Hacam in the turbulent discursive sphere of Israeli bumper stickers.

In recent years Israel's roads have become a public, open, and permanent sphere for discursive political dialogues, publicly displayed in the iconic medium of bumper stickers which give voice to strong feelings of identification and conflict. The private car has become a site through which a complex communication of schism and unity is conducted, using key terms of Jewish and Israeli identity. The present article focuses on expressions of identity and boundaries of "the people," or "the nation" articulated in this popular discourse, by examining a variety of bumper stickers incorporating the term [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] (hacam). Analysis of the rhetoric of this discourse reveals five major organizing axes: somatic rhetoric; familial rhetoric; historical rhetoric; rhetoric of loyalty and betrayal; rhetoric of inclusion and exclusion. The plethora of variants of the concept [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] (cam) in the sticker discourse emphasizes the popular voice that this discourse aims to represent. At the same time, the popular and creative play on concepts of identity, which are perceived as traditional and hallowed, in such a contemporary and ephemeral discourse, produces a powerful tension between these concepts and the political and social conflicts to which the discourse refers.

This article is concerned with expressions of identity and boundaries of [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] (hacam), a term that is articulated in the popular discourse of bumper stickers on Israeli roads. Anyone driving along the highways of the "Jewish state" in recent years cannot help but notice the proliferation of stickers conveying mainly political messages, which make regular appearance on vehicles. (1) Often, one sticker message gives rise to new stickers reacting to its message with innovative content. This popular and alert political discourse, publicly displayed in the iconic medium of bumper stickers, is characterized by a rhythm of its own, as the acts of applying and removing stickers follow their own ebb and flow. (2) Israel's roads (and highways) have turned into a public, open, and permanent sphere for discursive political dialogues which give voice to strong feelings of identification and conflict. The private car has become a site in which the complex communication of schism and unity plays out. (3)

In an earlier study I attempted to explicate the unique experience of popular hermeneutics which the discourse of bumper stickers produces. (4) This discourse was found to represent a folkloric voice, which addresses itself to the "big" political events taking place in Israel and to the hegemonic discourse surrounding them. The Israeli public was found to be involved, either as producer or audience, at various levels of the discourse. This involvement included the diverse and creative interpretation of stickers, critique as well as creation of verbal formulations, rituals of sticking-on and peeling-off, and even domestic fabrication of stickers.

Sticker slogans are formulated in a condensed poetics which refers to a common world of images and associations. Documenting the stickers as a contemporary folkloric genre suggests intricate links between form and content, medium and message, as elements which cooperate on the hermeneutic level. Complex social and political realities are distilled in the stickers into short slogans, which then are deciphered through equally complex processes, which are far from uniform or transparent for participants. (5)

In Israel this turbulent popular political discourse is shaped through an aesthetic of disputation. This aesthetic is embodied in "disputational clusters" whose various parts relate to each other and even intermesh. The bumper sticker discourse contains midrashic elements, giving participants the sense of joining a hevruta (exegetical study session) on Israel's highways. One of the richest and most complex "disputational clusters" involves the term [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] (cam). The increasing expansion and ramification of this cluster testifies to the vitality of this road discourse, which responds, in its own fashion, to the social and political chronology. The concept [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] receives a detailed and multifaceted articulation in the road discourse, either directly, or through related concepts and diverse semantic associations. Aside from the specific content associated with the concept [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.], the very fact of its prominence within this discourse, serves to reinforce the "folk voice," which is a characteristic of the discourse as a whole. However, as will be shown, the voice of [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] is not a unitary voice which confronts the voice of government. [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] is comprised of many voices. The unique semantic field which encompasses the concept [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.], as the stickers indicate, is implicated in a dynamic of splintering, which may, upon inquiry, point to new directions for understanding the multiple meanings of Jewish and Israeli identity. (6) Questions of identity and identification are both critical and loaded issues in Israel, marked as it is by dual definition as a Jewish and democratic state. The inherent complexity of this dual definition is echoed in a variety of cultural forms, giving expression to different aspects of the debate.

