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The Place of the Mediterranean in Modern Jewish Identity, by Alexandra Nocke. Boston: Brill, 2009. 298 pp. $140.00.
Alexandra Nocke’s splendidly written and meticulously researched The Place of the Mediterranean in Modern Israeli Identity (2009) deftly exposes the ways that the spirit of Yam Tikhoniut (or “Mediterraneanism”) is employed by Israelis to open up their claustrophobic situation by relating to their locale as intrinsic to a more expansive geo-cultural space. Whether considering daily life or artistic expression, the author provides a timely and richly interdisciplinary perspective that promises to open up important new trajectories in Israel Studies as well as 21st century approaches to Jewish identity. Nocke is keenly interested in journalist Zvi Bar’el’s formulation of the transformative broadening of the Israeli sense of spatial belonging that has lately taken hold: “The Mediterranean Sea ceased to be a place into which Jews could be thrown, and turned into a ‘basin’ around which one discuss[es] common regional problems” (p. 27). While fully acknowledging that such an expansion is subject to the increasingly precarious status of the peace process in recent years, Nocke, together with her subjects, finds vibrant expressions of Mediterranean identity “in the media, in cultural and everyday social practices, and as a part of public debates” (p. 28).
The powerful attraction to this transnational mode of belonging owes in part to its capacity for complementing “existing models of identity without either threatening their legitimacy or replacing them” (p. 29). In other words, Yam Tikoniut (Nocke occasionally translates this as the “Mediterranean Option”) encompasses the “East” and the “West” without imposing a monolithic model of identity. Yet it would be hard to deny that such an orientation might have potentially far-reaching social and political implications. For instance there is President Shimon Peres’ declaration that, rather than devote more resources to settlement in the occupied Palestinian territories, “we must invest in the sea, and stretch our western borders in that direction by building artificial islands” (p. 32). Undeniably, the expansive sense of belonging that Yam Tikhoniut temptingly promises also carries a certain pragmatism and demographic logic; after all, seventy percent of the country’s population dwells on the coastal plain. (In this regard, it is worth noting that “Mediterraneanism” has lately taken hold in other countries in the region; in 2008 Nicolas Sarkozy called for a “Mediterranean Union” that might one day lead to a supranational body.)
For the average citizen, Nocke speculates, “the Mediterranean Idea . . . offers a political vision, adding a new dimension to the prevailing fatigue, bitterness, and disenchantment with politics that can generally be found in contemporary Israel” (p. 33). But the fraught question of belonging posed by the “East” and “West” demarcation is not so easily put to rest. In this regard, some of Nocke’s Mizrahi respondents express wariness about the prospect of being marginalized (or condescended to) once again by what sounds to them like yet another Eurocentric rubric. Thus, Iraqi-born Jewish Israeli novelist Sami Michael proposes an alternative formulation that respects the traditional Levantine configuration of Palestine, Israel, Egypt, Lebanon, and Syria but would be called the “Middle Eastern Union.” Both of these supranational paradigms look toward a much longed-for integration in the region, but they are heavily idealized, ignoring the prickly identity politics, let alone the tenacious ferocity of religious fundamentalism, that besets the entire region. (Pace Nocke’s Israeli subjects, a Lebanese academic complains to her, “Why shall we, alongside with Israel, all of a sudden become ‘Mediterranean,’ just for Israel to feel more welcomed in the region? We are Arabs and we will stay Arabs!” [p. 247].) Yet it is worth noting that variations on the views espoused by the Israelis who appear in Nocke’s book have already been articulated by others, including Arab intellectuals, in the region. In “Re-Thinking the Mediterranean” Omar Barghouti and Adrian Grima call for new regional alliances to transcend the ethos of a West and East destined for permanent enmity: “A progressive alliance that focuses on the Mediterranean can be a credible, indeed a crucial, core of a larger alliance that presents a counterweight to American unilateralism and European cultural ethnocentrism and economic protectionism, as well as a new paradigm for cross-regional partnerships based on a harmonizing vision and a geopolitical philosophy that is essentially at odds with the neocon worldview. It is not civilizations or even cultures that are pitted against each other, but the haves and the have-nots, the powerful and powerless communities, the secular politics of reason and ignorance, and universal principles of justice and injustice” (Barghouti is a Palestinian political and cultural analyst; Grima is a Maltese poet and academic. Their article appeared in Counterpunch, September 9, 2005). The values and disparities they identify suggest a strong foundation for future forms of alliances—that is if we ever overcome the fundamentalisms, narrow nationalisms, and ideologies that currently determine relations in the Levant.
If we do manage that, such success will owe no small measure to the visionary artists that celebrate their “Levantine” identities. For example, Kobi Oz, singer and songwriter for the ethno-rock group Tea Packs, has long sought to transcend East/West binaries: “This is what Levantinism is all about—the ability to see all sorts of different things at the same time . . . the availability to enjoy all worlds; it’s the ultimate form of post-modernism” (p. 71). Nocke also draws on sociologist Motti Regev’s explanation of the band’s “wish to be accepted in possible foreign markets as ‘musicians’ pure and simple, without the internal cultural-political connotations of Israel,” (p. 70) which suggests that there are commercial as well as cultural advantages in the group’s embrace of world music forms.
No discussion of Israel and the Mediterranean would be sufficient without including the groundbreaking thought of the Cairo-born writer Jacqueline Kahanoff (1917–1979), whose polemical essays argue passionately for a pluralist Middle East Though introducing such a pivotal transnational thinker as late as she does in her study makes little sense, Nocke succeeds in presenting an effective and moving introduction to Kahanoff’s advocacy of “cultural cross-fertilization” and “vision of Israel as an integral part of the . . . Levantine world. . . . Kahanoff was far ahead of her times. She realized that the region harbors not only a concentration of national, religious, ethnic, and cultural conflicts, but also provides opportunities for dialogue and multicultural coexistence. . . . Her approach, applied to contemporary settings, challenges static interpretations, raises hopes of abolishing dichotomies, and overcoming frontiers” (p. 220). For decades, Kahanoff’s works have been unavailable; fortunately Stanford University Press is bringing out a collection next year edited by Deborah Ann Starr.
One of the great strengths of this terrifically informative and probing study is the fluid way that Nocke interweaves her wide-ranging interviews with Jewish and Muslim political, cultural and intellectual figures (most intriguingly some were conducted in Beirut) with her own illuminating observations. It should also be noted that The Place of the Mediterranean in Modern Israeli Identity is lavishly illustrated by examples drawn from many of the photographs, architectural features, paintings, advertisements, and other design elements that lend considerable support to the author’s authoritative and genuinely exciting analysis.
Ranen Omer-Sherman
University of Miami
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