Talk:Culture of Israel/Archive 1

Opinion
I don't think one can say that this is true: "Israeli culture is inseparable from Judaism which preceded it (i.e. dated earlier than the Israeli Declaration of Independence, on May 14, 1948). However, this article concerns only the cultural aspects of the modern Israeli state." Of course there is arelationship but it's not inseperable. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.65.129.18 (talk • contribs) 12:48, 20 January 2005

Literature
I know that Yosef Chaim Brenner and Micha Berdichevsky also wrote in Hebrew. I was wondering whether there is a reason they shouldn't be mentioned here... -- Jmabel | Talk 00:00, Nov 19, 2004 (UTC)
 * They should definitely be listed at List of Hebrew language authors, but I wouldn't list them here. (In fact, they ARE both listed there, under alternate spellings: Yosef Haim Brenner and Micha Josef Berdyczewski. If and when they ever get their own articles, there will have to be redirects set in place.
 * No one has ever set a rationale for who to list at this article, and frankly it's a bit of a mess, with some entries I find to be downright embarrassing (Natalie Portman, for example. Is being born in Israel enough to qualify one as an Israeli artist? Not in my opinion). I don't like setting forth my own opinions and tastes as canonical. But Brenner and Berdichevsky, despite historical significance, are not popular enough in modern days, even in academic circles, to merit being listed in a "top ten" of Hebrew authors. Just my humble opinion. --Woggly 08:29, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the alternate spellings, I created bio-stubs for them. Turns out Berdyczewski never actually lived in what is now Israel, which I didn't know. -- Jmabel | Talk 19:04, Nov 19, 2004 (UTC)

Joshua Wright
I have doubts about the recent addition of Joshua Wright as a poet. We have no article, I find nothing obvious via Google, can someone please explain who this person is? (If no one can, we should delete the name.) -- Jmabel | Talk 20:11, Nov 29, 2004 (UTC)
 * I consider myself a fairly literate Israeli, and I've never heard of him, for what it's worth. Also, an Israeli would most likely not be called Joshua but Yehoshua. --Woggly 06:52, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * And, given that the same anonymous IP has contributed such gems as "Adamis a fag" to random Wikipedia articles, I think we can safely assume this is vandalism. --Woggly 08:05, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Music: removal of material
The following was recently removed without comment from the music section: "The transsexual singer Dana International won the 1998 Eurovision Song Contest." I don't have a strong feeling either way on whether this merits mention, but its removal without even an edit summary seemed wrong, so I am pointing it out here. -- Jmabel | Talk 05:12, 14 January 2006 (UTC)


 * I just removed it again. It's true, but I don't think it's representative. Israel has won the Eurovision contest three times - why mention this win and not the others? Dana International is one of many pop singers, by no means the most popular or accomplished in Israel. The fact that she is transsexual brings her a lot of attention, I just don't think that alone makes her worthy of being one of the only Israeli singers mentioned in this article. Also removed website for "The Tribe", this is not a particularly well known group (unlike "Subliminal", who is at least a current chart-topper). --Woggly 06:13, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Request
Would love to know sth about Israeli dance forms. deeptrivia (talk) 03:27, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
 * I don't know much, but I've added what I know.--Woggly 06:08, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Ein Hod etc
These art villages are not relevant. Only in the 60's. Mirnamirna 15:16, 30 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Remember that we are not only documenting the present-day culture. - Jmabel | Talk 23:28, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
 * You cannot write that commodor 64 is one of the most promising computers. There is no real artist in zefad anymore. It's a tourist's trap. Mirnamirna 11:36, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