The concept [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] occurs in Hebrew language and culture within a wide range of images and contexts. Many of these occur already in the Hebrew Bible, which constitutes a rich reservoir of images and associated meanings for the term. The most central related concepts are [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] ('uma!=national community), [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] (le'om=nation), [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] (goy = ethnos, people) as well as terms indicating the multitude's subjection to rule: [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] (hamon = crowd, horde), [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] (tsibur=public), [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] (qahal=assembly, gathering), [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] ('asafsuf=crowd, rabble). This range of meanings poses a challenge in translation: any selection of one term, while unavoidable, limits the appreciation of the full resonance and connotations of the other meanings associated with [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.].

Stickers observed on Israeli roads included explicit mention of the following terms: [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] (hacam), [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] (Yisra'el), [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] (cam Yisra'el), [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] ('ahdut Yisra'el=Israel's unity), [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] (cam 'ehad = one cam), [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] (harov=the majority), [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] ('anahnu=we), [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] (cam hazaq=a strong cam), [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] (shnei camim=two nations), [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] (yehudi=Jew), [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] (beineinu!=!between us), [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] (mahane=camp), [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] (kulam!= everyone, written in the sticker with exaggerated length as [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] (lanu=for us), [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] (yahad=together), [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] (cahim=brothers, brethren), and more. These expressions occur in the typically brief stickers, as though in conversation with each other, sometimes agreeing and sometimes resisting, for the sake of provocation and debate, the way the very same term is used elsewhere.

The present article focuses, then, on the popular expressions of the bumper stickers' discourse about identity, the boundaries of [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.], and the issues of identity and identification which it raises. The use of expressions of identity such as [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] (mahaneinu!=!our camp), [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] ('ahdut Yisra'el=the unity of Israel), and other expressions, which are perceived as traditional and hallowed, within such a contemporary and timebound discourse, underscores and exemplifies the unique connections between the mythical and hallowed and the contemporary and popular. (7)

The associations surrounding these Jewish terms of identity gain a particular edge when represented in such a popular and temporary medium-cheap and easily available stickers--thereby eliciting quite polarized reactions. Exposure to these terms appears to be quite fluid, displaying shifting characteristics, constructive and de-constructive.

In his book, Cultural Intimacy, Michael Herzfeld closely examines the culturally specific ways in which nationalism is shaped, thus endowing nationality with meaning in various cultural contexts. (8) Herzfeld coins the term "cultural intimacy" which designates the close involvement between citizens and the nation state. The construction of cultural intimacy repeatedly invokes metaphors and expressions of closeness, which are shared by the "state" and the "nation," and which testify to their existence as parts of a common reality of cultural involvement. The concept of cultural intimacy allows Herzfeld to recognize those aspects of cultural identity which provide members of that culture security in their "togetherness": concepts of familiarity, collective security, as well as a measure of subversiveness and resistance to their culture--even when these concepts are in themselves a cause for a sense of embarrassment for the participants. Thus, expressions of embarrassment, and sometimes even sorrow, in relation to cultural intimacy function as some of its key signs.

Armed with this perspective, Herzfeld expands Benedict Anderson's field of inquiry, whose description of "imagined communities" (9) employed a top-down approach, by focusing on the inseparable nature of the "top-down" and "bottom-up" relationship. In relation to "cultural intimacy," the terms "top" and "bottom" lose their distinction. (10)

In the present discussion, I will treat Israel's highways as such an intimate cultural sphere. When tracking the stickers' messages it is easy to recognize the saliency of expressions of identity and nationalism, which occur in a variety of political contexts to which the stickers allude. The alternatives to terms of identity and the nation suggested within this particular discourse serve as demonstrations of plurality versus unity, "recycling," whether by reproducing, dismantling, or reconstructing, the homogeneity prescribed by the national ideology. This discourse, with its conspicuous use and play with terms of identity and nationhood displays great creativity on the part of participants. It illustrates the power of the folkloric sphere as an intimate cultural one, and underscores the exegetical power of the subtleties of the ethnographic endeavor. The elucidation of the unique terms, which make up the foundation of the multiplicity, leads us into the core of the popular discourse, represented in this article by the voices of the interviewees.

