The culture of Israel was in development long before the foundation of the State of Israel in 1948 and is a combination of secular life and religious heritage. Much of the diversity of Israel's culture seems to come from the diversity of the Jews who make up Israel. Originating from around the world, new immigrants bring individual cultural elements from their countries and contribute to a continuing development of Israeli culture that follows cultural changes throughout the world. The culture is also largely based on the history of the Jewish people which developed in different ways over the hundreds of years of Jewish exodus. The ideology of the Zionist movement beginning in the late nineteenth century is crucial to understanding modern Israeli culture.
Zionism
Zionism is an international political movement that originally supported the reestablishment of a homeland for the Jewish People in Palestine (Hebrew: Eretz Yisra'el, “the Land of Israel”), and continues primarily as support for the modern state of Israel.
Although Zionism's origins are earlier, the movement was formally established by the Austro-Hungarian journalist Theodor Herzl in the late 19th century. The movement, which encourages Jewish migration to the Promised Land, was successful in establishing Israel as the world's first and only modern Jewish State in 1948. Described as"diaspora nationalism," proponents of Zionism regard it as a national liberation movement whose aim is the self-determination of the Jewish people.
Prior to establishing the State
The development of Israeli culture may be associated with immigration from various countries with different cultural backgrounds. In the first years of Jewish settlement in Palestine, the main influences on the culture were the shtetls (Jewish towns) from which most of the immigrants came. The culture of France and Germany also had an effect on the Israeli culture, becoming more popular after large contributions were made by the Jewish French philanthropist Baron Edmond James de Rothschild.
Russian culture also had an undeniable poetical, musical, and theatrical effect on Israel until the 1950s. Prominent artists included poets such as Rachel Bluwstein, Nathan Alterman, Leah Goldberg, and Alexander Penn; theater people such as Hanna Rovina and Shimon Finkel; and musicians such as Sasha Argov. The Habima Theatre brought its Russian and Yiddish roots when it immigrated to Israel.
1930s and 1940s
In the 1930s and 1940s, a movement took place to develop an "authentic" Israeli culture, originating amongst people born in Palestine. This culture was largely influenced by the Arab Palestinian culture, particularly in its folklore and styles of attire, dance, speech, and behavior. An effect more compound was in the music, which was adopting many eastern elements.
A prominent influence in these years was of the British through their Mandate of Palestine. Elements from their culture and ways of life were absorbed by parts of the rich bourgeoisie. Still another important source of inspiration was the German culture, imported by German immigrants; for example, many of the houses in Tel Aviv and the designs of its avenues were inspired by the Bauhaus movement to resemble the.
1950s, 1960s and 1970s
After the founding of the state in 1948, immigrants rushed to Israel from many different countries, but their influence on the Israeli culture happened only gradually and relatively. In the 1950s, the prominent effects on Israel were the cultures of England, France, and the United States. Since the early 1960s and more prominently in the 1970s, additional dominant effects began to appear. In theater, the Russian dominancy began to weaken gradually and other effects began to permeate such as the European theater of Bertolt Brecht. In music, in spite of the continuance of the French effect they began to weaken. Instead, a wide variety of effects, such as British popular music (and in particular The Beatles), Greek music, and a more updated Russian culture influenced Israeli culture.
The effect of the culture of the immigrants from the Arab states on Israeli culture was considerable, but until the end of the 1970s, it was generally served by means of "middlemen". For example, prominent representatives of the Mizrahi culture on the stages was "HaGashash HaHiver" while the movies which dealt with the world of the Mizrahi Jews ("Bourekas films") were directed and acted almost always by non-Mizrahi Jews, including Ephraim Kishon, Boaz Davidson, and Menahem Golan and Gila Almagor, Yehuda Barkan, Chaim Topol, and Shaike Ophir.
1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s
Since the beginning of the mid 1980s, the Israeli cultural arena became more open and varied by far from previous years. In the field of music, particularly popular music, the main influences were from Britain, Europe, and South America; in addition to those, Turkish, Greek, and Arab music gradually became more important; in the field of plastic arts the effect was mainly American; in the field of stage arts there was a wide variety of effects, with special place to the renewed Russian effects, due to a significant immigration from Russia; in the field of literature, creators like Gabriel García Márquez made their presence felt.
Modern Israeli culture
Currently, the Israeli government offers less financial support to the arts at an amount lower than what is average in most western countries and less than half percent of which arrives from the country's budget. Israel's Philharmonic Orchestra has concerts throughout the country and abroad. The Israeli broadcasting authority orchestra performs concerts throughout the world as well. To the local authorities there are many little orchestras, which their players arrive usually from the former Soviet Union. Israel is world renowned for the greatness of its modern dance, with bands like Batsheva and Batdor.
Theater is also an important facet of the culture of Israel. Founded in 1917, the national theater is the Habima Theatre. Habima Theatre, Cameri Theater, Beit Lessin Theater, Gesher Theater (which performs in Hebrew and in Russian), Haifa Theater and the Beersheba Theater are considered to be the most important in Israel. Their shows cover a variety of classic and modern drama as well as plays of Israeli playwrights.
Colonies of artists are situated in Safed, Jaffa, and Ein Hod but are considered less attractive today. Israeli painters and sculptors sell their works throughout the world. Art museums are in the cities Tel Aviv, Herzlia, Jerusalem, and in many towns and kibbutzim. The Israel Museum of Art in Jerusalem houses the Dead Sea scrolls and a comprehensive collection of Jewish religious art and popular art.
Since the 1980s, a well-developed Alternative Israeli Culture has developed in Israel in the fields of music, dance, comics, poetry, art, and more.
Influences of the melting pot
The first Israeli prime minister, David Ben Gurion, led a trend to blend the many immigrants who arrived at the first years of the state from Europe, North Africa, and Asia into one melting pot that will not differentiate between the older residents of the country and the new immigrants. The original purpose was to unite the immigrants with the veteran Israelis for the creation of a common Israeli culture in order to build a new nation in the new country.
The two central tools that were destined for this effect were the Israel Defense Forces and the education system.
· Israel Defense Forces - by the means of its transformation to the army of the nation which will constitute a common ground between all civilians of the country wherever they are.
· The education system - firstly in the method of unitary education, following the cancellation of the method of the currents in education and uniting the education system under the education laws, in order that different student from different sectors would study together at the same schools.
In a gradual process the Israeli society became more pluralistic and the melting pot derided with the years.
Criticism of the melting pot
Some critics of the melting pot consider it to have been a necessity in the first years of the state in order to build a mutual society but now claim that there is no longer a need for it. They instead see a need for Israeli society to enable the people to express the differences and the exclusiveness of every stream and sector.
Others, mainly Mizrahi Jews and Holocaust survivors from Europe, criticized the early melting pot process. According to them, they were forced to give up or conceal their original heritage and culture, which they brought from their homelands, and to adopt a new "Sabra" culture. This has been articulated by the Anglo-Jewish writer Emanuel Litvinoff who lamented the denigration of the Yiddish language and objected to a Zionist 'chauvinism.'
