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 IN SEARCH OF IDENTITY:
JEWISH ASPECTS IN ISRAELI CULTURE
 Cass Studies in
Israeli History, Politics and Society
ISSN 1368-4795

General Editor: Efraim Karsh

1. Peace in the Middle East: The Challenge for Israel

edited by Efraim Karsh

2. The Shaping of Israeli Identity: Myth, Memory and Trauma

edited by Robert Wistrich and David Obana

3. Between War and Peace: Dilemmas of Israeli Security

edited by Efraim Karsh

4. U.S.–Israeli Relations at the Crossroads

edited by Gabriel Sheffer

5. From Rabin to Netanyahu: Israel's Troubled Agenda

edited by Efraim Karsh

6. Israel at the Polls 1996

edited by Daniel Elazar and Shmuel Sandler

7. In Search of Identity: Jewish Aspects in Israeli Culture

edited by Dan Urian and Efraim Karsh
IN SEARCH OF IDENTITY
Jewish Aspects in Israeli Culture

Edited by
DAN URIAN
and
EFRAIM KARSH

FRANK CASS
LONDON • PORTLAND, OR
 First published in 1999 in Great Britain by
FRANK CASS AND COMPANY LIMITED
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, 0X14 4RN

and in the United States of America by

FRANK CASS
270 Madison Ave, New York NY 10016

Transferred to Digital Printing 2005

Copyright © 1999 Frank Cass & Co. Ltd.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

In search of identity: Jewish aspects in Israeli culture.

– (Israeli history, politics and society)
1. Jews – Israel – Civilization. 2. Subculture – Israel.
3. Jews – Attitudes towards Israel. 4. Jews – Israel –Identity
I. Karsh, Efraim II. Urian, Dan

ISBN 0 7146 4889 2 (cloth)

ISBN 0 7146 4440 4 (paper)
ISSN 1368-4795

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

In search of identity: Jewish aspects in Israeli culture / edited by

Dan Urian and Efraim Karsh.
p. cm. – (Israeli history, politics, and society, ISSN
1368-4795)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-7146-4889-2 (hb). – ISBN 0-7146-4440-4 (pb)
1. Jews–Israel– Identity. 2. Judaism – Israel. 3. Israel–
Intellectual life. 4. Popular culture–Israel. 5. Israel–Social
conditions. I. Urian, Dan. II. Karsh, Efraim. III. Series.
DS113.3.S43 1998
306'.095694–dc21 98-21761
CIP

This group of studies first appeared in a Special Issue,

In Search of Identity: Jewish Aspects in Israeli Culture in Israel Affairs,
[ISSN 1353-7121] Vol.4, Nos.3&4 (Spring/Summer 1998).

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may he reproduced, stored in or introduced
into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission
of the publisher of this book.
 Contents

Introduction Efraim Karsh and Dan Urian 1

CULTURAL TENSION
Judaism in Israeli Culture Eliezer Schweid 9

Secular Judaism and Its Prospects Charles S. Liebman 29

Between Hegemony and Dormant

Kulturkampf in Israel Baruch Kimmerling 49

Shall We Find Sufficient Strength? On Behalf

of Israeli Secularism Gershon Shaked 73

Between Rabbi Shach and Modern Hebrew

Literature Dan Miron 86

THE JEWISHNESS OF ISRAELI IDENTITY

Spiritual Rootlessness and Circumscription to the
'Here and Now' in the Sabra World View Avraham Shapira 103

The Shdemot Circle Members in Search of

Jewish Sources Gad Ufaz 132

Jewish Education in the Jewish State David Zisenwine 146

ARTISTIC REPRESENTATIONS OF JEWISH IDENTITY

Sisera's Mother and the Trojan Women: On Universal

Aspects of the Jewish/Israeli Theatre Eli Rozik-Rosen 159

From Jew to Hebrew: The 'Zionist Narrative' in the

Israeli Cinema of the 1940s and 1950s Nurit Gertz 175

The Theme of Jerusalem in the Works of the

Israeli Fathers of Conceptual Arts Mordechai Omer 200

The Dybbuk Revisited: Images of Religious Jews

on the Israeli Stage Shimon Levy 219
Baalei Teshuva ('Returnees to the Religious Fold')
in Israeli Theatre Dan Urian 230

From Rejection to Recognition: Israeli Art and the

Holocaust Dalia Manor 253

Index 279
 Introduction

EFRAIM KARSH and DAN URIAN

As Israel reaches its fiftieth year of statehood and peace with the
Palestinians and the Arab states seems ever closer, Israeli society faces a
deepening crisis of identity. On the face of it, an inexplicable paradox.
Why should Israelis have any self-doubts about their collective identity
at a time when even their most implacable enemies are resigning
themselves to the existence of the Jewish State in their midst? Besides,
such has been the success of Zionism that most Israelis have always taken
the Jewish identity of their state for granted. 1 Not in a predominantly
religious sense: for not only did Zionism conceive of the prospective
Jewish State as a modern, chiefly secular entity, but it was as much a
revolt against the reign of the rabbis as against Diaspora life itself.
Rather, given its fundamental belief that the Jews constitute a distinct
nation, not a mere religious community, and hence deserve a state of
their own, Zionism has always subordinated the religious aspect of
Jewish identity to the national one. Its recourse to the Bible as a source
of legitimacy and its harping on religious sentiments – notably the
millenarian yearning for Return embedded in Jewish religious practices
from antiquity – were all geared to the overriding goal of reconstituting
Jewish statehood in their ancestral homeland.
This was to be a Jewish State – a state of the Jews and for the Jews.
Not in the sense of being exclusively Jewish: contrary to a commonly
held misperception, from an early stage Zionism had reconciled itself to
the existence of a sizeable Arab minority in the Jewish state-to-be. As
David Ben-Gurion put it in December 1947: 'In our state there will be
non-Jews as well – and all of them will be equal citizens; equal in
everything without any exception; that is: the state will be their state as

Efraim Karsh is Professor and Head of the Mediterranean Studies Programme, King's
College, University of London. Dan Urian is Associate Professor of Theatre Studies at Tel-
Aviv University.
2 IN SEARCH OF IDENTITY

well.' 2 Rather, the prospective state was to be Jewish in its national ethos
– historically, culturally, religiously – just as France was French and
England was English. The various minorities would enjoy equitable
treatment, with their religions and cultures even given official status by
the state – something that is not yet applicable to the most advanced
Western democracies;3 but as minorities they would ipso facto have to
acquiesce in the majority's national ethos, as is the case throughout the
world. And in Israel's case, the existence of a Jewish majority has been a
sine qua non for both the establishment of the state and its continued
existence. For it is the unwavering conviction that only by becoming a
majority in a state of their own would the Jews be able to liberate
themselves from the perennial weakness and insecurity attending their
Diaspora minority existence which lies at the heart of the Zionist ideal.
Were this majority to disappear, for one reason or another, the raison
d'etat of the Jewish State would be irrevocably shattered.
Against this backdrop, it is scarcely surprising that the 1967 Six Day
War was to set in train the most severe identity crisis experienced by the
Jewish State since its establishment in May 1948. On the one hand, the
occupation of the West Bank, or Judea and Samaria as they had long
been known, reopened the question of Israel's ultimate borders,
ostensibly settled in 1947 when mainstream Zionism accepted the
partition of Mandatory Palestine into Jewish and Arab states. On the
other hand, the coming of the Palestinian population of the West Bank
and the Gaza Strip under Israeli control, at a time when the prospects of
mass Jewish immigration, or aliya, seemed rather dim, raised the
question of Israel's Jewish identity, were these territories to be annexed.
Exacerbated by a string of corollary developments, such as the rise of
religious messianism preaching the settlement of the entire Land of
Israel, the corrupting effects of the occupation on Israeli society, and the
evolution of Israeli–Palestinian economic interdependence, these
dialectical pressures were not long in generating deep schisms within
Israeli society.
These conflicts have been most evident in the political field, where
the main battle on the future of the territories has been waged. But they
have been equally manifest in other walks of Israeli life, not least in the
sphere of 'high culture' – literature, theatre, cinema, dance, the plastic
arts, music etc. Like most nineteenth and twentieth century national
movements, culture played a focal role in the shaping of Jewish–Israeli
national identity; and with Zionism being the secular movement that it
is, culture became the effective prism through which religious and
historical notions of Jewish nationalism were filtered. It was culture that
brought to life – in word, sound and motion – the Zionist ideal of a new
and heroic Israeli persona, the sabra, as an antithesis to the then widely
held image of the Diaspora Jew;4 and it was culture that provided the
main mirror through which most Israelis viewed their image: their
historical bond to the Land of Israel, their conflict with the Palestinians
INTRODUCTION 3
and the wider Arab World, their intercommunal relations, etc.
During the first two decades of independence, dominated by the
heroic establishment of the state and the Sisyphean consolidation of its
foundations, including the absorption of mass immigration and the
winning of two further wars, Israeli culture tended by and large towards
a hopeful and optimistic outlook, with social and political problems
raised and 'solved' in books, plays and films. It was only after the
October 1973 War, and all the more so after the 1982 Lebanon War, that
the cultural emphasis began shifting from the consensual to the
controversial. Unsolvable problems and irreconcilable schisms and
contradictions in Israeli society and way of life became the regular diet
of artists, as the 'mainstream culture' gave way to a growing number of
peripheral subcultures. 'The Israeli is no longer the master of his own
home', Israeli academic Gershon Shaked lamented. 'His signal language
and world of values have lost their significance because they have lost
their validity and inner strength. A new, different language is taking the
place of that which has breathed its terminal breath.' 5
An important subculture which has gained rapid momentum in the
wake of the Six Day War has been the religious one, with two main
branches: the religious Zionist and the ultra-Orthodox (haredi). The
former's main reservoir lies in the settlements of the West Bank and
Gaza, but it also boasts a substantial following among the religious and
traditional Ashkenazi middle class within Israel itself. The latter group,
historically opposed to the establishment of a Jewish State before the
arrival of the messiah, has mellowed its anti-Zionist rhetoric over the
past decade in favour of a deepening involvement in Israel's political life.
Add to this the establishment and rapid expansion of a new Sephardi
haredi political party (SHAS), and the growing haredi interest in the
hitherto blasphemous media of television and theatre, among others, in
their struggle to give their cultural and ideological beliefs the widest
possible exposure, to understand the steady weakening of the
mainstream culture.
The 'culture war' between secular and religious Jews, to be sure, is
not new. Its origins can be traced to the late eighteenth century, when the
enlightenment movement challenged the Orthodox establishment and its
traditional definition of Jewishness along purely religious lines. The
Zionist movement, as noted earlier, took this revolt a significant step
forward by making the national, rather than the religious, aspect of
Judaism the cornerstone of Jewish identity: shared destiny, one ancestral
homeland, Hebrew as a national language and, above all, shared national
aspirations, should be the defining factors of Jewishness – not the extent
of one's religious practice. It is no accident that Israel's Law of Return,
turning the Nazi anti-Jewish laws on their head, defines a Jew as any
person who claims Jewish ancestry within a three-generation span, in
contravention to the halachic, or the rabbinical, definition of Jewishness,
whereby only those born to Jewish mothers are considered Jewish.
4 IN SEARCH OF IDENTITY

Hence the unmitigated haredi hostility to the Zionist Revolution which

not only challenged G-D's will by seeking the establishment of a nation
state, but also imperilled the predominantly religious based exilic Jewish
identity.
What makes this latest round in the Kulturkampf particularly
important is that, for the first time in the century-long history of the
Zionist movement, the secular-national brand of Jewish identity that lies
at the core of the State of Israel seems to be giving ground to a
predominantly religious perception of Jewishness. For, not only has the
established Israeli–Jewish identity come under growing pressure from a
more assertive ultra-Orthodox establishment, but expressions of self-
doubt have been voiced by some well known practitioners of 'high
culture', probably the most secularized and avowedly anti-religious
sector of Israeli society. Thus, for example, according to poet Dalia
Rabikowitz, there is no such thing as secular Israeli culture. 'Our secular
culture is a "no" culture,' she claimed. 'I do not observe the mitzvot and
do not believe in the resurrection of the dead or the coming of the
messiah. Nor am I familiar with the traditional expressions of joy,
bereavement, and their like – yet have no clear alternative to them; and
then the high holidays arrive and I have no idea how to spend them apart
from filling my refrigerator and getting bored.' 6
Although indicative of the growing defensiveness of Israeli artists and
intellectuals about their Jewish identity, this self-abnegation is by no means
the standard view. In the words of the poet and essayist Nathan Zach:
What has the secular, or liberal (free) culture created here? My
answer is rather straightforward: almost everything – for better, for
worse. From A.D. Gordon, Y.H. Brenner, Ahad Ha-am and Bialik to
S. Yizhar, Yoram Kaniuk, and Dalia Rabikowitz, to Yehuda Amichai,
Lova Eliav, Amos Oz, David Grossman, and Yehoshua Knaz. And all
this is merely in the field of literature and social conscience. I have
said nothing yet on medicine and its eradication of the rampant
regional diseases, as well as on the fields of law, journalism,
architecture, painting, sculpture, cinema, music, theatre, and sports.7
A study of Israeli culture on the eve of the next millennium thus affords
a meaningful insight into a society in a state of transition. So, for
example, a recent collection of essays on youth culture in Israel makes
almost no mention of the Jewishness of Israeli culture, lamenting instead
the 'severance from the past and loss of faith in the future, as if culture
were imprisoned in a present-continuous of sorts'. This postmodern
situation in which one can turn to neither tradition nor ideology for
guidance accounts for the muddled state of mind of present-day Israeli
society: 'The present becomes a shock since, by virtue of not being
perceived as part of a continuum, there is nothing to prepare us for it. It
is always new.'8
This problematic continuum between past and present, between
INTRODUCTION 5
Israeliness and Jewishness, lies at the core of this volume. In the first
part, Eliezer Schweid, Charles S. Liebman, Baruch Kimmerling, Gershon
Shaked, and Dan Miron discuss the nature and characteristics of this
cultural tension, while in the second, Avraham Shapira, Gad Ufaz, and
David Zisenwine examine the Jewishness of Israeli identity in several
spheres such as the ethos of the sabra, and the 'discovery' of Jewish roots
by the kibbutz movement. In the final part, Eli Rozik-Rosen, Nurit Gertz,
Mordechai Omer, Shimon Levy, Dan Urian, and Dalia Manor examine
selected works from the fields of literature, cinema, theatre and art as an
interpretative reflection of the Israeli–Jewish reality.

