Sanctities1

Sanctities,
blasphemies and the (Jewish) Nation: Commemorative Inscriptions in a
National Memorial Site in Israel

Introduction 1

Israeli Civil religion inscribed 2

Method: Ethnography of (inscribed)
commemoration 3

Institutional (top-down) construction:
The visitor book as a sacred stage 4

Inscribed performances: Sanctities and
blasphemies 7

Conclusions 7

References 8

--Second,
because of the socialized nature of these visits, that is that
visitors are typically accompanied by members of groups and family,
most of these decisive moments are not embodied by individuals.
Instead, they are a somewhat spontaneous and haphazard consequence of
a number of interactions among visitors, which might (or might not)
lead to attending the VB. As a result of this type of non-lineal
social decision-making (arrived at the level of the group), visitors'
behaviors hardly evince any signs of the solemn-ness or of the
sacredness that this densely symbolic site is supposed to bestow. In
other words, already here (and this will be much clearer later in the
inquiry) we can observe that the social dynamics are such that little
room is left of the type of aura that is typical of rituals of
national religion and sanctity .

הנצחה
בהקשר הישראלי
– מאירה וויס,
אהרונוף.

גוף
המאמר:

• להראות
  שהמקום קדוש
  בקדושה המשלבת
  קדושה יהודית
  (דתית)
  וקדושה
  לאומית:

  
  
  
  

  • כתיבה
    – וספר, כל
    המכתבים

    
    

  • מבנה
    ספר המבקרים
    בלב האתר.
    

    
    

  • להתייחס
    למלחמת 67 כאירוע
    קריטי בנרטיב
    של הקדושה החילונית
    הישראלית.
    

    
    
  
  

• ראשית,
  להראות שיש
  חולין באתר
  ובספר המבקרים:
  רוב רובם
  של האנשים אינם
  רושמים ולכן
  אינם נרשמים
  בשרשרת ההנצחה
  שהקים האתר.
  כאן לא מדובר
  על חילול קודש
  אלא פשוט יחס
  קליל, חולי,
  סתמי ו"לא
  קדוש" לאתר
  – סתמי או מקרי
  או מאולץ או
  משהו כזה.

  
  
  
  

  • זה
    מעניין כי היחס
    תמיד היה של
    "top-down", הקנייה
    מוסדית של "דת
    חילונית-לאומית".
    וכאן ניתן
    לראות מה אנשים—bottom
    up—עושים
    באתר קדושה
    חילונית-לאומית.
    

    
    
  
  

• שנית,
  להראות שיש
  התמודדות
  והתגוששות
  מפורשות ומעורבות
  במישור דתי,
  הקשורה בהבנת
  הצומת "קדושה
  חילונית-לאומית"
  בהקשר הישראלי
  בהווה:

  
  
  
  

  • ע"י
    קדושה דתית
    אנטי-ציונית
    (ה-Xים
    שעליהם דיברתי
    וההשחתה)

    
    

  • ע"י
    קדושה דתית
    ציונית (למה
    אין פה..)

    
    

  • 
    
  
  

• 
  

Introduction

In
a recent annual meeting of the Israeli Anthropological Association, I
was discussing my last research project with a senior colleague. I
was sharing my ethnographic experiences from and contemplation of the
Ammunition Hill National Memorial Site, which is a commemoration
complex located in (West) Jerusalem, where I conducted a month of
observations and informal interviews at the, focusing on the
impressive commemorative VB therein.

dedicated
to the memory of soldiers who died in Jerusalem during the 1967 war.
Some time before the conference I conducted a month of observations
and informal interviews at the, focusing especially on the impressive
commemorative VB therein . The senior Anthropologist heatedly argued
that the “heydays of the Ammunition Hill site are long gone,”
and that the place is run down and ill-kempt. With specific regards
to the commemorative VB, he argued that, “delinquent youths
from nearby neighborhoods and school they “masturbate on the
book,” with a expression of disgust. While I understand that,
at least since Mary Douglas' famous work, bodily excursions?? are
considered as impure and taboo, the symbolism in this case was not
completely coherent; nor did I know whether my counterpart was well
familiar with the urban history of the place of the Ammunition Hill,
which, prior to the building of the Site and due to the marginal
urban location between East (Palestinian) and West (Israeli) parts of
the city, prostitutes were offering their service there. The point is
that it was clear that my college was describing what he thought of
as a steep decline in the state of an esteemed site of commemoration,
that he was bothered by it, and that in this regard the practice of
masturbation, and bodily fluids such as “cum” (which he
also mentioned), were used as stark illustration of the steep
degradation of the national commemoration site had undergone in the
last years.

