The Rise of the Individual in 1950s Israel
The Schusterman Series in Israel Studies
Editors
S. Ilan Troen
Jehuda Reinharz
Sylvia Fuks Fried
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Orit Rozin
The Rise of the Individual in 1950s Israel: A Challenge to Collectivism
Boaz Neumann
Land and Desire in Early Zionism
Anat Helman
Young Tel Aviv: A Tale of Two Cities
Nili Scharf Gold
Yehuda Amichai: The Making of Israel’s National Poet
Itamar Rabinovich and Jehuda Reinharz, editors
Israel in the Middle East: Documents and Readings on Society, Politics, and Foreign Relations,
Pre-1948 to the Present
!
The Rise of the Individual
in 1950s Israel
A Challenge
to Collectivism
Orit Rozin
Translated by Haim Watzman
brandeis university press
Waltham, Massachusetts
brandeis university press
An imprint of University Press of New England
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© 2011 Brandeis University
All rights reserved
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Rozin, Orit.
[Hovat ha-ahavah ha-kashah. English]
The rise of the individual in 1950s israel: a challenge to collectivism / Orit Rozin ; translated by
Haim Watzman.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 978-1-58465-892-4 (cloth : alk. paper) — isbn 978-1-61168-081-2 (pbk. : alk.
paper) — isbn 978-1-61168-082-9 (e-book)
1. Israel — Social life and customs — 20th century.
Israel — History — 20th century.
20th century.
2. Individualism — Political aspects —
3. Collectivism — Political aspects — Israel — History —
4. Israel — Social conditions — 20th century.
tions — 20th century.
5. Israel — Economic condi-
6. Israel — Emigration and immigration — Social aspects.
I. Title.
hn660.a8r69513 2011
302.5!409569409045 — dc23
2011030606
5 4 3 2 1
This book was published with the generous support of the Lucius N. Littauer Foundation, the Yoran
Sznycer Research Fund at Tel Aviv University, and the American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise.
I do not know what the state can do here. . . . It is, really, more a matter among
ourselves rather than between us and the state. . . . I want these things to be
heard. . . . From the brain, these words need to penetrate the heart; the most
important task of the intellectual now is to initiate a new movement of love within
the Jewish people, something unlike anything that has been until now, a love of the
Jewish people that brings you and me closer, and he and all of us [closer] to that filthy
and ugly Jew. . . . We must bow our heads before that suffering. We must assume the
obligation of difficult love. The role of the intellectual is to awaken it and there is nothing
else so important now.
—The poetess Leah Goldberg at a gathering of writers
called by Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion
(BGAM, “Divrey Sofrim,” March 27, 1949, 8, emphasis added)
c ont e nt s
Acknowledgments
Introduction: The First Years
ix
xiii
I At Home and on the Street
1 Austerity: Desperate Housewives and the Government
2 Austerity and the Rule of Law
3 The Law Enforcement System
3
39
52
II In the City Square
4
5
6
7
Austerity Tested: The Local Elections of 1950
The Municipal Election Results and Their Significance
From Poll to Poll: The Elections to the Second Knesset
The Outcome of the Elections to the Second Knesset
65
79
93
117
III Somewhere in the Transit Camp
8 Terms of Abhorrence: How Old-Time Israelis Viewed
Immigrants from the Islamic World
9 Parents, Parenting, and Children
10 The Construction of a Collective: Relations between Immigrants
and Old-Time Israelis
Conclusion
Notes
References
Index
139
162
180
191
201
233
245
ac k no w le d g m e n t s
This book tells the story of the old-time Israelis in the late 1940s and early
1950s. At that time my parents lived in a wooden shack with an outhouse, in a
neighborhood at the center of Tel Aviv that no longer exists, named “Nordiya.”
Today, where that wooden shack once stood, the Dizengoff Center Mall is located. I would like to thank my mother Leah for sharing the stories of her austerity hardships with me.
