The Men We Loved

Male Friendship and Nationalism in Israeli Culture
1. Auflage 2006
ISBN: 978-1-84545-192-9
Verlag: Berghahn Books

Buch, Englisch, 190 Seiten, Format (B × H): 157 mm x 235 mm, Gewicht: 434 g

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.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Kaplan, Danny

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziale Gruppen/Soziale Themen Gender Studies, Geschlechtersoziologie
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politische Ideologien Nationalismus
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziologie Allgemein

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgments

Prologue

Part I: Friendship and Ideology

Chapter 1. The Case of Fraternal Friendship

Chapter 2. Re’ut: Friendship in Zionist Ideology

Part II: Friendship in Everyday Life

Chapter 3. History and Destiny: Friendship Narratives

Chapter 4. Two Styles of Sharing: The Hevreman and the Intellectual

Chapter 5. Public Intimacy and the Miscommunication of Desire

Part III: Sacred Friendship

Chapter 6. David, Jonathan, and Other Soldiers: The Hegemonic Script for Male Bonding

Chapter 7.“Shalom, haver”: Commemoration as Desire

Discussion: Nationalism, Friendship, and Commemorative Desire

Appendix I: Studying a National Emotion

Appendix II: Table of Interviewees

Bibliography

Über Autor(innen)

Kaplan, Danny
Danny Kaplan is a research fellow at the Horowitz Institute on Society and Economy at Tel Aviv University and teaches at Bar Ilan University and Tel Aviv-Yafo Academic College. He specializes in the anthropology of friendship, military masculinity, sexuality, and the sociology of emotions. He is the author of Brothers and Others in Arms: The Making of Love and War in Israeli Combat Units (Haworth Press 2003).

Danny Kaplan is a research fellow at the Horowitz Institute on Society and Economy at Tel Aviv University and teaches at Bar Ilan University and Tel Aviv-Yafo Academic College. He specializes in the anthropology of friendship, military masculinity, sexuality, and the sociology of emotions. He is the author of Brothers and Others in Arms: The Making of Love and War in Israeli Combat Units (Haworth Press 2003).