scholarly journals Historical Museums in Israel: Semiotics of Culture

Author(s):  
Gabriel Mayer

Tiny by physical size, the State of Israel retains some of the world’s most important cultural treasures, along with many other great cultural institutions. Archeological treasures have yielded much information as far as biblical history and have been well adapted to a Zionist narrative by both the Jewish press and international news organizations, such as the New York Times whose archives are replete with reports of Jewish history being dug up by the Jewish people. Once the State of Israel gained independence in 1948, the course was set for the development of historical museums whose discourse would reflect the most significant events in Jewish history, most especially the Holocaust and the state of constant warfare that continues to imbue the cultural consciousness of its citizens. In this paper we outline, through categorization, the various historical museums, which are currently operating. Furthermore, this article hopes to shed some light upon the cultural sensibilities conveyed through these institutions.

2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (01) ◽  
pp. 43
Author(s):  
Gabriel Mayer

<p>Tiny by physical size, the State of Israel retains some of the world’s most important cultural treasures, along with many other great cultural institutions. Archeological treasures have yielded much information as far as biblical history and have been well adapted to a Zionist narrative by both the Jewish press and international news organizations, such as the New York Times whose archives are replete with reports of Jewish history being dug up by the Jewish people. Once the State of Israel gained independence in 1948, the course was set for the development of historical museums whose discourse would reflect the most significant events in Jewish history, most especially the Holocaust and the state of constant warfare that continues to imbue the cultural consciousness of its citizens. In this paper we outline, through categorization, the various historical museums, which are currently operating. Furthermore, this article hopes to shed some light upon the cultural sensibilities conveyed through these institutions. This paper is about Israeli culture, mythology, and collective needs, as formed by and informed through a variety of historical museums. The working assumption is that in a historical museum culture is partially formed and at the same time the culture is influencing the contents and narratives on display inside the museum. It should be clear from the start that the discussion is held about Israeli museums as viewed by a Jewish population and created by and for Jews. Notwithstanding the multifaceted collective of Israeli society, this work is confined to and circumscribed by this demarcation. In the following sections, I intend to provide an explanation for this viewpoint from a historical perspective and also provide a framework of what constitutes a historical museum and justify the methodology of its employ. This will be followed by a discussion of the main categorical types of historical museums present in Israel, and finally a detailed accounting of specific museums.</p>


2015 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
GISÉLLE RAZERA

Resumo: Este trabalho deriva da análise do livro Pantera no Porão, de Amós Oz, sob o prisma do ensaio “Mal-estar na Civilização”, de Sigmund Freud, e do livro As origens do to-talitarismo, de Hanna Arendt. Além disso, tem na obra Holocausto, história dos judeus na Europa na Segunda Guerra Mundial, de Martin Gilbert, o texto que embasa a contextuali-zação do chão histórico sobre as condições de vida do povo judeu no Velho Continente e no artigo “O Estado de Israel: fundamentos históricos” a fundamentação que visa descrever o processo de formação do Estado de Israel. A abordagem apresentada neste artigo busca dar evidência ao modo como a perseguição aos judeus – descrita por Arendt e Gilbert, além dos pressupostos de Freud – está representada nas páginas de Pantera no porão, narrativa que tem como pano de fundo a fixação da comunidade judaica em terras árabes. Palavras-chave: Amós Oz – Pantera no Porão – Holocausto – Totalitarismo – Israel. Abstract: Panther in the Basement: totalitarianism, persecution, malaise and experience This work is derived from the analysis of Amos Oz's Panther in the Basement, under the prism of Sigmund Freud's essay "Malaise in Civilization" and Hanna Arendt's The Origins of Totalitarianism. In addition to the history of the Jews in Europe in World War II, by Martin Gilbert, the text of the Holocaust, the history of the Jewish people in the Old Conti-nent and the article "The State of Israel: Historical grounds" the grounds for describing the process of formation of the State of Israel. The approach presented in this ar-ticle seeks to give evidence to the way in which the persecution of the Jews – described by Arendt and Gilbert, in addition to the assumptions of Freud – is represented in the pages of Pantera in the basement, narrative that has as background the fixation of the Jewish com-munity in Arab lands. Keywords: Amos Oz - Panther in the Basement - Holocaust - Totalitarianism – Israel.


