Culture of Israel

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The culture of Israel was in development long before the foundation of the State of Israel in 1948, and is a combination of secular life and religious heritage. Much of the diversity of Israel's culture seems to come from the diversity of the Jews who make up Israel. Originating from around the world, new immigrants bring individual cultural elements from their countries, and contribute to a continuing development of Israeli culture that follows cultural changes throughout the world. The culture is also very much based on the history of the Jewish people which developed in different ways over the hundreds of years in which the Jews were in exodus. The ideology of the Zionist movement beginning in the late nineteenth century is certainly crucial to understanding modern Israeli culture.

The development of the Israeli culture may be associated with the development of the immigration to it from different countries with different cultural backgrounds. In the first years of colonization of Israel, the main influences on the culture in the settlements were mainly from the Shtetls (Jewish towns) from which most of the immigrants came. The culture of France and Germany also had an impact, becoming more popular after a lot of contributions were made by the Jewish French philanthropist Baron Edmond James de Rothschild.

The Russian culture had an undeniable poetical, musical and theatrical effect until the 1950s. Poets such as Rachel Bluwstein, Nathan Alterman, Leah Goldberg and Alexander Penn; theater people such as Hanna Rovina, or Shimon Finkel; and musicians such as Sasha Argov expressed this in a very prominent way. The "Habima Theatre" which was originally created in Russia immigrated to Israel and habitated theater mainly influenced by the Russian and Yiddish culture.

In the 1930s and 1940s Israel started to develop an "authentic" Israeli culture^[1], that originated from the Israeli born residents. This culture was largely influenced by the Arab Palestinian culture, in particular the folklore, the way they dressed, their dancing, the way they talked and the ways of their behavior. An effect more compound was in the music, which was adopting a lot of eastern elements in the songs.

A prominent effect in those years was also of the British Mandate of Palestine. Elements from their culture and ways of life were absorbed by parts of the rich bourgeoisie in Israel. Another important source of inspiration was the German culture, in particular as it was imported to Israel by the German immigrants. For example, many of the houses in Tel Aviv and the designs of its avenues were inspired by the Bauhaus movement and resembling the main avenues of Berlin.

The poetry and the Hebrew literature in the first three decades of the state are considered by many as the most praiseworthy achievements of the Israeli culture, in particular the 1950s and the 1960s, when art in modern Hebrew was created, in contrast to the poetry written previously, like that of Nathan Alterman, Avraham Shlonsky and Leah Goldberg or to the literary style of one of the greatest Hebrew authors, S. Y. Agnon. The central figures of the modern poetry of the first decades were Yehuda Amichai, Nathan Zach and David Avidan. In the field of the literature the people that mostly stood out were Moshe Shamir and Aharon Megged and following them are Amos Oz, A. B. Yehoshua, Meir Shalev and many more.

After the founding of the state in 1948 many immigrants rushed to Israel from many different countries, but their influence on the Israeli culture happened only gradually and relatively. In the 1950s the prominent effects on Israel consented in particular from the culture of England, France and United States. Since the start of the 1960s and more prominently in the 1970s, additional dominant effects began to appear. In theater, the Russian dominancy began to weaken gradually and other effects began to permeate, in particular of the European theater of Bertolt Brecht. In music, in spite of the continuance of the French effect they began to weaken. Instead of it came a much more wide variety of effects, such as British music (and in particular The Beatles) and Greek music and the continuation of the influence of more updated Russian culture.

The effect of culture of the immigrants from the Arab states on Israeli culture was considerable, but until the end of the 1970s it was generally served by means of "middlemen". For example, prominent representatives of the Mizrahi culture on the stages was "HaGashash HaHiver" while the movies which dealt with the world of the Mizrahi Jews ("Bourekas films") were directed almost always by non-Mizrahi Jews (Ephraim Kishon, Boaz Davidson and Menahem Golan) and the actors in those films playing the Mizrahi Jews weren't Mizrahi Jews either (Gila Almagor, Yehuda Barkan, Chaim Topol and Shaike Ofir).