It
what follows, no further reverence to autoerotic practices or bodily
fluids will be made whatsoever. I chose to open with this vignette
because it reveals some of the (symbolic) tensions that surround
issues of sacredness of places and spaces, and particularly spaces of
national(ist) ritual and sanctity in Israel. In the sections that
follow, I will briefly describe the theoretical background concerning
works on the holiness and nationalism, succinctly tied up in Robert
Bellah's (??“Civil Religion in America,”
Deadalus) famous notion of “civil religion,”
coined in the late 1960’s. After a short methodological
account, I will characterize the ways that the institutionally
construct a sense of sacredness of the place of national
commemoration, and then I will supply rich empirical details I will
descive abd discuss a number of activities, predominantly in the form
ov VB entries, where different VB entries

two
aspects that

--Bellah's
concept is spicy because it puts critical mirror in front of the face
of national projects, suggesting that these are (but) substituted of
hegemony, which use similar means for arriving at not too different
goals. … Bellah's concept is productive also because it
transcends the realm o high (sociological) theory, and it is in
highly intuitive. Of my autobiographical impressions I have a clear
recollection of sitting on my Sabra (native Israel) wide uncle’s
shoulders (my material uncle was a combat soldiers in the Israeli
army, with many combat stories), waving to a variety of military
troops and vehicles marching and riding through the center of the
city of (West) Jerusalem, during the early 1970s.

Israeli
Civil religion inscribed

--“I
employ the notion of sacredness to politico-national sphere after
Durkheim (see Gephart 1998)”

--אופני
מסגורו של הספר,
המעלים
אסוציאציות
של "קדושה
לאומית"
וכן התרומה
של הספר עצמו
לחוויית הקדושה
במקום,
מהווים
דוגמה להיבטים
הכמו-דתיים
של טקסי ההשתתפות
בתרבויות
חילוניות-לאומיות
בכלל, ובצורתה
מודגשת בהקשר
הצברי בפרט.
את המושג
"קדושה
חילונית"
אני קושר
לעבודותיו של
רוברט בלה,
ובעיקר
לרעיון הדת
האזרחית (Bellah
& Tipton, 2006). בלה
מגדיר "דת
אזרחית"
כְּ-
“The religious dimension that exists in the life of every
nation through which it interprets its historic experiences in the
light of its transcendental reality.” (Bellah, 1975, p. 3).
רעיון
זה הוכח כרעיון
פורה במיוחד
בבחינתם מיתוסים,
טקסים,
ואתרים
ממלכתיים בהקשר
של הלאומיות
הציונית,
ומחקרים
רבים בחנו את
הזיקה שבין
המורשת והדת
היהודית,
מכאן,
ומערכת
המיתוסים,
הטקסים
והסמלים הלאומיים-ישראליים,
מכאן.
בפרט,
נבחנו
האופנים בהם
עשתה ועושה
הממלכתיות
הישראלית שימוש
במערכת המשמעויות
היהודית,
הטקסית-סמלית,
בכינונו
של מערך חוויתי
של זהות לאומ(נ)ית
משותפת.
כפי שציינו
ליבמן ודון יחיה
(Liebman & Don-Yihya, 1983), “The
major symbols of Zionist-Socialism, its myths and ceremonies, were
laden with traditional motifs and representations” , ונראה
כי ספר המבקרים
באתר ההנצחה,
הממוסגר
בתוך היכל קדושה
לאומית ובו בזמן
גם ממסגר אותו
ככזה, מהווה
דוגמה מובהקת
לענין זה (ר'
גם ליבמן
ודון-יחיא,
1984. קימרלינג,
2001 Handelman, 1998; Katriel, 1995; Zerubavel, 1995).

The
concept is powerful because it put a critical mirror in the face of
republican nationalism,

The
concept has also been relatively widely used in relation to Israeli
nationalism, i.e. Zionism. Critical observers of Zionist ideology
argue that from the start, that is from sometime in the first half of
the twentieth century, “[t]he major symbols of
Zionist-Socialism, its myths and ceremonies, were laden with
traditional motifs and representations.” This is nowhere more
evident or accentuated than in the multidinious/numerous ?? national
rituals, days of commemoration, and sites of memorials, celebrating
the partnership/conjoin of nationhood and militarism evident in
Israel.

