Who were the Canaanites and what kind of
Israeli culture did they advocate?
The Canaanites were a group of activists
comprised of poets, authors, journalists, sculptors and educators. They were
led by Yonatan Ratosh, a poet, and Binyamin Tammuz and Yitzhak Dazigner, sculptors.
The creation of modern Israeli culture was impacted by their ideology, which
was “negation of the Diaspora.” The Canaanites wanted to go back to a Middle Eastern
identity, without including Islam or Judaism. They also hoped for a Hebrew
renaissance that would free the Jews from Judaism and Arabs from Islam. The Canaanites
advocated for Hebrew universalism, were opposed to any connections to Judaism
and Jewish history, and were against the explosion of the Arabs.
Why was political and cultural integration of
Holocaust survivors into Israeli society so difficult for them?
Even though the Holocaust survivors
had a large network of support, the political and cultural integration was hard
for them. They had to recreate their family life. The survivors felt the need
to share what they went through, but the country’s attitude and culture of the
time did not coincide with the survivors’ suffering. They did not want to hear
about their experiences and wanted to move on. Some were insensitive, such as
David Ben- Gurion, who called the Holocaust survivors “human dust” and a Mapao
leader stating, “They must learn to love the homeland, work ethic, and human
morals.” Furthermore, the people who were able to come to Palestine before the
Holocaust felt a sense of guilt for the Holocaust survivors, but there was
still a tense relationship between the Yishuv and the Holocaust survivors.
Actually, the Holocaust survivors came to Israel without a large support network, since for many of them their entire families and communities had been murdered. Grade: A-
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