On Cultural Ways of Speaking

Walker-Ames Lecture, The Graduate School, University of Washington (April 2006)

Tamar Katriel

University of Haifa

Symbol of Bezalel Academy of Art

Bezalel’s original goals

“…to train Jerusalemites in handicrafts, to consolidate art and original Jewish artists, and to find a visual expression to the long awaited spiritual and national independence, that aspires to create a synthesis between the European artistic tradition and the Jewish design tradition from the east as well as from the west, and to integrate it with the land of Israel’s local culture.”

Bezalel Art, ShepherdBezalel Art, Prayer for the Road

Dialogic Moments

• Early settlers’ soul talks 1920s-1930s

• Sabra dugri speech 1940s-1960s

• Mass-mediated

“public intimacy” 1980s-2000s

Kehiliyatenu [Our Community]:Pioneers’ Thoughts, Inner-Struggles and Desires. Ed. Muki Tzur, 1988 [1922/1972]

Sefer Hahai’yim [The Book of Life],Kiryat Anavim group diary, Ed. Aviva

Ufaz, 2001

Sefer Hakvutza [The Book of the Group],Kvutzat Hasharon group diary, Ed. AvivaUfaz, 1996

Shulamit

…And the nights we spent in the reading room - oh, how beautiful it was! – when we all participated in long talks, nights of seeking out the path from one person to the other, this is how I call these nights of holiness. Hours, long hours of confessions and listening… And in moments of silence – utter silence – it seemed to me that a ray of light springs out of every heart and the rays merge into one big flame that reaches into the heart of the sky; and it seemed to me that one large spirit is walking silently around the hall, leaving the stamp of a kiss on our foreheads…” (Kehiliyatenu, pp.229-30)

David Horowitz

…Everyone knew that in Bitanyia life begins in the evening, with the soul talk, that public confession and lengthy, pain-filled dialogue about life, the individual, society... It was a rather rich spiritual feast, but full of useless self-recriminations... The talks were conducted in semidarkness, in a dense and spiritually tense atmosphere, which bordered on lunacy...Every person had to face constant social criticism and judgment by the group, to the point of spiritual cruelty...(My Yesterday, 1970, pp. 105-106)

Plays

• Yehoshua Sobol, Leil Ha’esrim [The Night of the Twentieth] - 1976, 1990

• Hanan Peled, Hevre [Buddies] 1989-90

• Moti Lerener, Ahavot Bitaniya [Loves of Bitaniya] – 1995 (repeated broadcasts)

Nahum Gutman, I Picked a Sabra ,1930s (To Live with the Dream, 1989) Nahum Gutman, untitled ,

1940s (To Live with the Dream, 1989(

David Vakshtein, I am a Sabra, 1985)To the East, 1998(

Micha Kirshner, Abba Eban)To the East, 1998(

Obituary for Prime Minister Rabin

“…They said he was not eloquent, that he spoke with mistakes, that his speech was blunt and sharp…He was direct and hated flowery language, his words always reflected what was in his heart…” Sagi Green, Haaretz, Nov. 11, 1995)

Tsibi Geva, untitled, 1979The Want of Matter, 1986((

Nahum Tevet, Untitled, 1984)The Want of Matter, 1986(

Michal Na’aman,Marginal, 1985

)The Want of Matter, 1986(

Moshe Kupferman, Work-Table Paper, 1978)The Want of Matter, 19896(

The Want of Matter (1)

• “…the cleaving to the poor material look, the eschewal of colorfulness, , and the consistent and stubborn refusal to paint seductive pictures.”

• “…there has been an inevitability about Israel’s adopting precisely this language for its own use, an adoption so thorough that one might think it was born here.”

• “…they all seem reserved in expressing emotions… they all have a somewhat skeptical attitude to the material world; and they all shy away from idealizations, in their artistic endeavors and in general.”

The Want of Matter (2)

“…These values, perhaps passe by now, created and accepted norms of behavior, dress, and preferred forms of expression. The meagerness of material as an expression of spiritual contents is the legacy of socialist Zionism. The contrasting of essence with appearance, meaning with materialism, had its origins there…Weariness of Zionist rhetoric gave rise to an overall dislike of pathos and phraseology; this completed the circle of meager materials into which the Sabra was born and to which he clung as a means for his self-expression.”

Menashe Kadishman, Installation, Canvas Forest, 1975 (The Want of Matter, 1986)

Arie Aroch, AgrippasSreet, 1964.)The Want of Matter, 1986(

Anat Massad, White Shirts Mandatory,Digital print on canvas ,

)Togetherness, 2005(

Togetherness [lina meshutefet] (1)

“…From its inception in late 19th century Europe and early 20th century Palestine, Zionist-Israeli society has had a consuming relationship with the idea of the 'group.' Severed from their parents' homes and living in a hostile cultural environment, the survival of the first generation of Zionist pioneers depended on the formation of close-knit groups which in many ways replaced the lost intimacy of the Jewish community in the Diaspora. The egalitarian precepts of the Socialist revolution imbued the group itself with total ideological value; a total mobilization in the name of the Zionist settlement ideal subsumed the self into a collective gaze...The show follows the late traces left on its subjects by this 'group discipline' and the forms, constructs, rhythms and spaces it has embedded in their consciousness."

Togetherness [lina meshutefet] (2)

“…The artists shown all try to signify the borders of their personal identity vis-à-vis

the desire to be together, to belong, to perform the Zionist rituals of security and heroism – the declaration of their solidarity to the ‘tribe.’"

Tamir Sher, He is It ,Digitally manipulated photograph,

(Togetherness, 2005(

Yochai Bar-On, One ,Woodcuts and linocuts on paper ,

)Togetherness, 2005(

Tamar Horovits-Livne, Sextet,Wood, metal, loudspeakers, palm branches and wool,

)Togetherness, 2005(

Adva Drori, Sewn in the Belly ,Cotton seeds, wool, wood, sewing machine, plastic

)Togetherness, 2005(

Hilla Ben-Ari, Regulator,Wallpaper, plastic pipes,conveyor belt, perspex sheets and flowerpots,

)Togetherness, 2005(

Efrat Natan, Nocturno,,mixed media,

)Togetherness, 2005(