I’ve been traveling Israel for a week now, but already its struggles have been impressed upon me. Because I am couch-surfing, I get to spend time with more locals than I would were I just hosteling, and my hosts seem happy to talk freely about their thoughts and experiences. Although not entirely related to my point, one thing is that I can see no macro-direction for the state as given its origins, I had – perhaps naively – expected. My last host was around my age, and a recent graduate from the sociology department of Jaffa’s mixed college (Jaffa being the only district in the Tel Aviv municipality in which Arab and Jewish Israelis live amongst one another) with a degree in Behavioral Sciences. We had similar aspirations, loves, and hates and we plotted relatively close to one another along the political spectrum. He had absolutely no interest in god, or in the ‘Jewish-ness’ of Israel (he had voted for Hadash, the mixed-candidate socialist party in the last election). He had an amazing talent at piano, and from our conversations I could tell he was very intelligent. He had decided upon graduating however, to work with his father, who owns his own irrigation-type company, partly because he felt he owed his parents for his education, and partly because he feels (despite having lived in Tel-Aviv for 15 or so years) that he is a Kibbutznik.
I feel his experience somewhat mirrors Israel in general: it is a country with an almost unrivaled hi-tech economy (it’s largest employer is Intel), a strong college graduate rate and great HE facilities, and outstanding arts facilities (for a country of it’s size); Israel appears very progressive. Yet it persists in electing thugs (Lieberman and Nyetenyahu) and cynics (Barack) as it struggles to break with it’s past. The principle problems in Israel and the territories are no longer security-related, they are economic, but the two are interdependent.
My real point relates to national service and the Arab-Israeli conflict. The ‘tension’ is not evident everywhere in the country. In Jerusalem’s old city it is impossible to ignore, but on the beaches of Tel Aviv where the places of worship (so to speak) are not synagogues but skyscrapers, you could easily imagine yourself in a whole different country. Individual experience exhibits this too, I think. Unlike the teens who grow up in and around Jerusalem, or the settlements and border towns, for Tel Aviv’s youth (spare increasingly infrequent attacks on their city) their immediate experience of the conflict is marginal. I see little reason (beyond parental influence and news reports) that these kids couldn’t remain open-minded regarding the conflict.
Yet, wandering around the shopping centres, checking out the Levi’s store, the Puma Store, Diesel etc, seems to be the cast of the Israeli adaptation of ‘High School Musical’, in camo gear. I wonder what the lasting psychological effects of obligatory military service are on kids of that age. Given that in Tel-Aviv, most clubs admit only those 23 years and up, these kids can’t dance, but they can kill somebody. Guys and girls barely old enough to drink, let alone contemplate the morality of their actions. Kids are forced to invest themselves in the security of Israel; they’re part of the Israeli war machine from 17/18, and their service must leave them hardened at the prospect of compromising something they have served to protect, with someone who has represented a direct threat to their lives. It is often said that IDF provocation is what maintains the conflict, but could it be that service in the IDF maintains the distinction between us and them, only institutionalizing the conflict into the Israeli experience?
Shalom!
One question that springs immediately to my mind is how far you’re managing to interact with both Jewish and Arab Israelis. In many places I’ve visited (which hasn’t – yet – included Israel/Palestine) I’ve been struck by how the educated, thoughtful, intelligent and cosmopolitan circles I’ve found myself in have been ‘ethnically closed’, despite the politics of my hosts. Would be fascinating to know the extent to which that is the case in your experience in Tel Aviv.
Absolutely fascinating post, Daniel, and i hope you’ll have time for at least one more missive before you head back to Blighty!
Unfortunately my experience has been exactly so – not that it has made it any less enjoyable. I think this is predominantly due to two things. First, my circumstances here in Israel: couch surfing I think could be described (despite the project’s honest pretensions) as a post-material pursuit (if that is the correct term to use). Here especially it is the reserve of those with regular access to both computers and the internet, and the space and time to host and tend to a guest, and this typically excludes a particular segment of the population. So, I’ve really only turned in white, middle-class circles. Second, the sad fact is, (and admittedly I have not been here long enough to say with any certainty) that there is only limited interaction between the ashkenazi and sephardi Jewish populations, let alone between Jewish and Arab Israelis.
The ashkenazim (Jews of central or Eastern European descent) are Israel’s elite, having dominated the state’s politics, military, and economics since before independence despite representing a minority of the Jewish population. There are regular allegations made by the Sephardim of discrimination in the work-place and the justice system, so I suppose if the ashkenazi elite considers Sephardim as second-class citizens, the Arabs don’t even figure. Thus, I can only assume that the highly educated and intellectual population of the Arab community, those that are both socially and politically conscious (and materially able) would for practical reasons (better employment opportunities and living conditions) or ideological reasons, elect/are forced to live outside the state of Israel, either in other Middle Eastern countries, or in the democracies of the West.
I don’t think my opinion can count for much, as I’m not widely read on contemporary Israeli-politics, but I feel as though the state’s institutions prevent regular reasoned debate on Arab-Israeli issues by making it so difficult for progressive, peaceful, and respected Arab-Israeli intellectual movements to flourish domestically.
For instance, last week was the 42nd anniversary of the beginning of the six-day war, and my host took me to an anti-occupation demonstration in down-town Tel Aviv. The usual suspects were all present: students, hippies, the socialists, and anarchist agitators, but the age range differed to what you ordinarily see at similar events in the UK. There were families with small children, young professionals, and even a good number of the elderly, who, I assume witnessed (and possibly had fought for) Israeli independence itself. Noticeably absent though (beyond the Arab-Israeli leader of the Hadash party who spoke to the crowd) was any real number of the Arab-Israeli community, which should be surprising given that only 20 minutes walk away there is a large community in Jaffa. Very saddening indeed.
Another needlessly long post, but I can’t help it!
Another fascinating post. I know little about the intra-ethnic aspects of Israeli’s Jewish communities, so that is really interesting. It would certainly be really useful to know how these differences have ebbed and flowed over time, and how they have contributed (or not) to developments in Zionism.
Yes, this is ‘dissertation-supervision-on-the-web’ … 🙂
Am I right in thinking that the balance between Ashkenazi and Sephardi in Israel is about 3-1? Are there other major sub-groups? How do they fit into a social hierarchy? Do you know if there is robust evidence of widespread intra-Jewish discrimination (i.e. measurable differences in occupational or educational attainment)?
Incidentally the prevention of ‘bridge-building’ and ‘reasoned debate’ across the major political cleavage sounds depressingly familiar to anyone with a passing knowledge of Northern Ireland’s government between the 1920s and the crisis of the 1970s …
I’ll chip in to prevent this turning into a supervision session 🙂
All very interesting stuff. I’d be fascinated as to how ‘mixed’ colleges like the one in Jaffa function. I bet that would make a fascinating ethnography (although don’t change your topic…). Re the comments about military service, to some degree this of course is an anomaly shared across many countries which has always puzzled me. I think in the UK you can join the army and kill someone at 16-17, but not be legally entitled to see an 18 rated film (which may be so rated because the violence is considered to be to extreme!). By the way has anyone else seen the (animated) film ‘Waltz with Bashir’? A brilliant depiction of Israeli military service and its psychological after-effects. I’m constantly recommending this to people. Not sure if it’s available on DVD yet. I believe that, despite the fairly critical nature of the film, it was actually supported and championed by the Israeli govt, which I was quite surprised by.