YnetNews
Despite its captioning, the external link to YnetNews doesn't particularly seem to me to be about Israeli culture. Some of it is about culture; some of it is about Israel; very little of it is about Israeli culture. I'm not going to remove it unilaterally, but consider me a voice weighing in for removal. - Jmabel | Talk 06:46, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Zionism section
The entire Zionism section is a abbreviate version of and has therefore been removed. Please double check that none of the following material comes from that or a similar source. It is not OK to summarize in the words of the original, but the material must be written from scratch. DGG 08:48, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Poor English
The English here is substandard. The article needs to be re-written!--Gilabrand 11:08, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree and a good portion of the article consists of nothing more than lists RMFan1 (talk) 22:06, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree about the standard of English in this article. The following setence in the melting pot section needs to be edited because it is ungrammatical and unclear: "In a gradual process the Israeli society became more pluralistic and the melting pot derided with the years". Fairlane75 (talk) 15:30, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Postage stamps and postal history of Israel
For the Israel stamp collectors and lovers, there is no article yet for Postage stamps and postal history of Israel (part of Category:Postal history by country) that would have so many Jewish themes. Feel free to go ahead and start it. (See the other country's in Category:Postage stamps by country that have theirs.) Nothing for Israel on Category:Postage stamps by country neither on List of country articles containing postal sections nor on List of philatelic bureaus. (but just a teeny note on Israel at Compendium of postage stamp issuers (Io - Iz).) This is truly a great shame and pity because Israel, and before that when it was the British Mandate produced and continues to issue the most beautiful and extensive stamps by any country. Thank you, IZAK (talk) 11:16, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Needs citation
The whole first paragraph is just blather - there is nothing in it that could be properly sourced.

The whole article is lacking in citations, I could put in numerous "needed" tags.

As far as I can tell "Israeli culture" is just the culture imported by the American and European invaders. There is nothing in the article to indicate otherwise. Fourtildas (talk) 04:48, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Mizrahi Jews
The last two paragraphs under the section of "1950s, 1960s, and 1970s" discuss the influence of Mizrahi Jews. I'm not sure that the subject matter fits here. However, if it should remain, then it would be helpful if some explanation is added of who the "Mizrahi Jews" are. Veritate10 (talk) 18:49, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Museums
It says there should be a list of museums, but I see none. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.171.73.120 (talk) 21:47, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Racist opening paragraph, absolute rubbish, needs to be scrapped
''The culture of Israel developed long before the foundation of the State of Israel in 1948 and combines the heritage of secular and religious lives. Much of the diversity in Israel's culture comes from the diversity of its population. Originating in the Levant and around the world, immigrants arrived with diverse cultural backgrounds and contributed to the development of Israeli culture, which follows cultural trends and changes across the globe as well as expressing a unique spirit of its own. Israeli culture also reflects Jewish history in the diaspora, especially the ideology of the Zionist movement beginning in the late 19th century. Israeli traditions are rooted in a synthesis of ethnic and religious Hebrew Israelite traditions, and Israeli artists continually push the boundaries of their art forms. Through their work, Israel's artists provoke self-reflective and communal examination. Their creative and open discussions inspire social change, innovative thinking and multidisciplinary experimentation, while expressing the beauty of the people and the land of Israel.[1] Zionism is partly based on religious tradition. It links the Jewish people to the Land of Israel where the concept of Jewish nationhood first evolved between 1200 BCE and 70 CE (end of the Second Temple era). However, modern Zionism evolved both politically and religiously.[2] It mostly began as a response to the widespread antisemitism toward European Judaism. It constituted a branch of the broader phenomenon of modern nationalism. Though Zionist groups were first competing with other Jewish political movements, Zionism became an equivalent to political Judaism during and after the Holocaust.''

The opening paragraph is a bit racist, as the nation of Israel, despite the government's desire to be called "The Jewish State", is still home to an Arab population that, even if the Jewish Israelis (or certain wikipedians, for that matter) would rather they didn't exist, constitutes 20% of the modern Israeli state. I suggest a complete re-writing of this article, so as to better reflect the demographic reality of Israel today.

