Where have Israeli intellectuals gone?
Israeli society has lost its past esteem for intellectuals and writers, with celebrities, actors, singers and media figures serving as its moral compass.
At the main gathering in 2006 to mark the 11th anniversary of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination, author David Grossman delivered an impassioned speech. “Our leadership is hollow,” he declared, shaking up an entire nation. He gave that speech just a few months after the Second Lebanon War, in which he lost his son Uri. In the years that have passed, however, the voices of Israel’s intellectuals have gone silent. It's hard to remember any statement evoking such a spirited discussion as what Grossman then expressed. His “hollow speech” is considered by many, a posteriori, to have been the swan song of an effective Israeli intellectualism that has publicly expressed itself little of late.
“We grew up on professor Yeshayahu Leibowitz, who foresaw what is about to happen here as far back as 47 years ago. There is no one in Israel of his stature today with the spiritual and moral authority to say a firm 'no,' and have the public swept up behind him,” actor Menashe Noy told Al-Monitor.
Noy dared to make a political statement of his own recently, in an interview with Israeli financial daily Globes in October. Nevertheless, Noy said, the silence is not absolute. “There are writers and thinkers, artists and Nobel Prize laureates, all of whom have signed various petitions, write articles in the newspaper and make statements,” he said. “The problem is that the dialogue has taken the direction that anyone who expresses himself in that way is a traitor.”
Noy is much like other figures from the entertainment world such as Orna Banai and Achinoam Nini (Noa) on the left and Yoav “The Shadow” Eliasi and Amir Benayoun on the right. They have all expressed clear political positions, provoking a heated public debate. In contrast, intellectuals who expressed their opinions have been ignored. For example, Amos Oz, A.B. Yehoshua and David Grossman recently signed a petition calling on Belgium to recognize a Palestinian state, gaining almost no public attention.