NOTES

1. Thus, for example, in a survey of Jewish Israeli positions and attitudes in the early
1990s, 90 per cent of Jewish Israelis defined themselves as Zionist, and 94 per cent
expressed pride at being Jewish. Shlomit Levy, Hana Levinsohn and Elihu Katz, Beliefs,
Religious Observance, and Social Relations among Jewish Israelis (Jerusalem: Gutmann
Institute, 1993) (Hebrew).
2. David Ben-Gurion, Ba-ma'araha (In Battle) (Tel-Aviv, 1959), Vol.IV, Part 2, p.260.
3. Thus, for example, Arabic constitutes Israel's official language alongside Hebrew, and
Muslim and Christian religious holidays are considered official holidays.
4. See, for example, OzAlmog,The Sabra –A Profile (Tel-Aviv, 1997) (Hebrew).
5. Gershon Shaked, 'Light,Shadow, and Plurality: Israeli Literature's Dialectic Struggle
with a Changing Reality', Alpayim, No.4 (1991), p. 130.
6. Dalia Rabikowitz, 'There is no Secular Culture in this State', Shishi, 22 Dec. 1995.
7. Nathan Zach, 'There is a Secular Culture in this State', Shishi, 29 Dec. 1995.
8. Gadi Taub, The Bent-Backed Rebellion: On Youth Culture in Israel (Tel-Aviv, 1997),
p.63 (Hebrew).
CULTURAL TENSION
 Judaism in Israeli Culture

ELIEZER SCHWEID

The substitution, following the creation of the State of Israel, of the term
'Israeli Culture' for that of 'Hebrew Culture', which had been the accepted
one during the pre-State Yishuv period, expresses a transformation in the
culture itself. Not only did the political and social institutions of cultural
life change, but also the way of life and patterns of human relationships
which find their expression in creativity. As a result, the understanding of
the nature and function of culture, of spiritual life and of spiritual creation
as a uniting and identifying process, likewise changed: these are no longer
perceived as the central factor identifying one national society or people,
while the society or the nation as a whole no longer seeks all its spiritual
needs or the expression of all of the 'selves' of its component individuals
within the framework of nationality.
Thus, the totality of creation as constituted by the expressions of all the
individuals and groups is no longer understood within the monistic
framework of national culture, but is perceived as composed of many
different compartments, including the national, the religious and the
national-religious, which are not necessarily open to one another, and do
not even necessarily connect all of their component individuals to a single
national society or to one people. In place of the national society and
culture which seek to mix and to connect, there are manifested in
retrospect a broad gamut of partial identities and belongings. Not only
various communities, ethnic groups or movements, but even each
individual can identify partially with several of these, taking from each one
his own 'piece' (how much our young people love the expression 'this
piece', ha-keta ha-zeh as a form of expression typifying their way of
thinking!) as he wishes.
In other words, the individual no longer entirely defines his identity
within the realm of nationalism, or even that of religiosity. Where then is

Eliezer Schweid is Professor of Jewish Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

10 IN SEARCH OF IDENTITY

such wholeness to be identified? As mentioned, this definition has been

removed to the instrumental and organizational framework of the material
culture, described in the universal political terms of the state. This is in fact
the significance of Tsraeliness', which for the majority of those who identify
themselves as 'Israelis' connotes civil political-linguistic-territorial
belonging. This usually incorporates a certain measure of 'Hebraism' as
well as of 'Judaism', in the religious, traditional or national sense, but these
are generally partial and fragmented. Even when these are to be found at
the centre of personal identity, they are not inclusive, but are liable to be
limited, marginalized, or externalized in relation – friendly or hostile – to
the identity of others in the nation, or even disappear entirely, leaving in
their wake, like the smile of the Cheshire cat, a hazy memory of 'origin'.
This reality, which may be seen today with great clarity, was the dialectic
result of the establishment of the State. I said 'dialectical result', as it is quite
clear that such was not the intention of the founders, who 'after two
thousand years of Exile' created a Jewish State to be based upon Hebrew
culture. The state was called 'Israel' after the ancient name of the people,
for which in turn the land was named, to indicate a distinct cultural and
national identity. According to the Declaration of Independence, Israel was
intended to be, not only 'the state of the Jews', but also 'a Jewish State', a
centre that would symbolize unity and from whence the spiritual heritage
would flow to the people as a whole. Based on this approach, laws were
introduced shaping a policy of ingathering of exiles and their social-cultural
integration, of Jewish-national education, and of the shaping of a Jewish
'public realm'. Moreover, in its early years the state functioned as a 'melting
pot', whose purpose was to forge an inclusive cultural-national identity on
the basis of the tradition of 'Hebrew Culture' from the period of the Yishuv.
However, the result of this process, which in practice focused upon the
establishment and grounding of a modern Israeli 'statehood'
(mamlakhtiut), in which priority was given to the factors of national
security and economic and organizational-instrumental creativity, and with
the emphatic desire to shape a civil society based upon a consciousness of
statehood, was just the opposite. The unifying national message focused
upon the immediate work at hand: the establishment of state institutions
and their economic, technological, administrative, socio-professional,
legal-professional and political functioning – areas whose development and
perfection predominantly required the internalization of knowledge and
expertise drawn from external, Western sources, and not specifically from
the values of the tradition.
Against the background of these emphases within the formal education
frameworks, a process of voluntary rehabilitation of the cultural, religious,
traditional, ethnic or modern-national heritages brought by the immigrants
from different backgrounds also began. Simultaneously, the quest for
identity on the part of young people who had been born and educated in
the State began to occur at a growing distance from their parents'
JUDAISM IN ISRAELI CULTURE 11

old-fashioned cultural sources, and closer to the contemporary outside

sources from which originated the scientific and technological tools and
contents vital for the defence, building and grounding of the state as a
prosperous Western civilization. Thus, the effort to integrate and to unite
the people within the 'melting pot' of a national state culture led to the
forgetting and decline of the Yishuv culture, and the emergence of the
multicompartmentalized and fragmented Israeli culture described above.

As mentioned, the initial factor leading to this change was the establishment
of the State as an institutional-governmental system on a suitable basis of
modern civilization. However, in the broader sense one may speak of an
historical process of consolidation that continued over a generation and
was affected by two more factors alluded to above: the demographic
transformation, caused by a series of waves of mass immigration from
several different countries of origin, and the cultural transformation
which took place in the sources of influence of Western civilization
following the Second World War. I refer here primarily to the spread
of modern and postmodern American civilization, together with its
scientific-technological, socioeconomic, institutional-governmental, legal,
social-ethic and spiritual characteristics.
The mass aliya rejected the Hebrew culture of the Yishuv as for the most
part alien to it, as well as being inadequate and irrelevant, and in the final
analysis led to its destruction. The main cause of this was the vast size of
this aliya: not only in the sense that within a few years Israel's Jewish
population doubled in size, thereafter continuing to grow in similar
dimensions to this very day. More importantly, upon its arrival each aliya
created a sociocultural reality of uprooted masses of people whose cultural
memories had been suppressed and denied expression during the traumatic
process of absorption, and who were equally unable to internalize or
creatively confront the cultural influences of the absorbing society, beyond
absorbing certain material elements and a passive acceptance of the secular
values that accompanied them.
This in itself, together with the fact that the Yishuv culture was intended
to act as an absorbing and integrating force, namely one that dominated the
immigrants who were alien to it and forcibly changed their culture while
guiding them towards itself, led to the emergence of the destructive and
decadent features of mass culture: social, linguistic, behavioural and
spiritual 'gaps' and 'breaks', coupled with material manifestations typical of
a culture of poverty, on the one hand, and of a culture of exaggerated
wealth (relative to the poorer class), on the other.
It would seem that only after a period of time, once the socioeconomic
consolidation of the new aliya had allowed their suppressed cultural
memories to begin their rehabilitation, that the long term structural effect
of the mass aliya became clear: to wit, the emergence of a wide range of
cultural heritages, different and alienated from one another in nearly all
12 IN SEARCH OF IDENTITY

their ways of expression, language, manners and values.

If truth be told, the sense of alienation, whose source lay in the strong
assimilating influences of the cultures of the various different countries of
origin, was already manifest in the initial social encounter between the
aliyot and the 'veteran Yishuv', characterized in practice by a rejection that
was clearly opposed to the ideology of absorbing aliya and of the 'melting
pot'. This sense was expressed in the image of the 'Second Israel' – a
comprehensive term used to refer to the ma'abarot (absorption camps),
'development towns', moshavim and poor urban neighbourhoods in which
the olim were absorbed. The assimilatory power of the various different
countries upon the new olim was clearly stronger than the common Jewish
denominator, which was anchored on the one hand to tradition and
religion, and on the other to awareness of origin and destiny and to weak
and confused memories of fragments of tradition.
Since we are concerned with the issue of the Judaism of Israeli culture,
it is important to emphasize the sense of alienation aroused with the arrival
of each new wave of immigration: the 'new olim' came to the country on
the basis of their own Jewishness, a fact that isolated them in their country
of origin and generally caused their rejection by it. However, during their
initial encounter in Israel there stood out specifically their 'non-Jewish'
foreignness, to the extent that it completely hid the signs of their common
cultural code. The olim who came to the State of Israel were thus viewed
by the veteran, absorbing society – including those immigrants who had
preceded them by only a few years – as 'Iraqis', 'Moroccans', 'Yemenites',
'Romanians', 'Russians', 'Americans', 'Ethiopians' etc.
This fact could not but delay the process of their acceptance and cultural
reconstruction for a long time, leading to the harsh and painful struggles that
are documented in the literary and artistic creations of the first years of the
State, and that still echo in contemporary Israeli literature. In any event, there
is no cause for surprise that the earliest phase of the process of cultural and
Jewish reconstruction of the various aliyot, which took place following the
acquisition of education and expertise and the internalization of the social
norms of the 'general' absorbing culture, did not lead to dialogic meetings in
the social-cultural realm. On the contrary, it increased the walls of hostility
and alienation, particularly with regard to those values expressing the unique
Jewish identity of all those belonging to a particular 'ethnic origin' unto
themselves. So much so, that at times it seemed as if the only common Jewish
characteristic of Israeli culture was the confrontation, friction and debate
among the different forms of Jewish identity – various kinds of religious Jews,
traditionalists, ethnics, or alternatively modern religionists or humanists –
struggling for their place within a growing sense of alienation both on the
'public street' and within literary and artistic creation.
In the long run, thus, a process of acceptance took place, through
self-rehabilitation and painful adjustment to the framework of statehood
and its modern educational and civilization framework. But, at least for the
JUDAISM IN ISRAELI CULTURE 13

present, that sociology which unites by means of material values and

external forms of behaviour has not led to the development of a dialogue
which will in turn lead to mutual fructification or the creation of a shared
culture with a clear distinctiveness of its own, stressing positive 'codes' of a
Jewish cultural heritage.
One might pose the question: What is it that prevents mutual opening
and fructification on the level of social ethic and spiritual creation? The
most obvious answer is the dominating force of the sociological process
that levels down different societies in terms of their underlying culture, and
which in retrospect expresses the overpowering sweeping influence of a
third factor: contemporary Western culture, in its American form, carried
by the economic and sociological taking root of the 'society of abundance',
marked by external and showy materialism, extreme competitiveness, and
self-centred individualism. On this level, cultural socialization challenges
the very value of cultural traditions as such. It denies the importance of
historic group identities, placing at the centre the value of individual
'self-realization' that draws upon the present alone, and creates an
impregnable barrier between an ironic high culture, which tends towards
cosmopolitan universalism and is alienated from its own tradition and
people, and the majority of society. It would appear that only
Orthodox-religious or fundamentalist-religious identities are able to
succeed (at the price of extreme closedness) in withstanding this sweeping
influence with even partial success, at least for the moment.

One should mention at this point that the Hebrew culture of the Yishuv
period was developed by the main streams within Zionism (socialist-
pioneering Zionism, general spiritual Zionism, romantic-nationalistic
Zionism and religious Zionism) under the influence of European
nationalism, humanism and socialism of the first half of the twentieth
century. The theoretical models, the ideological messages that guided its
'realization' and ways of life, the educational process in the school, as well
as the literary and artistic creations of the Yishuv period – all embodied
varied and original means of emulating and applying the patterns, contents,
educational processes and movements of cultural creativity of Europe,
expressed in the revived Hebrew language and against the background of
layers of literary heritage and Jewish tradition, particularly the
consciousness of Jewish history.
The transformation that was affected by the shift in the source of
influence from Europe to the United States, against the background of the
a-historic, a-social-ideological, and a-national 'postmodernism' that
characterized the period following the Second World War was immediate
and sweeping – albeit for nearly a generation Zionism remained the
ideology that shaped the official identity of the State of Israel, and despite
the fact that during that period it had actually changed from a controversial
minority ideology to a general Jewish consensus.
14 IN SEARCH OF IDENTITY

Against the backdrop of the traumatic memories of the Holocaust,

Zionism, as realized within the State, became the central symbol of Jewish
unity and identity. It became the accepted ideology among all those Jews
who related positively to their Jewishness, whoever they might have been
and whatever might have been their relation to the culture of their people
or its religion. One could therefore point with pride to the fact that, among
all the ideologies that led mass movements in Europe between the two
world wars, Zionism remained the only one that after the war
demonstrated its correctness and its possibility of realization. On the other
hand, immediately after the War of Independence there were also to be
heard harsh statements to the effect that Zionism had 'gone into
parentheses' – that is, that it had ceased to guide actual actions or to be
realized in the individual way of life, and had instead become a kind of
'credo'.
After the creation of the State of Israel, Zionism in effect became the
official ideology of the general state education system. From a concrete
programme involving elements of settlement, the establishment of an ideal
society, and the creation of Hebrew culture, Zionism became an
ideological-emotional declaration of faith, realized through means of
conscription into the compulsory state framework of Israel Defence Forces
(IDF) service (including extended reserve duty), expression of solidarity
with the Jewish people, the acceptance of emotional responsibility for the
lot of the people after the Holocaust, loyal citizenship to the State and the
country (that is, overcoming the temptations of emigration), and a
sympathetic attitude to the social absorption of the aliya. There was thus a
broad range of everyday social and cultural life that was left open for the
absorption of new ideals deriving from that same source from which Israel
derived its much-needed economic, political and defence support, and
upon which it also drew the scientific education, technology, and expertise
vital to its development and prosperity. There was, it is true, a certain delay
in the process of absorbing the American sociological models and cultural
ethos, due to the economic need of most of the Israeli population during
the early years of the State and the socialist-centralized policy followed in
confronting this need. However, from the beginning of the 1960s there
began a gradual improvement and change in the socioeconomic policy,
while the results of the Six Day War led to the breaking down of all
barriers. The socialist policy withdrew, and together with it collapsed the
institutions of its realization (the Histadrut) and the social frameworks
which it had created (the collective settlement). In its place there was
created the economic-social foundation required for the individualistic
competitive ethos and other characteristics of American mass culture, and
particularly of youth culture, involved in this ethos. In terms of the Jewish
characteristic of Israeli culture, the value syndrome that developed against
this background may be described as a type of assimilation that strives to
obscure all unique characteristics of modern national identity, conveying
JUDAISM IN ISRAELI CULTURE 15

legitimacy only to self-enclosed, sectarian religious units, which are limited

to their compartment without influencing the cultural periphery within
which they are mixed in an external and alienated manner.
In its most crystallized form, the result was fashioned, on both the
theoretical and practical levels, in the realm of education. I would refer to
three levels of messages: the message of the learned curriculum, the
message of the instructional framework, and the direct ideological
messages, both overt and covert, of the 'general school' system. The
greatest change in the educational philosophy of the 'general state' school
is expressed in its abdication of the functions of cultural-value socialization
of its students – what is known as the 'passing down of heritage', in the
sense of the creation of a cultural-historic perspective, the conveying of a
feeling of belonging and rootedness of the individual in the culture of his
origin: his family, his community and his people; and its encouraging of the
formulation of an overall personal-social world view that presents the
individual with binding and meaningful ideals of human life.
During the early years of education, in kindergarten and the lower
elementary grades, such educational messages still stand out; however, as
one approaches the high school years, these are gradually neglected and
pushed to the margins. In their stead come messages of 'instruction' (not
'education'!), of 'knowledge' and 'expertise', whose main purpose is
professional socialization within a broad range of detailed areas, acquired
on the basis of individual choice, while diminishing the general,
compulsory learning framework that is intended to pass on the heritage, to
crystallize a value orientated world view, and to create a circle of cultural,
identity-forming dialogue shared by all students.
The educational philosophy of the high school and university is thus
primarily directed to 'preparation for life' in the narrow sense of
professional socialization: individualistic, contemporary minded and
pragmatic-functional. The main goal is to prepare students for the
competitive race that awaits them in their adult life after their years of
schooling, in accordance with their specific talents and choices, and of
course within the framework of the expectations of the marketplace. This
being so, greatest encouragement is given during the course of studies in
school to the personal competitive motivation, rather than to that of
solidarity and belonging: the entire system of educational tracking and of
testing (particularly the baccalaureate exams, which symbolize the guiding
myth and goals of education) is directed towards outstanding egoistic
attainment. (In this it is diametrically opposed to the original humanistic
sense of 'outstandingness', which demands prior commitment of the
individual to the other and to the group, and the desire to excel in giving
to them.)
Against such a background, it is self-evident that there inevitably
emerges a serious problem in the realms of social 'values', of the
consciousness of personal spiritual 'identity', and in that of orientation
16 IN SEARCH OF IDENTITY

