THE PLOT

Growth and challenge characterize Israel’s 13th birthday, especially in some of the major institutions that define the nation and society: Hebrew, the kibbutz, the army, and politics.

Less than a hundred years after Eliezer Ben-Yehuda modernized the Hebrew language, the author SY Agnon was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1966, Israel and Hebrew’s first and only recipient of that honor. In his acceptance speech, delivered in Hebrew, Shai Agnon made explicit his and the Jewish people’s ancient connection with the Land of Israel. The speech was a Jewish text itself, merging the power of storytelling, Jewish tradition, and the Land of Israel. 

By the 1960s, the kibbutz — collective farming communities — had become an essential pillar of the Jewish State. The kibbutz succeeded in merging Zionism and socialism. It wasn’t just a matter of squaring up material possessions but also of establishing a society of true equality amongst people. The kibbutz offered a middle-class lifestyle for blue-collar workers, as the communities expanding from agriculture into light industry and manufacturing. It was also where Israel’s elites, especially on the left, were born, raised, and educated. But the kibbutz was also changing. The strict socialist ideology that had governed kibbutz life for decades started to form cracks, as true equality proved ever-harder to achieve in the face of significant economic and social changes, and the rising of a new generation of Israelis who weren’t as committed to the lifestyle.

The Israel Defense Force (IDF) was to be the great melting pot of Israeli society. Military service was, and still is, compulsory at age 18 for both men and women. The army was the one place where all of Israel would come together, Tel Aviv and the desert, Ashkenazi, Sephardic, and Mizrahi, rich and poor, native Israelis with new immigrants, and it melded all these people together into a highly successful, respected, and feared fighting force. But it wasn’t always a smooth integration, as the huge influx of new immigrants struggled to fit in. Moshe Dayan, the IDF Chief of Staff, dramatically reorganized the army into a more professional fighting force.

In politics, the Lavon Affair from the mid-1950s continued to rage as Ben Gurion pursued a personal and political vendetta against former Minister of Defense Pinchas Lavon. It was a clash between the older generation of Israeli leaders and a newer one, with Ben Gurion siding with the new generation like Moshe Dayan and Shimon Peres. The political fallout weakened him politically and exhausted him personally. Ben Gurion resigned as Prime Minister on June 15, 1963, this time for good. Levi Eshkol took his place.

THE PEOPLE

Shai (SY) Agnon: one of Israel’s foremost writers and winner of the 1966 Nobel Prize in Literature. Born in the Ukraine, his writing focused on the tension in Eastern Europe between traditional Jewish life and modernity, and the impact on the Jewish condition of the movement to the Land of Israel.

David Ben Gurion: Israel’s first Prime Minister, who resigned his post in June, 1963, to retire permanently to his desert home in Sde Boker.

Moshe Dayan: IDF Chief of Staff in the mid-1950s, brought major reforms and innovations to the military to shape it into a more effective and professional fighting force, which paid off during subsequent conflicts.

Levi Eshkol: one of the founders of Kibbutz Degania Bet in 1920, and Israel’s third Prime Minister, replacing Ben Gurion in 1963. He was a pioneer of Israel’s Zionist-socialist movement, helping to found several important institutions and serving a variety of roles in government.

Pinchas Lavon: former Minister of Defense who had been forced to resign. Ben Gurion now tried to get him kicked out of the Mapai Party as part of the ongoing Lavon Affair scandal. 

Nelly Sachs: German-Jewish poet who shared the 1966 Nobel Prize with SY Agnon.

THE BIG IDEAS

From the big things to the small, nearly all aspects of Israeli society had to be created from scratch. The Jews had to re-invent and re-introduce Hebrew in order to have a national tongue; drain the swamps for agriculture; build new cities on the beaches; train and arm themselves to create an army; set up their own schools; dig up their own history; and bring their enemies to justice. 

One of Moshe Dayan’s most innovative and important changes to the army was in the realm of leadership. From now on, officers were to lead their troops from the front, not the back. It seemed like a small tweak but had a huge impact not just for the military but for Israel’s wider culture. Leaders of every stripe, who like most other Israelis had undergone military training, were expected to take their own risks, serve as examples for others, and “lead from the front.”

The Lavon Affair, and a new generation of Israeli politicians and leaders, brought changes to Israeli politics. New Kids like Moshe Dayan and Shimon Peres were looking to replace the Old Guard, like Pinchas Lavon, Moshe Sharett, and others. The Old Guard had founded the state and set up its institutions along Zionist-socialist principles. The New Kids wanted to upgrade Israel’s military, economy, and government, even if that meant sacrificing some of those principles in favor of more growth.

FUN FACTS

Sy Agnon’s Nobel Prize in Literature was the first and only award in that category for both Hebrew and Israel.

On the kibbutz, the commitment to radical equality was such that children often shared clothes, workers shared their income, there was no individual property ownership, and all meals were eaten communally.

By 1960 there were about 230 kibbutzim with 78,000 Israelis, out of a total population of a little over 2 million.

© Jason Harris 2020