This article is based on research which included the documentation of bumper stickers over a period of six years, between November 1995 and October 2001, and more than fifty open and semi-open interviews, which were conducted over a period of a year and a half, from October 2000 until April 2002. Our desire to understand the popular experience occasioned by the stickers' use of the terminology of identity, led us to interview a diverse cross-section of Israel's Jewish population. (11) In the open interviews, people were asked to comment on photographs of cars with bumper stickers, and in the semi-open interviews they were asked their opinions of a confined set of stickers. Among hundreds of stickers documented on Israel's highways, only those stickers containing references to the concept of [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] or related expressions of identity were chosen, a total of fifty-two different stickers.

The selected group of stickers was presented to the interviewees, who were then asked to respond to them however they saw fit. At the end of the interview we asked them to say a few words about their identity, a request which was interpreted in reference to the stickers, and led, as we discovered, to self-identification by means of politico-religious labels: "radical left," "leftwing," "centrist," "sane center," "right-wing," "extreme right," "secular," "religious-Meimad," "national-religious," "non-Zionist ultra-orthodox," "Shas Ultra-orthodox (haredi)," "traditional," "a-political," and even, as one interviewee described herself, "between the extreme right and radical left."12

The multiplicity of interpretations elicited in the interviews point not only to the dialectics played out between left and right, or between the secular and religiously identified, but first and foremost to a popular, polemical, emotional, and dynamic relationship to the complexities of the social and political debate taking place within Israeli society. The participants' enthusiasm for the interviews was immense. In the process of interviewing, it was clear that people strove to put into words the sentiments evoked by reading the stickers, and to describe their response with precision and profundity. Themes of identity, boundaries, and politics were presented as mutually reinforcing, and their interpretations were elaborated in a manner which bolstered their fundamental views. In this manner, the interviewees projected their views onto the stickers, and enlisted them in different ways to their political position. The interviewees attached importance to the opportunity they were given to interpret the stickers, sometimes betraying in their words an awareness of competing interpretive possibilities. It is therefore possible to attribute an ideological intention to their willingness to participate in the research.

In analyzing the corpus of interviews collected, we identified diverse, volatile and even mutually exclusive interpretations. Yet beyond this rich diversity, the stickers exposed deep rhetorical strategies which point to the collective taken-for-granted truths which lie at the base of these expressions of identity. The more the stickers revolved around distinct themes of identity, the interviewees tended to identify and even to reinforce these thematic rhetorical strategies. The salience of these deep rhetorical strategies shows collective Israeli identity--as it is formulated in the dynamic popular discourse of the stickers--to be organized around several axes of meaning. This article is structured around these axes of meaning, which organize the variety of voices as they relate to the various stickers.

The examples presented in the following pages constitute a representative selection of stickers, which were documented over the research period. Following each sticker we bring several examples of responses to it. These responses, some quite blunt or even jarring in tone, testify to the level of emotion the stickers provoke, and to the willingness of the interviewees to give vent to these sentiments, in relation to individual, collective, and ideological meanings. For the purposes of this article, the representative examples brought here were selected with reference to several criteria--political identification, gender, and rhetorical type--in order to allow the reader to encounter a variety of interpretational voices attached to each sticker.