Solntsa90 (talk) 09:32, 22 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Above all, the opening paragraph is nonsense. The enumeration of "Ashkenazim, Mizrahim, Sepharadim, Ethiopians, Arabs, Druze, Maronites, Circassians, Armenians, and Samaritans" and in this order, is quite silly, and as far as I see, there respective cultures are not mentioned in the article. There is no such thing as e.g. Ashkenazic culture. The culture of the Ashkenazi German Jews and the culture of the Ashkenazi Eastern European Hasidim differ a lot more than e.g. the culture of the German Ashkenazi and the French or Italian Sephardi Jews. The same goes for what Israelis call Mizrahi Jews, which includes what everybody else calls Sephardi Jews from Northern Africa or Turkey, Jews from Irak, Jemen, Bukhara, Kurdistan, Persia and what not, each of them with a separate culture, but some with a culture much closer to the culture of the indigenous Arab population of Israel and so on. "This culture had originated in the Levant in roughly the same area, and had been dispersed from there to all around the world" is equally problematic. And what are we to make of "the Jewish refugees from the Arab states", which presumably include the Jews from Jemen who emigrated to Palestine long before most Ashkenazi Jews, and had quite a bit of influence on culture too, and so on. But editing the article may be difficult – I started with a suggestion which was reverted. I hope that User:IranitGreenberg will eventually find the talk page, and not just revert. Cheers, Ajnem (talk) 16:24, 22 April 2013 (UTC)


