Terra Incognita: The Israeli archipelago
This is an opinion piece which I, as someone who doesn’t know much about Israel, found fascinating from a cultural perspective.
I also found it surprising because it sounds very much like what I’ve heard from friends about other countries in the Middle East. I suppose my surprise was due to Israel usually being portrayed as a very Westernized country—and maybe also due to having (mistakenly) assumed a correlation between “Western” and something that is distinctly American. Could that be it? I’ve never been to Europe (only Canada & Mexico), so I don’t know if European countries are also ethnic/socioeconomic archipelagos. Based on what I’ve read I assume that some are, though maybe less so than in the Middle East and other places.
New York City (and the parts of New Jersey close to it) is very much like an archipelago, but you don’t really feel it because everyone is mashed together so tightly. Or maybe I never feel it it because I revel in the contrasts and make a point of visiting different ethnic enclaves whenever possible. Is it like that in Israel also, a patchwork of differences, each being no more than a stone’s throw from the other? Are there any LGF members out there familiar with Israel who can tell me more?
I’ve always found ethnic diversity enthralling—I should’ve stayed in college and studied sociology or some form of or socio-cultural anthropology. *sigh*
Art project: Take one large sheet of white paper and write “Israel” at the top. Do not draw borders.
In the Palestinian territories and on the Golan, place dark green dots on the Palestinian villages and towns. Place orange dots for the Jewish villages and towns (settlements). For the four Druse villages of the Golan, place purple dots. For the village of Ghajer, the lone Alawite village, place a tan dot.
Inside the Green Line, place red dots for the 268 kibbutzim and dark blue dots for the 500 moshavim.
[…]
The map you have drawn is a map of Israel. Of course there are no borders, there need not be. This is not the Israel you commonly think of, the wedge of land between the Jordan and the sea, with or without the Palestinian territories. This is the Israeli archipelago, and it represents much better the reality than the one found on any map. For Israel is more a country of islands, like those found in the Caribbean or the South Pacific. Each community, each town, each village, each neighborhood is its own island. Forget the myth that people “mix” at the university or in the army. For the most part, they do not.
THE REALITY of the Israeli archipelago confronts us on a daily basis. It is a cultural and socioeconomic reality and it transcends many factors in society. A recent article by Israel Harel described the country’s largest city as “the draft-dodging state of Tel Aviv [which]… resembles the haredi city of Bnei Brak in its percentage of draft dodgers.”
[…]