Selections from twenty-one interviewees, from among the fifty interviews conducted, are presented below. Each interviewee is identified by a first name and political identification that they themselves have volunteered, in order to help the reader identify a person whose words appear, on occasion, more than once throughout the article. (13) The participants in this discourse are: Miriam ("apolitical"); Boaz ("left-wing secular"); Yael ("centrist left"); Tzippora ("right-wing ultra-Orthodox"); Elad ("secular, very right-wing"); Yoav ("left-wing-Meimad"); (14) Yaron ("left-wing, very secular"); Tamar ("secular, centrist"); Michal ("right-wing traditional"); Batya ("National religious-right-wing"); Gila ("traditional, centrist"); Shmuel ("National religious, right-wing"), Yossi ("Ultra-Orthodox [haredi], non-Zionist"); Sara ("haredi, non-Zionist"); Daniel ("secular-centrist"); Naomi ("between extreme right-wing and radical left"); Geula ("Ultra-Orthodox, Shas, bafialatteshuva [=!newly religious]"); Rivka ("extreme right-wing, religious"); Talya ("secular, left-wing"); Shulamit ("secular, left-wing"), Amnon, ("extremely secular, radical left").

An examination of the relevant stickers suggests the following classification of rhetorical categories: (1) Somatic rhetoric, (2) Family rhetoric, (3) Historical rhetoric, (4) Rhetoric of loyalty and betrayal, (5) Rhetoric of inclusion and exclusion, and even (6) Rhetoric of the God-people ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.]) relationship. These categories, conspicuous both within the rhetoric of the stickers and in the interviewees' interpretations, are axes around which the sources of legitimization and de-legitimization pertaining to the identity of the collective involved in the discourse and its boundaries, are organized.

1. SOMATIC RHETORIC:

[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] (Jewish blood is spilled as a result of concessions) [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] (Israel wake up! Our blood is forsaken) [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] (Jerusalem-the heart of Israel)15 [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] (Barak is tearing our heart out) (16) [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] (Tearing out settlements rips apart the cam)

The construction of cultural intimacy repeatedly addresses terms and metaphors of relatedness which typically contain images of the body, the family, and kinship. Abstract concepts of identity, belonging, and sacrifice are often channeled into the building blocks of private experience. (17_ Indeed, the use of these concepts stood out both within the rhetoric of the sticker and in the interviewees' interpretations. The first group of stickers presented, is characterized by expression of identity, identification, and nationalism, which include somatic images, and specifically images of the circulatory system.18 Words referring to the circulatory system often appear in red, next to words in other colors, usually in blue or black.

These images are related to a sense of the functional and ideological unity of the whole body. In the stickers' discourse, the most conspicuous somatic images are related to the heart and the circulatory system it controls. Jerusalem, as a heart, fulfils a function for the benefit of a duplicate body: the territorial body [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] ('eretz-Yisra'el), along with the human body ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] Yisrael:Israel:Jew:myself). Interestingly, detraction from the wholeness of the body--the kind that causes bleeding--led each side of the political spectrum to interpretations that warn against disintegration. (19)

[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] Israel wake up! Our blood is forsaken

Yael-centrist-left wing interprets:

   The intended meaning is [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.], but the
   word [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] is missing: "[TEXT NOT
   REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.], wake up, our blood is forsaken" as if we
   are asleep and need to be woken up. It's odd that it says "wake up"
   in singular and not in plural, because it is an address to a
   collectivity, but perhaps on the contrary, they are trying to
   emphasize that we are one, and united, or we need to be united as
   one body. This is an appeal for action. The sticker appeals to
   Judaism, to Israel, to our roots, to our tradition, so from that
   point of view it seems to me that these are right-wing groups.

Shulamit-secular, left wing:

   You will find this sticker on many of the roads leading to the
   settlements, on the "by-pass" roads. They are trying to wake up
   those who don't exactly travel along these roads and to tell them
   that they are forsaking the [settler's] lives by not caring about
   what's going on in the settlements. It makes me think immediately
   how they are constantly manipulating us emotionally and how much
   their messianic desire for the "whole land of Israel" is costing
   us.

Miriam-apolitical, responds passionately:

   This is an appeal to the people, big time. "Israel wake up!" is a
   kind of outcry. The people are asleep-it's time to wake up! It's
   like "a voice calls in the wilderness," something ... a real
   tempest ... "Israel wake up," in a very dramatic way. All sorts of
   allusions to times when the Jews were in exile and their blood was
   forfeited, and everyone could abuse them as they please, and so if
   we are an Mo in its own land, then if our "blood is forsaken," this
   is antithetical to the fact that we have a state of our own. Every
   word here pierces, this is a very dramatic sticker.

