Abstract
Upon its inception, Zionism needed more than political and financial solutions to actualize
a Jewish home in Palestine. It was necessary for the architects of the Zionist enterprise to
cultivate “new Jew” to lay the societal foundation for what would become the state of Israel.
The result was a largely European, secular and labor-focused conception of Hebrew and
then Israeli society and culture. However, in the decades following Israel’s independence in
1948, staggered waves of culturally, religiously, and geographically diverse Jewish
immigrants came to Israel. These immigrant groups from the Middle East, North Africa,
Ethiopia, the former Soviet Union, and other locations, as well as Israel’s local Palestinian
population, have all challenged the still evolving notion of “Israelites.” The gradually
growing religionization of Israeli society also have changed the social and cultural
landscape of the state. Through the lens of scholarly works, sociology and anthropology,
music, art, theater, film, literature, and media, this course will explore the many layers of
Israeli culture, by looking at the Israeli society through the prism of the cultural
perspective of various ethnic and social groups.