towards a life of meaning. It is true that this problem, known in

professional jargon as 'the problem of education for values', is being
sincerely confronted by the educational leadership. However, precisely that
formulation, and the manner in which attempts are made to answer it,
indicates the nature of those values: the school curriculum itself, and its
manner of instruction, including the teaching of 'humanistic' and 'Judaic'
subjects, are themselves understood as collections of information and as
professional disciplines, rather than as identifying sources of value
education that shape and fashion a world view. For that reason, the need is
felt to add alongside them 'education for values', as yet another 'subject'
with its own tools of instruction and specialized professional training for its
teachers, as if 'values' were a kind of 'knowledge' or 'skill' like all the
others. There likewise follows from this an institutionalized consensus: in
order to develop 'education for values', one requires special systems,
whether within or outside the school framework (generally speaking,
outside the school framework, because the school curriculum already seems
excessively full!), which need to be presented as a kind of informal,
additional enrichment; in other words – study that does not demand any
effort, but is absorbed pleasurably, like a kind of entertainment, and
certainly not as something that requires exams and marks, like those other
kinds of instructional matter that are taken 'seriously'.
The practical implication of this is that even the 'humanistic' and
'Judaic' subjects taught by the school, such as Bible, History, Hebrew
language and literature, and even Oral Torah and Jewish thought, as well
as the declarative messages of the school vis-à-vis identification with
Zionism and the Jewish people, and the various additions of 'education for
values' (for example, the values of proper behaviour and civic political
values, such as 'education for democracy') are not perceived as being
connected with the main function of the school, which is its instructional
activity, and certainly have no connection with the motivations encouraged
in order to strengthen the learning process.
There is thus no real connection between the messages of Zionism,
Judaism, humanism and democracy, and the central instructional task of the
school, which is in itself defined by and conveys messages of competitive
achievement and the desire for private and present-orientated success and
happiness. Any relation to the society and the people, to history and to
cultural heritage, or to the vision of some historical future of the people
and of mankind, are likewise exclusively understood from the
utilitarian-functional viewpoint of the individual, and are therefore seen as
at most of secondary importance.
Obviously, the issue of the 'Jewish identity' of the student of the general
school also arises within the framework of 'education for values', at least in
its political context. The leadership of the general educational system seems
to have become concerned about it with a kind of compulsive cyclicity at
least once every decade. One hears public criticism by spiritual leaders
JUDAISM IN ISRAELI CULTURE 17

concerning the fact that the general school does not properly meet the
Jewish and Zionist expectations that Israeli society wishes to convey to the
younger generation to assure its ongoing identification with it. The claim is
articulated that the degree of humanistic education, and particularly of
Jewish education, received by the students in the school is too weak and
that ignorance reigns. They complain that the identification of the students
with the Jewish People and with Zionism is superficial, and in particular
that it does not enable it to withstand the temptation of yerida (emigration
from Israel), or that it is insufficient to create a basis for understanding with
Jews of the Diaspora and with new immigrants. Nor does it provide youth
with a sufficiently convincing answer to the existential questions: Why do
I need to carry the burden of responsibility for the realization of Zionism,
and particularly, why do I need to sacrifice precious years of my life in
military service and to endanger my life for the sake of the People and the
State, when the message of the school is consistently directed towards the
ideal of individual 'self realization'?
The first 'cycle' of public confrontation with these questions occurred at
the beginning of the 1960s at the initiative of Education Minister Zalman
Aran. At the time, a programme was launched known as 'Jewish
consciousness', whose success began and ended with a tempestuous public
debate, hardly reaching the students in their classrooms at all. The Six Day
War and the Yom Kippur War led to a spiritual crisis in Israeli culture, two
of whose outstanding expressions were the movement of 'return' to religion
(hazara bi-tshuva) and the 'quest for roots'. The Education Ministry
responded to this challenge with extra-curricular programmes carried out in
a network of special institutions – the 'Zionist Institutes', 'Gesher' and
'Shorashim'. But again the results were not satisfactory; at the beginning of
the 1990s a new warning was issued concerning the widespread ignorance,
superficiality of Zionist identification, and increased yerida among those
born in the country and who had served in the IDF. A new public
commission of inquiry, the 'Shenhar Commission', was appointed, which sat
for three years until it proposed a programme for general reform in the
teaching of Judaic and humanistic subjects, suitable to the 'general' non-
religious public, under the title 'People and World' (Am Ve-Olam), based
upon the perception of Judaism as an open humanistic culture.
In light of the regularity with which this problem resurfaces, it is
difficult to deny the existence of a 'general' wish on the part of the 'general'
public in the State of Israel to convey to its children messages of Jewish
identity suitable to the cultural reality of our 'postmodern' age. It is
nevertheless difficult to deny that most of the families belonging to the
public that send their children to the 'general' school system do not wish or
do not know how to do so themselves, within the framework of their
familial and communal milieu. They expect the school to do it for them.
But it turns out that neither does the general school wish, or know, how to
do this with its own tools. The answer is that the school is unable to stand
18 IN SEARCH OF IDENTITY

up to the pressure of its commitment to other educational and instructional

messages, which reflect prior economic, social, security and political
'pressures'.
The educational system is thus hard pressed to find an educational
substitute based upon a clear, pan-Jewish consensus acceptable to all that
does not weigh down upon an already overloaded programme of study, but
will work primarily on the emotional-existential level. An appropriate
substitute is found in memories of the Holocaust and the establishment of
the State and in the consciousness of a pan-Jewish 'covenant of destiny'
which took shape within the people following the Second World War. The
members of the generation who witnessed the Holocaust and were saved
from it – the remnants of a genocidal act directed against the entire people,
including future generations – and who then experienced the establishment
of the State of Israel as a miracle of redemption, were united in accepting
their identity as Jews against the background of the apocalyptic events
which they saw with their own eyes and experienced upon their own flesh.
It was incumbent upon them to rebuild the Jewish People and to protect it
from the threat of a future Holocaust, whether this was one of physical or
of spiritual destruction (that is, assimilation). The State of Israel is the
fortress. The younger generations, against whom the Holocaust was also
directed, are obligated to know and remember and take upon themselves
the same oath and obligation towards their people and their state. This,
then, was the answer found to the question 'Why be a Jew?', to the
question 'Why live in the State of Israel?' and to the question 'Why serve
in the IDF and absorb aliya?' Over and beyond teaching the cultural
heritage of the people, and over and beyond systematic instruction in its
textual sources and history, the educational system was called upon to give
this inclusive and definitive answer. How so? By experiential, traumatic
education in the apocalyptic, mythic memory that connected the Holocaust
and the establishment of the State of Israel as a contemporary saga of
exodus from enslavement to freedom and from subjugation to redemption.
The teaching of the history of the Jewish People in the modern period
focused primarily upon the Holocaust and upon Zionism, but emphasis was
given to it by means of experiences and rituals: visits to Yad Va-shem, the
visit to Auschwitz, participation in the March of the Living, and ceremonies
for the Day of Remembrance for the Holocaust, Memorial Day for the
Fallen of the IDF, Independence Day and Jerusalem Liberation Day. One
should also emphasize in this context that literature, art, theatre and the
communications media all contributed to underscore these messages to the
general public, and particularly its young people.
This is not the appropriate forum in which to describe in detail the
development in Israel and the Diaspora of the memorialization of the
Holocaust and the establishment of the State, its institutionalization and
transformation into the central ecumenical characteristic uniting the Jewish
People in our time, leaving its impression upon all levels of Jewish cultural
JUDAISM IN ISRAELI CULTURE 19

creativity – in literature, art, scholarship, theory, and religious and national

ritual. In the context of this discussion, one may emphasize the centrality
of the educational consideration involved in the crystallization of this
memory as the primary message of identification with the Jewish People
and with Judaism, passed down as a sacred 'oath' from parents to children
in a chain of three generations. One should also note that this was a
deliberate and planned development, intended to provide an answer to the
danger of a 'holocaust of assimilation', of obscuration of the national
cultural image and the loss of will to identify with the people, with
Zionism, and with the state as a Jewish state.
The capture of Adolf Eichmann in 1960 and his bringing to trial in Israel
was done with this intention. Indeed, the trial succeeded in raising the
identifying and Jewishly-unifying message of the Holocaust to the level of
national ecumenical consciousness. It gave the first push to the inculcation
of the awareness of 'Holocaust and Rebirth' to all of the educational
systems in Israel and the Diaspora; however, the process of crystallization
and conveyance of this idea reached its full realization and acceptance in
the Six Day War (also in the consciousness of the Western countries in
relation to the Jewish People and Israel). It is easily demonstrated that,
alongside the power of the actual experiences that caused the return of the
memory and its impression upon the second and third generation after the
Holocaust, a deliberate decision was made on the part of the political and
educational elites to propose a convincing and unquestioned existential
substitute for the messages of identity that had been conveyed in the past
by systematic study and transmission of the shared tradition: study of the
sources of Judaism, study of Jewish history, crystallization of a
humanistic-Jewish and national-Zionist world view, and education for
realization of Zionism in the project of settlement and in social ways of life.
The instructional-spiritual training in the themes of 'Holocaust and
Heroism' and 'Independence and Rebirth' came, therefore, as a substitute
for, and not necessarily as a complement to, the earlier educational and
tutorial messages.
The message conveyed by the religious school system is, of course,
different, in that it stresses the transmission of the religious heritage as a
central body of knowledge, as faith, and as a way of life, and imposes
absolute commitment in its definitions of the religious and
national-religious identity of the people. However, it is also worth
emphasizing the following: with regard to all other areas of cultural
creation, there is no difference between the State-religious and general
educational streams in Israel. As a result, the teaching of religious values is
seen in the State-religious schools as the only and exclusive message of
cultural identity, because whatever does not come under the realm of
religion is not seen as belonging within Judaism. This clearly demands a
considerable degree of separation, in terms of outlook and in way of life,
from non-religious, or even from non-Orthodox-religious, Jews. As a
20 IN SEARCH OF IDENTITY

result, an unresolved tension exists in State-religious education between

two opposing value orientations: one absolute in terms of Jewish
identification, and the second relative but attractive in terms of appealing
to the desire for personal success in the various realms of general cultural
activity, understood, not as part of Jewish culture, but as a kind of external,
'neutral' area from the viewpoint of values.
The larger question pertaining to the overall Jewish image of Israeli culture
is: What shared identifying cultural denominator is created between the
students of the State-religious system and those of the general State schools?
What unites them as members of a distinct culture? Do they have a common
Jewish language? Do they have any unifying cultural contents, apart from the
myth of Holocaust and the Rebirth, conscription to the Army and citizenship
in the State? There is no convincing positive answer to these questions. The
significance of this fact will be clarified further if we turn our attention to the
ongoing debate in the State of Israel from the time of its founding until today
surrounding the question of 'Jewish identity', in two areas: the Jewish identity
of the State itself (especially in contrast to its identity as a democratic state),
and the Jewish identity of the individual, namely, 'Who is and what is a Jew?'
One might say that the polemic discussion in these two realms encompasses
the programmatic thinking that has been created to date concerning the
significance of Jewish culture in the State of Israel.

In the political and legal realms, the question of the Jewish identity of the
State of Israel has been primarily discussed in the context of the status of
established religion in a secular democracy, and the issue of the status of
non-Orthodox Jewish religious movements in the State of Israel ('Jewish
pluralism'). However, the level of personal and public concern and
involvement displayed during the course of this stormy and prolonged
debate changed it into a Kulturkampf that was well felt in the social milieu
and in everyday life, and which in practice shaped the nature of
Israeli-Jewish society. This polemic is in fact reflected on all levels of
social-cultural creativity, including literature and art.
From the cultural and spiritual viewpoint, the subject of controversy is
the degree and manner of the presence of traditional Jewish symbols in the
Jewish 'public street' of the State of Israel, on the one hand, and the
legitimacy of halachic norms shaping individual Jewish identity and the
Jewish way of life in the family and the community, on the other. Due to
Knesset legislation, the following cultural characteristics are to be found in
the 'public domain' of Israel:

• Hebrew as the official national language, whose acquisition is the act of

national-cultural absorption most emphatically demanded of new
immigrants (on this point there is general consensus).
• Respect for the Hebrew calendar, its sabbaths, holidays and other dates,
through their recognition as official days of rest and by refraining from
JUDAISM IN ISRAELI CULTURE 21

their profanation by state institutions, the Army, the municipalities and

public corporations, as well as their commemoration in various other
degrees and manners within the public street.
• Respect for the demands of kashrut by institutions of the state, the Army
and the municipalities.
• Commitment of the state to providing religious needs in a manner
stressing the presence of religious institutions and activity in the public
realm – particularly synagogues, study houses and other institutions of
religious instruction, which exert considerable effort to influence and to
affect public life as much as possible.

By virtue of Knesset legislation, halachic norms shape the definition of

individual Jewish identity, with regard to both acceptance, conversion and
registration as Jews, and family laws pertaining to marriage and divorce. As
a result of this legislation, for the majority of the Jewish residents of the
State of Israel the ecumenical presence of symbols of Jewish identity and
belonging is impressed upon the course of personal life. One should take
particular note of the acceptance of central symbolic ceremonies expressing
the belonging of the individual to the people: circumcision, bar/bat
mitzvah, marriage, and burial and mourning. One might add to these other
symbolic customs, such as the placing of a mezuza upon the doors of one's
homes. All these together join into a cultural web that may be defined as a
'civic religion' or secular tradition.
The legally sanctioned presence of symbols of Jewish belonging in the
public domain therefore penetrates into the private realm as well. It is that
which shapes the symbolic status of the Orthodox-Zionist and
Ultra-Orthodox (haredi) religious public, as that community that accepts
upon itself the Halacha (Jewish religious law) to the full extent, and that
provides necessary 'religious services' to the general public. One might say
that Orthodox Jewry in all its streams (which is perceived by the
non-Orthodox public as one Jewry) functions as a central symbol
representing the Jewish identity of the people in its state, and it is this fact
which causes 'Judaism' as a general concept to be understood even by the
non-religious public as one whose significance is defined in terms of
religion alone, rather than in those of general national culture. The almost
inevitable result that follows from this is that, for the majority of the
non-religious public, the personal relation to Judaism, and ipso facto one's
self-definition as a Jew, are not felt as an expression of contents coming
from within expressed in a spontaneous manner in everyday life, but as an
external expression, emerging only at certain times, of a voluntary or
coerced relating to certain cultural features fixed by the religious public.
The secular Israeli adopts these for himself at the appropriate times in order
to signify his belonging in principle to his public, which as such is Jewish,
and to indicate his awareness of this. But to this end he requires the
mediacy and help of 'professional Jews', without himself knowing the
22 IN SEARCH OF IDENTITY

culture that they represent in a substantive way, nor himself participating

therein in an active manner as an expression of his own feelings and
thoughts.
This statement is a far-reaching one, which demands explanation. The
fact that the ceremonies of 'civil religion' shape the course of personal life
at the points of birth, maturity, establishing a family, giving birth to
children, and the conclusion of life, indeed echo within the way of life of
the family, and have a certain impact upon the everyday consciousness of
belonging to a people and state. Moreover, together with the ceremonies of
'civic religion', non-religious Jewish family life typically draws upon further
signs of tradition, particularly folkloristic elements and those of sabbaths
and festivals, which in varying degrees become part of the cultural milieu.
This is demonstrated in an extensive study recently conducted by the
Guttman Institute and Keren Avihai. Moreover, that same study observes
two additional phenomena characterizing the dynamics of the processes of
Jewish cultural identification in Israel: the ceremonies of civic religion are
increasingly understood as an external, coercive presence, which are at best
conformed to without a feeling of being forced, but in many cases are
complied to with open non-willingness and with a feeling of having no
option and of rejection. In either event, for most of the non-religious public
they are perceived as external rather than as an organic part of the
continuity of the milieu of personal, family and communal life. Second, the
choice of those signs that are willingly adopted to mark the milieu of the
sabbath and festivals is largely performed in terms of their degree of
suitability to a secular, present-orientated cultural milieu and way of life,
bearing no relation to a tradition that is rooted in religion, but that does
bear a certain positive-pleasurable relation to folklore. It is hence clear that
the secular milieu created in this manner through the use of traditional
'materials' removes itself progressively from religious meanings, without
even being aware of them. Moreover, it is incorporated within the contents
and characteristics of a present-orientated mass folk culture which derives
from external sources, and has almost completely lost its unique character.
The feeling of coercion, of rebellion against the imposed nature of
religious symbols and norms, and in particular the growing feeling of the
contradiction between the halachic norms imposed upon the 'general'
public by means of the institutions of the Rabbinate, and the
liberal-universal values and norms advocated by the secular public – all
these sustain the stormy legal and political polemic which has, as
mentioned, assumed the coloration of a 'cultural war'.
Thus far, acquiescence in religious norms as an obligatory imposition
upon both the 'public street' and private life of the individual in Israel was
bolstered by three factors:

• A sense of responsibility towards preserving the unity of the people,

particularly so long as the feeling of a security threat against the State of
JUDAISM IN ISRAELI CULTURE 23

Israel originating in external enemies continued.