"פןלחן לאומי
של הנצחת המתים"

See
also , ,

Method:
Ethnography of (inscribed) commemoration

This study took place at the Ammunition Hill National Memorial Site
(AHNMS), which is a war commemoration complex located in the northern
parts of West Jerusalem. Inaugurated in 1975, the site honors Israeli
soldiers who died in the battle on Ammunition Hill during the 1967
War. The site also celebrates the victory of the Israeli Army over
the Jordanian Legion, and the “liberation” of East
Jerusalem and the “unification” of the city. The complex
comprises a number of spaces and structures, including an outdoor
site that includes commemorative monuments and the original trenches
in which the fighting took place, as well as an indoor museum.

The museum is a typical site that embodied, materially and ideology
the Israeli “cult of commemoration” . It presents
exhibits and information about the battle on Ammunition Hill and the
overall campaign for Jerusalem, that is surrounded by a venerated
atmosphere changed with a perfusion of symbols and icons: the museum
is a half sunken dimly lighten building, of which halls and corridors
are build of local stones, so as to produce an authentic impression
of war trenches, such as those located at the outdoor space nearby.
Most of the features are commemorative devices, such as the Golden
Wall of Commemoration, engraved with the names of the 182 soldiers
who fell in the battle for Jerusalem and a short film about the
Ammunition Hill Battle. In addition, many maps and pictures are
employed to illustrate the battles for Jerusalem, and a variety of
discursive artifacts, such as the soldiers’ letters and
personal journals, serve to enhance the display’s authenticity
and to personalize the soldiers.

The research at the AH site was conducted mainly over four weeks of
ethnography, which took place during the summer and autumn of 2006
(repeated visitors to the sites were —conducted for follow-up
purposes). During this period I conducted observations and informal
(unstructured) interviews with visitors, which addressed their
impressions of and activities in the site, and specifically their
views of the commemorative visitor book therein and their
interactions with it. These observations and interviews indicated
that the majority of the visitors were either (local) Jewish
Israelis, or Orthodox and Ultra-Orthodox Jewish tourists-pilgrims,
mostly from North America. These were usually on organized trips to
Israel, usually organized by the Jewish Agency, the Taglit Project
and similar organizations, which share Zionist ideology. Both
populations of visitors expressed their general support of Israel’s
national militaristic-Zionist ideology. Additionally, interviews were
also conducted with the site’s staff in order to learn of the
ideological approaches to national commemoration and how
commemoration may be exhibited.

In
addition, a study of visitor book entries was conducted. Two volumes
supply the case study of this examination. These volumes were chosen
because they were the most recent ones to be completed, and because
they are typical of the AH visitor books in all respects (cf. Noy,
2008). Each of these books contains 100 pages, took about one year to
fill (the first volume between ?? 200?? and May 2005, and the second
between June 2005 and June 2006), and includes over 1,000 entries.
Given this considerable number, and the fact that these entries were
written over a long period of time, and is located at a National
Commemoration Site, the books arguably provide a representative
sample of inscribers’ actions at a symbolic site. The entries
in the book vary in length, ranging from one-word inscriptions to
short paragraphs, with the majority written in Hebrew (50%) and the
rest written mostly in English (45%, but also in French, Spanish,
Russian and more). The entries were examined in light of the
performative appreciation of the book and its function, whereby it is
viewed as a stage for visitors (inscribed) performances (more on that
see below). In their analysis I avoided employing rigorous and
systematic procedures (“content/discourse/text analyses”
of sorts), and preferred a context sensitive reading, that enjoys
sensitivities promoted by the fields of (critical) discourse analysis
and multimodality studies .

Institutional
(top-down) construction: The visitor book as a sacred stage

--Jewish
or Judeo ethno-nationalism and Jewish or Judeo ethno-militarism

--the
“cult?? of the dead” (ממאירה
וויס כמדומני)

In
this section I argue that the commemorative VB at the AH serves as a
sacred stage that invites inscriptions, or inscribed
performances of participation in the Zionist ethno-national civil
religion. While I argued elsewhere for a performative view of this
visitor book , my present claim is that the book functions as a stage
insofar as it functions as a holly apparatus in a national shrine of
militaristic commemoration. In other words, the dialectics of
performance, on the one hand, and national sacredness and
commemoration, on the other, are brought to the fore as the notions
of “scared” and of “stage” are mutually
confirming. This condition is created by the following framing cues
by which the sacred and the performative functions of the visitor
book are joined, both materially and symbolically.

