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6. Mythmaking and Commemoration in Israeli Culture David C. Jacobson This essay is primarily concerned with the phenomenon of the simultaneous appearance of these studies in the contemporary context ofthe cultural and scholarly trend generally known as post-Zionism, which has so forcefully questioned the established cultural and political myths of Israel. The author situates the current challenges to established myths as the latest in a series of challenges that began in 1948 and that gained strength as a result ofthe Sinai campaign, the June 1967 war, the 1982 invasion of Lebanon, and the Palestinian Intifada. He considers the different methodologies ofthe writers under review, and the impact ofcurrent academic trends in literary criticism, history , and anthropology on their studies ofIsrael's myths. Ben-Yehuda, Nachman, The Masada Myth: Collective Memory and Mythmaking in Israel, Madison: University ofWisconsin Press, 1995. Gertz, Nurith, Captives ofa Dream: National Myths in Israeli Culture, Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1995. (Hebrew) Wistrich, Robert, and David Ohana, eds., The Shaping of Israeli Identity: Myth, Memory and Trauma, London: Frank Cass, 1995. Zerubavel, Yael, Recovered Roots: Collective Memory and the Making ofIsraeli National Tradition, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995. 99 100 David C. Jacobson It can hardly be a coincidence that in 1B95 four scholarly works dealing with issues ofmythmaking and commemoration in Israeli culture were published. These works are clearly an outgrowth ofthe "post-Zionist" cultural climate in Israel, in which, as Robert Wistrich and David Ohana put it in the introduction to their collection of essays , "there are no great causes left [and] debunking the founding fathers and myths of Israel has become a national sport" (p. viii). In such a climate, the scholarly studies in these works were written not so much to debunk Israeli myths as to seek to better understand the processes by which the founding myths of Israel were established, the causes for their weakening impact on Israeli culture, and the ongoing creation in Israel ofnew myths to commemorate the past. The monographs by Nachman Ben-Yehuda, Nurith Gertz, and Yael Zerubavel differ in a number of ways. Ben-Yehuda and Zerubavel are primarily interested in tracing the ways in which historical events have been mythologized as part ofthe process ofthe development ofJewish identity in the Land ofIsrael before and after the establishment of the state. Ben-Yehuda focuses on the mythologizing of the fall of Masada (73 C.E.), whereas Zerubavel compares the mythologizing of three events: the fall of Masada, the Bar Kokhba rebellion (132-35 C.E.), and the failed defense of the Zionist settlement Tel Hai (1920). Gertz organizes her study differently. She traces mythic themes that have played a central role in Jewish culture in the Land of Israel: the struggles of the few against the many and the children of light against the children of darkness, the conflict between East and West, the perception of the Jews as an isolated people as opposed to the perception of the Jews as a people belonging to the community of nations, and the tension between the individual and the collective. Reflecting the current trend in literary studies to broaden the definition of text, Gertz states in her introduction that the sources of her study include not only works of literature, but other texts, including political expressions (speeches by :leaders, posters, and election advertisements); the communications media (newspaper articles, television reports, and advertisements); film; and even public posters and graffiti. Her assumption is that each text includes an ideologically based mythic narrative that is not expressed directly but can be discerned as a subtext. She sees the expression of these mythic narratives in these texts as playing an important political role in society, for in each case she believes the purpose ofthese nar- Mythmaking and Commemoration 101 ratives is to shape the worldview ofthe society and to lead to certain action. These mythic narratives have such political power because what they do, in effect, is to present historical realities as eternal phenomena, thereby transforming history into myth. Thus, for example , the Arab-Israeli conflict has often been presented as part of the eternal Jewish historical experience ofthe few threatened by the many, thereby insuring that Israeli Jews will always see themselves as being at a disadvantage in this conflict. Mythic narratives in Jewish culture ofthe Land ofIsrael, Gertz argues, have undergone periods of greater or lesser influence, some dominating at certain times and others dominating at other times. In order to trace this process, she focuses on key...

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