• Political considerations rooted in the party structure of the government
of the State.
• The fact that most members of the first and second generations of those
who immigrated after the establishment of the state remained
traditional, even when they joined the 'general' (that is, non-religious)
sector of the Jewish public, and hence related positively to at least some
of the religious impositions and did not find it unduly difficult to make
their peace with the rest, even accepting their importance for purposes
of national unity.

During the past decade a dramatic change has been felt regarding at least
two of these three factors. This is the result, first of all, of the passing of the
generations – that is, the coming of age of a generation of young Israelis
educated in the general school system, whose attitude to the contents of
traditional Judaism differs substantially from that of its parents; secondly,
the mass immigration from the states of the former Soviet Union, most of
whom have neither knowledge of nor connection to Jewish contents of any
sort; and, finally, the peace process, which has dispelled the sense of an
external threat hanging over the State of Israel and the consequent feeling
of an urgent existential need to assure pan-Jewish unity at any cost.
By contrast, a highly polarized debate has flared up concerning the issue
of peace and the 'whole Land of Israel'. As this debate tends to overlap the
confrontation between the religious-Zionist public and the secular public, the
sense of a need for pan-Jewish agreement has become weakened. Likewise,
the positive attitude towards tradition, rooted in previous education, has
become weakened among most members of the second generation of
immigrants from Eastern lands. There thus remains only the third factor, the
political-partisan one. But in light of these other factors, it is only natural that
its coercive nature would be seen as even more oppressive and, as it also
seems unjustified from a democratic viewpoint, it too becomes intolerable.
Protest and opposition in the name of democratic values and individual
freedom have become stronger, while public support for 'religious legislation'
is to be heard exclusively on the part of the religious public and an interested
segment of the political leadership, but not on the part of the majority of
spiritual leaders and non-religious educators.
Two facts illustrate the transformation that has taken place in the way
of life and culture of Israel. First, despite the fact that 'religious legislation'
remains as before ('status quo'), and has possibly become even wider,
obedience to it is progressively weakening. The Jewish and Israeli 'public
domain' have become more and more secularized and 'general', a feature
felt particularly on the sabbath and festivals. Religious legislation has thus
become an irksome legal fiction, generating dispute and conflict. Its
psychological and sociological impact is tangible enough, but is largely
negative in terms of the attitude of the 'general' public to Jewish symbols:
24 IN SEARCH OF IDENTITY

rather than eliciting identification and contributing to knowledge and

understanding, it provokes a hostile attitude and elicits a debate almost
entirely lacking in intellectual content, which tends to slide to verbal and
physical violence.
Second, opposition to religious legislation has become a central tenet in
the new ideology that has come to displace Zionism as the defining
ideology of secular Israeli identity. Whereas Zionism was understood as a
form of Jewish national identity, the new ideology styles itself as
'post-Zionist' – apathetic towards national and religious values as such, but
intensely opposed to them as values meant to shape the image of the state,
placing above them the values of democracy and freedom of the individual,
his dignity and happiness, as universal values which are to shape, not only
the government, but also the social and cultural ethos. Hence, this ideology
is presented to the Israeli Jewish public, not only as an 'option' for a new
cultural identity beyond Judaism and Zionism, but as an exclusive and
all-encompassing form of identity staunchly opposed to the continued
definition of Israel as a Jewish-Zionist State.
The demand for 'separation of religion from state' arose in the very
earliest stages of the debate between the 'religious' and 'secularists', even
before the establishment of the State (one must remember that Herzl's
political vision included this demand as a prerequisite of the 'State of the
Jews', even though as a practical statesman he himself laid the groundwork
for the later compromise between religious and secular Zionism known as
the status quo). But in the past this demand was raised as a legal and
political limitation demanding satisfactory solutions to the issues of
personal identity, conversion and family life, to which the non-religious
public was particularly sensitive and to which religious Halacha did not
give adequate consideration. The assumption was that it would be possible
to find appropriate solutions to such problems without damaging the
Jewish and Zionist identity of Israel per se, and without denying the status
of the Jewish religion as an influential factor in society and culture.
For that reason, even those who sought changes in the Halacha did not
describe the authoritative status granted to religious institutions in Israel in
certain areas as expressing a substantive contradiction between 'Jewish
identity' and 'democratic identity'. Such has not been the case in recent
years. Today this confrontation evokes the claim that there is a substantive
contradiction between the terms 'Jewish State' and 'democratic state' and
that one needs to choose between them without compromise. Democracy
is hence presented, not only as a form of government based upon the
decisions of the majority and respect for the freedoms of all its citizens, but
as a universal, all-embracing world view intended to shape all aspects of
social and cultural life in the state. That is to say, it is also meant to serve
as the universal identity of its citizens as individuals, whereas the
'particularistic' values and norms of religions, and of national and social
movements, must be subordinated to the values of liberal democracy and to
JUDAISM IN ISRAELI CULTURE 25

exist beneath them as private, partial relations. It is thus self-evident,

according to this view, that the Jewish or Zionist component must be
removed from Israeli identity. From now on, these values will be at best a
particular, partial 'compartment' within the identity of those wishing it for
themselves alone, but not for the whole.

We now turn to the confrontation on the second plane, that of personal

identity, beginning with the debate surrounding the question 'Who is a
Jew?' This question arose on the legal-political plane against the backdrop
of the implementation of 'The Law of Return', which was unanimously
accepted in the Knesset as an expression of Israel's Jewish-Zionist identity.
However, the debate rapidly expanded to include the spiritual level along
the axis of the question 'Who is a Jew?'
The reason for this expansion is self-evident: if the State accepts the
ruling that individual Jewish identity is defined by Halacha and based upon
religious authority, and not by secular national law and authority
(notwithstanding the fact that the religious definition as such is ethnic and
does not in substance contradict the national definition), it conveys to its
citizens the clear message that Judaism as the contents of personal identity
is defined as a religious world view and way of life rather than as a
cultural-national one, and specifically in exclusive accord with Orthodox
faith and Halacha. This results in a strange paradox: the Jewishness of the
secularist, even if he is nationalist and Zionist, and even if he is traditional,
is recognized both by the religious establishment and the State, not on the
basis of his own criteria and his own cultural characteristics, but on the
basis of criteria imposed by religious Jews with whose world view he
disagrees and whose way of life he does not share. That is, by recognizing
one's Jewish 'existence' (through birth to a Jewish mother), it is presented
to the non-religious Jew as an existence that is empty of authentic Jewish
contents, yet filled with contents that is not authentically Jewish, or not
Jewish at all. The reaction is likely to be a double one: on the one hand,
hostile alienation from religion, or externalization of Jewish identity as
something that does not determine the form of Jewish identity of the
non-religious Jew in his own eyes. On the other hand, there exists the
strange phenomenon of Jews by 'identity' who are nevertheless not Jews in
'essence'. It is only natural for such Jews to be asked repeatedly – by
religious Jews in tones of rebuke and accusation, and by themselves in
confusion that becomes an angry challenge: 'In what sense are you Jewish?',
or 'In what sense are we Jewish?'

The change from the reality that existed during the Yishuv is striking and
of great significance. During the latter period, the Jewish national
community which defined itself as 'secular' (hiloni) or as 'free-thinking'
attributed importance to the religious definition of Judaism only in so far as
one related to religious Jews as one's brothers and as members of his people,
26 IN SEARCH OF IDENTITY

seeing them as Jews based upon his own nationalist criteria without any need
to accept their specific definitions of Jewishness. In any event, it was one's
own clear feeling that Jewish values, Jewish ways of life and Jewish cultural
creativity consisted of all the values, folkways and creations of those people
who were born as Jews, married as Jews in their own culture, and wished to
live within their own Jewish national framework. Thus, whatever they did
and created, including those elements that were borrowed from other
cultures, was seen as their own 'Judaism', so that the critical attitude of
religious people towards their Jewishness did not particularly impress them.
On the contrary: they put forward a countercriticism, preferring their own
Jewishness to any other kind of Judaism.
It seems reasonable to assume that, had a similar approach pertained to
the Jewish public street in the State of Israel, the dichotomy between the
'Israeli' and the Jew within him, or between 'Israelis' as a group and
'religious Jews' as a group, would not have come about. Everything that the
'Israeli' created and made for himself and his society would have been
considered by himself and those of his group as 'Jewish', while everything
that the 'Jew' did for his own sake and that of his society would be
considered 'Israeli' – and each one would have found their own way
towards the sources and history of Jewishness. But once a reality was
created in which 'Israeliness' came to be considered as something outside
of Jewishness, while 'Jewishness' was viewed as being outside of Israeliness,
this dichotomy became unavoidable for both 'religionists' and 'secularists'
of various types. 'Israeliness' now became a thing unto itself, and 'Judaism'
a thing unto itself. The two may indeed make peace with and complement
one another (in the case of religious Zionists), or may exist parallel to one
another as two adjacent compartments (in the case of national-Zionists or
traditionalist-secularists), but they may also entirely contradict one another
(as in the case of non-Zionist religionists or secularists holding a negative
attitude to religion or to Zionism).
In terms of the sociology of culture, the significance of this phenomenon
is that, instead of the syndrome characterized during the Yishuv period as a
process of acculturation and cultural renaissance, the State of Israel witnessed
the development of a syndrome that may best be described as, on the one
hand, assimilation, and on the other, as a split between identity-preserving
Jews and assimilating Israelis. Thus, in the State of Israel, created by the
Zionist movement in order to serve as a dyke against assimilation, there has
gradually come about a cultural syndrome of assimilation and schism
comparable to that which developed in the Diaspora.
Regarding those Jews who assimilate to their Diaspora or Israeli culture,
Jewish identity is understood, at best, as a marginal 'compartment' within
a multi-storied culture and personality, most of whose compartments are
non-Jewish but are rather anchored and domesticated to the surrounding
cultural environment, Western or Eastern. Hence, they identify as
Americans, Frenchmen, or ... Israelis, more than they do as Jews. In the less
JUDAISM IN ISRAELI CULTURE 27

favourable case (from the viewpoint of Judaism), their Jewish identity is

expressed in alienation from the form of external identity that other Jews
attempt to impose upon them, which they reject with all their strength.
They thereby remain Jewish in a certain sense, their rejection of Jewishness
so as to abandon it itself being a form of involvement.
For those Jews who separate themselves from their environment and
define themselves as Jews alone, Judaism is an absolutely obligatory cultural
identity, albeit the range of its applicability is narrow, while their attitude
towards the surrounding culture, whether 'goyish' or 'Israeli' (that is,
'goyish-Jewish') vacillates between openness to a beneficial external
environment and withdrawal from one seen as threatening and dangerous.

In the middle, among the religious-Zionist, traditional and secular-national

public, there still exist substantial bridging elites that wish the State of Israel
to preserve both its Jewish and its democratic identity, its heritage and its
relation to modernity, and who wish Israeli culture to renew the processes
of adaptation and renaissance that created the Hebrew and Jewish-Zionist
cultures within the Land of Israel. These elites wish to renew a multifaceted
Israeli culture that conducts an ongoing creative dialogue within itself on
the basis of traditional values and cultural language shared by all Jews in
Israel and the Diaspora.
Is there any possibility for realizing such a vision? One cannot ignore the
great difficulty: 'postmodern' Western culture, which developed following
the Second World War (and is the source of 'post-Zionist' and 'post-Jewish'
thinking in Israel), expresses a universal syndrome in modern Western
culture, whose dominant cultural ideology is assimilation in the form of the
'global village'. The elites representing this tendency on the highest social
levels in the West do not ascribe any importance to national and religious
traditions, notwithstanding the fact that these traditions are once more
struggling for their existence with great vitality on the folk levels of many
countries, and even within Western culture. In any event, the academic
elites, particularly the technocratic and communication elites, are
abandoning these traditions and striding towards a vision of a cosmopolitan
secular culture, which is always contemporary and always prepared for
futuristic changes, and which inevitably transforms all forms of cultural
identity into something transient, external and exchangeable. This
'postmodern' syndrome clearly negates the possibility of halting the process
of sweeping assimilation, discernible today among Diaspora Jewry, as not
only does this process not encounter the opposition of the environment,
but even receives great encouragement from it. It is worth remembering in
this context that the Jews of the Diaspora belong by and large to the middle
and upper sociocultural classes in the West. Against this backdrop, it seems
as if the only way for the Diaspora Jews to preserve their
particularistic-partial identity is that of religious Orthodoxy. It alone is
capable of creating a workable, effective and particularistic compartment,
28 IN SEARCH OF IDENTITY

combined with effective cultural integration within the open secular

environment.
By contrast, the Jewish State that preserves its national and cultural
identity may provide effective protection against the sweep of an
assimilating culture, thereby allowing a creative process of adaptation and
revival of elements of its own heritage, dialogic pluralism and openness to
the higher values of neighbouring cultures – both Western and Eastern. One
must recognize, however, that this is no easy task. It requires 'swimming
against the stream' of that which is fashionable and contemporary in the
West, and socioeconomic inertia tends to lead to failure.
Thus, if the tendency to be swept along by the materialistic and
individualistic-selfish values of the culture of a 'society of abundance'
ceaselessly imported from the United States continues, and there is no
reorientation in Israeli education in the direction of transmitting the
cultural heritage and expression of our own cultural identity, this possibility
will be nullified and the split between an encapsulated Orthodox Jewish
religious culture and a secular Israeli culture alienated from its Jewish
sources will become a conclusive fact.
 Secular Judaism and Its Prospects

CHARLES S. LIEBMAN

I want to discuss a variety of meanings one can attribute to the term

'secular Judaism'. I then want to assess the prospects for the
development and transmission of secular Judaism in Israel.
Two points merit mention by way of introduction. Much of what I
have to say on this topic, indeed much of what I have to say about
Judaism in Israel, is a commentary, an elaboration on, and an occasional
demurral from, the work of Eliezer Schweid whose brilliant contribution
to Jewish intellectual history evokes the work of Yehezkel Kaufman in his
epic Golah Ve-nechr and in some ways surpasses him. I would be
flattered were someone to describe me as a student of Schweid. My only
excuse for writing anything at all on this topic is that Schweid and I often
address different audiences and that we rely to some extent on different
scholarly traditions: he on philosophical and historical-intellectual
traditions, I on social science.
Secondly, my interest in the topic is a political one. My concern with
secular Judaism stems from my hope that it is capable of generating a
national vision with the capacity to animate Israeli society, at least its
Jewish sector, and with a level of culture that ennobles its adherents.
I noticed a few years ago that important post-Zionist thinkers were
ready to deny the existence of secular Judaism. Post-Zionists, I suspect,
are quite content to concede Judaism to the religious since this facilitates
the de-Judaization of the State of Israel. If Judaism is basically a 'religion'
as Boaz Evron argues,1 and as Baruch Kimmerling suggests,2 if civil
religion is indistinguishable from traditional religion as is suggested in
Shmuel Hasfari's Hametz and the popular anti-religious play Fleischer,3
then 'separating religion from State' means separating Judaism from the
state. But the former objective has far greater appeal. One may argue

Charles S. Liebman is Professor of Political Studies at Bar-Ilan University.

