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"The 'Sabra' in Israeli Literature," with Eva Etzioni, Jewish Frontier (October 1958), pp. 16-19. A new generation is taking over in Israel; the "sabras" play a more and more important role in Israel's economy, in military and political organization and in cultural life. Time is on their side. One way to find out what the sabra ("Sabra" is the name of a cactus, sweet inside but thorny outside; it is usually applied to a young, native Israeli.) is like, is to analyze the new Israeli literature, which represents the sabra in a double way: the sabra creates it and is also its main subject. What picture does this literature convey? The sabra is, first of all, "other directed." In an often told short short-story by Usi in his book of satire With Whips and Scorpions we are told the following about Dani: Dani was always with the hevre (his comrades) ; he went to the movies with them; sat on the sand at the seashore with them; he never spent an evening without them. One day the hevre left town and Dani remained alone. He was so lonesome and felt so poor that he decided to commit suicide, but he was unable to do that alone. We can learn from this quite a few things. Dani is the typical sabra. His name itself is representative--a short name, almost metallic in intonation, taken from the Bible. The hevre is a word for which there is no translation, and we doubt if it ever will have one. It means a group--but as a pet-name! It is close to the plural of "comrade," but this is somewhat misleading. "Plural" means many singles. Hevre, on the other hand, is a name of a social group as a unit; the nearest equivalent in, English is "group." This is one of the words most frequently used by the sabras. If an Israeli father asks his teen-age daughter, "Where have you been?", nine times out of ten the answer will be: "I have been with the hevre." In eight cases out of ten, this will be the truth. It always will be accepted as satisfactory. The general notion is that if one is together with "the group," what can be wrong? The hevre for a long time to come is not a group of couples but a group which opposes every sign of autonomy as well as every attempt of a boy and girl to create a unit of their own. For several years, a boy who has a girl friend is ashamed of their friendship and feels himself influenced by the silly romantic notions of Hollywood movies. "Dating" which is always dangerous for the loyalty to "the group" begins in Israel about four years later than in the United States. The only way for a boy and a girl to start an intimate friendship without arousing the group's antagonism is for both to be active for the group: whatever this may be, a branch of the Youth Movement or a new kibbutz. The typical sabra dance, the hora, is a group dance. Everyone clasps the arm of his neighbor; girl or boy, it makes no difference, and the dance goes on in one big circle. Groups meet evenings, often around a small camp-fire. Sometimes in the woods next to the city, town or village. There, group singing takes place and "stories" are told. In a short time, a tradition of humorous folk stories has emerged, which are in style and content a characteristic creation of sabras. They reflect the nature of the sabra. perhaps more than a novel or poem created by any sabra. A novel or poem is always the creation of an individual, even though he may be influenced to a large degree by a literary tradition and by the spirit of his home. His work will still express his own personality. These folk stories, on the other hand, are a collective creation, come into being anonymously, modified again and again, until they express the spirit and underlying feelings of the group as a whole. Dan Ben Amotz and C. Hefer, two of the popular young Israeli writers, have collected these folk stories in a book called Yalkut Hacezavim--the most popular and best selling book ever written in modern Israel. The authors themselves have often sat around the camp-fire, told and listened to these stories. Once, they tell, the hevre went fishing in the Sea of Galilee. The hevre said to Dani, "Throw the looxs [an expensive fishing-lamp] into the water." Dani did not move. "You have no guts," said the hevre. Dani still hesitated. The hevre said, "You have a soft character, you are a coward." Dani stood up and threw the looxs into the sea. "Ha, ha!" laughed the hevre, "you have a weak character; everybody can influence you." The group may sometimes be cruel, but most of the time it is good-natured. In any case, the group is always right, always superior. Therefore, we say, the Sabra is "other directed." He cannot be alone, be is afraid not to conform. He disappears in a group. If this "other-directedness" is compared to the "other-directness" of a young middle-class American, as described by Riesman, an interesting difference may be seen. We see that the values described by Riesman are unimportant. In different situations and groups, different