First,
while visitor books are typically located near the exit of sites and
attractions, where they allow visitors to recapitulate their
experiences and comment on their overall visit, this commemorative VB
is located in one of the museum’s innermost halls. It is
positioned near the Golden Wall of Commemoration
and the eternal flame, where a low and solemn voice of a male
narrator is continuously heard, reciting the names of all the fallen
soldiers and their military affiliation and rank.

This
unique location, inside the museum’s commemorative “holy
of holies,” endows the book with the semiotic status of a
sacred device that is an organic part of the museum’s authentic
commemorative exhibit . Conceptually, the book’s unique
location is the complete opposite or reverse of the typical places
where VBs are positioned, because it invites acts of ideological and
emotional participation, rather than reflections on a visit that has
been completed. The book’s position in the heart of the
commemorative space suggests that it is metonymic to the museum. As
will be demonstrated below, the practices of interacting with it
(basically reading and writing), are essential elements of the ritual
of the visit to a commemoration site, and not a reflection or
commentary about it.

Second,
the book’s unique framing as a scared stage is further
augmented by the structure on which it rests. It is installed on a
large and impressive structure, consisting of two columns of black
steel, each of them about one meter thick (Figure 1 below). The
shorter column, approximately one meter tall, functions as a kind of
pedestal on which the book rests, and beside it is another pillar
some four meters tall. The pedestal is made of thick and impressive
wood, giving the platform on which the book rests a particularly
impressive and respected appearance. The entire structure rests on a
base that is slightly elevated from the floor, so that those wishing
to read (or write) in the book must step up and enter a specially
designated zone.

Figure
1: Book and Hall

Here,
again, the sacred function of the book is cued. The special
construction suggests that it is not a bureaucratic document that is
meant to capture information about visitors (names, dates, etc.), nor
impressions regarding the visit, but a cherished medium that invites
ritualistic acts in which visitors may engage in situ as part of
their adherence to and embodying of national commemoration. This
framing is further augmented by the fact that the VB is the central
exhibit in the hall where it is located. This arrangement, too,
frames the book as a unique medium, which demands special attention
on behalf of the visitors.

Located
as a notable exhibit in a special public space in the museum, it can
be easily realized that the inscriptions visitor write therein
immediately become parts of the commemorative and authentic
display at the site. Here is a transformative medium, where
individual inscriptions (of the genre of visitor book entries), are
instantaneously granted a public nature, and become collective acts
of embodiment of the commemorative ideology at the site.

Third,
the metonymic association between the tangible device and the
intangible ideology of ethno-national commemoration is established
not only through the spatial positioning of the book, but is also
reiterated from “within”: through the material and the
design of the book’s pages (or inner spaces). In terms of
materiality, the book is a heavy and sizable volume that includes 100
thick pages made not of paper but of parchment. In terms of
(inscribed) performance, the size and material of its pages are a
point of interface between text and texture, or the embodied acts of
writing and reading in the book. Ostensibly, the parchment material
indexes authentic and esteemed scriptures and holly inscription,
echoing the views in both Islam and Judaism of the sacred nature of
scripture as such.

In
terms of visual design, each of the pages in the book is printed with
a vertical line of four symbols (Figure 2, below), specifically (in
descending order) the symbol of the State of Israel (the Menorah or
candelabrum), the symbol of the City of Jerusalem (a lion), the
symbol of the Israeli army (a sword and olive branch in a Star of
David), and the logo of AHNMS (three arches). These symbols are
repeated on large flags that hang near the installation, and
correspond with other ethno-national and military emblems that are
profusely exhibited throughout the site. They reiterate the
connection between the ethno-sanctity of the spaces/stages of the
museum as a whole, and the same with regards to the spaces/stages of
the visitor book, stressing the tripartite bond between Zionism,
Judaism and militarism.