30 IN SEARCH OF IDENTITY

over the meaning of 'separation of religion from State', but as a slogan it

attracts support from a majority of Israelis. According to the
comprehensive 1993 study by the Louis Guttman Institute, 54 per cent
of Israeli Jews favour the separation of religion and state.4 Post-Zionists
and the religious establishment are joined in at least one ideological
alliance; both deny or dismiss the positive features of secular Judaism
and define it as no more than an ersatz watered down version of
Judaism.
Attributing a political agenda to the analysis of secular Judaism is a
double-edged sword. I have come to the conviction that the Jewish
religion should be separated from the state, if only for its own sake. If
that is to happen and Israel is to remain a Jewish State then the content
and meaning of secular Judaism is a central order of concern. I do not
intend discussing the Jewish parameters of such a state but only to note
that to those like myself who believe that the Jewish people are entitled
to a state of their own – that is, a state which reflects their ethnopolitical
interests and their cultural heritage – it is necessary to establish that this
cultural heritage, albeit transformed and transvalued to suit the needs of
a contemporary society, is a meaningful category and refers to something
more than a state of Jews. On the other hand, Jewish culture, even
secular Jewish culture, can never mean the same thing as French culture
or English culture, the culture of a national state, for the simple reason
that Jews are not the only nation who reside in the territory of the state
and Jews also reside outside the territorial state.
Given the importance of demonstrating the viability of secular Jewish
culture, the obvious danger is that my own political agenda will dictate
my analysis. The reader will have to judge the essay in this light.

THE C O M P O N E N T S OF JUDAISM

I can only approach the question of the meaning of secular Judaism by

trying to understand what is meant by Judaism. I believe that Judaism
has three components: ethnic, cultural and religious. The components
are of course interrelated, but for analytical purposes they are
distinguishable. The ethnic component is the easiest to understand. It
involves the special concerns and commitments that one Jew feels for
another by virtue of the fact that the other is Jewish. The ethnic tie is a
family-like tie based on the sense that Jews are, in some way, biologically
tied to one another. The fact that the biological ties are mythical and that
many Jews are aware of their mythic quality is irrelevant as long as they
behave as though the myth expresses a reality.
The cultural component is the most difficult to understand because
'culture' or the 'concept of culture' is the most elusive. Most of us have
a common sense notion of what culture means. We do not have a
problem understanding one another when we use the term in every day
discourse, even though the term is used in two different senses. We talk
SECULAR JUDAISM AND ITS PROSPECTS 31
about culture in the sense of a cultured person; one who is cultivated,
genteel, knowledgeable about matters of art, music, literature. Secondly,
we talk about the cultures of various societies or various strata by which
we mean something else. It is this 'something else' that we have so much
difficulty in specifying even when we have a good enough idea about
what it means. When Soviet ideological chief Mikhail Suslov declared
that Jewish literary expression was no longer necessary since 'there was
no point in reviving a dead culture', 5 the term 'culture' was clear. It is
equally clear in the letter addressed to President Zalman Shazar by a
group of Minsk Jews who explained their wish to live in Israel by 'the
natural human desire ... to live in close contact with Jewish national
culture and to acquaint one's children with this culture of which we are
now deprived'. 6 The relative clarity of the term for purposes of
discussion has not resolved the problem of formal definition. In fact, as
I discovered to my chagrin, reading what has recently been written by
sociologists and anthropologists on the topic (and these are the
disciplines upon which I rely most heavily) is more confusing than
helpful. And the more recent the literature, the more confusing it
becomes. Hence, I was pleased to find a recent definition that relies
heavily on the older literature and, unlike some current definitions, does
not stray very far from our common sense notion of what culture means.
According to Christopher Clausen:
The word culture, when used anthropologically rather than
honorifically, refers to the total way of life of a discrete society, its
traditions, habits, beliefs and art – 'the systematic body of learned
behavior which is transmitted from parents to children' as Margaret
Mead summarized it in 1959. 7
One must also add that the products of the culture which are part of the
'way of life' are symbolic as well as material. As an early textbook in
sociology noted: culture is 'a system of socially acquired and socially
transmitted standards of judgement, belief, and conduct, as well as the
symbolic and material products of the resulting conventional patterns of
behaviour'. 8 What this definition lacks, as I indicate at the conclusion of
this essay, is a specific reference to the constraints that culture places
upon the individual. But this need not bother us for purposes of the
immediate discussion.
Given the definition of culture referred to above, one can discuss
both Jewish culture and Jewish subcultures over time and over place.
Culture is not static. It is both transformed and its symbols are
transvalued. But what characterizes a living and self-conscious culture is
that many of the changes it undergoes tend to be imposed backwards in
time so that the thread of the culture remains identifiable. 'Tradition' is
the culture of the past as it is interpreted in the present.
Ethnicity is an important focus of Judaic or Jewish culture. But it
stretches the meaning of Jewish ethnicity, as I understand it, to simply
32 IN SEARCH OF IDENTITY

subsume it under the rubric of Jewish culture rather than argue, as I do,
that the categories are analytically distinguishable. One may find Jews,
large numbers in the United States for example, who have a minimal
association with Jewish culture but nevertheless retain strong ethnic ties.
I cannot dismiss the argument that this is a sign that Jewish ethnicity is
the lowest common denominator of Jewish culture and that what one
finds, among such Jews, is an attenuated form of Jewish culture. One can
argue that whereas ethnicity involves claims of common biological ties,
and this distinguishes it quite clearly from culture, these ties are putative
or mythical, derivative from cultural definitions. I recognize the thrust of
such arguments but nevertheless find it more helpful to distinguish
culture from ethnicity than collapse the latter category into the former.
More important, for purposes of my argument, is to distinguish Jewish
culture as an object of understanding – a Gentile may be more familiar
with and knowledgeable about Jewish culture than a Jew – from
participation in that culture. Culture is defined in terms of process, 'the
total way of life of a discrete society', and in terms of its literary, musical,
artistic product. The two, however, may be alienated from each other
and I wish to argue that this is the present predicament of secular culture
in Israel. In fact, part of the audience for secular Jewish culture in Israel
may be Israelis who only participate in Jewish culture in the most
marginal manner. On the other hand, there are Jews, in Israel for
example, who know little about Jewish culture but whose judgement,
beliefs and conduct are permeated by a Jewish way of life that is not
necessarily religious.
This brings us to the third component of Judaism: the Jewish
religion. I understand religion as a set of beliefs and rituals which relate
the religious adherent to the transcendent, to God. In one respect, the
distinction between religion and culture is entirely arbitrary. One can
define religion as culture. Against this definition, one could argue that
the thrust of contemporary Jewish culture has been the distinction
between religion and secular culture.9 The argument that the Jewish
tradition, from its very outset, was 'a unique cultural-historical creation'
rather than a 'tradition of Divine revelation in its traditional sense'10 lay
at the heart of the efforts to construct secular Jewish culture beginning
in the early nineteenth century. And Reform Judaism, on the other hand,
was born in an effort to affirm that Judaism constituted a religion,
divorced not only from its national but from 'almost all its cultural
components'. 11 But one might still argue that religion is culture and what
the advocates of secular Jewish culture and Reform Judaism are really
doing is defining the content of Jewish culture.
My reason for choosing to differentiate between religion and culture
is because in one important respect 'religion as culture' only provides a
partial understanding of religion. Viewing religion as culture is an
observer's perspective, whether the observer is or is not an adherent of
the religion. This view is helpful in describing and analysing religion
SECULAR JUDAISM AND ITS PROSPECTS 33
from a distance. But phenomenologically, this is inadequate. We also
need to view religion from the perspective of the religious adherent
when he or she is, to use an awkward but telling phrase, 'doing religion'.
When the religious adherent is performing a ritual in a self-conscious
manner, or praying in a conscious rather than a routine manner, or
undergoing a religious experience of one kind or another (and in the
Jewish tradition none of this happens routinely and without some
effort), then God becomes manifest to the adherent, and the process is
so peculiarly religious that it is misleading to describe it as cultural.

THE MEANING OF SECULAR JUDAISM

Once we accept that the Jewish religion can be distinguished from Jewish
culture and Jewish ethnicity, it is evident that secular Judaism is possible.
It can mean a number of things. Let us look at each of them in turn.
Secular Judaism could mean ethnic and cultural Judaism without any
form of religion, either religion as culture or 'doing religion'. This is
theoretically possible but difficult to conceive in practice because the
overlap between religion and culture in Judaism is so pronounced. To
remove all the religious elements from Jewish culture would mean
divorcing it from its own tradition. Culture, by its very definition, must
be rooted in a past. To quote Schweid:
The secret of the vitality of culture is its historical continuation and
continuity. Culture develops in organic form from its sources, and
the national self exists by preserving the continuity of secular
national consciousness from generation to generation.12
Removing all traces of religion might leave one with a vestige of
culture, though it is not clear at all that what was left would be
recognizably Jewish. Perhaps this is what some people once meant by the
term 'Hebrew culture', but it is difficult for me to conceive of any culture
which is meaningful yet which is rooted entirely in the present. I suspect
that this is what led the Canaanite movement to invent a mythic past for
their Hebraic culture. There are limited circles of secular Jews in Israel
who call themselves humanist and who seek ritual and ceremonial
alternatives to the Jewish religion. Some of these 'humanists' seek to
reinvest traditional Jewish symbols with secular humanist meaning (see
below). This is an enterprise that Zionism has engaged in from its earliest
years with varying degrees of success. But a few would abolish these
symbols altogether.13
A more practical and in my opinion attractive definition of secular
Judaism is one that retains the religious component but affirms religion
as culture rather than religion which mandates a relationship to God.
This is, it seems to me, the characteristic approach of the Jewish
enlightenment and the non-religious movements that developed out of
the enlightenment, including of course Zionism. In other words, secular
34 IN SEARCH OF IDENTITY

Judaism of this kind retains a religious component. It recognizes that

religion constituted the major if not exclusive content of the Jewish
culture of the past. The inability of the religious culture to provide a
credible conceptual framework to explain the Jewish condition in
eastern Europe and its consequent inability to mobilize effectively in
defence of Jewish ethnic interests, served as a major impetus to the
development of secular Judaism in its contemporary national form.
Many efforts were made in the period of the Yishuv and the early years
of the State to create a series of rituals and ceremonies that affirmed the
Jewish religion by reinterpreting it in social and national terms. The most
interesting efforts in this direction were made by various kibbutzim,14
but all of this proved of limited success. Not surprisingly, this form of
secular Judaism is all too ready to pay its respects to religion and finds
itself hindered by the insistence of contemporary 'religious' Jews to
define Judaism in exclusively religious terms and impose its definitions,
in practice as well as in theory, on all other Jews.
There is a third mode of describing secular Judaism, one which can
embrace the second definition but which lays stress on the popular
aspect of culture; on the notion of culture as the total way of life of a
society, its traditions, habits and beliefs. This is the culture that
characterizes the vast majority of Israeli Jews, according to the recent
study by the Louis Guttman Institute of the religious beliefs, attitudes
and behaviour of Israeli Jews referred to above.15 In a summary
statement about the results of that survey, Elihu Katz, one of the study's
co-authors, reaches four conclusions that are relevant for our purposes.
The most observant Israeli Jews constitute 25 to 30 per cent of the
sample. The vast majority of Israelis are not 'religious' in the
conventional meaning of that term. But, first of all, Katz notes, they do
observe many traditional mitzvot, and while their observance is partial
and selective, it is not random, individual and unsystematic. Second,
these observances are not without intent; they may lack 'proper' intent
from a religious perspective but they are motivated by a conscious
commitment to the continuity of the Jewish People. Third, those who
observe these mitzvot are not without belief; indeed religious faith is
widespread but, and here one finds the greatest evidence for a living
form of secular Judaism, the majority of Israelis part company with
observant Jews because, in their own minds, that which they do practice
is not dictated by God; they are aware of their 'deviations', and are
unperturbed by them.16 In other words, contrary to what is sometimes
said, most Israeli Jews observe the tradition in part but do not believe
that their pattern stems from laziness, laxity or negligence. They are
participating in a patterned form of observance which is not Halacha,
but which they have transformed into the folkways of secular Judaism.
Whether Israeli Jews can continue to sustain these folkways is another
question. Whether they might evolve into patterns that are no longer
distinctively Jewish is a question for the future.
SECULAR JUDAISM AND ITS PROSPECTS 35
At present, however, this form of secular Judaism is alive, though not
entirely well. It tends to be overlooked or dismissed because we are
looking elsewhere for signs of secular Judaism and we have
preconceptions, based on the secular Hebrew culture of the Yishuv,
about how it will look. Those who practice secular Judaism are not
halutzim who plough the land with one hand while they hold a book in
the other. They are certainly not the 'enlightened public' in whom Chief
Justice Aharon Barak places so much authority. That 'enlightened
public', which is in effect Israel's 'new class',17 is quite alienated from any
kind of Judaism though I am not prepared to give up hope for recovering
its sympathies. The breeding grounds for Israeli secular Judaism is found
among a population group that may be more familiar with Adon Olam
than with Brenner. Their secularism is neither rebellious nor anti-
religious.

THE PROSPECTS FOR SECULAR JUDAISM

My interest in secular Judaism, I stated at the outset, was in its capacity

to generate a national vision, to serve as a major mode by which the
cultural heritage of the past is transmitted to the present generation. My
assumption has been that much of this is done through the medium of or
the support of the state; through its public policies, its symbols and
ceremonials, its national holidays, its educational system and the
financial support and status it provides to cultural activity that accords
with its goals. I believe that secular Judaism, its culture in particular, is
in danger of being overwhelmed by both Jewishly religious culture
(among a minority of Israeli Jews) and Jewishly neutral culture (among
a majority). Ruth Gavison in a very important article makes a similar
point:
It is the opponents of halacha, committed to the idea of Israel as a
Jewish nation-state, who must explain the particular content of
Jewish nationalism. They are the ones who must transmit this
answer to the new generation of Israelis who didn't arrive here by
virtue of the 'Zionist revolution'; as a consequence of a deep
existential struggle with their personal identity. If they don't have an
answer, we can anticipate two possible developments: the vacuum
will be filled with Jewish religious content, with all its separatist
principles, or all Israeli-Jews will be a people who speak Hebrew
(and among some of them their Hebrew is poor and defective), but
lacking any special orientation to the national Jewish culture.18
I have little confidence in the ability of secular Judaism to compete,
at least at the present, in the open marketplace unless answers are
forthcoming and steps are taken to strengthen it.
I have already suggested that if secular Judaism is understood as
Judaism less its religious component, it is left virtually bereft of culture.
36 IN SEARCH OF IDENTITY

