"Wonderful country", for which the taxi driver drives soldiers to the front. Passing by parked cars of reservists, and in the background is the opening of "Parking Night" - Alterman's wonderful song performed by Hanan Yuval. One second of Israeli and Hebrew culture, written on the verge of the War of Independence and which corresponds with a new and popular culture.
The writers of "Wonderful Land" know Alterman. They are broad-minded and their language rich, otherwise they would not have been able to distort it as perfectly as they did in "Almost Shabbat Shalom," Esti and Reuven's corner. The way they and many others create in Hebrew is tantamount to waving a flag or hanging a sign that reads, "We will win." Yes, mastery and creation in the local language, to be a link in the chain of language and culture, is patriotism.
Language and culture are part of national resilience, love of place. True, saying "two things" and not "two things" is not the same as cooking for soldiers or volunteering for the harvest; working hands will save more tomatoes and lettuce than standard Hebrew. But when a person respects his language, when he insists on it, he declares that he belongs, that he is part of essence, beyond, present and future.
When elected officials speak poor Hebrew, it also has national significance. It's not popular, not cool and not graceful when many of them have no basic idea of Israeli culture, and when some even despise it.
Hanoch Levin wrote The Agony of Job, based on the biblical story. His familiarity with the Bible, as well as that of other artists such as director Renee Yerushalmi or photographer Adi Ness, becomes the basis for complex works, fundamental social and philosophical questions about us, Israelis and Israelis.
When graduation parties in schools are played only by singers with hollow texts, you have to concentrate in order to understand what language it is at all, and if there is a language there - it says a lot about us. I have nothing against young people who have become stars whose fame is based on hard work and phenomenal abilities, but if there isn't much between them and Israeli creativity, and you can't tell the difference between them and another international star, you need a change.
And it's not that you can't combine: Zvika Pick, for example, made pop and composed poets' songs at the same time. Because Pick, the boy who studied music at the conservatory in Poland, aspired all his life to be Israeli, to be one of ours. And out of this aspiration was born "Collected Tishrei" - one of the most beautiful connections ever made between Hebrew words and melody.
When this war ends, and it does, we will not be the same state and we will not be the same Israelis. Part of the healing process will have to be a cohesion around Israeliness built from a thousand and one factors and nuances, a cohesion that will also include respect for symbols.
Just as people spontaneously waved a physical flag, we must also be willing to raise a cultural flag: to insist on language, to give space and expression and support to Israeli creativity that corresponds with our cultural chain of generations. Not to look at poets' poems as archaic and outdated, and to eradicate our appreciation of ignorance in recent years.
When elected officials speak poor Hebrew, it also has national significance. It's not popular, not cool and not graceful when many of them have no basic idea of Israeli culture, and when some even despise it
You don't need prizes like the Education Ministry once awarded to a "Zionist work," you don't need to judge content, and certainly not dictate it. But we do have to say "so far" to those who, in one fell swoop, move aside a culture and argue against it. It is not condescension to know Alexander Penn, or to read S. Yizhar, or to distinguish between male and female. On the contrary, it is national pride.
And to the commanders of our soldiers who are now fighting in the north and south, we will dedicate the words of Alterman, who respected simple, non-militant language, but described it as only he knew:
About love he talks about (which he opens with)
And about duty and battle and about, everything in all
He does not say this in all its subtleties
of the poetry, but says in a big voice
Without tenderness of heart and without fear of others.
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