ISRAEL AT 40
Today's Sabra: A Blend
Of Contradictions
HELEN DAVIS
Israel Correspondent
J
erusalem — Take immigrants
from more than a hundred
lands, mix and blend and the
result is a Sabra, the native-
born Israeli who is named for
the cactus fruit — prickly on the out-
side, sweet on the inside.
A cute oversimplification but sur-
prisingly apt.
For millions of Jews around the
world, the Sabra — tall, handsome, sun-
burned, plough in one hand, gun in the
other — is the symbol of renewed pride
and Jewish renaissance.
Perhaps you guessed. The reality is
a bit more complicated and not quite so
romantic. Young Israelis are more like-
ly to be academics, bureaucrats or fac-
tory workers than pioneering farmers.
And it's a long, long time since most of
them danced the hora by firelight or
wrote sentimental poetry about the
Jewish homeland.
The Sabra, in fact, scorns sentimen-
tality of any sort.
He prides himself on being straight-
forward and plain-talking, often to the
point of downright rudeness.
Argument — strong, loud and ar-
ticulate — is a major-league sport,
although physical violence, like
drunkenness, is rare.
Ferociously critical of themselves
and their country, they are also quick
to resent the interference of outsiders,
particularly those who pass judgment
from the safety and comfort of more
tranquil lands.
Sabras display their fair share of
contradictions. On the one hand, they
are cyncial and energetic in their pur-
suit of the good life, with the ultimate
ambition of many being the ubiquitous
"Three Vs"—Video, Volvo, Villa.
It is typcal of Sabra irreverence that
the word Zionism (Tzionut) is used in
street argot to mean pompous
preachiness.
On the other hand, however, young
Israelis act suspiciously like old-
fashioned idealistic patriots. They will-
ingly, if not uncomplainingly, pay
among the highest taxes in the world,
devote much of their youth to the army
and live with the knowledge that the
next war, like the last five, might be just
around the corner.
Sabra self-confidence is no accident.
The Israeli child grows up in a society
that values its children above all else.
He is simultaneously pampered and
prodded toward independence and the
heavy demands that will be made on
him the moment childhood is over. The
result can be seen everywhere in
youngsters who are boisterous, self-
assertive and, cover your ears, noisy.
At 18, life begins in earnest when
both boys and girls (excluding those ex-
empted on religious grounds) are
drafted into the army, where they will
spend the next few years (two for girls,
three for boys, longer if they sign on for
officer training) acquiring the skills
that are necessary for defending their
country.
By the time they are free to look for
a job or go to university — and one-third
do go on to higher education — they are
in their early to mid-twenties, often
married (Sabras tend to marry and have
children at a younger age than
elsewhere in the West) and carrying
family-size responsibilities.
One result is that the atmosphere
in Israeli universities is serious, focus-
ed almost exclusively on getting that
precious piece of paper which will pro-
vide the passport to earning a living in
the real world. Of the usual "games"
students play, there is little sign. Stu-
dent politics are left largely to those
who are carefully grooming themselves
for a political career.
"I think that they are less reflective,
more impatient than their counterparts
at universities in the United States,"
says a professor of economics at the
Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
"They're not as well-read and pro-
bably not as well-rounded. And they are
under tremendous strains. There is ar-
my reserve duty for men, usually an
outside job, often a family to support.
Study is not the totality of their lives.
They don't have that luxury. But as
students they are good, very good."
The state of the Sabras is relentless-
ly monitored by older Israelis anxious
to know if the post-Holocaust genera-
tions, which have grown up in their own
land untouched by anti-Semitism, are
performing as planned.
The answer seems to be yes and no.
The Sabras are maintaining proud
Jewish traditions of scholarship, scien-
tific research and excellence in fields
like medicine and law. When Israeli
leaders speak of "Jewish brain power"
as being Israel's main national
resource, it is no idle boast.
There is a whole new crop of home-
grown musical prodigies coming on
stream ready to step into the shoes of
such other Israeli luminaries as Daniel
Barenboim, Pinhas Zukerman and It-
zhak Perlman. Indigenous theater,
dance, film, poetry and literature — all
with a distinctly Israeli accent — are
proof of the continuation of a vigorous
cultural heritage.
Young Israelis are perhaps the first
generation of Jews in 2,000 years who
have grown up as an unselfconscious
majority. When virtually everyone, from
the president to the postman, is Jewish,
when the language they speak and the
holidays they celebrate are all Jewish,
there is nothing to be self-conscious
about.
One irony is that many among the
secular young Israelis scarcely think of
themselves as being Jewish at all: they
are Israelis, period. The hostility from
Arab neighbors, the wars they fight are
perceived in national rather than
religious terms.
Diaspora Jews who feel so pas-
sionate a connection with Israel and its
people are sometimes dismayed when
finally meeting young Israelis to
discover that their Israeli brothers and
sisters do not always feel the same in-
tense bond.
Israeli humor is a keen barometer
of this difference.
Vivid and vital, it is nonethless a
far cry from the famed, ascerbic, self-
mocking Jewish humor of the Diaspora.
It is not minority wit, but the joking
around of a self-confident majority,
albeit one that has taken a battering
over the past five months.
Concurrent with the growth of con-
fidence, however, is a waning of
ideological fervor. High school teachers
and army officers in charge of training
18-year-old recruits are concerned that
so many young people are reaching
maturity without a clear grasp of
Jewish history and tradition and,
therefore, no real concept of what their
country represents and why they should
sacrifice so much to defend it.
In contrast, however, are the
thousands of young Israelis who have
returned to their Jewish roots with a
vengeance. Yeshivot which cater ex-
clusively to this phenomenon have
mushroomed. Nothing could be further
from the vision of Israel's secular-
socialist founding fathers.
What the Sabra is creating is, in
essence, a culture and a society that is
a blend of East and West, at once tradi-
tional and ultra-modern.
One-third of all marriages are
"mixed"— Ashkenazi/Sephardi and the
resulting progeny not only look dif-
ferent from their forebears, they in-
creasingly think and act differently, too.
There is no knowing whether the
current trend among young people
towards ultra-nationalist, anti-
democratic philosophies is transient or
the wave of the future.
THE FIFTH DECADE
WAR IN LEBANON: In 1982, Israel launched an
attack on the PLO into Lebanon, subsequently
moving as far north as Beirut. The most
controversial of Israel's wars, the conflict
resulted in world criticism and heavy casualties
on all sides.
PLO TERRORISM: Violence increased in the early 1980s, particularly from
PLO positions in Lebanon where attacks were launched on northern Israel.
FRIDAY, APRIL 22, 1988
RELIGIOUS TENSION: Conflicts
between religious and secular Jews
increased over issues ranging from
amending the "Who is a Jew"
clause in the Law of Return to
screening films on the Sabbath in
Jerusalem.