Popular Music and National Culture in Israel

Regev, Motti and Edwin Seroussi. Popular Music and National Culture in Israel. Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 2004. 308 pp.

Even before the beginning of Israeli statehood in 1948, music has been accepted as part of a means of forging a unique Israeli national culture. While there have been studies of individual contemporary Israeli national cultures, this book provides the first comprehensive study of popular music in Israel as a field of national music.

The book examines the nature of "Israeliness" using an interdisciplinary approach, including both ethnomusicological and socioecultural perspectives, to demonstrate that music is a force in the shaping of modern Israeli culture. Various social forces in Israel have created and promoted individual musical styles that are sufficiently different from one another to warrant further, detailed study of each. Regev and Seroussi attempt to offer sufficient research to demonstrate that popular music is indeed a field of national music.

This book examines three major popular music cultures: Shirei Eretz Yishrael, or "invented" folk songs; Israeli rock; and musiqa mizrahit, or "oriental" popular muse. These three have vied culturally and musically to be the essence of Israeliness in music and how popular music should be composed. Regev and Seroussi present each of the three in historical terms, showing its evolution and transformations, as well as the relationships between the genres.

The first genre discussed is the "invented" folk song repertoire known as Shirei Eretz Yisrael, referred to as SLI. These Hebrew-language folk music compositions drew inspiration from different sources such as traditional Jewish songs, newly composed folk songs, theater and cabaret songs and songs from the youth movement. SLI songs have a continuing impact on Israeli life through sing-alongs, incorporation into songs of the 1960s and today's nostalgia craze by some Israeli citizens.

The lehaqot tzvayiot or army ensembles were a uniquely Israeli phenomena put together by various army units. "Their self-declared purpose was to provide light entertainment for soldiers, to raise morale, and to express the specificity of the particular unit or command to which they belonged." Being selected for such an ensemble quickly became the means to a successful career in the civilian market. A number of performers and their successful careers are written about in this section. It is here that Israeli music begins its transformation to pop/rock and from Hebrewism to a globalized culture.

The second major popular music culture discussed is Israeli rock music. As most readers of this book will be aware, rock has become a global form of music, so it is not surprising that it has taken a foothold in Israel. Distinctly Israeli rock music emerged during the 197Os and gained a dominant position in the 1980s as a contemporary global and cosmopolitan rock music form.

The third major popular music culture is musiqa mizrahit or oriental popular music. It is in this section of the book that the authors must face "the role of music as a reflection of social change." Musiqa mizrahit is created by Jews who immigrated from Arab and Muslim countries and have tended to be from less-privileged socioeconomic positions than were the other popular music culture proponents.

All three of these styles are currently present in the Israeli popular music scene, with no one style dominating. The authors point out the Israeli society was difficult to assimilate into one unit as its individuals and communities came from a wide variety of cultural backgrounds. Further, Israeli ideology combines peoples and cultural elements from the Jewish Diaspora, which was largely Eastern European, with Arab Jews sometimes called the "native" or Yemenite Jews known as "authentic." Popular music may be able to succeed in creating a single Israeli culture, however, as there is a practice of borrowing music from one group and rearranging it to fit into the repertory of another group.

Regev and Seroussi affirm that "although the notion of Israeliness in music is as yet unsettled, it continues to be an issue to which many of the actors in the field still fee] committed." So the idea of a unique Israeli national culture will continue to be debated. Each generation will struggle to blend its memories and backgrounds with those that came before and those that follow. And popular music will continue to evolve, probably following in some of the paths that are set out in the book.

This is a superbly written book for scholars from interdisciplinary fields of study. It is a major ethnographic undertaking that provides well-researched descriptions and analyses of three major popular music cultures. The complex details of the history, characteristics and practices of each music culture are provided along with general information on Israeli culture. The book draws on a broader base with reference to works about literature, history, sociology and politics. While assimilating a large pool of research, the book can also be used as a starting point for further research. For example, the authors never discuss the possible role of generational gaps in the changing popularity levels of these different forms of music. This could prove a fruitful topic for further research. On the whole, however, the authors have succeeded admirably in their goal of defining the role of Israeli popular music in creating an Israeli national culture.