This book is based on a PhD dissertation supervised by Yosef Gorni and
Avraham Shapira submitted to Tel Aviv University nine years ago. My teachers
both had an important influence on this book; Yosef Gorni challenged me with
difficult questions and offered constructive criticism while Avraham Shapira
shared his wealth of knowledge. I thank them both deeply. Yaacov Shavit and
Aviva Halamish were the first to encourage me to publish the dissertation and
commented on the first draft of the text. I am ever so grateful to them for all the
help they have given me over the years. Yechiam Weitz, Assaf Likhovski and
Tuvia Friling commented on some of the chapters. Avi Bareli, Gilat Gofer, and
Michael Feige shared their vast knowledge with me while this book was in the
making. Special thanks are due to Mordechai Bar-On whose extensive reader’s
report helped me shape this book into what it is today. Yehuda Nini was there
for me when I needed to discuss this project and offered his kind and knowledgeable advice.
I am thankful to Tel Aviv University and the Yitzhak Rabin Center for the
financial support that enabled me to dedicate the years needed to complete
this research, as well as to Yad Tabenkin for the research grant.
Archival material was collected in various archives—I wish to thank all
those who assisted me throughout my research, especially Gilad Livneh, Michal Zaft and Ronit Cohen of the Israel State Archive; Leana Feldman and Hana
Pinshau of the Ben-Gurion Archives, and Lili Adar at the Ben-Gurion Heritage
Institute’s library; Michael Polishchuk and Haya Zeidenberg at the Moshe Sharett
x
Acknowledgments
Israel Labor Party Archives; Batya Leshem and Gita Bar-Tikva at the Central
Zionist Archive and Ilan Gal-Pe’er at the Pinhas Lavon Institute for Labor
Movement Research Archives.
I wish to thank Am Oved Press and the Chaim Weizmann Institute for the
Study of Zionism and Israel for publishing the book in Hebrew in 2008. In
particular I want to express my deep gratitude to Eli Shealtiel and Herzeliya
Efraty who edited the Hebrew version.
I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to Anita Shapira, Head of the
Chaim Weizmann Institute for the Study of Zionism and Israel, for supporting
this publication in both matter and spirit and for her ongoing encouragement.
My many colleagues at the junior researcher’s forum at the Chaim Weizmann
Institute offered their advice and friendship.
I wish to express my gratitude to Ilan Troen, who encouraged me to submit
my book for publication in the Schusterman Series in Israel Studies, as well as
to his coeditors Jehuda Reinharz and Sylvia Fuks Fried at Brandeis University.
And to Editor in Chief Phyllis Deutsch, Ann Brash, and Katy Grabill at the University Press of New England, as well as to Jeanne Ferris who copyedited the
English manuscript, Golan Moskwitz who read the proofs, and Joanne Sprott
who prepared the index, thank you all. Riva Starr reworked the endnotes; I
thank her for being so attentive and patient.
I wish to express my gratitude to Haim Watzman for his meticulous translation from the Hebrew and for his curiosity and concern.
During the 2009–2010 academic year, York University’s Center for Jewish
Studies hosted me while I was working on the translation. I wish to thank Sara
Horowitz for extending the invitation, as well as Erik Lawee, Marty Lockshin,
Carl Ehrlich and Laura Weisman for their assistance and friendship.
Derek Penslar of the University of Toronto read this manuscript and offered
invaluable comments, as well as his and his family’s warm hospitality.
I am also thankful to Pnina Lahav, Bernard Wasserstein, Yael Zerubavel, and
Ronald Zweig for their long time encouragement. Together with David Tal,
Tali Margalit, Yael Darr, Danny Gutwein, Zohar Segev, Meir Chazan, Tali Lev,
Uri Cohen, Michal Ben Jacob, Dina Roginsky, and Sylvia and Emanuel Adler
they helped me work my way through both the translation and the Canadian
winter. Audrey Karlinsky and her family and friends provided a home away
from home.
The translation of this book was funded by the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies at Brandeis University, the Littauer Foundation, and the Yoran
Acknowledgments xi
Sznycer Research Fund at Tel Aviv University. The American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise awarded the book a publication grant. The Association for Israel Studies awarded this book the Shapiro Prize for Best Book in 2009 for
which I am ever so grateful.
Above all, I am forever grateful to my beloved husband Gideon and our two
sons Yuval and Yotam for their love. Along with our four-legged fury family
members, they made my long days by the computer all good days.
