1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910780378003321

Autore

Kimmerling Baruch

Titolo

The invention and decline of Israeliness : state, society, and the military / / Baruch Kimmerling

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Berkeley, : University of California Press, c2001

ISBN

9780520939301

0-520-93930-1

1-59734-686-1

9780520229686

9780520246720

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (280 p.)

Disciplina

306/.095694

Soggetti

National characteristics, Israeli

Jews - Israel - Identity

Religion and state - Israel

Israel Social conditions 20th century

Israel Ethnic relations

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (p. 239-256) and index.

Nota di contenuto

Front matter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1. The Mythological-Historical Origins of the Israeli State: An Overview -- 2. Building an Immigrant Settler State -- 3. The Invention and Decline of Israeliness -- 4. The End of Hegemony and the Onset of Cultural Plurality -- 5. The Newcomers -- 6. The Cultural Code of Jewishness: Religion and Nationalism -- 7. The Code of Security: The Israeli Military-Cultural Complex -- Conclusions -- Works Cited -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

This thought-provoking book, the first of its kind in the English language, reexamines the fifty-year-old nation of Israel in terms of its origins as a haven for a persecuted people and its evolution into a multi- cultural society. Arguing that the mono-cultural regime built during the 1950's is over, Baruch Kimmerling suggests that the Israeli state has divided into seven major cultures. These seven groups, he contends, have been challenging one other for control over resource



distribution and the identity of the polity. Kimmerling, one of the most prominent social scientists and political analysts of Israel today, relies on a large body of sociological work on the state, civil society, and ethnicity to present an overview of the construction and deconstruction of the secular-Zionist national identity. He shows how Israeliness is becoming a prefix for other identities as well as a legal and political concept of citizen rights granted by the state, though not necessarily equally to different segments of society.