Israeli society in the early 21st century is struggling toward a collective identity, caught in a web of internal tensions and contradictions. Individualism may have replaced many of the collective ideals of earlier generations but idealism – although it sometimes becomes muddled with patriotism – has not disappeared entirely. Individual love songs have long displaced the older form of love song – those to the country, the land, the people, the State and its ideals; nonetheless, people still gather to sing those earlier songs in communal settings. Individual or couple dancing have long supplanted the place of group folk dancing (except in large parts of the religious world, which is another story); in recent years, however, attendance has significantly increased of regular evenings of folk dancing, updated and adapted for the present day.

Israel’s narrative is very complex: this essay has focused on thirteen subjects and the ways in which they are reflected in creative culture. Together, they have helped to create Israeli culture. Each has evinced a strong influences on the country’s way of life, yet perhaps the better phrase would be ‘ways of life.’ In metaphorical terms, Israeli society can be viewed as a knot at the center of many tangled ropes: each rope attempts to pull the knot (and all the other ropes) in some direction, causing all the others to move from side to side. Such is Israeli society: constantly moving, changing and developing. Those holding the ropes are all the different groups connected with the subjects surveyed in this essay. Due to the tangle, however, the knot is growing increasingly taut and confused by its internal contradictions.

It is not easy to understand Israel. Maybe it is harder still to live here. Nevertheless, its culture is one of the most interesting in our world, as reading this essay should have made clear.