Kfar Maas
February 2011
in t r od u c t i o n
The First Years
In the autumn of 1950, a writer for Israel’s popular daily newspaper Ma’ariv
vented the frustrations of Israel’s average, honest, conscientious, yet exasperated and angry citizens:
Ben-Gurion . . . has not even for a single day found it within him to put
himself in the place of a simple Jew of Israel, a simple citizen who goes to his
government . . . and goes through all the nerve-wracking, humiliating furies and
agonies of hell that each of us has experienced. He has not spent a single day in
benchless corridors and has never gone, like an ordinary citizen, into the office
of an official who doesn’t know how to say “Hello” and who doesn’t bother to
keep a chair in his office so that he won’t have to offer anyone who enters a seat,
and it doesn’t matter what happens afterward, the endless refusals, and the
endless forms, and the arbitrary treatment, and the dilettantish attitude.1
For its ordinary inhabitants, the new state of Israel, whose establishment in
1948 represented the extraordinary consummation of the Zionist enterprise,
quickly turned into a troubling, everyday reality. The new state became a home
for devoted Zionists from all over the globe but also took in hundreds of thousands of impoverished or persecuted refugees, at least some of whom would
have preferred to go elsewhere. The achievement of statehood created a burden
that threatened to overwhelm the state’s own apparatus and the civil society
that had been constructed in the preceding decades by the country’s established
population. This book examines how the very establishment of the state, and
the stress resulting from the mass influx of a new and culturally different population, affected and transformed Israeli society. Beginning as a collective that
placed national and communal needs first, it gradually became a society in
which individuals sought—and expected the state to allow them—individual
freedoms, a steadily rising standard of living, and personal fulfillment.
xiv
Introduction
Mass immigration compelled the government to impose a severe austerity
program and rationing, a regime that brought with it food shortages, endless
lines, and a notoriously intrusive bureaucracy. Although the country’s veteran
citizens—the vatikim (Hebrew for old-timers), or those who had grown up in
the Yishuv, the pre-state Jewish community—initially displayed a willingness
to make sacrifices for the sake of their newly arrived Jewish brethren, they
gradually came to view the impositions as unfair, unnecessary, and too difficult to live with. Israeli society and culture still bear the imprint of these early
days. The way Israelis see and interpret the past has changed over time, but its
impact has not diminished.
During Israel’s early years, the veteran Israelis felt profoundly disappointed
with the state and the society that had emerged after independence. Ostensibly, these people should have seen the War of Independence as a turning point;
in the wake of their long, bloody, but successful effort to create a Jewish state,
one might have expected them to feel relieved. Instead, the mood after the war
was one of dejection. As the intimate environment of the Yishuv was overwhelmed by destitute immigrants, members of this established community
closed ranks to preserve their close-knit society. The heavy burden imposed by
immigration thus also catalyzed a feeling of alienation.
Within the space of just five years, from 1948 to 1953, Israelis had to cope
with a series of setbacks and crises—war, inflation, the program of rationing
and price controls, recession, and unemployment. Construction and settlement activities went into high gear but were unable to avert a severe housing
shortage. Illness became more frequent, and death rates rose. Despite the state’s
rapid development, old-timers experienced this period as drab and shabby. The
country they saw around them was far removed from their dreams and ideals.
The immigrants themselves suffered the worst effects of the mass immigration; they struggled simply to subsist. But the shock waves battered old-timers
as well,2 and it is this group that stands at the center of the current study.
The Collective and the Individual
During Israel’s early years, public debates and conflicts directly or indirectly
shaped government policy and the nature of the regime. They left their marks
on legislation, jurisprudence, and the way people lived. Whatever the specific
issues at stake, the disputes were ultimately about the nature of Israeli identity,
the public good, and the responsibilities of citizenship. They had far-reaching
Introduction xv
consequences for the relationship between the individual and the collective.
By tracking the public discourse of the time as recorded in archival material,
my purpose here is to bring some of these processes to light.3
Since the Yishuv was the nucleus of the Israeli state,4 an understanding of
the metamorphoses that occurred in the transition from one to the other will
clarify the nature of changes in Israeli society during its initial years. Yishuv
society, although pluralistic and stratified, was characterized by voluntary collectivism. Its members enlisted, of their own free will, in the project of constructing a common society and identity. This attitude is evident among social
elites, as well as among agents of change like writers, educators, and other
intellectuals who placed themselves at the disposal of the collective, living in
agricultural settlements, performing manual labor, and serving in the military.
