To Have a Culture of Our Own: On Israeliness and its Variants

Hebrewism, Globalized Israeliness and Mizrakhiut are examined as three major variants of Israeliness that struggle between them over dominance in Israeli field of national culture. By discussing typical styles of literature and popular music associated with each variant, it is demonstrated how each is commited, albeit in a different way, to the belief in the idea of 'one nation - one culture' and to the construction of one unique 'Israeli culture'. Israel serves as a case to support a general argument about contemporary national cultures being a 'Bourdieusian' field in which invented tradition, global culture and subnational/'ethnic' culture are the major types of positions, struggling between them to define the dominant national culture capital.