norms are accepted, without strong inner inhibition. The individual is directed to the group's latest fad. The issues, manifold and varied, are in most cases issues of taste, of style, of consumption. What to wear and how to wear it, how to cut the hair, how to eat salad, what records to listen to, etc. The "other-directedness" described in Yalkut Hacezavim is of a different nature. The background is different and so is the conformity. The hevre in S. Ishar's The Midnight Convoy goes to the Niger Desert during the War of Independence. Against this background we meet the melancholy Gabi who is unhappy, it seems, because he is not well-adjusted to his group. (Ishar is one of the most industrious writers of the young generation.) The hevre in M. Shamir's With His Own Hands fight the English and the Arabs, carry illegal immigrants on their shoulders, stand guard around besieged Jerusalem, and are killed in a fight for ideas in which they believe. Eli, one of the best-portrayed heroes in the young Israeli literature (it is more or less a biography of the life and death of the author's own brother who fell in the War of Independence) is also an "other-directed" character--extremely so. N. Shaman's book on this period is called Always We. "We" as a noun is used much more than "I" by the young sabras. But "always we" is not a slogan of their conformity for conformity's sake. It is taken from the hymn of the underground commando units (the Palmach). The entire line reads: "To orders--always we"; meaning, we are always ready to obey the orders of the nation. Riesman shows how the nouns of an ethos of production are replaced by the neutrality of abundance. The background in Israel is different. Therefore the norms around which conformity is crystalized are different. They are mainly: service to the collective goals of the nation, often at the expense of individual goals and individuality. The difference expresses itself in different lines of communication. The Israeli groups do not watch TV, simply because there is no TV; they do not pay much attention to the radio, perhaps because there is only one station which is run by the Government and until recently by the older generation. The sabra considers the radio boring. The lines of communication through which loyalty to the nation's values are maintained are much more informal, intimate and personal. The main communication leaders are "the youth leaders," the kibbutz representatives and the military politrucs. (A Russian term, often used by Israelis, to describe officers whose role it is to give the men information, and to interpret the latest developments of the battle. They are often an important factor in maintaining morale.) Beni, the politruc of a Palmach commando, has become a legendary figure. C. Hefer wrote a poem about him, and many stories in the Yalkut Hacezavim are about him. A. Etzioni, in his book about his experiences as a Palmach soldier, could not be true to the history of his unit without devoting a chapter to Beni. Beni is the typical leader of those groups, a vital link between abstract ideas and those groups which follow them in everyday life. Beni is first of all depicted as devoted to the group and its goals. When Beni was taking an army course--one story goes--his wife gave birth to their child. Beni did not even think of going to pay her a visit in a nearby city and lose some of his training in the course. When his friends finally talked him into going, he agreed only because a lot of errands for the course bad to be performed in the city. When Beni came back he reported about his errands. "How is your wife?" asked the hevre. "Oh," replied Beni, "I knew there was something I forgot." Beni, it is told around the camp-fire, once had a piece of a hand-grenade in his chest. He was lying on the operation-table in the army hospital, all set for an operation to remove it, when suddenly he heard through the window that a platoon was going to attack a nearby Arab position. Beni joined then immediately, leaving the physician and nurses looking for him all over the place. The politruc cannot be an armchair preacher. He must share the experiences, the danger, and the responsibility. Only then is he accepted as a leader. The sabra--as depicted in the literature written by sabras--is not an intellectual, a bookish philosopher. There are very few students, journalists, teachers, authors and the like among the characters of the young Israeli literature. Most of the few intellectuals described are depicted unfavorably. Beni, to be sure, is not an intellectual. When Beni got records of a symphony by Beethoven, the story goes, he sent one record to every army post. Or--in another version of the same story--when, during the Armistice, a string quartet was sent to Beni's unit, he ordered one player to be sent to each platoon. The sabra is very conscious of being a native Israeli. A strong dividing-line is drawn between him and the older generation. The difference is in