Israel in the Making

Hagar Salamon

Description

The brilliant kaleidoscope of everyday creativity in Israel is thrown into relief in this study, which teases out the abiding national tensions and contradictions at work in the expressive acts of ordinary people. Hagar Salamon examines creativity in Israel's public sphere through the lively discourse of bumper stickers, which have become a potent medium for identity and commentary on national and religious issues. Exploring the more private expressive sphere of women's embroidery, she profiles a group of Jerusalem women who meet regularly and create "folk embroidery." Salamon also considers the significance of folk expressions at the intersections of the public and private that rework change and embrace transformation. Far ranging and insightful, Israel in the Making captures the complex creative essence of a nation state and vividly demonstrates how its citizens go about defining themselves, others, and their country every day.

Acknowledgments
Introduction: Studying Israeli Folklore

Part One: Folklore in the Israeli Public Arena
Part One Invitation: Bumper Stickers as a Podium in Motion
1. Folklore as an Emotional Battleground: Political Bumper Stickers
2. "We the people": "Ha'Am" in the Turbulent Sphere of Israeli Roads
3. Kinetic Cosmologies: Sovereign and Sovereignty
Part One Recapitulation: Public Interaction on the Move

Part Two: Expressions in the Intimate Arena of Embroidery
Part Two Invitation: Embroidering Identity—Needlework and Needle-Talk
4. Embroidering Their Selves: Femininity and Embroidery in a Jerusalem Women's Group
5. Life Story as a Foundation Legend of Local Identity
6. The Intimate Career of a Transitional Object: Needlepoint Embroideries
Part Two Recapitulation: Needle Texts—Knowledge, Passion, and Empowerment

Part Three: Between the Public and the Private—The Mirrors of Ambivalence
Part Three Invitation: Emplacing Israeliness—Shifting Performances of Belonging and Otherness
7. The Floor Falling Away: Dislocated Space and Body in the Humor of Ethiopian Immigrants in Israel
8. What Goes Around, Comes Around: Rotating Credit Associations among Ethiopian Women in Israel
9. "David Levi" Jokes: The Ambivalence over the Levantinization of Israel
Part Three Recapitulation: Between Longing and Belonging—The Folkloric Expressions of Ambivalence

Closing Words: The Birth of Public Enunciation from the Spirit of Everyday Life
Bibliography
Index

Sujets

• Middle Est
• Jewish Studies
• HISTORY
• Histoire
• Folclore
• Israel
• History of the Middle East
• Middle East
• Embroidery
• Anthropology
• Folklore

Informations

• Publié par: Indiana University Press
• Date de parution: 27 mars 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780253023285
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 3 Mo

