Essential nuances of culture

MIRA SUCHAROV

With the first day of the new year also came the death of one of Israel’s legendary singers. Yaffa Yarkoni was known for entertaining Israel Defence Forces troops through the decades, singing such classics as “Finjan” and “Shoshana” and winning the 1998 Israel Prize for Hebrew song.

Known as the “war singer” in her final years, Yarkoni rejected the label and became an outspoken critic of the occupation. But now, Israeli papers and politicians are reflecting on her marked cultural contribution to the country.

Clicking on some YouTube links, I realize that at least one of her recordings formed part of the soundtrack to my summer camp mornings. As my fellow campers and I sleepily dressed and made our way toward the flagpole in the 1980s, her accordion-tinged songs would waft across the field. But it wasn’t until I was spending an evening with my “kibbutz family” in the mid-1990s when I learned Yarkoni’s name. That evening I inquired who the Israeli singer on TV was. “Yaffa Damari,” replied my kibbutz “mom,” Yonit. Immediately, she and her husband collapsed into peals of laughter. Yonit had made a hilarious verbal slip, combining Yaffa Yarkoni’s name with that of another famous Israeli singer, Shoshana Damari. Damari had long been Yarkoni’s “BFF and rival,” in the words of an Israeli friend of mine.

I recall that moment well, I think, even 15 years later, because their laughter had the quality that only longstanding intimate partners, schooled with the same cultural references, can share.

Fast-forward to fall 2011, and the blogosphere was on fire with much collective agitation over an Israeli ad campaign. In a series of commercials aimed at Israelis living abroad, Israel’s Ministry of Immigrant Absorption was seeking to convince émigrés to return home. The commercials included American-raised grandchildren who know it’s Christmas but are barely aware of Chanukah; a boyfriend who doesn’t understand why Dafna, his Israeli girlfriend, is upset on Israel’s Yom Hazikaron (Memorial Day); and a dozing Israeli father who awakens only once he hears his son say “Abba” rather than “Daddy.”

The ad campaign fell on very critical ears, both in Israel and among North American Jewish writers. But at least one prominent pair of commentaries reveals a crucial difference: Israelis tended to understand the ads as a critique of Israelis moving abroad, period. The Diaspora Jewish commentators, on the other hand, understood the partners of these fictional Israelis to be Jewish, suggesting that Jewish life in the Diaspora is somehow inadequate.

In Haaretz (Hebrew version, translation mine), Moran Sharir summed up the Yom Hazikaron commercial this way: “Convince your daughter to return home.... She’ll marry this goy, yet! The goy wants to commit indecent acts with your daughter on this sacred memorial day!”

In December, the Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg wrote that Dafna’s boyfriend, “to my expert Semitic eye, is meant to represent a typical young American Jew.” And, “I don’t think I have ever seen a demonstration of Israeli contempt for American Jews as obvious as these ads.”

Soon after, Goldberg circulated a Jewish Federations of North America memo stating that, “we are strongly opposed to the messaging that American Jews do not understand Israel. We share the concerns many of you have expressed that this outrageous and insulting message could harm the Israel-Diaspora relationship.”

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu ordered the ads pulled soon after.

I don’t disagree with Goldberg’s and JFNA’s annoyance. But what’s missing from all this handwringing is the realization that countries do have unique cultures, and Israelis deserve to revel in theirs. If anything, perhaps this should serve as a wake-up call for Diaspora Jewish communities to become more knowledgeable about the cultural nuances of Israel.

How many North American Jews can speak Hebrew? How many follow Israeli films, singers and plays, and find themselves humming Israeli folk songs? I consider myself more well versed than the average Canadian Jew on the Israeli cultural knowledge front. I can actually sing (and understand) the words to “Finjan.” But even I didn’t know Yaffa Yarkoni until the day I heard my kibbutz family talking about her. There is some legitimacy to the Israeli assumption that leaving Israel and raising a family elsewhere will result in cultural dilution. To ignore this fact is to assume the Diaspora Jewish life contains the same Israeli cultural texture. It simply doesn’t.

This doesn’t mean we can’t try harder to link ourselves to life in Israel in meaningful, culturally nuanced ways. For my part, I shall pledge this year to make my way through an entire Israeli novel (in Hebrew), no matter how taxing. I’m thinking Syed Kashua’s Second Person, a book I brought home with me on my last trip to Israel. What will you do?

Mira Sucharov is an associate professor of political science at Carleton University. She blogs at haaretz.com/opinion. This article was originally published in the Ottawa Jewish Bulletin.

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