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201 11 Falling in love with a criminal? On Immersion and Self-Restraint Virginia r. Dominguez June 1982: i was in Jerusalem in the middle of fifteen months of fieldwork trying to figure out “israeli Jewish society” when israel invaded lebanon. any researcher with experience in israel or palestine knows that it is highly likely israel will be in some kind of war (or occupation or prolonged hostilities) during one’s fieldwork in the region, but some hostilities take the form of all-out war more than others, even in the eyes of veteran residents of israel, whether Jewish or arab. This was one of them. official lists of israeli wars always include the War of independence (1947–48), the six-Day War (June 1967), the Yom Kippur War (october 1973), and the war that began that June 1982 under the israeli rubric of “operation peace for the galilee.” some people count the two palestinian intifadas (beginning fall 1987 and fall 2000) and the israeli military/political response. nearly all count the all-out war that began early in the summer of 2006 and included two fronts (one against the hezbollah in lebanon and a related one against hamas in gaza). official israeli sites tend to include the late 1950s War of attrition; fewer include the ongoing exchange of hostilities between israel and gaza since 2006. still others (not usually israeli government sites) count the israeli military occupation of the golan heights, parts of the West Bank, gaza, and southern lebanon (each long-term but varying in length) as acts of war. in some ways to do fieldwork in israel is always to do fieldwork in a war zone. and yet to say that is to miss the texture of the in-between, the everyday, and the routine. some periods feel like eruptions, disruptions, or blowups of a different order, like damaging earthquakes in geographic areas of known fault lines, or heart attacks to people with ongoing cardiovascular concerns. Even a heavily militarized society finds some 202 | Fieldwork to the Point of Worry eruptions of all-out war to demand a different level of attention and worry than the everyday. a frenzy, an intensity, a synergy, and a focus shape nearly everything from the mundane to the institutional. how this affects israel, any fieldwork in israel, any understanding of “israeli Jewish society,” or even of everydayness in heavily militarized settings deserves more than passing attention. to some it is a matter of emphasis. israeli anthropologists limor samimianDarash , Meira Weiss, and Eyal Ben-ari are among those who have actively studied military/intelligence/security units in israel, their policies, practices, and expectations (see samimian-Darash 2009; Weiss 2002a and 2002b; and Ben-ari 1998). to critics of israel outside israel they signal a new kind of israeli anthropology that deserves praise. it is work that is seen as exposing israel’s military-industrial security apparatus, and this is seen as good. That this is often seen as contrasting greatly with the work done by most anthropologists in israel is problematic. That there is an everyday life, an organizational and institutional life, a life of pleasure, pain, love, play, growth, stress, reflection, doubt, and sadness in israel also demands attention. That there are internal fractures in israel, among Jews and not just between Jews and non-Jews, is part of the bigger picture. That there are florists and software engineers, pensioners and electricians , gays and lesbians, low-income Jews as well as arabs gives texture and complexity to the life that is lived “between all-out wars,” and that too is israel. This essay hopes to link the two by providing a glimpse into that experience of the everyday during one of those “ruptures” of all-out war. it is my hope that the emotions, motions, fears, doubts, and mundane activities included here—mine as well as those experienced by the many israelis with whom i spent time that summer of 1982–-can begin to generate a picture of life in israel that is just as much about the ruptures of war as it is about the experience of the everyday between wars. The everyday is, in fact, typically absent from most descriptions of warfare, especially at early stages of a war and particularly in those areas of the “home front” that are not being invaded, bombed, or otherwise attacked. it is not unusual to see writing about war that focuses on foreign policy, diplomacy and its failures, military strategy, death counts...

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