 * In its Basic Laws Israel defines itself as a Jewish and Democratic State; it is the world's only Jewish-majority state. Around four fifth of the population is Jewish. Israel was proclaimed a Jewish-nation state in its independence declaration. Even the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine talks about a Jewish State. Therefore to highlight the Jewish connections of this nation's culture as the most important element (but also mentioning its Arab minority), is not racist, but realist, just as mentioning the Arab or Islamic culture predominance in Egypt.
 * By the way, why in this article isn't mentioned at all the Jewish people or culture (not once), despite the Yishuv history and the fact that around 20% of the population in the West Bank are Israeli Jews??
 * And if you want to discuss something in Wikipedia, I recommend you to respect people who disagree with you and avoid calling "rubbish" something you don't like. Good day.--IranitGreenberg (talk) 15:53, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
 * You seem to miss the point, IranitGreenberg. In contrast to the predominance of Jews of Ashkenazi origins in politics, economy etc., Middle Eastern and North African cultural influence is quite strong in Israel, naturally. Some of it is Jewish, but a lot of it is not. There is no such thing as "Jewish Culture", and I may remind you of the (quite racist) remark of the conservative Jewish French intellectual Raymond Aron, who famously said « je me sens plus proche d’un Français antisémite que d’un Juif yéménite », in English: "I feel closer to a French anti-Semite than to a Yemenite Jew." As for the article Culture of Palestine, it's not an article about the culture of historic Palestine, but about the culture of the Palestinian people of today. But I agree with you, that it is not a good article, either. Cheers, Ajnem (talk) 07:55, 26 April 2013 (UTC) P.S. And by the way, for a newbie who just discovered the existence of talk pages in WP, you are a bit bold with your recommendation, IranitGreenberg.
 * There is an Israeli culture, enormously influenced by the Jewish people's traditions from a wide diverse background. The racist French doesn't represent Israeli reality and feelings.--IranitGreenberg (talk) 08:10, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
 * My dear IranitGreenberg, you do miss the point. Israeli culture and Jewish cultures are two different things. As you should know, the earlier Zionist (Eastern) European immigrants to Palestine deliberatly left the old Jewish ways behind and imitated local Arab customs, or what they interpreted as local Arab customs. But I am glad to see, that you and Solntsa90 are getting closer. And I'd suggest that you get informed about who Raymond Aron was. Calling him a "racist French" might get you into trouble, particularly as you are lecturing other users about how to discuss in WP. The lead of the article is bad, like it or not, because it does not have anything much to do with culture, let alone Israeli culture. Ajnem (talk) 15:40, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
 * OK. Folks, don't bite the newcomers, even if they bite first.
 * I've promised up above a fair hearing to all sides, so I'd like to establish a baseline for this discussion:
 * Ajnem, while Israeli culture and Jewish culture are not the same thing, it is also probably stretching a point to call them "two different things". It is also not correct to say "there is no such thing as 'Jewish Culture'.  Where do you get such an idea?  There are plenty of Jews in the world who would say just the opposite of M. Aron.
 * There is no doubt that Jewish culture—Ashkenazi, Sefardi, Mizrachi, what have you—heavily influences Israeli culture, so I don't think that the first paragraph is racist or rubbish at all. It's quite fairly balanced right now.
 * That said, not all the culture is Ashkenazi. And the Middle Eastern portion of the culture may partially come from Mizrachi communities, but also does come partially directly from the ambient Arab culture. So if anyone is going to argue that Arab culture doesn't influence Israeli culture, they'd be wrong, too, and I would resist such an approach.  So, Iranit, please be careful, and don't automatically reverse any reference to Arab culture.  And you do need to be careful about non-inflammatory language, please.
 * WP:NPOV must allow that Israel is a majority-Jewish nation-state. It also must allow that there is a material non-Jewish (mainly Arab) minority.  Any perspective that does not incorporate these two facts is not neutral.
 * Given these facts, how would people suggest to proceed? StevenJ81 (talk) 16:47, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Let me first correct myself. What I meant to say was that there is no such thing as "a Jewish Culture", meaning that there are quite a few quite different Jewish cultures which have been influenced by the (cultures of the) countries they developed in. Claiming that all of them are considered equal by all Jews inside and outside Israel is imo closing ones eyes in front of reality. It's not because Askenazi Jews in Israel eat Humus but Sephardi (or Mizrahi) Jews do not eat Gefilte Fish in return that Sephardi or Miszrahi culture is considered superior to Ashkenazi culture, it just so happens that Turko-Arab cuisine tastes better than Eastern European cuisine. I do maintain that Israeli culture and Jewish cultures outside of Israel are two quite different things, granting that Israeli culture does influence Jewish culture outside of Israel, of course, it is not a one way street, but that is of no importance here, because the article only deals with Israeli culture. This said, my first suggestion would be to remove this imo quite silly enumeration of "including Ashkenazim, Mizrahim, Sepharadim, Ethiopians, Arabs, Druze, Maronites, Circassians, Armenians, and Samaritans" in the lead and replace it by something with meaning such as both Jewish and and Arab or originating in the Levant and in the traditions of the Jewish immigrants or whatever. The word "Jewish" only comes at the end of the first paragraph, it should come in the second sentence at the latest. Then I personally think that in the sentence "Israeli culture thus reflects Jewish history in the diaspora, especially the ideology of the Zionist movement beginning in the late 19th century, as well as the history of the Arab Israeli population" the "especially the ideology of the Zionist movement beginning in the late 19th century" is quite odd, to put it mildly. And the same goes for the whole paragraph about Zionism in the lead, which should just be removed, the same as the "Nakba Day mourning", it has nothing to do with culture in the narrower sense. By that, I don't mean that Zionism shouldn't be mentioned in the lead, it should be mentioned as the backbone of Israel, but not by making it the essential part of "Jewish history in the diaspora". Zionism, i.e. political Zionism was a very marginal part of Jewish history before 1945, even in Middle and Eastern Europe, and practically unknown in the rest of the Jewish world, and the majority of the Jews who immigrated to Israel had never even heard of Zionism until very shortly before they emigrated at best. Then I suggest to remove words like "unique", and the second paragraph of the lead as a whole reads like an ad from a brochure "Visit Israel", not that I personally understand what is meant by "Israeli traditions are rooted in a synthesis of ethnic and religious traditions, and Israeli artists continually push the boundaries of their art forms" but that's the trick of such brochures, it has to sound good. And please don't use the term "Holy Land". That's a Christian term and it should only be used in a Christian context, such as e.g. the Christian pilgrims who visited the "Holy Land" and the Christian institutions which were established in Palestine, particularly in Jerusalem in the 19th century had a significant impact on the local culture. "After the founding of the state in 1948, immigrants rushed to Israel", well there wasn't all that much rushing, except of course for the "Jewish refugees from the Arab states" who were rushed out of their countries but did they really have such "a considerable impact on music and film" in the early days? Well, it's a bad article, much of it anyway, and should be rewritten, but don't count on me for doing it, with newbies around reverting everything that is not in line with their POV, and who manage to get blocked within 3 weeks after registration, because they just don't want to listen to any warnings. Cheers, Ajnem (talk) 11:12, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

For starters, I suggest we incorporate more pictures of Old Yishuv and Arab Israelis (not Palestinian mind you, as it seems a few users here can't tell the difference, and such users shouldn't be editing articles about Israel in my opinion)in daily life, as well as pictures of Islamic and Christian Israeli culture.