All that remains is the ethnic component. In the unlikely case that Jewish
ethnicity could be sustained in the contemporary world without religion
or culture, it would likely degenerate into some form of racism. I may be
fooling myself, but I would like to believe that at least some supporters
of Beitar Yerushalayim who shout 'death to the Arabs' when Beitar plays
the Arab team from Taybeh are ethnic Jews bereft of Jewish culture. My
fear, reinforced by the 1994 Carmel Institute study of high school
youth, 19 is that most are part of that majority of the culturally traditional
albeit non-religious Israelis to whom the Guttman study refers. If that is
correct it reinforces my fears about the gap between the artists and
intellectuals who produce Jewish culture and the human products of that
culture.
The second definition of secular Judaism involved a recognition of
religion's formative role in Jewish culture but a rejection of religion's
significance to the individual; religion as culture without 'doing religion'.
Religion is acknowledged as a critical force in shaping the Jewish culture
of the past. We recognize the Jewish religion, religious symbols and
religious artefacts, even many religious values as part of our heritage, and
we assimilate them into our culture including our political culture. This
does not mean that we accept the religious mandates or injunctions or
beliefs as compelling in our own lives. And because we are not ourselves
'religious', we transform and secularize religious symbols, artefacts and
values. In many respects, this is an ideal form of secular Judaism. For
those anxious to preserve a Jewish state without the burden of religious
coercion and with a democratic form of government, this would seem to
be a perfect solution. In some respects it describes our present society,
but in other respects it is misleading because this is not the direction in
which Israeli society is headed.
The civil religion of Israel which Don-Yehiya and I describe in our
own study fits this description.20 Religious symbols are utilized in the
construction of a system of myths and rituals that serve to legitimate the
social order and integrate and mobilize the Jewish population, though
the religious symbols themselves undergo transformation and
transvaluation and God plays no role in this quasi-religion. Civil religion
may not have satisfied the spiritual needs of the individual in the quest
to find meaning in one's personal life. On the other hand, those
individuals whose personal identity was merged into the collective
national identity also found personal satisfaction in the civil religion.
At the conclusion of our study, published in 1983, in the wake of the
War in Lebanon, Don-Yehiya and I suggested our own reservations about
the level of commitment that the civil religion was capable of evoking.
Our reservations of the past are certitudes of today. In the absence of
survey research data, the evidence for the decline is admittedly partial
and impressionistic. But it cannot be overlooked. For example, the Israeli
media have provided extensive publicity in the last few years to studies
that question the stature, heroism and motivation of Israel's founders
SECULAR JUDAISM AND ITS PROSPECTS 37
and early pre-state heroes. Television dramas have been produced and
shown in the same sceptical vein. These studies may have occasioned
some dissent; but their publication in the press and their airing on public
TV suggests that Israeli society is far less appreciative today than it once
was of civil religion's mythical heroes. 21
An excellent example of the decline of Israeli civil religion is the
recent theatre production of the play Hametz by the popular Israeli
playwright Shmuel Hasfari. The play, at least on the evening I saw it, was
warmly received and to the best of my knowledge it has not been
condemned in the media. In fact, it was awarded the Israeli theatre's
most prestigious prize for the best Israeli play of 1995. Its theme is that
Israeli society ought to forget its past, ignore its ostensible heroes, forget
even the Holocaust and the six million who died, and live as a normal
society with no special attachments to anything that is peculiarly Jewish.
Israel's willingness to enter into a peace agreement with the Palestinians
is attributable at least in part to recognition by the political and military
elite that Israel has already been overtaken by the demand for individual
autonomy and material comfort – a demand that erodes if not shatters any
ideological or symbolic system which provides a communitarian society
with meaning. As the Israeli army's Chief of Staff Amnon Shahak noted,
commenting on the apparent rise in the number of young Israelis who
consider military service 'inappropriate': 'The problem is a preference for
individualism over the collective in an age of liberalism'.22 Minister of
Defence Yitzhak Mordecai is quoted as expressing concern with 'the
lowered motivation of youth to serve in combat units in the IDF'.23 Efraim
Inbar of Bar-Ilan University describes this continued decline in the
percentage of Israeli youth who volunteer for combat units and observes
that Israeli leaders realize that their society 'displays signs of fatigue and is
more reluctant to pay the price for the protracted conflict with the
Arabs'.24 He notes that former army chief-of-staff Ehud Barak:
often expressed concern about Israel's social fiber. For example, he
described the changes in Israeli society: '... accumulated weariness
and cynicism, accompanied by an aggressive and intrusive media,
depreciation of the Zionist deeds, the development of a cleavage in
the consensus over Israel's political goals, even over the use of force
(we have seen it in Lebanon and in the Intifada) – all these create a
perception as well as a reality of weakness'.25
Sharper tones are present in a more recent article by Ha-aretz
columnist and television host Dan Margalit, who characteristically
phrases himself with care and balance. According to Margalit, there is
more than one reason for the reduced motivation among Israeli youth to
enlist in combat units:
Israeli society has become materialistic and consumer oriented.
Some of the parents and the media have projected self-fulfillment
38 IN SEARCH OF IDENTITY

and the good of the individual as prior to any public commitment.

Zionism has been pushed behind the word 'post', Judaism has
assumed an ultra-Orthodox coloration ...26
Other signs of the decline of civil religion include the transformation
of civil religious celebrations into private events. A good example is the
decline of Independence Day as a major national holiday, and the
transfer of celebrations from massive events to more intimate family
barbecues in public parks.27
One way of viewing the decline of civil religion is in its inability to
evoke commitment to the Israeli or Jewish collective and to mobilize the
population, at least the Jewish segment of the population for social goals.
But since our particular concern is with the assimilation of Jewish values
into the civil religion – that is, into the political culture – the recent
concern over the issue of Judaism and democracy is of special relevance.
The notion of a virtually irreconcilable conflict between Judaism and
democracy is taken for granted in most of the debate on the topic despite
the fact that according to some outstanding scholars this dichotomy is
hardly as sharp as the protagonists in the debate suggest.28 I am not
concerned with the issue of who is right and who is wrong. My own
opinion is that whereas one finds major themes within the religious
tradition that are inimical to democracy, there are minor themes and
minority opinions in the sacred texts themselves that affirm almost all
the major values of liberal democracy.29 What is remarkable, therefore,
is that the intellectual, political, and cultural elite in Israeli society has
ignored rather than sought to transform these elements of the Jewish
religion into normative values. Much in the religion was transformed:
for example, religious holidays celebrating man's relationship to God
were transformed into national holidays celebrating the achievements of
'the nation'. Hence, the failure to adapt the liberal elements within the
religious tradition into contemporary Judaism is of significance.
The answer as to why this has not occurred is, in my opinion, a
matter of timing. My guess is that had the issue of Judaism and
democracy arisen forty years ago, at least one segment of the country's
elite, that identified with MAPAI rather than with MAPAM, would have
argued forcefully that Judaism and Jewish values were entirely consistent
with those of a democratic society. They would not only have cited
traditional text but the conduct of the east European Jewish community.
I do not think that the religious Zionist elite would have challenged them
on this score. But had they done so, the secular elite would have been
relatively untroubled because of their own sense that the cultural
tradition, as distinct from halachic norms, was as much theirs to
interpret as it was that of the religious public; that what they felt in their
hearts was of necessity the strains and echoes of the authentic tradition.
The story of the argument between David Ben-Gurion and the first
Minister of Religion, Yehudah Leib Maimon (Fishman), is instructive in
SECULAR JUDAISM AND ITS PROSPECTS 39
this regard. When Ben-Gurion refused Maimon's demand that
government offices be closed on the fast of Esther and Maimon
challenged Ben-Gurion on his basis for refusing the demand, the Prime
Minister noted that he was as familiar with what went on in the
traditional Jewish towns of eastern Europe as was Maimon. Today this
kind of Jewish self-assurance is entirely lacking among secular political
leaders, not to mention the cultural elite. Their tendency is to defer to
the religious elite in terms of what Judaism means. Indeed, much of the
cultural elite are happy to defer to the religious elite since it facilitates
the construction of polar models for a society; Jewish as opposed to
democratic.
The decline not only of civil religion but of national commitment is
well reflected in an article by Gideon Samet in Ha-aretz. His column
reflects what I consider to be a major if not a dominant motif in
contemporary Israeli society. According to Samet:
For some time now, commentators on identity put their finger on
our [growing] normalization. They noted the growing tendency to
move from nationalist slogans to simple individualism. ... the lust
for life.
... Madonna and Big Mac are only the outer periphery of a
far-reaching process whose basis is not American influence but a
growing tendency throughout the west, especially among young
people. It is a mistake to attribute this to the product of a foreign
identity.
On the contrary, the new language is comprised of new forms of
cultural consumption and leisure activity that have become
supra-national. So it is with popular music, movies, trips abroad,
dress and even the style of speech.30
Samet's article puts its finger on the problem of secular Judaism.
Secular Judaism faces competition on two fronts. One is on the religious
front; a point to which I will return. But its more immediate problem at
present is that it is also in competition with modern or postmodern
western culture. As Schweid points out, the goal of those who created
modern secular Jewish culture, especially that which he refers to as
Hebrew culture, was to retain an historical continuity with the Jewish
past while transforming the cultural identity of the new Jew into modern
European forms. I believe as an observer that one, two and even three
generations back could have felt assured that secular Judaism was
successful in absorbing both traditional Jewish forms as well as modern
European forms into an indigenous culture. By culture, I remind you, I
refer not only to literature and art and the symbolic productions of
culture but to the total way of life of a discrete society, its traditions,
habits and beliefs. There is reason to doubt this today. We have not
absorbed or assimilated these cultures as much as subjected ourselves to
them. As Samet, correctly in my opinion, points out, the dominant
40 IN SEARCH OF IDENTITY

culture of many Israeli Jews is not secular Judaism but the kind of hybrid
postmodern culture common to all the West with which he feels so
comfortable.
This statement raises a number of questions. First, am I not
underestimating the power of language in guaranteeing the survival of an
independent Jewish culture. Indeed, it is Schweid himself, generally a
voice of gloom, who attributes major importance to language as the
primary instrument in the creation and preservation of a distinct culture.
Much of the concluding section of his study of Jewish culture is a paean
of praise to the accomplishments of the Zionists in their revival-
transformation of Jewish culture through the medium of Hebrew.
Second, if Samet is correct, how does one account for the results of the
Guttman study reported above?
With regard to language, I do not find Schweid's analysis entirely
persuasive. I certainly reject the notion that anything produced in
Hebrew is ipso facto a product of Jewish culture. Secondly, were I to
concede Schweid's point about the early importance of the Hebrew
language in forging a new Jewish culture, his cultural analysis of the past
strengthens the importance of the new wave of 'street literature', an
attempt to flatten the language in Israeli literature, rid it of all biblical,
liturgical or rabbinic allusion.31 This linguistic post-Zionism, emptying
the Hebrew language of its cultural baggage, as Rochelle Furstenberg
points out,32 reflects a major change in contemporary Israeli culture, a
point that Yosef Dan made a few years ago in an article in Ha-aretz.33
But what about evidence from the Guttman Institute survey of Israeli
Jews which seems to demonstrate the continuing vitality of secular
Jewish culture at the popular level? And there is additional evidence in
this regard. The 1994 survey of high school youth conducted by the
Carmel Institute asked Israeli Jewish youth if they felt more Israeli or
more Jewish. Fifty-one per cent said they felt equally Israeli and Jewish.
Twenty nine per cent said they felt more Jewish, whereas 20 per cent said
they felt more Israeli.34 Indeed, the Carmel Institute finds that Jewish
identity is about the same as it was in a comparable study conducted in
1984.35 Furthermore, whatever one may say about the values of Israeli
youth in general, the Carmel study finds that they have remained fairly
constant compared to those reported in a 1988 study. Similar results
were obtained in Guttman Institute studies from 1974 and 1976. So the
question about the prospects of secular Judaism remains open. There is
evidence for the forceful presence of Jewish culture in Israeli society and
contradictory evidence of its gradual diminution. The argument also
depends, to some extent, on the kind of evidence one accepts as
authoritative. But it is no less important to appreciate that the vast
majority of Israelis live with conflicting value systems. The powerful and
pervasive nature of the secular, individualistic, consumption orientated
values in western society suggests that almost all Israelis, including many
of the more observant, will have internalized some of them to some
SECULAR JUDAISM AND ITS PROSPECTS 41

degree. So the set of values which provide an alternative to the tradition

are certainly present. The mistake is to believe that they have entirely
replaced more traditional Jewish values.
The Guttman Report demonstrates that whereas less than a quarter,
and perhaps only a fifth, of Israeli Jews are 'religious', close to four-fifths
testify to their observing at least some aspects of the Jewish tradition.
Even among the remaining fifth, among those who identify themselves
as 'totally non-observant', a majority are at least partially observant. For
example, only 6 per cent of the total sample report that they seldom or
never participate in a Passover seder and 12 per cent that they seldom or
never light Hannuka candles. Israelis score quite high on measures of
observance. But two caveats must be added. The first is that the non-
observant are the best educated and overwhelmingly Ashkenazi.
Independent evidence, on the other hand, suggests that the commitment
to traditional Jewish practice among Sephardim is declining much more
rapidly than it is among Ashkenazim.36 The non-observant, although
constituting a distinct minority of Israeli Jews, probably constitute a
large section if not a majority of its academic, intellectual and cultural
elite and are firmly ensconced in the media as well.
Secondly, we do not know what difference this orientation to
tradition makes in the lives of most Israeli Jews. We have a vast literature
on visiting the tombs of holy men. But in general, we do not have studies
of how Israeli Jews in general, and the non-religious in particular,
celebrate britot, bar or bat-mitzvot, birthdays and weddings, Jewish
holidays, national holidays, or non-Jewish holidays such as Christmas
and the secular New Year. We do have some limited material on funerals
and private memorials but it is insufficient.37 Such studies need to inform
us of similarities and differences by edah, by age group, by education, by
level of observance, and by generation in Israel. Only then can we
pretend to know the manner in which the Jewish heritage is or is not
integrated into contemporary Israeli culture. Of course, many matters
would still be subject to individual judgement. In August 1996, Aviv
Gefen was married in a wedding ceremony which the Israeli media
covered in as much detail as they could. I have trouble interpreting the
significance of that event. Is the fact that Aviv Gefen got married at all
significant? Is the fact that he was married in a Jewish wedding
significant? Is the fact that his marriage was Conservative rather than
Orthodox significant or is it significant that he chose to have a
Conservative wedding which is closer to the tradition rather than a
Reform wedding?
We may have overestimated the level of integration of the Jewish
tradition in Israeli culture. It is commonplace to observe that virtually all
Israelis celebrate the seder. The Guttman Report findings confirms this.
But we know very little about how the seder is celebrated. There is firm
evidence that the traditional haggada rather than the innovative haggadot
that characterized kibbutz seders from thirty to sixty years ago are used.
42 IN SEARCH OF IDENTITY

But we do not know what role this plays in the seder. Shlomo Deshen,
in a forthcoming paper based on reports from his own students at
Tel-Aviv University, notes that reading the baggada is accompanied by
disparaging remarks, sometimes of a lewd nature, about the text.38
Tel-Aviv University students are hardly a cross-section of Israeli society
but one has the feeling that at least among a substantial proportion of
Ashkenazi Jews, the rituals and ceremonials that are observed are
becoming increasingly emptied of significance. But we really do not
know enough, as Deshen points out. This is an area that strikes me as
critical to understanding Israeli culture, and Israeli sociologists and
anthropologists would do well to explore it.
In fact, we may have underestimated the impact of the tradition on
contemporary Jewish culture. The 1996 election results are one
indication. The overwhelming majority that the religious and right wing
parties obtained among the Jewish electorate is attributable in no small
measure to the fears of many Israeli Jews that the continuation of a
MERETZ-Labour coalition threatened Jewish culture and Jewish values
as they are presently expressed in the policies of the state. (Whether
these fears were well founded is immaterial to my argument.)
Even the dark side has its bright counterpart. The Shenhar
Commission appointed by the Minister of Education in 1991 to examine
the teaching of Judaism in the non-religious school system found that the
curriculum materials, the training of the teachers, and the number of
hours devoted to Jewish subjects was totally inadequate. In other words,
the most forceful socializing agency that the state has at its disposal, the
educational system, was not being utilized to support Jewish culture.
This leaves hope that educational changes can improve the present
situation. Had the Shenhar Commission been satisfied with the teaching
of Judaic subjects in the school system, my concern about the prospects
for secular Judaism would have been far greater.
The Holocaust, Israel-Diaspora relations, the welfare of Jews
throughout the world, Jerusalem, a measure of Israeli nationalism,
participation in Jewish ritual, affirmation of basic Jewish beliefs, but
above all else, a powerful sense of family ties animate Israeli Jews.
Indeed, family ties may provide the most important integrating force in
Israeli society. The frequent references to Rabin as a 'father' which one
heard from Israeli youth following his assassination are significant in this
regard. They seem rather tame in contrast to the values of self-sacrifice
for the sake of the collectivity, communalism and mutual assistance, and
above all the value of physical labour, values that Schweid characterizes
as central to the Hebrew culture of the early Zionists. On the other
hand, the present set of values do seem better suited to a modern nation.
But except for the value of family ties, little of this is reflected in the
Israeli media and least of all Israeli theatre. The Jewish-national values
that Israelis share, at admittedly varying levels of commitment, are not
reflected in the products of Israel's cultural and intellectual elite.
SECULAR JUDAISM AND ITS PROSPECTS 43

There may be a significant gap between the cultural expression of

Israeli life in its music, art and theatre and the level of Jewish concern
and commitment found amongst the vast majority of Israelis. I would
describe the orientations of the academic, intellectual and cultural elite
of Israeli Jews in much the same manner that the late Christopher Lasch
describes its American counterparts. 39 Members of the elite, he says, have
mounted a crusade 'to extend the range of personal choice in matters
where most people feel the need for solid moral guidelines'.40 The
majority of society appears:
to the makers of educated opinion [as] hopelessly dowdy,
unfashionable, and provincial. They are at once absurd and vaguely
menacing - not because they wish to overthrow the old order but
precisely because their defense of it appears so deeply irrational that
it expresses itself, at the higher reaches of its intensity, in fanatical
religiosity, in a repressive sexuality that occasionally erupts into
violence against women and gays, and in a patriotism that supports
imperialist wars and a national ethic of aggressive masculinity.
Simultaneously arrogant and insecure, the new elites regard the
masses with mingled scorn and apprehension.41
It remains to be seen whether this putative gap between Israel's
cultural elite and the majority of its citizens can be overcome, and if so
in what way. Will the majority of Israeli Jews assimilate the values of its
cultural elite, or will the cultural elite find a way to accommodate the
Jewish orientations of the masses? In the latter case, perhaps through
some combination of an emerging new elite and a change of heart among
the present elite, secular Jewish culture may yet flourish in Israel.
This leaves open the question of the level at which secular Judaism is
integrated into one's life. For some it is likely to remain a public or
collective expression. They may seek spiritual meaning and fulfilment
outside the realm of Jewish culture. Others will find aspects of secular
Judaism satisfying at a more existential and spiritual level. Many, perhaps
a majority, of Israelis do so today.