values, norms, patterns of speech, humor--almost everything. The old-timers are immigrants from the Diaspora which Zionism has always strongly criticized. This idea has been taken over by the Sabra. The older generation is depicted as the opposite of the Sabra. They are weak, talking instead of acting, intellectuals, "complicated" characters. If there is antagonism between the young Israelis and the Jews in the Diaspora, the Israeli old-timers are, often seen as close to the Diaspora Jews. In the typical tension between immigrants and their sons, the second generation tends to group their parents together with other Jews from the same countries of origin. To illustrate the gap between the old and new, native generation, Yalkut Hacezavim tells about a teacher (an old-timer, to be sure) who went swimming in the sea. The hevre were sitting on the shore, watching. As the teacher started to drown--a sabra would never have drowned but the old-timer, an intellectual, is expected to drown--he began screaming for help in ancient Hebrew using the correct grammatical forms. "Thou younger! Succor! Succor!" But the hevre could not understand him and he drowned. There is one old-timer that the stories have picked out as praiseworthy: Abraham Shopira, one of the founders of Petah Tikva (among the very first pioneer settlements). Who is Shopira? He is a professional guard, always armed, riding on his horse through the fields. The stories of his courage and deeds are told, it is believed, from Egypt in the south to Syria in the north. He is depicted in Yalkut Hacezavim as a blunt fellow, somewhat rough with not much manners and using rather dirty language. The highest praise the sabra can give him is to tell about the horrible blunder he made when he was once asked to make a speech: to be a poor speaker shows that you are one of the fellows. But the gap between the old timers and the sabra is much more than a question of norms of speech or manners alone. The sabras, who have accepted from Zionism the negation of the Diaspora and the Jewish life there, have turned away from Jewish history in the Diaspora to the historical periods of Israel in the days of the Bible. While the new Israeli literature has almost completely neglected Jews and Jewish life in the Diaspora, there is great interest in the historical novel and historical play depicting the days of the Bible and shortly afterwards. One of the recent books most praised is King of Flesh and Blood, M. Shamir's novel of the days of the Maccabbees when Israel was a nation like others, settled on its own land and fighting its enemies. The King was also "normal"--almost a sabra; a man of deeds not words, anti-intellectual, and a good fighter. A play by the same author deals with the later days of the same period. Habima also presented a play about the days of Jeroboam (Most Cruel -- the King by N. Aloni). An historical novel was likewise published by M. Shamir about David and Bathsheba. Another sign of the orientation to the Biblical period is the interest in archeology in Israel, as well as everything which is related to the geography, fauna and flora of the country. The intense interest in a period of the past is symptomatic of a search for identity by historical projection. It is the statehood of Israel which forms the link between the Biblical periods and the sabras. But this same link also differentiates all those who have not been born under the Israeli sun, in its free, smouldering, somewhat mild atmosphere--from the sabras. The sabra like every human being is not a clear, one-dimensional type. If be is openly critical about the old-timers, the "speech-makers," he admires their pioneering, although he may never admit it. He prefers doing to thinking ("the horses have a large head, let them do the thinking") and he is quite critical about his fellow Jews who like their "comfortable" life in the Diaspora. But if one should try to belittle them, he will be there to tell about Einstein and Freud, the violinists and the Nobel prize winners, all that Jews have ever done for humanity. He looks and acts tough and somewhat rough. But inside he is quite sentimental. Yalkut Hacezavim describes him standing waist high in cold water at midnight transferring illegal Jewish immigrants from boat to shore (in the days of the British Mandate). He stands there, with a tear in his eye, kisses the homecoming brothers, and transfers them to the next sabra in the row whispering: "I hope they won't catch cold." Amitai Etzioni (Ph.D. in sociology, University of California at Berkeley) is an instructor in the Department of Sociology of Columbia University. Eva Etzioni (Mrs. Etzioni) is a book reviewer for the Israeli periodicals, Beterem and Meoznaim. Both are graduates of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. They add: "In writing this article, the authors have benefitted considerably from discussions with Dr. J. Ben-David of the Hebrew University." |
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