Israeli Culture between the Two Intifadas

Israeli Culture between the Two Intifadas
Author: Yaron Peleg
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Total Pages: 171
Release: 2009-09-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 0292774192

Over the past two decades, profound changes in Israel opened its society to powerful outside forces and the dominance of global capitalism. As a result, the centrality of Zionism as an organizing ideology waned, prompting expressions of anxiety in Israel about the coming of a post-Zionist age. The fears about the end of Zionism were quelled, however, by the Palestinian uprising in 2000, which spurred at least a partial return to more traditional perceptions of homeland. Looking at Israeli literature of the late twentieth century, Yaron Peleg shows how a young, urban class of Israelis felt alienated from the Zionist values of their forebears, and how they adopted a form of escapist romanticism as a defiant response that replaced traditional nationalism. One of the first books in English to identify the end of the post-Zionist era through inspired readings of Hebrew literature and popular media, Israeli Culture between the Two Intifadas examines Israel's ambivalent relationship with Jewish nationalism at the end of the twentieth century.

Israeli Counter-Insurgency and the Intifadas

Israeli Counter-Insurgency and the Intifadas
Author: Sergio Catignani
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 457
Release: 2008-01-24
Genre: History
ISBN: 1134079974

This volume analyzes the conduct of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) counter-insurgency operations during the two major Palestinian uprisings (1987-1993 and 2000-2005) in the Territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. It employs primary and secondary resources to produce a comprehensive analysis on whether or not the IDF has been able to adapt it

P Is for Palestine

P Is for Palestine
Author: Golbarg Bashi
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2024-09-03
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN:

P is for Palestine is the world's first English-language ABC story book about Palestine, told in simple rhythmic rhyme with stunning illustrations to act as an educational, colorful, empowering reference for children, showcasing the geography, the beauty and strength of Palestinian culture. Anyone who has ever been to Palestine or who has Palestinian friends, colleagues, or neighbors knows that this proud nation is home to the sweetest oranges, most intricate embroideries, great dance moves (Dabkeh), fertile olive groves, and the sunniest people! This revised edition includes an appendix explaining some of the terms and Arabic words, written in their original language with simplified English pronunciation. Inspired by Palestinian people's own rich history in the literary and visual arts P is for Palestine is a book for children of all ages!

Warriors, Witches, Whores

Warriors, Witches, Whores
Author: Rachel S. Harris
Publisher: Wayne State University Press
Total Pages: 395
Release: 2017-10-16
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 0814339689

Feminist reading of women’s representation and activism in Israeli cinema. Warriors, Witches, Whores: Women in Israeli Cinema is a feminist study of Israel’s film industry and the changes that have occurred since the 1990s. Working in feminist film theory, the book adopts a cultural studies approach, considering the creation of a female-centered and thematically feminist film culture in light of structural and ideological shifts in Israeli society. Author Rachel S. Harris situates these changes in dialogue with the cinematic history that preceded them and the ongoing social inequalities that perpetuate women’s marginalization within Israeli society. While no one can deny Israel’s Western women’s advancements, feminist filmmakers frequently turn to Israel’s less impressive underbelly as sources for their inspiration. Their films have focused on sexism, the negative impact of militarism on women’s experience, rape culture, prostitution, and sexual abuse. These films also tend to include subjects from society’s geographical periphery and social margins, such as female foreign workers, women, and refugees. Warriors, Witches, Whoresis divided into three major sections and each considers a different form of feminist engagement. The first part explores films that situate women in traditionally male spheres of militarism, considering the impact of interjecting women within hegemonic spaces or reconceptualizing them in feminist ways. The second part recovers the narratives of women’s experience that were previously marginalized or silenced, thereby creating a distinct female space that offers new kinds of storytelling and cinematic aesthetics that reflect feminist expressions of identity. The third part offers examples of feminist activism that reach beyond the boundaries of the film to comment on social issues. This section demonstrates how feminists use film (and work within the film industry) in order to position women in society. While there are thematic overlaps between the chapters, each section marks structural differences in the modes of feminist response. Warriors, Witches, Whores considers the ways social and political power have affected the representation of women and looks to how feminist filmmakers have fought against these inequities behind the camera and in the stories they tell. Students and scholars of film, gender, or cultural studies will appreciate this approachable monograph.

Signatures of Struggle

Signatures of Struggle
Author: Oded Nir
Publisher: SUNY Press
Total Pages: 298
Release: 2018-01-01
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1438472439

A Marxist history of Israeli literature, tracing the relations between economic, social, and aesthetic transformations. Signatures of Struggle offers a unique perspective on Israeli literature, bringing Marxist cultural critique to bear on a field from which it has hitherto been absent. Oded Nir moves beyond the dominant interpretive horizon of Israeli literary criticism: the relation of literature to national ideology. Rather than reproducing the usual narrative in which fiction resists the nation’s goals, Nir demonstrates how, in each historical moment, literary engagement with national ideology is a means to think through social tensions or contradictions internal to Israeli society—to solve in imagination problems that threaten the social order. Focusing on moments of transformation, Nir argues that the 1950s crisis of realism was the result of the failure, rather than the success, of the collective transformative project of the haluzim, the settler vanguard of Zionism. In the 1980s, the postmodern turn expressed a crisis of social imagination, whose origin was the incorporation of Palestinians into the Israeli economy after the 1967 war. Finally, he shows that the ways in which history is imaginatively reworked in contemporary Israeli fiction can only be understood through the context of 1950s and 1980s literature. Authors analyzed include Yigal Mossinsohn, Nathan Shaham, Hanoch Bartov, Yehudit Hendel, Orly Castel-Bloom, Yehudit Katzir, David Grossman, Yehoshua Kenaz, and Batya Gur. “Nir’s mastery of relevant studies on Hebrew literature is impressive, as is his erudition when it comes to theoretical works. His textual analyses are insightful and original. The book makes a tremendous contribution to literary scholarship, but it is also one of the most important contributions to the entire field of Israel studies in this century.” — Eran Kaplan, author of Beyond Post-Zionism “This is a well-written, brilliantly conceptualized project. I have little doubt it will change the way Zionist historiography and the history of Hebrew literature will be discussed.” — Nitzan Lebovic, author of Zionism and Melancholy: The Short Life of Israel Zarchi