[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] Tearing out settlements rips apart the cam (20)

Michal-traditional, right wing:

   It's like pulling a tooth, pulling out at the roots, we have things
   in common, so it's not exactly pulling a tooth, it's like tearing
   the heart out of the [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.]. Without the
   heart you would not be able to live! There are a few things that
   are very important in order to exist as an [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE
   IN ASCII.]: it's their symbols, their settlements... without these
   it cannot go on existing.

Yaron--secular, left wing, accompanies his interpretation with a suggestion for his own sticker:

"Tearing out" [literally "uprooting"-H.S.] is like pulling a tooth. From their point of view it is painful; I would phrase it: "Evacuating settlements unites the [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.], so everyone will come to Tel-Aviv, we'll be united, it will be fun, we'll work it out. They are personifying the land of Israel...uprooting settlements tears the [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] apart. I disagree with this concept of "uprooting." Uprooting a tooth is painful, but to tell you the truth, I kept on living afterwards, it didn't tear apart the whole [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.]. It tore a few small blood vessels, and you go on living.

Yoav--left-Meimad responds polemically:

   Aha ... here we have word-play that uses a similar root: Uprooting
   (caqira= [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.]) and tearing ([TEXT NOT
   REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.]). Qerica associatively evokes terms
   connected to mourning customs, tearing of one's garment. So when
   you are tearing out settlements it connects to mourning. And
   uprooting, here the association is with the evacuation of Yamit,
   (21) at which time it was still small scale, yet the evacuees made
   a big ruckus over it, and the insinuation is, that this will bring
   about a civil war. "Tear's the Mo apart": a tear, a rift, a war
   between brothers.

[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] Jerusalem-Israel's heart

Miriam--apolitical:

   This is a sticker that relies on you to come to your own
   conclusions; it's a more intelligent, and less blunt sticker in its
   wording. Suppose that it appeared as a song for Independence Day, a
   song of praise, "Jerusalem, Israel's heart"--how beautiful, [So]
   you say: "trivial, Jerusalem--of course!" so they say to you, "Aha!
   We caught you, so you agree?" "I agree." "So what is the meaning of
   this? Is it possible to be without a heart? Pay attention!" It's a
   right-wing sticker, a subtle one, sophisticated, that relies on the
   consensus and the general understanding. It pretends innocence, and
   is simply phrased, with this childlike innocence, but within it
   there is sophistication.

Gila--traditional, centrist:

   There is a group of stickers, whose purpose is to give a good
   feeling, to bring the [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] closer
   together, to create a bit of unity, to warm the heart a bit. Maybe
   they are looking at it in context because Jerusalem was put on the
   negotiating table, maybe this is a political statement: Jerusalem
   is the heart of Israel and therefore it is forbidden to give up
   even one centimeter of it.

Yaron--secular, left wing, expresses a similar position, in different words:

   This is an appeal to nationalism, and Jerusalem-this is the heart
   of Israel! And so clearly you can't give up [[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE
   IN ASCII.]] or carve up [[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.]] any
   part of it. It is the heart! There is something emotional here, it
   takes an emotional tack, you are no longer looking at the big
   picture: if it is good for the Jews or not good for the Jews, if it
   is attainable or not, this is an appeal to national [identity] or
   nationalism.

Elad--secular, very right-wing, grants this sticker a special status:

   This is a sticker that I definitely identify with, I definitely
   think that Jerusalem is the heart of Israel, and not only of
   Israel, but of the entire world. This is a rightwing sticker,
   extreme, religious. It is forbidden to divide this capital ever
   till the end of time! It is even forbidden to utter it on our lips
   or think such a thought. Jerusalem is a problem unto itself, a very
   unique and important problem. Because it is a separate problem,
   this sticker is set apart, and has a unique significance.

