Palimpsests of National Identity: Israeli Culture at the End of the American Century

48 SHOFAR Winter 1998 Vol. 16, No.2 Palimpsests of National Identity: Israeli Culture at the End of the American Century· Eric Zakim Eric Zakim is Assistant Professor ofmodem Hebrew literature in the Section of Asian and African Languages and Literature at Duke University. A familiar talk-show scene: one by one five people emerge from backstage. They are still overweight, but compared to the "before" photo flashing on the TVscreen as the host introduces each one, the people coming out look quite trim and slender. Now, after being paid to lose weight, after being made over and dressed in designer clothes, they confess the difficulties and rewards of their transformed lives; they revel in the psychological metamorphosis that comes with their new bodies. They are now better, happier people. The scene could be taken from any number ofAmerican TV talk shows, from Jerry Springer to Ricki Lake, but it happens to be Israeli. At the end of the twentieth century, with American-style TV more and more dominant; with McDonald's and Pizza Hut on almost every street comer; with NFL football soon to be played in Ramat Gan Stadium during the American off-season, Israel is a culture inundated by American artifacts and influences, and ever striving to absorb and incorporate more. It is a society with a seemingly endless craving for the latest that American pop culture has to offer. Ofcourse, the Israeli situation is hardly unique, and derives from a general mobility of international capital in the late twentieth century, especially in the form ofAmerican cultural products. What is happening in Israel is occurring in nations throughout the world where American cultural forms have become dominant icons. And while fast food and movies (Taco Bell in Mexico; Jurassic Park in Japan) are repeatedly cited and decried as the worst ofthis American invasion, they are only its most visible symbols; language, clothing, television, music, and even intellectual fashion all seem to emanate from North America. Whether it's called globalization, free trade, transnational capital, or the information superhighway, American corporations have been singularly successful in projecting their cultural commodities throughout the world. For places like Israel, this huge influx of American culture might indeed present a serious challenge to a sense of national identity. The ambiguity of national origin within the TV scene above is continuously repeated in a series of cultural media,·My thanks to Mark Jacobs, Daniel Monk, and Tom Zakim for the critical comments they provided on earlier drafts of this paper. Palimpsests ofNational Identity 49 making it difficult to defme anymore what might be Israeli. Can a nation incorporate American cultural commodities and somehow make them its own (as in the model of Japanization)? Or is national identity doomed in the face of transnational capitalism which knows no borders and speaks only English? In a variety of nations ranging from western Europe to East Asia, the threat of cultural inundation from America has been met with varying degrees of state intervention and cultural protectionism. Protectionism, a disparaged notion on both the right and the left when it comes to international commercial trade, has currency and value in the realm of cultural fare. But the spread of American culture has not met consistent resistance, and its deleterious effects on national identity-despite the paranoia of the French-has yet to be determined. If globalism, as commentators are quick to remind us, announces the disintegration of state borders and the dismantling ofthe fragile invention ofnational culture, then these last gasps of cultural protectionism might represent the fmal agitprop of the state as it dissolves into the global soup. Or, perhaps national culture has achieved some naturalized status and, despite the fact that territorialized culture itselfis a relatively new and unique phenomenon on the world scene,l has successfully inculcated itselfinto the very being ofthe older deterritorialized community. In light of these global threats to national integrity, it seems somewhat odd that Israel would remain so quiet in the face of a virtual national takeover by McDonald's. Indeed, the popular image of the kibbutz today-Israel's yesteryear icon of socialist spunk and oppressed minority resolve-is dominated less by the expected Zionist symbols ofindustriousness...