CONCLUSION

There can be no secular Judaism which is not anchored in the Jewish

tradition and there is no Jewish tradition that denies its religious roots.
Under these assumptions, what are the prospects for secular Judaism in
Israel? The verdict is not yet in. The evidence is mixed. Among the Israeli
elite the impression I get is one of a growing ignorance of and
indifference towards the Jewish tradition. It is easy to blame the religious
establishment itself for this state of affairs. It is easy to argue that the
religious elite has appropriated Judaism for itself, interpreting the
traditional text and traditional values in a xenophobic, particularist,
sexist manner. It has overlooked or rejected values within the Jewish
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
forbearingly kind to this one—taking all his bites, &c., with the
utmost good humour. Moreover, she supplied him with all his food,
and most of his playthings, so that she was really in every way his
best friend. Yet his antipathy to her was only less remarkable than
his passionate fondness of my mother and myself.
Another trait in the psychology of this animal which is worth
observing was his quietness of manner towards my mother. With
me, and indeed with every one else, his movements were
unrestrained, and generally monkey-like; but with her he was always
as gentle as a kitten: he appeared to know that her age and
infirmities rendered boisterousness on his part unacceptable.
I returned the monkey to the Zoological Gardens at the end of
February, and up to the time of his death in October 1881, he
remembered me as well as the first day that he was sent back. I
visited the monkey-house about once a month, and whenever I
approached his cage he saw me with astonishing quickness—indeed,
generally before I saw him—and ran to the bars, through which he
thrust both hands with every expression of joy. He did not, however,
scream aloud; his mind seemed too much occupied by the cares of
monkey-society to admit of a vacancy large enough for such very
intense emotion as he used to experience in the calmer life that he
lived before. Being much struck with the extreme rapidity of his
discernment whenever I approached the cage, however many other
persons might be standing round, I purposely visited the monkey-
house on Easter Monday, in order to see whether he would pick me
out of the solid mass of people who fill the place on that day.
Although I could only obtain a place three or four rows back from
the cage, and although I made no sound wherewith to attract his
attention, he saw me almost immediately, and with a sudden
intelligent look of recognition ran across the cage to greet me. When
I went away he followed me, as he always did, to the extreme end
of his cage, and stood there watching my departure as long as I
remained in sight.
 In conclusion, I should say that much the most striking feature in
the psychology of this animal, and the one which is least like
anything met with in other animals, was the tireless spirit of
investigation. The hours and hours of patient industry which this
poor monkey has spent in ascertaining all that his monkey-
intelligence could of the sundry unfamiliar objects that fell into his
hands, might well read a lesson in carefulness to many a hasty
observer. And the keen satisfaction which he displayed when he had
succeeded in making any little discovery, such as that of the
mechanical principle of the screw, repeating the results of his newly
earned knowledge over and over again, till one could not but marvel
at the intent abstraction of the 'dumb brute'—this was so different
from anything to be met with in any other animal, that I confess I
should not have believed what I saw unless I had repeatedly seen it
with my own eyes. As my sister once observed, while we were
watching him conducting some of his researches, in oblivion to his
food and all his other surroundings—'when a monkey behaves like
this, it is no wonder that man is a scientific animal!' And in my next
work I shall hope to show how, from so high a starting-point, the
psychology of the monkey has passed into that of the man.
INDEX.
A CCOUCHEUR, fish, 246;
toad, 254

Acerina cernua, 246

Acinia prehensa, 233

Actinia, 233, 234

Actinophrys, apparent intelligence of, 20

Adamsia, 234

Adaptive movement, as evidence of mind, 2, 3

Addison, his definition of instinct, 11

Addison, Mrs. K., on gesticulating signs made by a jackdaw, 316

Ælian, on division of labour in harvesting ants, 98

Æsthetic emotions of birds, 279-82

Affection, sexual, parental, and social, of snails, 27;

of ants, 45-9 and 58, 59;
of bees, 155, 156, and 162;
of earwig, 229;
of fish, 242-6;
of reptiles, 256, 258, 259;
of birds, 270-6;
of kangaroo, 326, 327;
of whale, 327;
of horse, 329;
of deer, 334;
of bat, 341;
 of seal, 341-6;
of hare, 338-40;
of rats, 340;
of mice, 341;
of beaver, 367;
of elephant, 387-92;
of cat, 411, 412;
of dog, 437, 440, 441;
of monkeys, 471-5 and 484-98

Agassiz, Professor A., on instinct of hermit-crab, 232;

nest of fish, 242-3;
on beaver-dams, 384, 385

Agassiz, Professor L., on intelligence of snails, 26

Alison, Professor, on curious instinct of polecat, 347

Allen, J. A., on breeding habits of pinniped seals, 341-6

Alligators, 256-8 and 263

Alopecias vulpes, 252

Amœba, apparent intelligence of, 21

Anemones, sea, 233, 234

Anger, of ants and bees, see under;

of fish, 246, 247;
of monkeys, 478, 479 and 484-96

Angler-fish, 247, 248

Annelida, apparent intelligence of, 24

Antennæ, effects of removal in ants, 142;
in bees, 197

Antithesis, principle of, in expression of emotions by monkeys, 494,

495

Ant-lion, 234, 235

Ants, powers of special sense, 31-37;

of sight, 31-33;
of hearing, 33;
of smell, 33-37;
sense of direction, 37, 38;
memory, 39-45;
recognition of companions and nest-mates, 41-45;
emotions, 45-49;
affection, 45-48;
sympathy, 48, 49;
communication, 49-57;
habits general in sundry species, 57-93;
swarming, 57, 58;
nursing, 58, 59;
education, 59, 60;
keeping aphides, 60-64;
making slaves, 64-68;
wars, 68-83;
keeping domestic pets, 83, 84;
sleep and cleanliness, 84-7;
play and leisure, 87-89;
funeral habits, 89-93;
habits peculiar to certain species, 93-122;
leaf-cutting, 93-96;
harvesting, 96-110;
African, 110, 111;
tree, 110, 111;
honey making, 111-114 and 142;
 ecitons, or military, 114-122;
general intelligence, 122-142;
Sir John Lubbock's experiments on intelligence, 123-128;
intelligence displayed in architecture, 128-130;
in using burrows made by elater larvæ, 130;
in artificial hives, 130;
in removing nest from shadow of tree, 131;
in cutting leaves off overshadowing tree, 131, 132;
in bending blades of grass while cutting them, 132, 133;
in co-operating to glue leaves together, 133, 134;
in getting at food in difficult places, 134, 135;
in making bridges, &c., 135-139;
in tunnelling under rails, 140;
anatomy and physiology of nerve-centres and sense organs, 140-2

Apes, see Monkeys

Arachnidæ, 204-225, see Spiders and Scorpions

Arago, his observation regarding sense of justice in dog, 443

Arderon, on taming a dace, 246

Argyroneta aquatica, 212

Arn, Capt., on sword- and thresher-fish, 252, 253

Articulata, see under divisions of

Ass, general intelligence of, 328 and 333

Association of ideas, see under various animals

Ateuchus pilularius, 226

Athealium, apparent intelligence of, 19-20

Atkinson, the Rev. J. C., on reasoning power of a dog, 458, 459

Audubon, on ants making beasts of burden of bugs, 68;

plundering instincts of white-headed eagle, 284;
variations in instinct of incubation, 299, 300

Auk, nidification of, 292

Automatism, hypothesis of animal, 6

B ABOON, sympathy shown by Arabian, 474;

rage of, 478;
revenge of, 478

Badcock, on dog making peace-offerings, 452

Baer, Van, on organisation of bee, 241

Backhouse, R. O., on dog being alarmed at a statue, 453

Bailey, Professor W. W., on dog stopping a runaway horse, 459

Baines, A. H., on dog communicating wants by signs, 446, 447

Baker, on sticklebacks, 245

Baldamus, Dr., on cuckoo laying eggs coloured in imitation of those

of the birds in whose nests they lay them, 307

Ball, Dr. Robert, on commensalism of crab and anemone, 234

Banks, Sir Joseph, on intelligence of tree-ants, 133;

fish coming to sound of bell, 250
Bannister, Dr., on cat trying to catch image behind mirror, 415, 416;
on intelligence of the Eskimo dogs, 461, 462

Barrett, W. F., on instincts of young alligator, 256

Barton, Dr., on alleged fascination by snakes, 264

Bastian, on termites, 198

Bates, on ants' habit of keeping pets, 84;

cleaning one another, 87;
play and leisure, 88, 89;
leaf-cutting, 93-95;
tunnelling, 99;
ecitons, 114-21;
on sand-wasp taking bearings to remember precise locality, 150;
mygale eating humming-birds, 208;
on nidification of small crustacean, 232, 233;
habits of turtles, and alligators, 257, 258;
intelligence of vultures, 314;
bats sucking blood, 341

Batrachians, 254, 255

Bats, 341

Baya-bird, nidification of, 294

Bears, 350-352

Beattie, Dr., on dog communicating desires by signs, 447

Beaver, 367-85;
breeding habits, 367, 368;
lodges, 368-73;
 dams, 373-79;
canals, 379-83;
general remarks upon, 368, 377, 379, 383;
age of their buildings, 384;
effects of their buildings on the configuration of landscapes, 384,
385

Bechstein, on birds dreaming, 312

Bee, mason, 178, 179;

tapestry, 179;
carpenter, 179;
rose, 179;
carding, 179, 180

Bees, sense of sight, 143, 144;

of smell and hearing, 144;
of direction, 144-51;
remembering exact locality of absent hive, 148-49;
following floating hives, 149;
memory, 151-55;
sympathy, 155, 156;
distances over which they forage, 150;
powers of communication, 156-60;
economy of hive, 160-8;
food and rearing, 160-163;
swarming and battles of queens, 163, 164;
drone-killing, 164-68;
plunder and wars, 168-170;
architecture, 170-8;
way-finding, 181, 182;
instinct of neuters, 181;
recognising companions, 183, 184;
barricading doors against moths, 184, 185;
strengthening combs in danger of falling, 185, 186;
mode of dealing with surfaces of glass, 186;
 with strange hives, 186, 187;
evacuating fallen hive, 187;
ceasing to store honey in Barbadoes and California, 187, 188;
recognising persons, 188, 189;
biting holes in corollas, 189;
ventilating hives, 191, 192;
covering slugs, &c., with propolis, 190, 191;
effects of removing antennæ, 197

Beetles, see Coleoptera

Belshaw, on cat knocking knockers, 422

Belt, on ants, duration of memory in, 39, 40;

sympathy, 48;
division of labour, 99;
ecitons, 114-19 and 138;
tunnelling under rails, 140;
on sand-wasp taking precise bearings to remember locality, 150,
151;
struggle between wasps and ants for secretion of frog-hoppers,
194, 195;
intelligence of spiders in protecting themselves from ecitons, 219,
220;
beetles undermining stick supporting a dead toad, 228;
intelligence of monkeys, 480

Benedictson, on navigating habits of Iceland mice, 364, 365

Bennet, on birds dreaming, 312

Bennett, on conjugal fidelity of duck, 270, 271

Berkeley, G., on beetle storing its food, 228, 229

Bettziech-Beta, on termites, 199

Bidie, on suicide of scorpion, 222, 223;
on reasoning power of cat, 415

Bingley, on intelligence of ants, 133;

carpenter-bees, 179;
account of alleged training of bees, 189;
co-operation of beetles, 226, 227;
ant-lion, 230, 235;
domestication of toad, 255;
fascination by snakes, 264;
sympathy in birds, 272;
eccentricity of nest building instinct, 295;
education of birds, 312;
pigs pointing game, 339, 340;
intelligence of otter, 346;
memory of elephant, 387;
vindictiveness of elephant, 387, 389;
elephants enduring surgical operations, 399, 400

Bird, Miss, on combined action of crows in obtaining food from dogs,

320

Birds, 266-325;
memory of, 266-70;
emotions, 270-82;
special habits of procuring food, 283-6;
of incubation and taking care of offspring, 287-310;
general intelligence, 310-25;
dreaming and imagination, 311-12;
learning to avoid telegraph wires, 313;
recognising painting of birds, 311;
submitting to surgical operation, 313-14;
honey-guide, 315-16;
appreciation of mechanical appliances, 315-16;
concerted action, 318-322
Birgus latro, 233

