Don't Expect Deep Sociological Insights From Pop Group Singers

I guess I read The Jerusalm Report, a sister publication of the Jerusalm Post, either because I'm curious to know what liberals are thinking, or because I'm a literary masochist. The article, "What Israelis Fear Most," which was written by Matt Rees and which appeared in the February 27, 2012 issue is a perfect example.

Consider the following: Kobi Oz, lead singer of the Israeli pop group Teapacks, once told me that the Israelis 'escaped the ghettoes and then built new ghettoes here in Israel.' Instead of creating a unique Israeli identity, he said, Israelis had clung to their old insular groupings. They were Heredi, they were Moroccan, they were Ashkenazi, Mizrahi, religious, secular. Never truly Israeli. Each group feared the others, but on the surface at least was able to subsume that sense of threat beneath the more obvious antagonism with the Palestinians and the Arab states.

So why did Rees offer up this quote from the lead singer of the Teapacks? Was it because he wanted to be sure that the singer got full credit for this bit of nonsense? Or, was it because Rees felt his own gravitas was insuffiant and that quoting the Teapack singer would have readers take it more seriously? Who knows and who really cares? It's stupid.

What does Matt Rees imagine might be a "unique Israeli identity?" Does America have a unique identity? Does England, or Germany, or China, or Australia? The answer to all of these questions is, actually, yes. But that doesn't mean that people from these various countries have homogenized personalities with interchangeable manners and behaviour.

I have had occasion to visit England and I find, as no doubt most oberservers do, that there is something about the Brit that marks him as a Brit. Sure, he might be a banker or a butcher, and, sure, differences in their station might be fairly obvious, but you would be unlikely to confuse them with Americans. The world might have shrunk but regional differences remain not only here in America but in most countries as, for example, Germany, Italy, and probably most every other country. That does not mean there is not a diversity within these various contries.

The same is true for Israel. There is considerable diversity among Israelis. And, yet, there is a quality unique to Israelis that distinguishes them from other people. Mr. Rees might find fault with the Israeli character. But that is Mr. Rees's problem. As a Jew, I am very proud of the manner in which the Zionist dream has materialised into a truly remarkable nation with equally remarkable people.