Extrait

ISRAEL IN THE MAKING
ISRAEL IN THE MAKING
Stickers, Stitches, and Other Critical Practices
Hagar Salamon
Indiana University Press
Bloomington and Indianapolis
This book is a publication of
Indiana University Press
Office of Scholarly Publishing
Herman B Wells Library 350
1320 East 10th Street
Bloomington, Indiana 47405 USA
iupress.indiana.edu
2017 by Hagar Salamon
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University Presses Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition.
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Cataloging information is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN 978-0-253-02280-6 (cloth)
ISBN 978-0-253-02308-7 (paperback)
ISBN 978-0-253-02328-5 (ebook)
1 2 3 4 5 22 21 20 19 18 17
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Studying Israeli Folklore
Part I. Folklore in the Israeli Public Arena
Part I Invitation: Bumper Stickers as a Podium in Motion
1 Folklore as an Emotional Battleground: Political Bumper Stickers
2 We the People : Ha Am in the Turbulent Sphere of Israeli Roads
3 Kinetic Cosmologies: Sovereign and Sovereignty
Part I Recapitulation: Public Interaction on the Move
Part II. Expressions in the Intimate Arena of Embroidery
Part II Invitation: Embroidering Identity-Needlework and Needle-Talk
4 Embroidering Their Selves: Femininity and Embroidery in a Jerusalem Women s Group
5 Life Story as a Foundation Legend of Local Identity
6 The Intimate Career of a Transitional Object: Needlepoint Embroideries
Part II Recapitulation: Needle Texts-Knowledge, Passion, and Empowerment
Part III. Between the Public and the Private-the Mirrors of Ambivalence
Part III Invitation: Emplacing Israeliness-Shifting Performances of Belonging and Otherness
7 The Floor Falling Away: Dislocated Space and Body in the Humor of Ethiopian Immigrants in Israel
8 What Goes Around, Comes Around: Rotating Credit Associations among Ethiopian Women in Israel
9 David Levi Jokes: The Ambivalence over the Levantinization of Israel
Part III Recapitulation: Between Longing and Belonging-the Folkloric Expressions of Ambivalence
Closing Words: The Birth of Public Enunciation from the Spirit of Everyday Life
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgments
T HIS BOOK, THE result of nine different research endeavors spanning over more than thirty years, would not have come to fruition without the trust and help I received from numerous people and institutions.
It is impossible even to begin to thank the many scores of Israelis who generously shared their thoughts and feelings with me. This book owes everything it may treasure to what they told me. Whether during a meeting set in advance with people I knew or in a random meeting during which people agreed to share their ideas with a complete stranger; in a single interview or in a series of meetings that spanned many years, it was always with awe-inspiring generosity and contagious excitement, which made me understand the strong emotional dimension of their sheer words.
To be privy to the kind of intimate and sometimes even risky information that many subjects imparted demands the vital presence of mutual empathy. I am greatly indebted to the many individuals and groups, who by the work of ethnography are revealed as the creators and articulators of culture, who lend their empathy and join in the dialogic enterprise.
As my research progressed, I became increasingly aware that the dialogues with them not only helped me gain insight into my research topics but also enriched and refined my own worldview and opened up my heart.
I thank the students at the folklore studies program at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and especially Sharon Agur, Hila Eisenberg, Simona Tammuz-Cohen, Michal Cohen-Shemesh, Rivka Gavra, Sarina Chen, Michal Nefesh, Dganit Laznow, Mulugete Mahari, and Yael Aizic, who assisted in conducting interviews. I am grateful to colleagues for commenting on different chapters of the book, and especially to the late Dov Noy, Alan Dundes, and Melford Spiro, and to Ibrahim Muhawi, Esther Juhasz, Carmela Abdar, Anbessa Tefera, Lynn Schler, Ruth Ginio, and Louise Bethlehem, as well as to Ruth Dayan, Yair Garbuz, Rama Yam, Jessica Bonn, Fern Seckbach, Doron Modan, Ilana Goldberg, and Jackie Feldman for their special help, and to Jacqueline Laznow for her wholeheartedly and crucial assistance with the figures. To the anonymous reviewers throughout the years and especially to the reviewers of this entire manuscript, I am deeply thankful. Their careful reading, sensitive comments, and enlightening suggestions were immensely valuable. They made me shape and reshape my thoughts and elevated the final version of the book.
Throughout the years my studies have benefited from the generous support of the following research grants. The Folklore Research Center at the Hebrew University, the Shain Center for Research in the Social Sciences of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, The Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace at the Hebrew University, the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture, and the Mann Foundation of the Mandel Institute for Jewish Studies at the Hebrew University. My stay at the University of California, sponsored by the Fulbright Foundation, afforded me the distance required to open my eyes to the obvious. I am grateful to all these fine foundations and in particular to the people behind them. Finally, I wish to extend my deepest thanks to the devoted staff of the Harry S. Truman Research Institute for providing me with a professional and supportive work environment.
Two chapters in the book are based on articles written in collaboration. The chapter dealing with Ethiopian women s iqqub was composed with Steve Kaplan and Harvey Goldberg, two cherished colleagues. I thank Steve for his wisdom and audacity, as well as for his trustworthy companionship. I am grateful to Harvey, who has accompanied my research path from its very beginning. Our collaborative work has enriched our unique research topics and has been the source of an ongoing dialogue that is both productive and enjoyable. I feel blessed by the close friendship with him, with Judy, and with their wonderful family.
The study of the group of Jerusalemite embroidering women was written in collaboration with Galit Hasan-Rokem. Her presence in my work reached far beyond that, and her contribution to the conception of this book has been greatly significant and profound. Our numerous conversations on the power of folk culture, on its various components, on its characteristic subjectivities, and especially on thinking critically about the distinction between supposedly high and low culture, echo throughout these pages. The present book focusing on folk creativity is thus one of the happy results of our long-term dialogue and friendship. Grateful for the various interpretation venues that these discussions have opened and for the joy we share in studying folklore, I dedicate it to her with great love and appreciation.
I do not have enough words to express my great love and gratitude for my family, which has accompanied me throughout the years of research. My father, Dov, had gone through the horrors of war in Europe as a child and arrived as an orphan to Israel. My mother, Miriam, and her parents had managed to flee Europe at the last moment and reached Palestine as the war broke out. Both my parents, who viewed the state of Israel as a safe haven and the ultimate and only possible home, have witnessed in the course of their lifetime its many harsh upheavals. I owe them the privilege of growing up, together with my sister, Noa, and my brothers, Yoav and Nadav, in the shelter of the liberal and critically thinking family that they managed to create out of the broken pieces of their own families. Their gift nurtures everything that I can or cannot write on the reality surrounding me.
My most profound gratitude goes to my daughters, Mika, Noga, Zohar, and Netta, who deeply love Israel with all its restless, fascinating creativity, and to their father, Amos, my closest companion and partner in my voyages everywhere. We all take part in Israel in the Making .
ISRAEL IN THE MAKING
Introduction
Studying Israeli Folklore
T HIS BOOK WAS born out of research undertaken over a period beginning in 1993-94 and continuing up to the present day. Taken together, it offers the reader views of life in Israel, while illustrating the critical and reflective insights that folk creativity treasures. The subtitle, Stitches, Stickers, and Other Critical Practices, stressing creativity and critique, alludes to the totality of ethnographic encounters, engaging both social dialogue and private experiences (Markowitz 2013). Through conversations with producers and consumers of folkloric materials, the evolving discourses of a changing society take on new life. I invite you to witness this alchemy with me.
Each of the following chapters represents an ethnographic encounter with a folk cultural artifact and the persons involved with it. In each encounter, the presence of a multivocal space made up of intuitions and understandings hovering over the waters is sensed (Hazan and Her