2. FAMILIAL RHETORIC [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] (Brothers should not be forsaken) [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] (Barak, brothers should not be forsaken) [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] (Uprooting settlements-civil war [lit. brothers' war]) [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] (I have no settler brother)

This category may be viewed as a continuation and expansion of the somatic category, though it clearly includes a non-somatic aspect which relates it more closely to categories pertaining to the social, or to categories pertaining to relationships (such as that of [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.]-God).

The familial rhetoric of the stickers is a rhetoric of sibling relationships: ambivalent relationships of intimacy and rivalry, based on blood ties, and common descent, but also on jealousy and competition. The sibling relationship appears in the stickers, as it properly does in the Hebrew Bible, in a male context only, where the potentialities of the relationship are expressed explicitly as two polarized options: [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] (all of Israel are brethren) as against[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] (milhemet ahim, a brothers' war!=!civil war). A related rhetoric, which upholds the sibling relationship, and even reinforces it, is characteristic of another group of stickers, which deal with a common divine "father" and his "children" who appeal to him. I will treat this rhetoric later, under the heading "between Mo and its God"

[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] Brothers should not be forsaken

Yaron--very secular, left wing:

   This belongs to the beginning of the last Intifada of October 2000
   with the fiasco of Joseph's tomb ... because they abandoned the
   soldier from the border police there. (22) Ah! By the way, this
   could be the same at present, with the road wars--that brothers
   should not be forsaken--you can't leave the settlers there to be
   shot at like sitting ducks.

Gila--traditional, centrist:

   This could be from the beginning of the riots, with Joseph's tomb.
   I think it was that, when they left the soldier behind in the
   October riots, until he died. It could be that it's not political
   but social--referring to the unemployed or to the development
   towns, a lot of people who did not feel good, let's say before the
   election... to bring their issues to the surface. Or it's about the
   settlers, who don't receive enough money for armoring [cars] or
   whom they want to bring back despite their efforts. So then the
   settlers or the [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] (Yesha) (23)
   Council are the ones who put it out ... about themselves.

Michal--traditional, right wing:

   Brothers is the rest of your [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.], all
   the Jews are one people, you don't forsake a member of your family.

Miriam--apolitical:

   It's from those [people] with the myths and with the pathos who
   will give you the feeling that you are a traitor ... and you aren't
   fulfilling the values that are expected of you ... with a kind of
   force, because everyone actually would agree with the statement
   that one does not forsake brothers. So now they are saying to you
   "you agree that brothers should not be forsaken?" "Yes." So "what
   about us?" It's as though they're telling you: "Have you noticed?"
   You are being called to order in the name of all the values and
   social norms. I expect that it is the settlers who made the
   sticker, or right-wing people who feel, especially lately, as
   though there are others who say that their blood is less valuable.

Tzippora--haredi, right wing:

   It seems to me that it's referring to the settlers, which,
   according to the leftist approach, was until not long a situation
   where the settlers were the ones who chose to live there, so let
   them look after themselves, and even after they asked for more
   security, they really didn't care, until it [i.e., the
   violence--H.S.] reached the kibbutzim and all sorts of places like
   that. With this sticker they are trying to arouse a soft spot
   within the leftists, coming from the place where "we are all
   brothers," [because] apparently the other ways didn't really work.
   I don't think the settlers themselves put it out, but rather people
   who identify with them.

[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] Uprooting Settlements-war between brothers [= civil war] (24)

Boaz--secular, left wing, warns:

   They are actually warning: uprooting settlements will bring about a
   civil war and they want to threaten the government--the movers and
   shakers--that whoever uproots them will cause a civil war between
   those doing the uprooting and the uprooted.