In part of the cases, like in the one of Zohar Argov, the creations won recognition in retrospect. In other cases the late recognition was followed with mockery, like in the example of the movies Ze'ev Revach, which gained Israeli cult status but still are considered poor in the means of content and cinematography. And other cases, for example the films of George Ovadia (most of them were copied from Iranian, Turkish and Indian dramas) there was no late recognition in their quality.

Since the beginning of the mid 1980s, the Israeli cultural arena became much more open and varied by far from previous years. In the field of music, and in particular the popular music, the main influences were from Britain, Europe and South America and in addition to those, gradually, Turkish, Greek and Arab music started to become more important; in the field of plastic arts the effect was mainly American; in the field of stage arts there was a wide variety of effects, with special place to the renewed Russian effects, due to a significant immigration from Russia. In the field of literature creators like Gabriel García Márquez made their presence felt.

A big additional change occurred with the airing of Israeli commercial television channel "Channel 2". This development lead to the very significant prosperity, in the growing number of high quality dramas and in the creation of the Israeli television. The Israeli television, which was controlled from its start mainly by dramas, comedies and imported series from England and especially from the United States, developed in several years local television which pushed all the imported series from the prime time of the big popular channels to the minor channels and cable channels.

Israeli culture is heterogeneous, dynamic, and very hard to define. Considerable parts of the secular cultural creations is situated in the Tel Aviv area, although many of the official cultural institutions are situated in Jerusalem. But without a doubt, most of the Israeli culture occurs in these areas, with emphasis on Tel Aviv. Due to population composed from immigrants of five continents and more than 100 different countries, and due to significant subcultures like the Palestinians, the Russians and the Orthodox, that every one of them encounters about a million people and holds independent communities, including their own newspapers and networks in which they distribute their own products of culture, the Israeli culture is exquisite in its richness and wide variety.

Nowadays the Israeli government supports the arts less and less. The amount of financial support is lower than what is average in most western countries and less than half percent arrives from the country's budget. Israel's Philharmonic Orchestra have concerts throughout the country and occasionally plays abroad too. The Israeli broadcasting authority orchestra performs concerts throughout the world as well. To the local authorities there are many little orchestras, which their players arrive usually from the former Soviet Union. Israel is known world wide in the greatness of its modern dance, with bands like Batsheva and Batdor which perform around the world.

Habima Theatre, Cameri Theater, Beit Lessin Theater, Gesher Theater (which performs in Hebrew and in Russian), Haifa Theater and the Beersheba Theater are considered to be the most important in Israel. The repertoire of their shows cover a variety of appearance of classic and modern drama, and likewise from plays of Israeli playwrights. The national theater is the Habima Theatre, which was founded in 1917.

Colonies of artists are situated in Safed, Jaffa and in Ein Hod, but are considered less attractive nowadays. Israeli painters and sculptures sell their works throughout the world. In the cities Tel Aviv, Herzlia and Jerusalem there are art museums, and in many towns and kibbutzim there are smaller museums. The Israel Museum of art in Jerusalem consists of the Dead Sea scrolls and a comprehensive collection of Jewish religious art and popular art.

Israelis are avid newspaper readers. The main newspapers are in Hebrew, Arabic, Russian and English. There are smaller newspapers in French, Polish, Yiddish, Russian, Hungarian and German. Likewise there are many local newspapers in many towns and culture magazines.

Since the 1980s a well developed Alternative Israeli Culture has developed in Israel, in the fields of music, dance, comics, poetry, art etc.

The first Israeli prime minister, David Ben Gurion, led a trend to blend the many immigrants whom arrived at the first years of the state, from Europe, North Africa, Asia into one melting pot, that will not differentiate between the older residents of the country to the new immigrants. The original purpose was to unite the immigrants with the veteran Israelis to the creation of a unitary Israeli culture, in order to build new nation in the new country.