Bison, 334-5

Blackbirds, breaking shells against stones, 283;

removing eggs, 289;
mobbing cat, 291

Blackburn, Professor H., on distances over which bees forage, 150

Blackman, on cats learning to beg for food, 414-15

Blackwall, on early display of instincts by spiders, 216

Blanchard, on mason-bee, 178

Blood, on reasoning power of a dog, 464

Boa-constrictor, really a Python, which see

Bodley, W. H., on dogs crossing a river to fight undisturbed, 451-2

Bold, on canary singing against own image in mirror, 276

Bombyx moth, larva of, 238-40

Bonnet, on spider following her eggs into pit of ant-lion, 205;

his experiments on instincts of caterpillars, 236;
observations on ditto, 238

Boobies, plundered by frigate pelicans, 284

Bosc, on migrating fish, 248

Bower-bird, instincts of, 279-81, 325

Bowman, Parker, his cat opening swivel of window, 425

Boys, C. V., his experiments with a tuning-fork on spiders, 206, 207

Brehm, on wasps recognising persons, 188;

intelligence of lapwing, 315, 316;
curiosity of monkeys, 477

Broderip, on vindictiveness of elephant, 389

Brodie, Sir B., his definition of instinct, 15;

on bees strengthening their combs, 185, 186

Brofft, Herr L., on powers of communication in bees, 160

Brougham, Lord, on hexagonal form of bees' cells, 172;

on intelligence of a dog, 450

Brown, Capt., on vindictiveness of a stork, 277-8

Brown, W., on a cat extinguishing fire by water, 425

Browne, Dr. Crichton, on cat ringing bell, 423

Browne, Murray, on fox allowing itself to be extricated from trap, 431

Browning, A. H., on intelligence of a dog, 450

Brydon, Dr., on collective instinct of jackals, 434

Buchanan, Dr., on climbing perch, 249;

on nidification of baya-bird, 294

Büchner, Professor,
on ants:
 nursing habits, 59;
stocking trees with aphides, 63;
warfare, 71-9;
play, 87-88;
leaf cutting, 95-96;
intelligence in making a bridge of aphides over tar, 136;
of themselves over a space, 136-37;
and of a straw over water, 137;
ecitons, 139;
anatomy and physiology of brain, 141-42.
On bees and wasps:
powers of communication, 158-60;
swarming habits, 168;
wars and plunder, 169;
cell-building, 177-78;
evacuating dangerous hive, 187;
keeping hives clean, 190;
carrying dead from hive and burying them, 191;
ventilating hives, 191-92;
hornet and wasp dismembering heavy prey, and carrying it to
an eminence in order to fly away with it, 196.
On termites, 198-202.
On spiders:
web-building, 211-12;
wolf spider, 213;
trap-door spiders, 217-18;
intelligence of a spider habitually fed by Dr. Moschkau, 218-19;
spiders weighting their webs, 221.
On beetles:
co-operation of, 227-28

Buck, E. C., on intelligence of crocodiles, 263;

on collective instinct of wolves, 433;
on combined action of pelicans, 319

Buckland, F., on pigeon remembering voice of mistress, 266;

 crows breaking shells by dropping them on stones, 283;
birds avoiding telegraph wires, 313

Buckley, on harvesting ants, 103

Buckton, G. B., on caterpillars, 236

Buffalo, 335-37

Buffon, on hexagonal form of bees' cells, 171-72;

association of ideas in parrot, 269;
sympathy in ditto, 275;
goat sucker removing eggs, 289

Bufo obstetricans, 254

Bull, intelligence of, 338

Burmeister, on powers of communication in ants, 49

Byron, Lord, lines on alleged tendency to scorpion to commit suicide,

222

C ADDIS-WORMS, 240

Cairns, Mr. W., on reasoning power of a dog, 461

Campbell, Mrs. G. M. F., on intelligence of goose, 316

Canary, jealousy of, 276;

modification of incubating instinct in cage, 287;
flying against mirror, 311;
trained, 312
Canning, J., his dog knowing value of different coins, 452-3

Carassius auratus, 246

Carbonnier, M., on telescope-fish, 246

Carlisle, Bishop of, on congregation or court held by jackdaws, 324

Carpenter, Dr., on intelligence of rats, 361

Carreri, Gernelli, on monkeys thrusting stones between oyster-shells

to keep them from closing, 481

Carter, H. J., on apparent intelligence of athealium, 19;

of actinophrys and amœba, 20-1

Carus, Professor, on spiders weighting their webs, 221

Cat, the, 411-25;

general remarks upon, 411-14;
emotions of, 412-13;
general intelligence of, 413-25;
showing zoological discrimination, 414;
punishing kittens for misbehaviour, 414;
begging for food, 414-15;
feeding kittens on bread when milk fails, 415;
carrying kittens to be protected by master, 415;
trying to catch image behind mirror, 416;
communicating by signs, 419;
devices for catching prey, 417-20;
appreciation of mechanical appliances, 420-25;
extinguishing fire by water, 425

Caterpillars, instinct of assisted by intelligence, 236-8;

migrating, 238-40
Catesby, on co-operation of beetles, 226, 227;
on frigate-pelican plundering boobies, 284

Cattle, fear exhibited by in slaughterhouses, 334;

pride of, 334

Cebus fatuellus, observations on intelligence of, 484-98

Cecil, H., on tactics displayed by hunting wasps, 194

Cephalopoda, intelligence of, 29-30

Cetacea, 327-28

Challenge, mode of, in gulls, 291

Charming of snakes, 264

Cheiroptera, 341

Chelmon rostratus, 248

Chimpanzee, play of, 476-77

Chinese swallow, nidification of, 292

Chironectes, 243

Choice, as evidence of mind, 2

Clark, G., on intelligence of a bat, 341

Clark, Rev. H., on harvesting ants, 99;

on dog recognising portrait, 454-5

Clarville, on co-operation of beetles, 228

Clavigero, on sympathy of pelicans for wounded companions, 275

Claypole, on intelligence of horse, 331-2

Cnethocampii pitzocampa, 244

Cobra, sexual affection of, 256;

charming, 265;
intelligence of, 262

Cock, domestic, killing hen upon hatching out eggs of other birds,
278

Cœlenterata, movements of, and question concerning their

intelligence, 22

Coleoptera, 226-9;
co-operation of, 226-8;
other instances of intelligence, 228-9

Colquhoun, on reasoning power of a dog, 463-4

Commensalism, between crab and anemone, and between mollusk

and anemone, 233

Communication, see Co-operation

Concerted action, see Co-operation

Cones, Captain Elliot, on intelligence of wolverine, 348-50

Conilurus constructor, 326

Conklin, W. A., on elephants thatching their backs, 409

Consciousness, as evidence of mind, 2;
gradual dawn of, 13

Conte, John Le, on reasoning power of a dog, 460-1

Cook, Capt., on tree ants, 111;

intelligence of tree-ants, 133

Cook, George, on dog dragging mat about to lie upon, 466

Co-operation,
of ants, 48-49, 51-59, 64 et seq.
(in making slaves and waging war), 85-96;
(in sundry occupations), 96-100;
(in harvesting), 108-10, 111-14;
(of apparently different species), 114-122;
(of military ants), 127-30, 132-4, 136-40;
of bees, 159-74;
(in general work, wars, and architecture), 177, 178, 184-6, 190-
2;
of termites, 198-203;
of beetles, 226-8; of birds, 318-22;
of horses and asses, 333;
of bison and buffalo, 335;
of pigs, 339;
of rats, 361, 362;
of mice, 364;
of beavers, 367-83;
of elephants, 401;
of foxes, 433;
of wolves, 433 and 436;
of jackals, 432-5;
of baboons, 483

Corse, on memory of elephant, 386, 387;

emotions of elephant, 393
Couch, on maternal instinct of hen, 272;
mode in which guillemots catch fish, 285;
mode of escape practised by swan, 290;
birds removing dung from neighbourhood of their nests, 290;
blackbirds mobbing cat, 291;
nidification of swan, 296-8;
crows punishing offenders, 323-4;
intelligence of hare, 359;
cat unlocking door, 424;
fox avoiding trap, 428;
catching crabs with tail, 432;
mode by which a dog killed crabs, 459

Corvus cornice, punishing offenders, 323, 324

Cowper, on intelligence of hare, 359, 360

Cox, C., playhouses of bower-birds presented by him to Sydney

Museum, 280

Crabs, 231-4

Craven, on intelligence of a sow, 340

Crehore, on foxes avoiding traps, 428, 429;

on dog recognising portrait, 453

Cripps, his elephant dying under emotional disturbance, 396

Criterion of mind, 4-8

Crocodiles, 263

Crow, Capt. Hugh, on sympathy shown by monkeys for sick

companion, 473, 474
Crows, memory of, 266;
breaking shells by dropping them on the stones, 283;
punishing offenders, 323-5

Cruelty, of cat, 413

Crustacea, 231-34

Cuckoo, parasitic instincts of, 301-7;

eggs of coloured like those of the bird in whose nest they are laid,
307-9;
American, 305, 306

Curiosity, of fish, 247;

of birds, 278, 279;
of ruminants and swine, 335;
of monkeys, 477

Curlew, nidification of, 292

Cuvier, his orang drawing chair to stand upon to reach a latch, 481;
on birds dreaming, 312
D ACE, tamed, 246

Daldorff, on climbing perch, 248, 249

Dampier, on frigate-pelicans plundering boobies, 284;

on monkeys hammering oyster shells with stones, 481

Daphnia pulex, seeking light, especially yellow ray, 23

Darwin, Charles, on apparent intelligence of worms, 24;

of oyster, 25;
of snail, 27;
Mr. Hague's letter to, on powers of communication in ants, 54-7;
observations on ants keeping aphides, 60, 61;
on ants making slaves, 64, 66, 67;
communications of Lincecum to, on harvesting ants, 103, 107;
on proportional size of ants' brain, 140;
communication of Müller on powers of communication in bees,
157;
origin and development of cell-making instinct, 173-7;
instincts of neuters, 181;
quotation in MS. from Sir B. Brodie on bees supporting their
combs, 185-6;
his 'law of battle' in relation to spiders, 205;
intelligence of crab, 233;
his theory of sexual selection, 279-82;
sense of smell in vultures, 286;
on Wallace's theory of correlation between colour of sitting birds
and form of their nests, 299;
instincts of cuckoo, 304-6;
birds dreaming, 312;
Gauchos taming wild horses, 329;
memory of horse, 330;
intelligence of bear, 352;
of elephant, 398, 402;
 collective instinct of wolves, 436;
duration of memory in dogs, 438;
intelligence of Eskimo dogs, 462;
reasoning of retriever, 463-4;
maternal care and grief of monkey, 472;
sense of ludicrous in monkeys, 476;
curiosity and imitativeness of monkeys, 477;
imitativeness of man, 477-8;
intelligent observation displayed by monkeys, 479, 480

Darwin, Erasmus, on bees ceasing to store honey in Barbadoes, 187;

wasp dismembering fly to facilitate carriage, 195;
unmoulted crab guarding moulted, 233;
crows breaking shells by dropping them on stones, 283;
bird shaking seed out of poppy, 286;
elephant acting nurse to young child, 408

Darwin, F., on bees biting holes through corollas, 189

Davis, on instincts of larvæ of bombyx moth, 239

Davy, Dr., on instincts of alligators, 256, 257;

taming cobra, 265;
performing operation on elephants, 400

Davy, Sir H., on eagles teaching young to fly, 290

Day, F., on intelligence of fish, 244-52

Deceitfulness, of elephant 410;

of dog, 443, 444, 450-52, 457, 458;
of monkey, 494

Deer, intelligence of, 336, 338, 339

De Fravière, on powers of communication in bees, 158;

 their scouts, 168

Descartes, his hypothesis of animal automatism, 6

Dicquemase, on intelligence of oyster, 25

Dipterous insects, intelligence in finding way out of a bell-jar, 153,

154;
gad-fly, 230;
house-fly, 230, 231

Division of labour, see Co-operation

Dog, ringing bell, 423;

knocking knocker, 423;
collective instinct of, 435, 436;
general remarks on psychology of, as influenced by domestication,
437, 438;
memory of, 438;
emotions of, 438-45;
pride and sensitiveness, 439-42;
intolerance of pain, 441;
emulation and jealousy, 442, 443;
sense of justice, 443;
deceitfulness, 443, 444;
sense of ludicrous and dislike of ridicule, 444, 445;
general intelligence of, 445-70;
communicating ideas, 445-7;
instances of reason, 447-69

Dolomedes fimbriata, 213

Doras, 248

D'Osbonville, on monkeys administering corporal chastisement to

their young, 482, 483
Dreaming, of birds, 269, 312;
of ferrets, 347

Duchemin, M., on toads killing carp, 254

Duck, conjugal fidelity of, 270, 271;

conveying young on back, 289

Dugardin, on communication among ants, 49;

in bees, 156

Duncan, on cunning of a dog, 451

Dzierzon, on cause determining sex of bees' eggs, 162;

bees repairing injuries to their cells, 186

E AGLE, plundering instinct of white-headed, 284;

teaching young to fly, 290;
variations in nest-building, 299;
submitting to surgical operations, 313, 314

Earwig, 229, 230

Ebrard, on co-operation of ants, 132

Echinodermata, movements of, 23

Edmonson, Dr., on crows punishing offenders, 323, 324

Edward, on intelligence of frogs, 255;

sympathy of terns for wounded companion, 274, 275;
crows breaking shells by dropping them on stones, 283;
co-operation of turnstones, 321
Edward, H., on honey-making ants, 111-14

Eimer, Dr., on voluntary and involuntary movements of Medusæ, 22,

23

Elephant, general remarks upon, 386;

memory of, 386, 387;
emotions of, 387-96;
vindictiveness, 387-9;
sympathy, 389-90;
rogue, 393, 394;
dying under effects of emotion, 395, 396;
general intelligence of, 396-410;
enduring surgical operations, 399-400;
vigilance, 401;
formation of abstract ideas, 401, 402;
intelligence of tame decoys, 402-6;
of tame workers, 306-8;
thatching their backs, 308, 309;
removing leeches, and fanning away flies, 309, 310;
concealing theft, 410

Ellendorf, Dr. F., on leaf-cutting ants, 95, 96;

on ants making a bridge, 137

Elliot, on collective instinct of wolves, 433

Emery, J., on powers of communication in bees, 157

Emulation, of birds, 277;

of dogs, 442

Encyclopædia Britannica, on bees following floating hives, 149;

battles of queen-bees, 163, 164;
parasitic instincts in birds, 306
Endurance, of pain by wild dogs, 441;
of surgical operations by eagle, 313, 314;
by elephants, 399, 400;
by monkey, 482

Engelmann, on Daphnia pulex seeking yellow light, 23

Epeira aurelia, Mr. F. Pollock on perfection of web built by young, 217

Erb, G. S., on intelligence of deer, 338, 339

Esox lucius, 246

Espinas, on co-operation of ants, 130

F ABRE, on instincts of sphex-wasp, 180, 181

Faister, Mdlle de, her tame weasel, 346

Falcon, variations in nest-building, 299

Faraday, J., on intelligence of skate, 251

Fascination, alleged, by snakes, 263, 264

Fayrer, Sir J., on fascination by and charming of snakes, 264

Fear, in horses, 329;

in ruminants, 334;
in rabbits, 355;
in rats, 360
excited in dogs by portraits, 455-7;
in monkey by snakes, 477,
and by imitation monkey, 495
Ferret, 347

Fire-flies, stuck on nests by baya-birds, 294

Fish, 241-53;
comparison of brain with that of invertebrata, 241;
emotions, 242-7;
nidification, courtship, and care of young, 242-6;
pugnacity, and social feelings, 242;
anger, 246, 247;
play, jealousy, curiosity, 247;
angler, 247, 248;
jaculator, 248;
travelling over land, 248;
climbing trees, 248, 249;
migrations, 249, 250;
general intelligence, 250-53

Fisher, J. F., on hen removing eggs with her neck, 288

Fleeson, Captain B., on honey-making ants, 111-14

Fleming, W. J., on intelligence of horse, 330

Fleury, Cardinal, on intelligence of ants in making bridges, 135

Forbes, on nidification of tailor-bird, 293

Forbes, James, on monkey begging for dead body of companion,

472

Forel, on ants;
recognising slaves, 43;
and fellow-citizens, 44;
swarming habits, 58;
 experiment in rearing together hostile species, 59, 60;
tunnelling to obtain aphides, 61;
warfare, 68-77;
play, 88;
intelligence shown in architecture, 129

Forsteal, on termites, 198

Forster, W., on intelligence of a bull, 338

Fothergill, Percival, on reasoning power of a dog, 466

Fouillouse, J. de, on intelligence of hares, 357, 358

Fox, 426-33;
lying in wait for hares, 426, 427;
avoiding traps, 427-30;
allowing itself to be extricated from trap, 431;
catching crabs with tail, 432;
collective instinct in hunting, 433

Fox, C., on intelligence of porpoises, 328

Frankland, Mrs., on cock bullfinch recognising portrait of hen, 311

Franklin, on powers of communication in ants, 49

Franklin, Dr., on sympathy in parrots, 276

Frogs, 254, 255

Frost, Dr., on cat sprinkling crumbs to attract birds, 418, 419

Furniss, J. J., on elephants thatching their backs, 408, 409

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