ◽  
Thomas Briggs
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Political Action ◽  
International Politics ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
Leadership Influence ◽  
Causal Variable

Political Science accounts of international politics downplay the role of political leaders, and a survey of major journals reveals that fewer than 3% of all articles focus on leaders. This is in stark contrast to public discourse about politics, where leadership influence over events is regarded as a given. This article suggests that, at a minimum, leaders occupy a space in fully specified chains of causality as the aggregators of material and ideational forces, and the transmitters of those forces into authoritative political action. Further, on occasion a more important role is played by the leader: as a crucial causal variable aggregating material and ideational energies in an idiosyncratic fashion and thereby shaping decisions and outcomes. The majority of the article is devoted to surveying the comparatively small literature on political leaders within International Relations scholarship. The article concludes by inviting our colleagues to be receptive to the idiosyncrasies, as well as the regularities, of statespersonship.

National Heroic Narratives in the Baltics as a Source for Nonviolent Political Action

Slavic Review ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 66 (3) ◽  
pp. 484-508 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guntis Šmidchens
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Literary Culture ◽  
National Cultures ◽  
National Myth ◽  
Civilizing Process

The national heroes of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania that emerged in literary culture during the nineteenth century were warrior heroes. In the twentieth century, a series of interpretations and adaptations by leading authors disarmed and desacralized Kalevipoeg, Bearslayer (Lāčplēsis), and King Mindaugas, tempering or rejecting their violent actions and recasting these central allegories of national myth into a nonviolent mold. These heroes are part of the cultural context in which the nonviolent Baltic “Singing Revolution” emerged; they offer an intriguing example of evolving (or devolving) aggressive drives and the civilizing process in the Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian national cultures.

scholarly journals PUBLIC RITUALS: GRASPING MYTH IN DAVID GROSSMAN’S TO THE END OF THE LAND

2016 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 231-250
Author(s):  
Yael Almog
Keyword(s):  
Collective Memory ◽  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Israeli Society ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Word Play ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Biblical Narratives ◽  
Modern Hebrew

The article investigates David Grossman’s To the End of the Land as an intervention into debates on the presence of myth in Israeli society. Do resonances of the Bible in Modern Hebrew perpetuate biblical narratives as constitutive to Israeli collective memory? Do literary references to the Bible dictate the rootedness of Hebrew speakers to the Land? Grossman’s novel discerns the implications of these questions for the political agency of individuals. It does so through the striking adaptation of a motif much frequented in Israeli literature: the Binding of Isaac. The prominent biblical myth is transformed in the novel through a set of interplays: the unusual enactment of the Akedah scene by a matriarch; original exegeses of biblical names; and the merging of several biblical narratives into the novel’s structure. The protagonists reveal their “awareness” of these interplays, when they reflect on the correspondence of their “lives” with various biblical narratives – whose divergence from one another enable them to negotiate the overdetermination of myth in political discourse. The article argues that the novel’s reflective stance on the role of myth in Israeli society is codependent on the philosophy of language that it develops. To the End of the Land features language acquisition, linguistic interferences with Israel’s main vernacular by other languages, word play and semiotic collapse. Through the presentation of linguistic utterances as contingent, associative, subjective and ever-changing, the identification with biblical narratives is rendered volatile. To the End of the Land questions the limits of Israeli literature in redefining the valence of the language in which it is written as well as the ability of literary texts to reshape major conditions for their own reception: collective memory and national motifs.

scholarly journals Living Together v. Living Well Together: A Normative Examination of the SAS Case

2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 3-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lori G. Beaman
Keyword(s):  
Social Inclusion ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Religious Practice ◽  
Living Well ◽  
European Court ◽  
National Values ◽  
Alternative Approach ◽  
Living Together ◽  
Specific Manifestation ◽  
Western Democracies

