PROCEEDINGS | Scientific Symposium
The common narrative is essential for every “ Imagined Community ”; this term , coined by Benedict Anderson ( 1983 ), I believe is especially relevant for the cases of Israel and Palestine for two reasons : the first is that both are communities whose aspiration for self-determination developed mainly during the 20st century , and second because these are both countries who still experience an ongoing conflict , and therefore there is a need to create cohesion within different people of the same nation .
The national narrative is generally accepted by most of the people in a country and it is spread to the population via official and unofficial institutions . Museums , particularly national museums , are among the main institutions that fulfill this task . The Museum visually represents the history of a community ; the way in which the pieces are displayed tells a story that aims to represent the collective history of its people ( Preziosi 2009 ). The “ Art of Memory ” rests on the capacity of shaping the way historical events are going to be remembered . The historic truth is relative , the facts are real but the way in which the story is told reflects the narrative around which it is easier for people to identify themselves , and therefore best serves the purpose of national unity ( Ibid ).
Although national museums in Israel had a major role in defining the common history of the country , in recent years , artists and curators started to challenge the official narratives by representing different memories and stories . I will discuss the case of the exhibition “ 1948 ” curated by Dr . Majd Hamra and Inbal Dror Lax , for the Museum of Haifa . The exhibit aimed to expose the two different national narratives , Palestinian and Israeli , about the events that took place symbolically in the year 1948 . I will discuss how I believe the curators are applying memory work in a way that questions the official narrative and opens it up for a better understanding of the others ’ story .
It is important first to describe what is the historical background in which the two different narratives developed . Through the texts of Nora and Halbwakchs , I will define the term Collective Memory , how it is built and what is exceptional in the case of Israel and Palestine . I will then try to define how national museums and the arts in Israel had an important role in defining the memory of the first years of the state and how this memory developed through the years . I will then argue that two memories , the Palestinian and the Israeli , do not often meet in the public sphere because there is a common belief that the veracity of one would discredit the other . Finally , I will take the case of the exhibition and discuss in which way the curators ’ memory work is proposing a Countermemory which will be a common ground in building a memory that will be multidirectional instead of competitive .
The two different narratives , one Israeli and one Palestinian , were born out of a shared traumatic experience in which the two sides were faced against one another . During the beginning of the 20th century , the Zionist movement brought different people from all over Europe into the land of British occupied Palestine , now Israel . This variegated and diverse people shared the element of belonging to the Jewish culture and religion . The connection to the land was mostly based on historic traditions and texts dating back to the kingdom of David . In this sense , a national identity had to be created on the basis of events that happened thousands of years before that time . On one hand , the Zionists wished to create a state built on the ideas of European Modernism , on the other , they needed a narrative that would legitimize the connection to the land of Israel that would not be exclusively religious ( Anderson 1983 ; Jamal & Samah 2014 ).
In the year 1936 a group of artists established the Knahanim , an ideological-cultural movement whose name originates from the ancient Knahan region which during the Bronze Age included the territories of Israel , Palestine , Sinai and Lebanon ( Fischer 1984 , 30-35 ). The movement ambition was to draw a direct line between the peoples who lived in the land of Israel in the second millennium BCE and the Jewish people in the land of Israel in the twentieth century . This was an attempt to detach the newborn Israeli artistic movement from the Diaspora-Jewish tradition while creating an old-new culture that would be associated with the Middle East . This would have legitimized the connection of the newly arrived Jewish people to the land ( Ibid ). In art , the Knahanim were influenced by both the Primitivism
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