For example, incorporating a picture or two of Nazereth can kill two birds with one stone, showing some Arab and Christian perspective at the same time. For a minority that represents 20-25% of Israel's total population, Arabs need to have more weight in this article, as you can't write about the the "Culture of Israel" if you leave out the voices of almost a quarter of the population.

With that said, there is an image I like from the "Nazareth" article of fireworks on Christmas Eve that I will be adding, as it's a good pictorial representation of the fact that Israel is not just Jews and Muslims.

Beyond that, some sources need to be gathered on the Arab perspective, particularly, from Arab-Israeli historians, as we don't want to make the mistake of framing their whole existence in a Western/Jewish framework. Solntsa90 (talk) 03:54, 9 May 2013 (UTC) ,

Picture edits/diversity pictures/Judaica pictures
You commented:

''Christianity is a minority in Israel; Judaism a significant majority. Images must reflect that way. Holy Land is a Christian term and should only be used as link when is Christian-related, like "Christian pilgrims visited the Holy Land"."''

In response:

1.) Jews are indeed the majority, but they are still only 75% of the country, and the fact that All of the pictures currently reflect only Judaica is inappropriate and a sign of WP:Bias;

2.) There is not a single cultural pictoral representation for the 2+ million non-Jews in Israel.

Thus, I suggest the picture of "Christmas in Nazereth" stays, as it kills three birds with one stone: It shows that not all Arabs in Israel are Muslims, it showcases Nazereth, an Arab city, and it showcases Christianity, another significant minority in Israel.

No more pictures of Judaica need to be added to this article. There are way more than enough. the 75% of Israel's culture has been covered. pictures are needed for the 25% of Israel that isn't represented fairly, or at all, in this article.

Solntsa90 (talk) 23:17, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
 * First, Arabs are widely mentioned in this article (1,6 million including Druze and Bedouin, not 2 million). Second, what picture "currently reflects only Judaica"? All images of these article are connected to Israeli culture, but not a single one of them is Judaism-related. Observe meticulously photo by photo. There is not a single Jewish ritual object in this article, so I'll restore it.--IranitGreenberg (talk) 03:52, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Arabs, far from being "widely mentioned in this article" are mentioned only in the first paragraph, and that's mostly my doing. Secondly, all of the "Israeli culture" posted doesn't reflect the Arab, Muslim/Christian presence--Shrine of the Book houses texts holy to Judaism and it's Tanakh, so that doesn't reflect Arab culture either.

On the picture of Judaica, it's not appropriate for the article "culture of Israel; it's like starting every Islamic State's wiki article with a 3D Crescent Star[.gif]] image. Judaica is much more appropriate in the articles about Judaism, also considering the fact that secular Israelis (of which there are many) my not identify with such symbols, thus making an attempt to place Judaica items as akin to placing a Cross in the opening page of "Denmark", because Denmark is officially Christian.

Now, on a completely sepratenote...Gilabrand?Tzofim? That is by no means in Israel; As per WP:Consensus, International law, American law (where wiki servers are hosted), etc. Tzofim is not in Israel, and I'll take it as a mistake of which of course happens and I'll give you the benefit of the doubt on in good faith. If willfully placed however, it is not appropriate. Solntsa90 (talk) 08:35, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I saw your note on Nableezy's page. I hope you don't mind if I comment. Tzofim in the article, correct me if I err, does not refer to the settlement of that name, but to the Israeli scout movement, as a simple click on the link will show. In general, I must commend Ajnem's very incisive and intelligent suggestions on this page, and suggest you take them into account. One of the glories of Israel is the diversity of its (esp. Judaic, but also other) cultures, and perhaps the title should reflect that. 'Israeli culture' or 'The cultures of Israel', etc. Nishidani (talk) 12:01, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

In fact, we're both correct, and it was an initial mis-linking to the Tzofim illegal settlement, which probably needs a disambiguation. But yes: Tzofim is both an illegal settlement and a scout movement.

