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While scholars have long emphasized the significant impact of national days on the masses, the actual impact of national days on people's national sentiments have been ignored. This study set out to examine the ways in which exposure to Remembrance Day impacts national sentiments and hostility towards outgroups. Unlike previous cross-sectional-design studies, it adopted longitudinal design in order to explore the actual impact of exposure to Remembrance Day amongst Israeli Jews. While exposure to Remembrance Day increased the respondents' sense of nationalism, neither their level of national identification and hostility towards out-groups nor the magnitude of the positive link between nationalism and hostility towards out-groups changed significantly. While national identification was unrelated to hostility prior to Remembrance Day, it became negatively related to it on Remembrance Day itself. The findings shed new light on the prevalent assumption regarding the impact national days have on public sentiment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The construction of meaning and the invention of tradition always take place within a social and political context. Hence, the apolitical purpose of memory and the apolitical utility of national identity, in a broad sense, are linked to power; to the myriad and diverse efforts to maintain, stabilise and perpetuate that power. Focusing on official acts of commemoration, this article explores how political legitimacy—the primary basis for stabilising power—is reflected in and constructed by the constitution of national identity that is linked, in turn, to the definition of collective memory. To this end, the author examines the link between the official articulations of political legitimacy and the official constructions of the nation in Israel, and how these have changed over time. This is accomplished by providing a systematic reading of the texts constituted by the main Independence Day celebration in Israel—in particular, the ceremony known as the ‘Lighting of the Torches’—during the first fifty years of Israeli sovereignty (1952–1998). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated political socialization in Israeli‐Jewish kindergartens. Specifically, it examined the scope of conflict supporting and peace supporting themes that Jewish‐Israeli kindergarten teachers transmit to children during ceremonies of national events. Sixty‐eight observations in 17 state‐secular and state‐religious kindergartens were conducted during five ceremonies: Passover, Holocaust Day, Memorial Day for Israeli Fallen Soldiers, Independence Day, and Jerusalem Day. The findings reveal that teachers transmit messages that comply with the conflict supporting themes to the children. The most dominant themes were collective self‐perceived victimization, justness of one's own goals, positive collective self‐image, ingroup security, and patriotism. These themes were more dominant in state‐religious than in state‐secular kindergartens. Thus, we found that the kindergarten teachers serve as agents of political socialization who transmit the hegemonic national narratives to the younger generation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the place of the Israeli Chief Rabbinate in the formation of Israel's national symbolic language during the country's first Independence Days. My main argument is that, like other state churches, the Rabbinate act as an important agent of memory that imparts collective myths and authenticate them. However, the Rabbinate was not willing to fully integrate the new national stance into the traditional ritual language and was therefore criticised accordingly. This criticism, and the alternative rituals it gave rise to, shows that certain circles of Israeli society were willing to go much further with the integration of national components into the traditional Jewish world. In addition, it demonstrates the necessity of the public's "approval" of the ritual, and therefore reveals the limits of memory agents. The first section of the article presents the background for the religious observance of the national holiday, the second section illustrates the nature of the first Independence Day synagogue services, the third section describes the criticism they had provoked, and the fourth section analyses the alternative rituals held on Mount Zion and the radical religious‐national integration they created. Finally, the conclusion seeks to place this case within the wider context of nation‐building and its religious aspects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Numerical commemoration is a distinctive form of group remembrance in which the collective number of those who make up the group serves as the mnemonic key to the past. The article examines the modern Israeli practice that focuses on the numerical commemoration of patriotic sacrifice and examines its social and ideological underpinnings. The study analyzes the distinct patterns and variations of Israeli numerical commemorations and the unique challenges that this mnemonic tradition faces given its abstract, impersonal and ahistorical character. The discussion addresses the transformations that numerical commemoration has undergone in recent decades, the cultural strategies employed in its support, and the complex interplay between national and local memories in maintaining a mnemonic tradition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the musical repertoire broadcast on Israeli state radio stations on Remembrance Day. Commencing with the first Remembrance Day, Israeli radio stations have refrained from broadcasting songs that do not contribute to the glorification of the military mythology or failure to reinforce the consensual perception of national loss. In view of globalization - it might be assumed that Remembrance Day songs would undergo changes in tune with the times. From a musical point of view, new songs that belong to what Regev and Seroussi classify as 'globalizing Israel' penetrated into the nationalist arena. But, following Inglehart and Baker, these songs, despite their seemingly secular façade, remain limited hegemonic enclosures organized around the core of founding values. Apparently, this is an example of the process of glocalization of culture. The article seeks answers to the strategies employed to accommodate these new songs to the traditional ideology of the classical Remembrance Day songs and examines whether the mechanisms of legitimacy that enable the inclusion of new voices on Remembrance Day, can be identified. We argue that their choice is not arbitrary and that they illustrate the manner by which voluntary cultural entrepreneurs (musical editors) are co-opted in the postnational condition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the process by which Israeli migrants define, perceive and negotiate their diasporic citizenship rights and duties as regards their home state. Rights are a bundle of symbolic and material services conferred by the state upon citizens abroad and include among other things ceremonies marking national holidays, language enrichment classes for the 1.5 and second generations, and homeland art and literature fairs. Recognition of the entitlement of nationals residing abroad to these rights is accompanied by a demand for symmetry manifested by the fulfillment of cultural duties. I focus in this article on the case of the Israeli community in Los Angeles and its members' quest to be recognised as diasporic citizens. By analysing narratives of state officials and local activists in the context of Israel's Independence Day Festival, I show how a discourse of citizenship beyond borders is framed within different articulations of rights and duties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]