Figure
2 also evinces that fact that the book’s pages actually have no
dividing lines or any other directions as to where visitors should
inscribe their entries. This is highly consequential in terms of the
inscribed performances therein, because it is now up to the visitors
to take care of each and every aspect of the entry they wish to
inscribe: from where on the book’s pages and in the spaces of
the book’s openings (the conjoined surface of two adjacent
pages) the entry should be inscribed, to what it should include
(content, graphics, length, etc.), and even to the writing utensil
with which it should be produced (which is not supplied), the
possibilities are there for the visitors to materialize.

Figure
2: From within: Logos and inscriptions on parchment

Before
we proceed to examine the visitors’ entries themselves, a final
point is due with regards to the very nature of the book (and much of
the display in the museum), which concern literacy and literacy
related activities (reading and writing). I mentioned earlier that
the AH museum displays many texts, including handwritten letters sent
by soldiers to their families, personal journals and war journals,
commemorative devices that have the appearance of books and more.
These inscribed exhibits amount to the largest category of displays
the museum exhibit. This pervasiveness of inscribed (textual)
displays is not coincidental and bears meaning in and of itself. I
shall briefly touch on these meanings, which I view as illustrations
of a particular linguistic ideology held be the AH museum .
These meanings are relevant to our exploration because visitors’
inscribed entries join the abundance of inscription in situ and
contribute—and sometime also resist and contradict—its
linguistics (inscriptional) ideology.

First,
presenting handwritten documents is an effective way of claiming and
performing authenticity. In tourism in general, handmade
products have a special value because they index their creators. This
is true for handwriting as well, which supplies the institution with
the much sought after “aura of authenticity” in
(late-)modern times .

This
quality has cultural hues, as it is particularly salient in Sabra
(native Israeli) culture, where informal and un-institutional modes
of communication, such as handwriting, are highly esteemed . These
cultural preferences have their roots in Jewish religion and
tradition. Although the Zionist pioneers to Palestine have envisioned
a revolution that would reject traditional perceptions of the image
of the “exilic learned Jew,” the notion of the “learned
Jew” and with it its corresponding image of the moral
Israeli come in very helpful in the attempts to mitigate the
aggression repeatedly performed by the Israeli army. What is
commemorated at and by the AH museum is a battle, an obvious instance
of institutionalized brutality and violence. Commemoration is often
concerned with moralizing past events, and for the Sabra worldview,
which aspires to liberalism and humanism, the events suggest a moral
issue that requires an adequate resolution .

More
generally, however, the construction of the visitor book and with it
the linguistic ideology index for the (Jewish) visitors Jewish
practices . In an interview with the Kahaner, who is the Head of the
.. He indicated that there are strong ties between the AH site and
the Western Wall, located a ten minute drive from the site. This
association is something that I have heard visitors too discuss, as
they visited at the Western wall before they came to the AH site, or
intend to visit it later. Indeed, within the visitor books there was
a few occasion where visitors did no write on the book but instead
left notes they write and tear from other sources. While this is
speculative, it does seem to echo the religious ritualistic practices
of note-writing in the Western Wall and other Jewish practices that
concern writing and reading.

The
cultural appreciation of literacy sits nicely with the notion of
literacy as a highly charged and value-ridden western ideology. This
type of ideology concerns a Judeo-Christian bias against illiteracy,
where literacy is viewed as correlative to progress, liberalism,
modernity and the like, while illiteracy is viewed critically and
condescendingly as correlating with the opposite . In this respect,
too, the museum effectively employs texts and specifically warriors’
handwritten texts in order to produce an image of educated, moral and
pure character and conduct. Such authentic(ating) inscriptions
express the romantic conjuncture embedded in such phrases as “officer
and gentlemen,” and “the noble and the savage.” The
warriors commemorated in the Ammunition Hill are portrayed as
literate and educated; “men of the sword,” but also “men
of the pen.”

Lastly,
from the perspective of national identity we are reminded of
Anderson’s famous work, which also focuses on acts of reading,
and how literacy (in the form of books and newspapers) allows the
creation of imagined communities and consequently nationhood across
large spaces. In ritual sites of commemoration, the spread, which in
Anderson’s work is geographical, is temporal: different people
arrive at the same place (to read and write) in different times. In
any case, these are the texts and their qualities of endurance and
(im)mobility, that allow different people in different spatiotemporal
positions to imagine their identity and belonging together.

Inscribed
performances: Sanctities and blasphemies

Conclusions

References

8