Description
Berghahn Books The Men We Loved Male Friendship and Nationalism in Israeli Culture 2007 Edition by Danny Kaplan
Some semi-public, exclusive male settings, most noticeably in the military, encourage the production of intimacy and desire. Yet whereas in most instances this desire is displaced through humor and aggressive gestures, it becomes acknowledged and outright declared once associated with sites of heroic death. In his provocative study of interrelations between friendship in everyday life and national sentiments in Israel, the author follows selected stories of friendship ranging over early childhood, school, the workplace, and some unique war experiences. He explores the symbolism of friendship in rituals for the fallen soldiers, the commemoration of Prime Minister Yzhak Rabin, and the national infatuation with recovering bodies of missing soldiers. He concludes that the Israeli case offers an extreme instance of a much broader cultural phenomenon: declaring the friendship for the dead epitomizes the political "blood pact" between men, taking precedence over the traditional blood ties of kinship and heterosexual unions. The book underscores nationalism as a homosocial-based emotion of commemorative desire. Table of contents :- AcknowledgmentsProloguePart I: Friendship and IdeologyChapter 1. The Case of Fraternal FriendshipChapter 2. Re'ut: Friendship in Zionist IdeologyPart II: Friendship in Everyday LifeChapter 3. History and Destiny: Friendship NarrativesChapter 4. Two Styles of Sharing: The Hevreman and the IntellectualChapter 5. Public Intimacy and the Miscommunication of DesirePart III: Sacred FriendshipChapter 6. David, Jonathan, and Other Soldiers: The Hegemonic Script for Male BondingChapter 7."Shalom, haver": Commemoration as DesireDiscussion: Nationalism, Friendship, and Commemorative DesireAppendix I: Studying a National EmotionAppendix II: Table of IntervieweesBibliography