Also, I agree with Ajnem 100% and that has been my attempted contribution to the Israel articles: to check for WP:BIAS and to help Israel's diversity be showcased and included in an article about the WHOLE of Israel, not just the 75%, of which, once again due to WP:BIAS, the Jewish narrative is the most predominant in all of the articles about Israel, to the exclusion of Druze, Arabs, Africans, etc.

There is nothing wrong with the Jewish narrative being most of the article, since it is Israel. But I think every article relating to Israel on wiki should be checked to include minority narratives: Otherwise, it's just like talking about South Africa without mentioning whites, or America without ever mentioning blacks. Solntsa90 (talk) 01:41, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

File:Judaica.jpg
Is it really appropriate to have this photo in the article, as it doesn't really relate to mainstream Israeli culture, and indeed, it might even offend some orthodox Jews who wouldn't want their holy sacred symbols affiliated with secular Israeli culture (which I thought this article was about, seeing as Israeli culture =/= Jewish culture).

That, and it's a bit of a push to have it as the opening photo in a state that, while Judaism is the state religion, it'd be like putting a Cross in the opening article of Denmark or the UK, since both are officially Christian nations. Solntsa90 (talk) 10:14, 14 May 2013 (UTC)


 * I'm an Orthodox Jew, and I'm not offended.
 * I think the analogy to Denmark or UK is a little forced, and in any case, both of those articles feature crosses prominently: both nations' national flags are structured around crosses.
 * It is true that Israeli culture ≠ Jewish culture. But it is also true that to the 75% of Israelis that are Jewish, Jewish culture is a part of Israeli culture, to some extent.  Culture does not (and should not) entertain a hard-and-fast separation between religious and secular; I'm sure many Arabs living in Israel (to say nothing of territory under dispute) would agree that their "Arab culture" is not totally distinct from Islam, either.
 * I promised a while back that I would try to be supportive of making sure non-Jewish groups within Israel would have their culture represented here. But it is not—repeat, not—appropriate for Judaism to be taken out.  StevenJ81 (talk) 15:04, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Burgeoning edit wars, especially on pictures
I'm getting concerned, and more than a little offended, by trends that I see here.
 * People wanting to make sure that non-Jewish cultures in Israel have a part in this article certainly have a right to that view. I've said in the past, and will say again, that they have that right, and I for one will support them.
 * People wanting to denigrate the role of Judaism and Jewish culture within Israeli culture do not have that right. Israel is still ~75% Jewish, and Jewish culture and Judaism still strongly inform much Israeli culture.  Part of Israel's raison d'être is still to be a place that Jews can come freely when other places in the world throw them out.  So to say that Jewish items, Jewish pictures, Jewish culture have no place in this article is, well, obscene.

I'm going to strongly suggest the following so that this article doesn't go the way of so many articles in being a forum for Israeli-Arab conflict: Thanks to all for your cooperation. If you're Jewish, chag sameach. StevenJ81 (talk) 15:33, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
 * 1) Let's stipulate here that Israel is majority Jewish, minority other things groups. "Other things groups" are entitled to a reasonable hearing in the article, but Jewish culture can't be denigrated, either.
 * 2) Let's stipulate here than Jewish culture is a part of Israeli culture. They're not the same thing, but they're not really two completely different things, either.  Let's please not try to assume that Jewish culture (as it appears within Israeli culture) has no place.
 * 3) We should probably behave as if WP:1RR applies here, rather than WP:3RR. Please do read the rules on what is "a single revert," though.  If someone reverts a series of three consecutive edits by one person, that's one revert, not three.  Those are the rules here.  Please read WP:BRD.
 * 4) Let's informally put a moratorium on changing the pictures any further without discussion. People seem to fight over things like this a lot.  At this point, almost any further picture edits are going to start a series of reverts and discussions anyway, so let's just start right on the discussion.

