The Long March
On the Importance of Israel’s Culture War
From Hadesh Vol. 1, Issue No. 7 - Culture
By: Ariel Yaari
Before last week, I did not know who Israeli popstar Odeya was. As it happens, I am remarkably ignorant of the pop culture scene as a whole. I was in the United States and I am in Israel. When I do happen to learn something about the current cultural scene, it’s against my will, usually as I try to avoid working on something actually productive or when it matters politically.
The reason why Odeya came up on my feed is because Lior Schleien, an Israeli producer and host, was reacting to something that Odeya did at one of her concerts. What was so scandalous, so earth-shatteringly controversial, that it caused Schleien to take to the internet and post a six minute tirade about it? Odeya had sung about how she sought a husband who “kept Shabbat, kept Kashrut, blessed the Challah on Shabbat”, etc. This was such an affront to Schleien, a member of the vehemently secular Tel Aviv elite, that he felt the need to emphatically state that religion “was not sexy” and that this isn’t what should be promoted culturally.1
Boomers will be boomers, and while most might think that this outrage against a seemingly innocuous statement of wanting a partner with a traditional belief system is anywhere from pretty funny to ridiculously immature, it actually represents a far more important fault line within Israeli society: culture.
It is often assumed that culture and politics are two separate arenas of human organization. Politics manifests as those mechanisms that regulate society and keep it safe from the predations of either malicious forces within it or from external enemies without. Culture on the other hand, is that which people partake in order to give voice to their creative impulse. It is the highest form of recreation, giving those talented individuals who create art, music, etc. a distribution system through which to share their achievements and allowing the average Joe to enjoy them. The very human need to decompress and find joy in the beauty of life and the expression that is given in various art forms.
But, it is not only false that these two are separate entities, they are in fact, joined at the hip. As Andrew Breitbart famously said: “Politics is downstream of culture.” What a society finds beautiful, detestable, worthwhile, or useless will inevitably determine whom they vote for and which policies they endorse. All successful political movements have realized this point, and I think it’s time that the religious begin to have a very serious conversation about what comes next.
Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937) was arguably one of the greatest political thinkers of the twentieth century, but massively underappreciated outside of left-wing circles, much to our detriment. Gramsci was imprisoned by the Fascist regime of Benito Mussolini in 1926 for his role as head of the Italian Communist Party. His deteriorating health would permit him to gain early release in 1935 and ultimately culminated with his death in 1937. Gramsci spent his time in prison theorizing about where the communists had gone wrong and why they had failed to bring about the revolution amidst the great social upheaval in Italy following the Great War. Gramsci came to the startling conclusion that they had failed to establish hegemony.2
The Orthodox Marxists of Gramsci’s day were economic determinists. They steadfastly believed that the increasing economic pressures upon the working class would eventually cause it to rise from its stupor and popular discontent would take to the streets, bringing about the long-awaited revolution. This never happened. Even where communist uprisings had been successful, it was led primarily by an elite class that fomented the revolution.
More troublingly, in all the cases where the economic conditions had gotten worse, the masses had not resorted to communism but had more often turned to fascism.
What Gramsci realized is that there are in fact two equally important and interlocking facets: the first being the “civil” domain, that organized itself in the schools, religious institutions, high arts, journals, and social clubs. And the “political” domain where the state exerted itself through force: the police, military, and courts.
All modern regimes, he observed, had independently crafted widespread consensus through hegemony, or control of the civil domain of society. The intellectual class through permeating and forwarding its orthodoxies by way of the civil society was able to inculcate their ideas throughout the entire nation. What was desirable, what was just, and what was good were all determined by the ideas that expressed themselves in school, art, music, fashion, etc. Consensus crafted through hegemony could only be broken by way of hegemony. Any other way of organization would no doubt fail to affect any actual change.3
Gramsci was not the first political theorist to discuss these ideas. He was heavily influenced by the Italian Elite Theorists who were the first to write about how actual power lies with the elite and not with masses, as is commonly thought.4 He was the first however, to put forth an actionable plan as to how to gain hegemony.
A cadre of intellectuals (in the Gramscian imagination “intellectuals” include teachers, artists, musicians, artisans, authors, theorists, and the like) raised from a certain class and committed to waging cultural war on the existing hegemony might be able to establish a new norm. This is not a one and done process and needs additional defections from the existing intellectual class. But, through producing a beautiful and appealing new culture, enough of the old school would join the new.
With all of this in mind, it becomes painfully obvious why Odeya’s performance elicited such a vehement reaction from Lior Schleien. Schleien is one of the intellectuals of the Tel Aviv secular class. A well-known television executive and frequent guest on many popular Israeli TV shows during the early 2000s as well as hosting his own. He and his colleagues were instrumental in forming the current konseptzia as it exists in Israel. They can deal with Bibi and his cohort of coalition members governing for a decade here or there, as long as they have control of the narrative.5
A religious-adjacent singer such as Odeya promoting traditional Judaism is a direct threat to the hegemony that he and others would like to keep in place.
The Israeli Right, especially the National Religious, have taken for granted that they are assured political power within the next decade or so. Demographic trends seem to be headed that way, with a majority of Israel’s population (55%) either falling into the Masorati, Dati, or Haredi religious categories.6 It seems as if this is a no-brainer. In Israel’s case however, demographics are not destiny. As long as the secular elite continue to shape the culture, the Israeli Right may govern, but it will not rule.
There is good reason to be optimistic. Since the beginning of the war, there has been a noted uptick in religious observance throughout Israeli society. Soldiers have requested tzitzit, even those who are not religious.7 The music scene has fundamentally changed, with one of the most popular songs being “Hashem Yitbarach Tamid Ohev Oti” (G-d, the blessed, constantly loves me). This should not be an excuse to sit on our laurels. Good trends do not necessitate good outcomes. Gramsci thought that “organic crises” could cast doubt on the existing structure. October 7th was just that, with the country as a whole largely doubtful of the effectiveness of our elites. If there was ever a time to push, it is now.
If National Religious Israelis want to get serious about ruling the country and doing what is best for Am Yisrael, it MUST build the culture. Otherwise, all other exercises are futile.
https://x.com/LiorSchleien/status/1995750127974125754
Various, “Antonio Gramsci”, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (January 2023) https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/gramsci/
Thomas R. Bates, “Gramsci and the Theory of Hegemony”, Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 36, No. 2 (Apr. - Jun., 1975), pp. 351-366.
For a primer, see Neema Parvini, The Populist Delusion, (Perth: Imperium Press, 2022)
The failure of the proposed judicial reforms in 2023 make this abundantly clear. Even though Bibi and the Israeli Right have governed for over a decade, they have not ruled. This is an important distinction few make.
Per Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics Report for 2022.
“With tzitzit in high demand for IDF soldiers, volunteers take on the challenge”, The Times of Israel, https://www.timesofisrael.com/with-tzitzit-in-high-demand-for-idf-soldiers-volunteers-take-on-the-challenge/