This is basically meant to be a concise partial view
of various indications, whether recent or less so, of an apparently
recurring awareness among Israelis of the so-called "Hebrew" idea, built
into a comprehensive ideology at the turn of the 1940s by the late Hebrew
poet, Yonatan Ratosh.
The hallmark of the "Hebrew" ("Canaanite") outlook is
an assertion of a newly-forged specific Nationhood, based on Hebrew as a
de-sanctified vernacular and on the Land of Israel as a de-sanctified
Homeland, in an ongoing integrating societal process of e pluribus unum.
This process is perceived to have been at the very
root of present-day Israel and even of the early pre-state pioneering
community, which somehow, spontaneously or intuitively, came to consider
itself, since its inception, as Hebrew rather than Jewish or Judaic.
Hence, the perception of built-in tension or even contrast between
professed collective ideals and a visceral quest for autonomous
self-assertion.
The small group of recalcitrant intellectuals and
freedom-fighters of local vintage, which at the time made the attempt of
creating a cultural-cum-political rallying point for like-minded "Young
Hebrews", though quite ineffective as an organization, did leave its
long-term mark in the cultural scene of Israel, at the same time surviving
as a pristine challenging alternative option as opposed to the entire
setup of the country's Judeo-Zionist establishment and its prevalent
system of values.