On your points:

1.) First-off, I see NO ONE denigrating Jewish culture; Who do you see denigrating Jews or their culture, or it's role in Israel? If you see this, please, cite it and point it out please, and in fact, report it to an Administrator immediately (assuming you aren't one yourself). Otherwise, please be cautious with wild accusations with limited evidence to carry them. Otherwise, I'd say that the article, far from "denigrating" Jews, almost denigrates Arabs, Druze, etc. by completely writing them out of this narrative, Hence why I'm stressing the inclusion for more diversity. So if Israeli and Jewish culture are synonymous, then what was the whole Chuck Hagel "Jewish Lobby/anti-Semitism" controversy all about? But that's another story.

2.) Secondly, Referring to Jews as "Jewish", and minorities as "other things" is extremely offensive, and borderline racist. They are people, not "things" . To your other points, We're not here to discuss Zionism, Anti-Zionism, the importance of Israel to the Jewish people (which, etc. We're here to describe the culture of the Israeli population, Jew, Muslim, Atheist and Christian. Your "Raison d'etre" seems a bit NPOV, and indeed, might even constitute original research, so unless you have proper unbiased citation, this cannot be included in the article.


 * Most of what you have written I cannot address immediately, due to the imminent begininng of the Jewish holiday where I am. I will not be able to address those matters until Thursday evening EDT, and no one should take offense that I have not done so.  I must apologize for my sloppy language, above, however.   I am not usually so sloppy.  I was thinking along the lines of identifying cultural groups as "things," including "Jewish" as a thing.  I was not thinking of others humans in Israel as things, God forbid.  People who know me in person would never believe I would be thinking of non-Jewish Israelis that way.  But my language could have easily have been, and was, construed that way, and very reasonably.  And I'm very sorry for that.  StevenJ81 (talk) 23:45 on Tuesday May 14.

3.) Jewish Culture and Israeli culture, contrary to your opinion, are completely different. Even if Jewish culture has influenced Israeli culture significantly, Not all Jews are Israeli, Not all Israelis are Jews. Thus to equate Jewish culture with Israeli culture is to do a grave dis-service to the reader, and borders on offensiveness towards non-Jewish Israelis. Mentioning Jewish culture and its influence on secular Israeli culture definitely has its place in this article, that does not mean it should dominate the article to the exclusion of the 2,000,000 non-Jews in Israel (And to reiterate as before, reflecting this reality does not mean one is denigrating Jewish culture, and to suggest such requires evidence of some sort).

4.) I will not agree to a moratorium until I believe that the minorities of Israel are adequately represented in the images of this article. This has vastly improved, but I still question the Judaica.jpg file's place in this article. I think that is close to conflating Israeli culture with Jewish culture, when they are in fact not one in the same.

Read the discussions on this page, if you'd like to help this article, you can add more Christian, Muslim, Druze, etc. perspective, which this article is still sorely lacking. That would be the best thing you can do right now to help it improve.