The European Court of Human Rights decision in <em>SAS</em> from France illustrates how a policy and national mantra that ostensibly aims to enhance inclusiveness, ‘living together’, is legally deployed in a manner that may have the opposite effect. In essence, despite acknowledging the sincerity of SAS’s religious practice of wearing the niqab, and her agency in making the decision to do so, the Court focuses on radicalism and women’s oppression amongst Muslims. Taking the notion of living together as the beginning point, the paper explores the normative assumptions underlying this notion as illustrated in the judgment of the Court. An alternative approach, drawing on the work of Derrida for the notion of ‘living well together’ will be proposed and its implications for social inclusion explicated. The paper’s aim is to move beyond the specific example of <em>SAS</em> and France to argue that the <em>SAS</em> pattern of identifying particular values as ‘national values’, the deployment of those values through law, policy and public discourse, and their exclusionary effects is playing out in a number of Western democracies, including Canada, the country with which the author is most familiar. Because of this widespread dissemination of values and their framing as representative of who ‘we’ are, there is a pressing need to consider the potentially alienating effects of a specific manifestation of ‘living together’ and an alternative model of ‘living well together’.

Fifty Years of Drama on Israeli Children’s Television

2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 123-147 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuval Gozansky
Keyword(s):  
Digital Media ◽  
The State ◽  
Children's Television ◽  
Israeli Society ◽  
Historical Study ◽  
Direct Supervision ◽  
Privatization Process ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Viewing Habits ◽  
Children's Drama

This article analyzes the changes in drama series in the first five decades (1966–2016) of Israeli children’s television. Based on interviews with 27 central producers, this cultural-historical study seeks to explain the significance attributed to children’s drama over the years. Early children’s drama series in Israel were instructional or educational, but they also sought to control the representation of childhood under the direct supervision of the state. The neo-liberal privatization process in Israeli society led to the creation of locally produced, Hebrew-speaking daily dramas on private channels for children. In the multiscreen environment created by the age of multichannel television and digital media, original Israeli daily drama shows functioned as a central branding tool for children’s channels. The article contends that these shows became one of the producers’ key answers to the changes in children’s viewing habits and, more particularly, linear television’s strategy for success in a world of multiple online screens.

Uchwały sejmowe jako mechanizm polityki pamięci

2017 ◽  
Vol 61 (0) ◽  
pp. 89-103
Author(s):  
Lech M. Nijakowski
Keyword(s):  
Collective Memory ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Research Field ◽  
The State ◽  
Social Imagination ◽  
Politics Of Memory ◽  
Systematic Analysis ◽  
Polish Society ◽  
Discourse Strategies ◽  
The Republic

The article presents the results of the systematic analysis of the resolutions of the Sejm of the Republic of Poland (10th–8th terms of office) as a mechanism aimed at shaping the collective memory of the Polish society. It outlines a research field and characterizes a legislative mechanism. Further, the article discusses research techniques and methods, and presents partial research results. The author shows that commemorative resolutions are an important element of the state politics of memory and lead to the emergence of various commemorative initiatives. On the other hand, their significance is moderated by the state of collective memory and the dominant topoi and public discourse strategies. Most often the resolutions using the so-called “constructive strategies” do not seek to radically reformulate the state of social historical consciousness. They disregard inconvenient persons and events and foster petrification of social imagination and marginalization of the minority communities of memory.

scholarly journals Political Participation by Political Bloggers in Hong Kong: A Case Study of the 2014 Umbrella Movement

2018 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 143-166
Author(s):  
Waikeung Tam
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Political Action ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Blogs ◽  
The Public ◽  
News Websites ◽  
Political Spectrum ◽  
Political Blog

Political blogs have played an increasingly more important role in Hong Kong politics. However, research on this topic remains scarce. This analysis examines how political bloggers in Hong Kong used their blogs to participate in politics through a detailed content analysis of 960 political blog articles published on two major news websites – House News Bloggers and Speak Out HK – during the 2014 Umbrella Movement. This study found that “soapbox” stood out as the most popular function hereof, as political bloggers on both ends of the political spectrum actively used their blogs to influence the legitimacy of the Umbrella Movement in the public discourse. A substantial number of blog articles from House News Bloggers also included the functions of “transmission belt,” “informing readers,” and “mobilising political action.” Finally, only a small proportion of the articles from House News Bloggers and Speak Out HK included the function of “conversation starter.”

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