Comment by edanm
> As I've mentioned elsewhere though, this lack of culture isn't unique to Israel, it's just heavily multiplied due to the population being a collection of diaspora. This might change over the next couple hundred years but it's equally wild to assume that a 70 year old country is somehow going to have anywhere near the same level of culture (and cultural resilience) as undisturbed groups.
This statement makes sense - of course Israeli culture, being younger than, say, US culture, is less developed.
But that's not your original claim that I disagreed with, what you originally said was this:
> If conflicts were to go away, so would Israel. Israeli Jews would just be absorbed into whatever local culture they're in, just as they were prior to the formation of Israel (and just like they are outside of Israel)
There's a big difference between saying "the culture isn't quite unique" and implying that without conflicts, Israel would somehow disappear, and Jews would be absorbed into the surrounding culture (of what, Lebanon? Jordan?).
> Yeah. It has no unique national identity. There's a lot of Jewish culture, sure, but I'm hoping we can distinguish Jewish culture from Israeli culture
First of all, 20% of Israel's population isn't Jewish.
Secondly, I think the Israeli culture, even if only focusing on Israeli Jewish culture, is different from, say, American Jewish culture or other Jewish cultures around the world.
> There's a big difference between saying "the culture isn't quite unique" and implying that without conflicts, Israel would somehow disappear, and Jews would be absorbed into the surrounding culture (of what, Lebanon? Jordan?).
I was talking about the national identity. There is frankly no point to Israel's existence, internally and externally, outside of the existential threat. It has no culture outside of the self-fulfilling prophesy of being a Jewish homeland. The culture is literally just foreign influences mixed in with the Jewish faith.
Yes, I strongly believe that without the existential threat that Israel would cease to exist. It's this existential threat that drives the agriculture and tech which is just attempts at self-sufficiency. If Jews didn't have this sentiment, the desire for a nation would fizzle out and the endless conflict with its neighbours would no longer make sense. The oppressive treatment of Palestinians would no longer have any sort of justification. Kosher slaughter and Beetroot kubbeh isn't enough.
> of what, Lebanon? Jordan?
I think you'd find that Jordan and Lebanon, at least in the developed parts, are culturally almost exactly the same. The Mizrahi influence on day-to-day Israeli culture is huge, more than some Israelis probably realize (given another commenter was convinced that Sabich would somehow be foreign to Iraqis).
> First of all, 20% of Israel's population isn't Jewish.
Israel's identity is exclusively Jewish. The extras are just there as tokens non-Jews.
> Secondly, I think the Israeli culture, even if only focusing on Israeli Jewish culture, is different from, say, American Jewish culture or other Jewish cultures around the world.
Agreed, which speaks to the lack of resilience. Compare this with, say, American Lebanese or Australian Lebanese diaspora which you can drop into Lebanon and see no difference.
There's another example of this in that region that's also visible: the existential threat on the Palestinians is what formed their national identity as well. Without that threat which shapes all of their day-to-day lives (including those in the diaspora), they would have just been absorbed into their neighbors too.