Азбука, к мудрости ступенька (As the Russians say),

Solntsa90 (talk) 21:26, 14 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Well, I owe a response to the rest of the above, so I will try to do that. I begin by reiterating my apology for my sloppy language above.
 * The article per se certainly does not denigrate Jewish culture. I happen to agree with you that there has not been enough attention paid to culture in the non-Jewish segments of Israeli society within the article.
 * I get very bothered by comments such as "Jewish Culture and Israeli culture ... are completely different." You seem to assume that my comments are trying to "equate [my emphasis] Jewish culture with Israeli culture," but nothing could be further from the truth.  I do not equate them at all, but your suggestion that the two are "completely different" is more misleading than anything I have said.  In a related way, I would add I have not stated this "raison d'être" point in the article itself, so there is not an NPOV or citation issue necessary.  However, if you don't believe the general truth of my statement, I would suggest you have a serious lack of understanding of Zionism, Israeli history and Israeli law.  You ask me to go back to the Азбука.  Fair enough, but there is a certain Israeli alef-bet to this, too.
 * Let me provide a simple example. In Israel, the principal legal "day off" during the week is Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath.  The "other weekend day," such as it is, is Friday.  So "weekend things"—things which in the US would happen Friday night, Saturday, Sunday—happen in Israel on Thursday night, Friday, Saturday.  That's an influence of Judaism and Jewish culture on Israeli culture.  Things don't always work identically to that in non-Jewish neighborhoods, but that is still the overriding cultural influence defining a normal work week and weekend in Israel.  In the US, Jewish communities still have to live under the influence of a culture built around a Sunday Sabbath based on Christianity.  It's really a very parallel thing.
 * I would add that roughly 20% of Israeli Jews, or 15% of the total population of Israel, would describe themselves as religious, and substantially more are traditional enough that they will still do things like have a family Shabbat dinner on Friday night, even if they then go to the movies afterward. So you have a population here similar in size to that of the non-Jewish population for whom Jewish religious artifacts are a pretty important cultural part of their lives.  Now, if you want to tell me that you would rather find a picture of Israeli Jews using these objects in preference to a picture of artifacts themselves, I wouldn't disagree.  But to say that the articles themselves do not appropriately illustrate certain features of Israeli culture is as biased as anything you have accused me of.
 * Finally, as for my moratorium suggestion: Part of the issue here is not to prevent further changes, but to decide after discussion what gets dropped as well as what gets added.  For example:  my opinion, FWIW (perhaps not much), is that I'd drop the Israel Philharmonic photo before dropping the Jewish religious artifacts photo.  After all, there is another orchestra photo in the article; the only other remotely Jewish-religious picture is the "Jewish bride," which is only kinda-sorta a religious picture.  If you really want to reflect cultural diversity in Israel, you have to start including questions like "enough Sefardi culture?"  "Enough mizrachi culture?" and so forth.  I'm only suggesting here that in an article like this, Revert is so likely after Bold that we should probably start straight off with Discuss.
 * Once again, I apologize for the offense that I caused with my language, which was the farthest thing from my mind when I first wrote that. StevenJ81 (talk) 16:23, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

More on Pictures
SoIntsa90, I am getting fairly frustrated at this point. I really, really take your point, and I'm really trying to assume good faith. But I don't agree with your POV on this, and I especially don't agree with the way you are handling this. And mostly, I think per WP:NPOV that there are several ways to look at this, and they don't all require this picture to be deleted, as much as the picture seems to bother you. Please consider further discussion here rather than making more unilateral decisions on removing pictures. StevenJ81 (talk) 15:40, 24 May 2013 (UTC)
 * If you really want a corresponding Arab or Muslim picture, find one and put it in. I won't object in the slightest.
 * If you really feel there are too many Jewish-Israel picture, take out the one of Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. It's not that the IPO is unimportant, but there is another picture of Barenboim conducting (in that case, a mixed Jewish-Arab orchestra).  I don't especially see why two different pictures of classical music need to be here.  (And I am a classical singer myself.  I do value these cultural activities.)
 * I notice that you come from California, as I come from New Jersey. Americans have this peculiar way of compartmentalizing religion, and assuming that religious issues are simply separate from everything else.  But in the Middle East, that's just not reality.  It's not reality in Israel, and it's not reality in any of the majority-Muslim states that border it.  Extracting a picture or comment because it's more "religious" than "cultural" is a sharp distinction that does not necessarily reflect reality.
 * There are several pictures that should be removed from the article. The first image of the dancers should be removed; there is already an image of dancers in the section about dance. The image of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra should be removed; this orchestra is based in Spain and it doesn't make sense to be in an articel about Israeli culture. The image of the man pouring coffee should be removed; there is already an image in the cuisine section and having another one (especially a long image) knocks the images in the other sections out of alignment. The image of the fireworks in Nazareth should be removed; that is not part of any section and is just randomly placed in the article. --PiMaster3 talk 02:34, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

Judea? Palestine? Doesn't the real history of Israel deserve to be published?
Explain to me how you can talk about the culture of Israel before 1948 when it didn't exist? Any history before that cannot be part of a country which didn't exist. Perhaps it was part of Judean tradition or Palestinian tradition but not Israel. Marccran (talk) 02:08, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

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Attribution
Content in Philosophy and Science and technology sections contain content from Martin Buber, Yeshayahu Leibowitz, Joseph Raz and Science and technology in Israel. Infantom (talk) 13:25, 28 January 2018 (UTC)