Borders, Territories, and Ethics

Borders, Territories, and Ethics
Author: Adia Mendelson-Maoz
Publisher: Purdue University Press
Total Pages: 267
Release: 2018-08-15
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1612495362

Borders, Territories, and Ethics: Hebrew Literature in the Shadow of the Intifada by Adia Mendelson-Maoz presents a new perspective on the multifaceted relations between ideologies, space, and ethics manifested in contemporary Hebrew literature dealing with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the occupation. In this volume, Mendelson-Maoz analyzes Israeli prose written between 1987 and 2007, relating mainly to the first and second intifadas, written by well-known authors such as Yehoshua, Grossman, Matalon, Castel-Bloom, Govrin, Kravitz, and Levy. Mendelson-Maoz raises critical questions regarding militarism, humanism, the nature of the State of Israel as a democracy, national identity and its borders, soldiers as moral individuals, the nature of Zionist education, the acknowledgment of the Other, and the sovereignty of the subject. She discusses these issues within two frameworks. The first draws on theories of ethics in the humanist tradition and its critical extensions, especially by Levinas. The second applies theories of space, and in particular deterritorialization as put forward by Deleuze and Guattari and their successors. Overall this volume provides an innovative theoretical analysis of the collage of voices and artistic directions in contemporary Israeli prose written in times of political and cultural debate on the occupation and its intifadas.

Directed by God

Directed by God
Author: Yaron Peleg
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Total Pages: 201
Release: 2016-09-13
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1477309535

As part of its effort to forge a new secular Jewish nation, the nascent Israeli state tried to limit Jewish religiosity. However, with the steady growth of the ultraorthodox community and the expansion of the settler community, Israeli society is becoming increasingly religious. Although the arrival of religious discourse in Israeli politics has long been noticed, its cultural development has rarely been addressed. Directed by God explores how the country’s popular media, principally film and television, reflect this transformation. In doing so, it examines the changing nature of Zionism and the place of Judaism within it. Once the purview of secular culture, Israel’s media initially promoted alternatives to traditional religious expression; however, using films such as Kadosh, Waltz with Bashir, and Eyes Wide Open, Yaron Peleg shows how Israel’s contemporary film and television programs have been shaped by new religious trends and how secular Israeli culture has processed and reflected on its religious heritage. He investigates how shifting cinematic visions of Jewish masculinity and gender track transformations in the nation’s religious discourse. Moving beyond the secular/religious divide, Directed by God explores changing film and television representations of different Jewish religious groups, assessing what these representations may mean for the future of Israeli society.

Side by Side

Side by Side
Author: Sāmī ʻAbd al-Razzāq ʻAdwān
Publisher: The New Press
Total Pages: 18
Release: 2012
Genre: History
ISBN: 1595586830

In 2000, a group of Israeli and Palestinian teachers gathered to address what to many people seemed an unbridgeable gulf between the two societies. Struck by how different the standard Israeli and Palestinian textbook histories of the same events were from one another, they began to explore how to "disarm" the teaching of the history of the Middle East in Israeli and Palestinian classrooms. The result is a riveting "dual narrative" of Israeli and Palestinian history. Side by Side comprises the history of two peoples, in separate narratives set literally side-by-side, so that readers can track each against the other, noting both where they differ as well as where they correspond. The unique and fascinating presentation has been translated into English and is now available to American audiences for the first time. An eye-opening--and inspiring--new approach to thinking about one of the world's most deeply entrenched conflicts, Side by Side is a breakthrough book that will spark a new public discussion about the bridge to peace in the Middle East.

Liberalization and Culture in Contemporary Israel

Liberalization and Culture in Contemporary Israel
Author: Ari Ofengenden
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 213
Release: 2018-09-15
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1498570364

In this book Ari Ofengenden examines the ways that Israel’s integration into global economy has affected its main stream culture. Ofengenden uses works of Israeli film, literature, and television, from the past 30 years to conceptualize the changes in Israel’s culture. He analyzes the central phenomena associated with Israel’s integration into the global economy including: the demise of realism and the rise of commercial culture, the production of film, television, and novels for western audiences, and the critiques of capitalism in media. Ofengenden also explores the refiguring national identity through critique of masculinity. The book also discusses the affect globalization and marketization has had on modern narratives of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Narratives of Dissent

Narratives of Dissent
Author: Rachel S. Harris
Publisher: Wayne State University Press
Total Pages: 384
Release: 2012-12-17
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0814338046

Students and teachers of Israeli studies will appreciate Narratives of Dissent.