The Men We Loved

Some semi-public, exclusive male settings, most noticeably in the military, encourage the production of intimacy and desire. Yet whereas in most instances this desire is displaced through humor and aggressive gestures, it becomes acknowledged and outright declared once associated with sites of heroic death. In his provocative study of interrelations between friendship in everyday life and national sentiments in Israel, the author follows selected stories of friendship ranging over early childhood, school, the workplace, and some unique war experiences. He explores the symbolism of friendship in rituals for the fallen soldiers, the commemoration of Prime Minister Yzhak Rabin, and the national infatuation with recovering bodies of missing soldiers. He concludes that the Israeli case offers an extreme instance of a much broader cultural phenomenon: declaring the friendship for the dead epitomizes the political "blood pact" between men, taking precedence over the traditional blood ties of kinship and heterosexual unions. The book underscores nationalism as a homosocial-based emotion of commemorative desire.

Some semi-public, exclusive male settings, most noticeably in the military, encourage the production of intimacy and desire. Yet whereas in most instances this desire is displaced through humor and aggressive gestures, it becomes acknowledged and outright declared once associated with sites of heroic death. In his provocative study of interrelations between friendship in everyday life and national sentiments in Israel, the author follows selected stories of friendship ranging over early childhood, school, the workplace, and some unique war experiences. He explores the symbolism of friendship in rituals for the fallen soldiers, the commemoration of Prime Minister Yzhak Rabin, and the national infatuation with recovering bodies of missing soldiers. He concludes that the Israeli case offers an extreme instance of a much broader cultural phenomenon: declaring the friendship for the dead epitomizes the political “blood pact” between men, taking precedence over the traditional blood ties of kinship and heterosexual unions. The book underscores nationalism as a homosocial-based emotion of commemorative desire.

Acknowledgments
Prologue

Part I: Friendship and Ideology

Chapter 1. The Case of Fraternal Friendship
Chapter 2. Re’ut: Friendship in Zionist Ideology

Part II: Friendship in Everyday Life

Chapter 3. History and Destiny: Friendship Narratives
Chapter 4. Two Styles of Sharing: The Hevreman and the Intellectual
Chapter 5. Public Intimacy and the Miscommunication of Desire

Part III: Sacred Friendship

Chapter 6. David, Jonathan, and Other Soldiers: The Hegemonic Script for Male Bonding
Chapter 7.“Shalom, haver”: Commemoration as Desire

Discussion: Nationalism, Friendship, and Commemorative Desire

Appendix I: Studying a National Emotion
Appendix II: Table of Interviewees

Bibliography