1994 ◽  
Vol 4 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 119-134 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hillel Nossek

Abstract The mass media convey dominant values and attitudes through stories and myths that they circulate within a specific culture. As a narrative form, news coverage places events into social reality by retelling them within the framework of known stories or myths. Events acquire meanings and reactions by the ways in which these stories are told. In Israeli society, the Holocaust is a historical event that plays a prominent role in shaping national and cultural identity. An analysis of Israeli press coverage of terrorist attacks on Israel reveals that the Israeli press uses these events to convey the basic myth of the Holocaust and the revival of the Jewish state. Using Barthes' theories of narrative analysis, a composite story is constructed to illustrate the workings of this process. In this story the Jews, formerly helpless victims of Nazi aggression, are saved by Israeli soldiers as proof of the revival of the Jewish people in the state of Israel. The findings of the study suggest that the myth of the Holocaust may be used as a framework by the Israeli press in more serious emergency situations, such as war. At the same time, the study suggests that the analysis of news as narrative provides a means of understanding how terrorist events are reported by the press in other countries and in other media as well. (Mass Communication)


2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 116-123
Author(s):  
Amal Abdel Aziz

Caryl Churchill is one of the leading contemporary British playwrights.  Because of the Israel military strike on Gaza in early 2009, she wrote her short poetic play, Seven Jewish Children, which densely explores modern Jewish history, from the time of pre-holocaust Europe up to the current struggles between Israel and Palestinian militant organizations. The stimulating dynamism of Churchill's historical chronicle is that though it introduces the past suffering of the Jews, it exposes their moral insincerity when it comes to labeling the current brutal actions performed by the state of Israel against Palestinian civilians. Employing a descriptive-analytical approach, this paper examines the play as a poetic narrative representing a pattern of reversed oppression in which contemporary Israelis, descendants of former victims of the Nazi, have inherited the legacy of the Holocaust and are deemed accountable for the ruthless violence perpetrated on the Arab residents of the occupied land.


Author(s):  
Yosef Gorny

The title of the article ’From National Autonomy to Independent State‘ refers to the gradual change that occurred in the wake of the Holocaust with respect to the Bund’s refusal to recognize the State of Israel as the national home of the Jewish people during its first forty years. Yet notwithstanding the historical anti-Zionism ideology of the Bund, the movement never wavered in its identification with the State while remaining critical of Israel’s policy towards the Arab refugee problem created by the War of Independence (1948-1949).


One People? ◽  
1993 ◽  
pp. 1-17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Sacks

This chapter discusses the crisis of contemporary Jewish thought. The problem that threatens to render all contemporary Jewish thought systematically divisive is not the absence, but paradoxically the presence, of a shared language. Jews use the same words but mean profoundly different things by them. The point was dramatically illustrated by an utterance delivered at a key moment in modern Jewish history: the State of Israel's Declaration of Independence. The chapter then looks at the history of the impact on Jewish consciousness of the two decisive events of the present century: the Holocaust and the birth of the State of Israel. It also considers the third component of contemporary Jewish thought: the concept of peoplehood. Enlightenment thought had stressed the idea of universal humanity on the one hand, and the abstract individual on the other, freed from the constraints of tradition to make his own world of meanings through his choices. This was a language into which traditional Jewish identity could not be translated, and the sense of Jewish peoplehood suffered accordingly, especially in Western Europe.


Pólemos ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-62
Author(s):  
Paolo Coen

Abstract This article revolves in essence around the contributions made by the architect Moshe Safdie to the Yad Vashem memorial and museum in Jerusalem. Both probably need at least a brief introduction, if for no other reason than the nature of the present publication, which has a somewhat different scope than the type of art-historical or architectural-historical journals to which reflections of this kind are usually consigned. The first part draws a profile of Safdie, who enjoys a well-established international reputation, even if he has not yet been fully acknowledged in Italy. In order to better understand who he is, we shall focus on the initial phase of his career, up to 1967, and his multiple ties to Israel. The range of projects discussed includes the Habitat 67 complex in Montreal and a significant number of works devised for various contexts within the Jewish state. The second part focuses on the memorial and museum complex in Jerusalem that is usually referred to as Yad Vashem. We will trace Yad Vashem from its conception, to its developments between the 1950s and 1970s, up until the interventions of Safdie himself. Safdie has in fact been deeply and extensively involved with Yad Vashem. It is exactly to this architect that a good share of the current appearance of this important institute is due. Through the analysis of three specific contributions – the Children’s Memorial, the Cattle Car Memorial and the Holocaust History Museum – and a consideration of the broader context, this article shows that Yad Vashem is today, also and especially thanks to Safdie, a key element in the formation of the identity of the state of Israel from 1967 up until our present time.


2011 ◽  
Vol 26 (66) ◽  
Author(s):  
Judith Butler

Judith Butler: “Who Owns Kafka?”The legal battle between the state of Israel and the German literary archive over the question of who owns Kafka’s work has prompted Israeli lawyers to argue that Kafka is an asset of the Jewish people and hence, of Israel. At stake is Kafka’s own complex cultural formation as a Prague Jew writing in German who alternately praised and disavowed Zionism. Equally troubling is the assumption that Israel represents the Jewish people and that Kafka might be conceived as an asset. Judith Butler proposes a reading of Kafka’s parables that quarrels with both sides of the legal case, seeking recourse to stories and fiction as a way of illuminating the limits of law and the diasporic (and messianic) alternative to Jewish nationalism.


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