Salvaging Israeli Secular Culture Erica Weiss, Tel Aviv University In 1970, Jacob Gruber coined the term “salvage anthropology” to describe the practice of 19th century ethnographers documenting the languages and cultures of those peoples threatened by extinction due to European and American colonialism. And so, it is somewhat ironic that this practice of recording vanishing cultures is just what jumps to my mind as I read Stacey Gutkowski’s account of modern secular Israelis. This is hyperbol…

Close observers of Israeli politics could be forgiven for thinking they have fallen into the film Groundhog Day, where a character played by Bill Murray lives the same day over and over again in excruciating detail. The Israeli electorate now faces their fourth national election in two years after the coalition government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu failed to agree a budget. The country is yet again in a pre-electoral holding pattern, with the exception of the Covid vaccine roll out…