Individuals and organizations alike made a supreme effort to develop, learn,
and inculcate the use of a common language and fashion a common cultural
repertoire. Although collectivism was specifically an ideology of the Left—of
the labor movement that was the Yishuv’s leading political force—the Right in
its own way accepted collectivistic principles. For the latter, collectivism was
manifested in nationalism, culture, the military, and certain political matters.
In other words, the Yishuv’s collectivism was not only a matter of the economy
and the political and social organization, but rather, and principally, a mental
attitude.5 It was adopted as a model of proper conduct and constituted an important foundation of the consciousness, feelings, and behavioral repertoire
of the society that established the state. The people of the Yishuv, who became
the veteran members of Israeli society, felt a strong sense of belonging to and
responsibility for the other members of the Jewish nation. This commitment
gave them a sense of power and inner strength.6 Most of them also had a sense
of mission, resulting from their belief that individuals had the power to achieve
personal redemption and to contribute to the redemption of their compatriots.
When the Yishuv became the state of Israel, the nature and manifestations
of collectivism changed. Instead of being motivated by a grass-roots ideology,
by individuals and groups, it became the chief principle of government, its
ethos and logos. I argue that a dialectic process took place in Israel’s early
years. Society became more individualistic, as Israelis became less inclined to
sacrifice their personal preferences and health—and less willing to volunteer
their energies, money, and time—for the good of the collective.7 Yet this took
place at a time when most of the country’s top leaders and policymakers subscribed to a collectivist socialist-Zionist ideology and were working to create a
xvi
Introduction
centralized regime.8 They wanted a strong central government so that the state
apparatus could be used to fashion society (or at least certain aspects of it) and
mold a collective identity that would encourage individuals to exert themselves
to achieve common national goals. Unlike voluntary collectivism, which depends on individuals’ motivating themselves, centralized collectivism is powered by politicians, bureaucrats, and other leaders.
A nation that has declared its allegiance to an individualist ethos can pursue
an efficient centralist collectivist policy for limited periods, such as in times of
economic depression, as the United States did in the 1930s. In contrast, a centralized collectivist establishment like Israel’s during the 1950s can engender
individualism.9 Centralized collectivism was personified by David Ben-Gurion,
the most important Israeli leader of the country’s first decade. His ideology,
ethos, and modus operandi were shared by most members of the governing
elite and officialdom. However, some aspects of the government’s centralized
collectivist policies yielded unforeseen results and contributed to the process
of individualization. Centralized collectivism was apparent in the ideology and
ethos of the veteran population, if we consider its public discourse, but less so
in its consciousness, and even less so in its actions. The disparity between discourse and practice increased over time.10
As individualization intensified, the Israeli public’s sense of common destiny was maintained and fostered by a number of historical and sociological
factors. Among these were constant military tension, the fresh scars of the
War of Independence, the heritage of the Yishuv and the struggle against the
British, Israeli society’s confrontation with the consequences of the Holocaust
and its survivors, and the salient presence of the heroes of the War of Independence, as well as of institutions and political movements that had played key
roles in the struggle. Although the veteran Israelis came increasingly to place
their individual interests before those of the nation, they continued to view
themselves as a collective committed to the interests of the Jewish people as a
whole—both those who lived in Israel and those who were destined, in the
Israelis’ view, to eventually settle in Israel.
The Origins of the Individualist Ethos
The dominant voice of state institutions, and the state’s endeavor to take over
functions that had previously been performed by voluntary groups and political parties, inevitably led to a reduction in voluntary collectivism. Veteran Is-
Introduction xvii
raeli society found itself caught between the norms that were the product of its
ideals and consciousness and the demands of day-to-day life.11 The liberal individualist ethos had already appeared during the Yishuv period, but it became
a coherent ideology and praxis only many years after the country’s first decade.12 Nevertheless, advocates for this outlook, among them elected officials
and the courts, participated in the public discourse of the 1950s.13 The change
derived from the process of institutionalization and from the declining role of
voluntarism, which was replaced by the pursuit of personal interests.
