15. Summary: Israel and its Culture
Israeli society in the early 21st century is struggling
toward a collective identity, caught in a web of internal
tensions and contradictions. Individualism may have replaced
many of the collective ideals of earlier generations but
idealism – although it sometimes becomes muddled
with patriotism – has not disappeared entirely.
Individual love songs have long displaced the older form
of love song – those to the country, the land, the
people, the State and its ideals; nonetheless, people
still gather to sing those earlier songs in communal settings.
Individual or couple dancing have long supplanted the
place of group folk dancing (except in large parts of
the religious world, which is another story); in recent
years, however, attendance has significantly increased
of regular evenings of folk dancing, updated and adapted
for the present day.
Israel’s narrative is very complex: this essay has
focused on thirteen subjects and the ways in which they
are reflected in creative culture. Together, they have
helped to create Israeli culture. Each has evinced a strong
influences on the country’s way of life, yet perhaps
the better phrase would be ‘ways of life.’
In metaphorical terms, Israeli society can be viewed as
a knot at the center of many tangled ropes: each rope
attempts to pull the knot (and all the other ropes) in
some direction, causing all the others to move from side
to side. Such is Israeli society: constantly moving, changing
and developing. Those holding the ropes are all the different
groups connected with the subjects surveyed in this essay.
Due to the tangle, however, the knot is growing increasingly
taut and confused by its internal contradictions.
It is not easy to understand Israel. Maybe it is harder
still to live here. Nevertheless, its culture is one of
the most interesting in our world, as reading this essay
should have made clear.