Communal Webs: Communication and Culture in Contemporary Israel (review)

114 SHOFAR Fall 1992 Vol. 11, No. 1 failed in its goal of blocking the creation of a Zionist state, Kolsky declares, "many of its predictions about the consequences of the establishment of a Jewish state did come true ... the ominous predictions of the Council are still haunting the Zionist venture." In fact, the Council's most significant prediction never came true. If the AC] failed and a Jewish State emerged, "the future of American Jews would be hopeless," Elmer Berger forecast. This fearful expectation that the existence of a Jewish state would endanger the rights or status of American Jewry proved baseless. The creation of Israel has in no way impaired the legal or political status of American Jewry; it has not prevented Jews from becoming integrated in· their countries of residence; it has not reversed any of the advances of the Emancipation. Contrary to Kolsky's assertion, it is not the "Zionist venture" which is "haunted" by the Council's predictions, it is the handful of remaining activists in the American Council for Judaism who are no doubt haunted by the nagging realization that history proved them wrong. Rafael Medoff Ohio State University and Denison University Communal Webs: Communication and Culture in Contemporary Israel, by Tamar Katriel. Albany: State University of NewYork Press, 1991. 226 pp. This book is a collection of material previously published between 1985 and 1988;9 in which Katriel explores "the symbolic dimensions of Israeli ways ofspeaking" (p. 10). The title "Communal Webs," we are told, is deliberate and meant to invoke "c. Geertz's famous 'spider web' metaphor . . . , trying to signal my striving toward an ethnographic tale woven out of a set of mutually conversant 'symbols and meanings'" (p. 1). More specifically, Katriel attempts to provide a glimpse into Israeli culture through the exploration of cultural symbols as expressed in verbal performance. Of the book's eleven chapters nine are topical. The first five (Chapters 2-6) address expressions from the youth and adult milieu, while the last four (Chapters 7-10) look at the sub-culture of Israeli children. Taking them one by one, Chapter 2 is a discussion of social cohesion (gibusb) as a primary Israeli ideological tenet. In Chapter 3, Katriel analyzes the informal Israeli custom of communal griping (kiturim) as a frustration-venting mechanism and as a promoter ofgibusb. In Chapter 4 she focuses on fire inscriptions (the practice of setting fire to inscriptions Book Reviews 115 composed of combustible letters for a dramatic version of a neon sign) as a special case ofgibush, while in Chapter 5 she describes the new custom of parental Saturday visits to their children's military camps. Chapter 6 discusses a homework-help radio program for "young listeners," making thereby a transition from the sections on adult culture to those on the subculture of children "practicing." In the last four topical chapters Katriel addresses four issues in the world of Israeli children: brogez (aDtagonistic relations; lit 'in anger'), /;Jibudim (sharing of treats), ha/;Jlafot (swapping exchanges), and sodot (secret-sharing). Attention to observational detail and meticulous recording are very evident throughout all the chapters. Coherence between theory and observation, however, is not as uniform. For example, the theoretical argument in Chapter 5 is not stated as crisply and coherently as in Chapters 2-4. Several other comments are in order. As Katriel mentions also, the material presented was collected among middle-class Ashkenazic urban/suburban Israelis and raises the question of generalizability. Although she argues that "we tend to think of ["European heritage"] as mainstream Israeli culture" (po 1), the materials presented in the first four chapters document changes which in fact suggest the reorganization of Israeli culture away from its classical "European heritage." For example, in the delineation of the gibush problem (pp. 14-15) she reports complaints from students and teachers about the failure to achieve gibush and suggests that it might be connected to the recent advent of individually oriented instruction. Similarly, in discussing Saturday family visits to army camps she contrasts "the Socialist Zionist accent on the peer group" with "the affirmation ofthe family ... (as in many contexts in contemporary Israel)" (po 87; emphasis added), a change which is...