Between Minor and Major Identity: Jacqueline Kahanoff and the “Israelization” of Levantinism

This paper explores the meaning of the concept “Levantinism” (an Eastern-Western blend perceived as degenerate and false) within the national-Zionist discourse of Israeli society’s formative decades. The primary argument in the paper is that the dialogue that developed within Zionism around Levantinism should be seen as part of the broader national dialogue of a minority trying to construct itself as a majority. The writings of the Egyptian-Jewish intellectual, Jacqueline Kahanoff, and the public debate her work sparked in Israel’s formative years, are the basis of the discussion. It argues that, in contrast to prevailing interpretations of Kahanoff’s thought, Kahanoff’s conception of Levantinism should be seen as indicative of a major trend that characterized Zionist discourse during the first decades of the state of Israel. Kahanoff sought to transform Levantinism into a desirable ideal of identity by “importing” the Levantine hybrid culture from the context of a minority society to the context of a sovereign Jewish society in Israel. This attempt to “import” the Levantine hybrid culture from a minority to a majority context was shared by the national-Jewish discourse and served as the connecting point between Kahanoff and Aharon Amir, editor of the periodical Keshet. Kahanoff was identified with Keshet which provided her with a “passport” to Israel’s intellectual discourse of the period. The shared ideological platform elucidates how the concept of Levantinism was utilized in the formative years of Israeli society and offers a new perspective on the position of the intermediate hybrid identity in the framework of a minority discourse seeking to imagine itself as a majority discourse.