Israeli Identity: Problems in the Development of the Collective Identity of an Ideological Society

Abstract

Israeli collective identity has developed from some basic ideological-revolutionary premises and faces now, with growing differentiation and stabilization, many new prob lems. The central problem in Israel as in other modern ideo logical societies has been the extent to which commitments to broader values and to collective responsibility can be main tained in the wake of the weakening of specific ideological commitments and orientations. The possibilities of erosion of such wider commitments often become manifest in two major, often interconnected, ways—in the narrowing of the scope of wider cultural and social orientation and in the growth of cleav ages and conflicts in the central symbolic sphere. On the other hand, there exist within the Israeli cultural scene some trends and forces which tend to counter the tendencies to erosion. Among the most important are the relatively flexible relation ship to different traditions and the relative lack of over-all cul tural splits between different camps. It is important to note that, until now at least, the changing Israeli identity has been able to absorb, to some extent, tensions and problems develop ing from the growing technologization and professionalization. The extent to which a continuous peaceful transformation of Israeli identity will be able to overcome the eroding tendencies analyzed above is perhaps the most crucial problem facing Israeli society.