Another factor in the change was the appearance of a new social elite, the
bureaucracy. Most members of this elite were Ashkenazim—Jews of Eastern
and Central European origin. Although they belonged to the labor movement
on the political level, a large chunk of the elite was making its way out of the
working class. They relegated productive manual labor to the new immigrants,
in particular those from the Middle East and North Africa, the Mizrahim
(sometimes called Sephardi or Oriental Jews).14 The distinction between the
elite and the new working class was not solely ethnic—the former group included Mizrahim who had been members of Yishuv society and of the labor
movement. But because the Yishuv elite was overwhelmingly Ashkenazi (only
11 percent of the pre-independence Jewish population was Mizrahi), and because it drew its ideology and culture largely from European sources, new Ashkenazi immigrants faced fewer obstacles to integration and moved from manual labor into business and government jobs more quickly. The result was that
the working class became more and more Mizrahi.
The decline of the principle of frugality, the accelerated transformation of
parts of the former Yishuv society into a new bourgeoisie, the appearance of a
new and ostentatious capitalist class, and the percolation of this capitalist
ethos into other social classes all reinforced social change. Another factor in
this transformation was weariness, the spiritual anticlimax experienced by
revolutionary societies when they face the task of institutionalizing their
achievements. Yet another was the character of the immigrants themselves.
Those who came from Europe evinced no inclination to accept the norms of
pioneering Yishuv society. They identified far more with Western models of
success, aspiring to individual fulfillment and city life. They viewed money,
not the frugality of the manual laborer, as the measure of status and success.
Furthermore, the adherence to religious, ethnic, and family tradition that
characterized the immigrants from the Maghreb and Mashrek ran up against
the ethic of enlisting in the service of the collective.15
xviii
Introduction
“Individualism” is a charged term. Its meaning in the hegemonic Israeli
discourse of the 1950s differs from its meaning today. When used by the state’s
leaders and senior members of the labor movement, the term was derogatory.
“Individualism” was a synonym for selfishness and careerism, the reason or
principal cause of what was called “the pioneer crisis,” the phenomenon of
individuals’ turning their backs on the huge and pressing needs of society and
the state.16 The criticism of the pursuit of money and status did not distinguish
between these desires and individuals’ need to set boundaries and live their
lives according to the dictates of their inner will. The prevailing collectivist
discourse looked with suspicion on two aspects of liberalism. The first of
these was liberal politics, with its commitment to democracy and the rule of
law. The principles of liberal politics limited the state’s power to impinge on
inalienable individual rights, even in the name of overwhelming national need.
The liberal state aspired to balance the values of equality and freedom, with the
latter taking precedence over the pursuit of collective goals. The second aspect
was economic liberalism, which rejected state intervention in the economy.
The ruling class of Israel in its early days seems to have linked the expansion of
European individualism to the growth of capitalism, even if that expansion
also had a place in socialist thought.17 In contrast with the prevailing approach
in Israel at the time, many Westerners viewed liberal democratic individualism
as a positive phenomenon—as the individual’s standing up for his or her
uniqueness and originality, and for his or her voice. The demanding nature of
the collective in Israel’s young society and the view that it sought no more than
to foster the general good stood, in certain ways, in opposition to the image
of the collective in Western societies, where liberal democratic principles required the state to respect and nurture individual rights.18
In the face of this disparity, it is important to look at the interactions between the individual and the collective, and in particular between the individual and the regime. I will therefore examine events in which the discourse of
civil rights appeared, as well as struggles to promote such rights. One of the
basic assumptions on which this book is based is that awareness of human
rights and efforts to promote them are evidence of the growing empowerment
of the individual and his or her enhanced status within society. Mapai, the
largest of the labor parties and the party of government of the Yishuv and of the
state of Israel for its first three decades, viewed the protection of the individual’s fundamental social and political rights as a central value. It therefore
worked hard to secure them.19 Civil rights, however, needed more protection.20
Introduction xix
The discourse of rights was not silenced, as some studies have suggested,21
when the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, decided in 1950 to enact a set of basic
laws as an alternative to a constitution. Social, political, and civil rights were
an important issue on the public agenda.
Most work on Israel’s first years paints with broad strokes; it focuses on
political parties and policy debates. Such accounts describe the period from
the outside, at a distance of time, and critique it with the benefit of hindsight.
