Word and action in Israeli performance

Sharon Aronson-Lehavi

Freddie Rokem

pp. 222-235

in: Jon McKenzie, Heike Roms, CJW-L Wee (eds), Contesting performance, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2010

Abstract

Reviving Hebrew and materializing Zionism: word and action converge Israeli culture coordinates many complex levels, including the actions and cultural expressions constituting a national culture, the language(s) developed to describe these actions through day-to-day reporting, the more distanced writing of history, and the artistic/aesthetic expressions that a national culture produces. These forms of coordination, regardless if they are conscious or not, serve both as an expediting element to achieve certain political, ideological, and cultural-expressive goals, as well as a dynamic mechanism for reflection and critique. One distinguishing feature of early Zionist ideology and its realization in the 1948 establishment of the Israeli state was that the categories of "doing" and 'speaking/writing" were very closely connected and coordinated, constantly mirroring each other, and expressing from various perspectives the notion of fulfilling a dream: the return of the Jews to their ancient homeland.