The two central tools that were destined for this effect were the Israel Defense Forces and the education system.

Israel Defense Forces - by the means of its transformation to the army of the nation which will constitute a common ground between all civilians of the country wherever they are.
The education system - firstly in the method of unitary education, following the cancellation of the method of the currents in education and uniting the education system under the education laws, in order that different student from different sectors would study together at the same schools.

In a gradual process the Israeli society became more pluralistic and the melting pot derided with the years.

There are some who see the melting pot as having been a necessity in the first years of the state in order to build a mutual society. Now, they claim that there is no more need for this and there is a need for Israeli society to enable the people to express the differences and the exclusiveness of every stream and sector.

Others, mainly amongst Mizrahi Jews and amongst parts of the holocaust survivors from Europe, criticized severely the early melting pot process. According to them, they were forced to give up or conceal their original heritage and culture, which they brought from their homelands, and to adopt a new "Sabra" culture.

Shmuel Yosef Agnon (winner of the Nobel prize for literature in 1966)
Aharon Appelfeld
David Grossman
Ram Oren
Amos Oz
Meir Shalev
Moshe Shamir
A. B. Yehoshua
Dan Tsalka
Etgar Keret
Emil Habibi
Anton Shammas
Haim Be'er
Orly Castel-Bloom
Ephraim Kishon
Yaakov Shabtai

More than 200 museums are operating in Israel with millions of visitors annually. Israel therefore has the highest number of museums per capita in the world.^[2]

Israel Museum
Rockefeller Museum in East Jerusalem
Ticho House
L.A. Mayer Institute for Islamic Art
Tower of David Museum of the History of Jerusalem
Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, Israel's Holocaust memorial
Bible Lands Museum

Haifa Museum
Tikotin Museum of Japanese Art
National Maritime Museum
Hecht museum
National Museum of Science in the old Technion building
Haifa Railway Museum

Herzliya Museum
Israeli Air Force Museum - Hatzerim
Ein Harod Museum - Kibbutz Ein Harod
Holon Museum
Petah Tikva Museum
Janco Dada Museum, Ein Hod

Main article: Music of Israel

Israeli music is very versatile and combines elements of both western and eastern music. It tends to be very eclectic and contains a wide variety of influences from the Diaspora and more modern cultural importation: Hassidic songs, Asian and Arab pop, especially by Yemenite singers, and israeli hip hop or heavy metal.

Israel is also home to several world-class classical music ensembles such as the Israel Philharmonic, the New Israeli Opera and others.

Also popular are forms of electronic music, including but not limited to trance, hard-trance and goa-trance. Notable artists from Israel popular in this field are limited but a famous example would be the goa-trance duo Infected Mushroom

The traditional folk dance of Israel is the Hora, originally an Eastern European circle dance. Israeli folk dancing today is choreographed for recreational as well as performance dance groups.

The Palestinian population's folk dance is the Dabke, a dance of community, often performed at weddings and other joyous occasions, with various versions in different villages and cities.

Modern dance in Israel is a flourishing field, and several Israeli choreographers such as Ohad Naharin are considered to be among the most versatile and original international creators working today. Famous Israeli companies include the Batsheva Dance Company and the Bat-Dor Dance Company.

People come from all over Israel and many other nations for the annual dance festival in Karmiel, usually scheduled in July. First held in 1988, the Karmiel Dance Festival is the largest celebration of dance in Israel, featuring three or four days and nights of dancing with 5,000 or more dancers and a quarter of a million spectators in the capital of the Galilee.^[3]^[4] Begun as an Israeli folk dance event, the festivities now include performances, workshops, and open dance sessions for a variety of dance forms and nationalities.^[5] Choreographer Yonatan Karmon created the Karmiel Dance Festival to continue the tradition of Gurit Kadman's Dalia Festival of Israeli dance, which ended in the 1960s.^[6]^[7]