The purpose of this book is not only to present a comprehensive picture of
some of the changes that took place during this period, but also to portray
them, as much as possible, from the point of view of the Israelis who experienced them. My goal is to understand these people’s feelings, expectations,
and disappointments. Only by comprehending the mentality of the period; the
way people saw the society they lived in and their own place within it; how they
felt and what they thought about their country, their lives, their pasts, and their
futures; and how they coped with the challenges they encountered can we
today understand the changes that occurred during the country’s critical early
years.
This book is divided into three parts, revolving around three thematic axes. In
each part, I will seek to point out the agents of change and the causes of the
process of individualization. The first part is devoted to the relationship between the regime and the public, set against the background of the enforcement and implementation of the austerity policy pursued by the government.
Chapter 1 looks at how housewives in the original population coped with the
austerity regime. Little scholarly attention thus far has been devoted to this
sector, its opinions and beliefs, and its relationship to the authorities and the
Israeli community at large. I propose that housewives were agents of change
who accomplished or motivated a process of individualization in Israeli society. Chapter 2 examines the austerity regime through the prism of the rule of
law. It follows the government’s enforcement policies, the extent of public
compliance, and the reasons Israelis violated the austerity regulations. Chapter 3 is devoted to the role of the judicial system and its relationship with the
government and the Knesset. In chapters 2 and 3, I argue that the failure to
implement and enforce the austerity program undermined trust between the
individual Israeli and the government. In my view, mutual alienation between
the two encouraged individualism.22
xx
Introduction
The book’s second part, comprising four chapters, examines the political
arena. The intention is to reveal Israelis’ positions on the issues of the day
through the mirror of the actions and words of the political parties that competed for their votes. Politics is thus discussed as a means, not an end in and of
itself. An extensive discourse on rights evidenced itself in the two election
campaigns examined here, reflecting, I argue, the needs and travails of the
veteran Israeli public. This discourse serves as a way of plumbing what the
public thought about the proper relations between the individual and the collective. Chapter 4 looks at the campaign leading up to the local elections of
November 1950. Chapter 5 analyzes the election results, their significance,
and their implications. Chapter 6 focuses on the subsequent national election
campaign. Chapter 7 discusses the outcome of the national elections and the
comprehensive and significant policy changes that followed them, both in the
area of mass immigration—which manifested the collectivist ethos—and in
the government’s economic program. Another thread that runs through this
group of chapters is the political establishment’s intervention in and attempts
to influence the electoral process, thus violating its autonomy. Part 2, in particular chapter 7, offers evidence of such tampering, and considers how this
affected the foundations of Israeli democracy and the collective consciousness
of the country’s society, particularly that of the veteran Israelis.
Part 3 examines the effect that the massive immigration of the state’s early
years had on the first Israelis and their attitudes toward the Jewish collective. (The state’s non-Jewish citizens were perceived at that time as “others”
who lay outside Israeli society.) This section is concerned with the history of
emotions, portraying the revulsion the old-timers felt toward the immigrants,
especially those from the Middle East. This attitude had its source in an unflattering image of the immigrants as constructed by cultural agents, the immigrants’ living conditions, and the foreignness of their customs. Chapter 8
offers a theoretical explanation of the term “disgust” and discusses how this
image of the immigrants was created by mediating agents—national leaders,
bureaucrats, and journalists. The chapter also examines the immigrants’ living conditions during their first years in Israel, and the connection between
those conditions and the group’s negative image. Chapter 9 shows how immigrants were seen as parents, and how the veteran Israelis’ impressions of
immigrants were affected by the marriage practices of some from Islamic
lands. Chapter 10 sums up the relationships between old-timers and immigrants and examines the role that the veterans’ sense of disgust toward the
Introduction xxi
immigrants played in the formation of the Israeli collective. It also looks at
how this revulsion transformed the old-timers’ attitudes toward the collective.
In contrast with the common image of Israeli society at its inception being a
mobilized society ruled by an all-powerful party machine, I will show that Israeli life was in fact shaped not only by the country’s decision makers but also
by how the average Israeli related and reacted to the elite’s principles. Social
attitudes and moral values are not only instilled in the public by intellectuals,
scholars, and political leaders—that is, from the top down—but also by agents
of change, often difficult to identify, among ordinary citizens.