Yael--centrist left wing:

   Okay, this is a right wing sticker that refers to the settlements
   in the territories. Maybe it is also a threat directed at the left
   who are those who might bring about the situation where a Jew
   raises his hand against a Jew. There is actually a huge question
   among the settlers, whether, if they are evacuated, they should
   fight the IDF soldiers. It's an extremely sensitive issue. I
   suppose that this is some kind of threat, because there is support
   here for the sweeping claim that uprooting of settlements justifies
   a war of brother against Jewish brother. It is as though they are
   warning them in advance that if they evacuate them then there will
   be a war.

Miriam--apolitical:

   This is a sticker that can sort of be read in two ways. The first
   way is that this is like a fact: "pay attention, pay attention,
   uprooting settlements is an action that is acceptable only to part
   of the population and therefore the inescapable result is a war, or
   disagreement, or controversy. So you should be aware that it will
   cause a rift." Another possibility is that it is a threat--the
   threat is that "you are the cause of the war. You, who decide on,
   or support uprooting of settlements, you think you are only
   uprooting a house, but you should know you are bringing about a
   war." This is a militant sticker.

Tzippora--haredi, right wing, illustrates the dialogical potential of the stickers with her interpretation:

   Uprooting settlements--whoever is capable of uprooting settlements,
   which are mostly leftists who support the Arabs. Brother's war
   means that uprooting settlements creates a war between Meretz
   ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.]) and Mafdal ([TEXT NOT
   REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.]) who are actually brothers. There is
   something here which in the one hand is supposed to join [people]
   together, and on the other hand accomplishes the complete opposite.
   It's not something like "brothers should not be forsaken," which
   connects to your positive side. Here you relate to both sides, and
   both are very strong, and this creates a situation which can
   actually be quite provocative and could actually bring about a
   greater commitment to the uprooting of settlements. As a left
   winger I would actually want to uproot settlements: "You took it
   away from the Arab and therefore from my point of view it's not a
   war. On the contrary, you are my brother, I will bring you into my
   city, I will find a place for you, the fact that you have chosen to
   call it a war is your problem." But if I were a leftwinger, it
   wouldn't make the least bit of impression on me. As a leftist it
   would confirm in me the opinion I have of the screwed up settlers
   who take everything and turn it into a war; they have this thing,
   where they take everything to the extreme, in order to serve their
   interests. So as a leftist I would classify it as the same thing.

Elad--Secular, very right-wing:

   This sticker is meant to warn Barak and the left wing that if they
   uproot settlements, it's not us who will have started the war--the
   Yesha people and all, but it might lead to civil war. As if to say
   "you should know that this could happen even though we don't want
   it to happen!"

[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] I have no settler brother

This personal and direct formulation, which militates against the familial notion of an internally-Jewish sibling relationship, drew passionate responses from the interviewees, regardless of their political orientation:

Yaron--very secular, left wing, sadly differs:

   It's sad. This is an indifferent, alienated sticker. It seems like
   a "tzfoni" [[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] northern] sticker,
   from north-Tel Aviv. It seems to be a leftist sticker, alienated,
   uncaring. It's arrogant: "you are settlers, you deal with it," it's
   not me.

Tamar--secular centrist:

   This sticker really bothers me, because there is a social statement
   here. It's a response to the statement "brothers should not be
   forsaken." There are two levels here, the superficial level is the
   disparaging level: "There's no brother in my family who is a
   settler." This negates the claim on the other side, and simply
   erases it, ignores it. At a higher level, it [derives] from a
   social attitude, that I don't have brotherly feelings toward the
   settlers; they are not my brothers; I don't identify with them; I
   don't feel any obligation toward them. It's kind of like saying
   that there is no solidarity with the settler; I don't belong to
   them. It's a very harsh statement and it really bothers me.

Miriam--apolitical:

   This could be a sticker that says, like someone that says: "Your
   sister is a slut," so he says: "I don't have a sister." That is to
   say, it could be that he simply is alienating himself from the
   whole situation--"I don't have a settler brother." That is, this is
   a completely enigmatic text, and that's why I say it is taken out
   of a literature quiz. You could understand all sorts of things from
   it. You might even interpret it sarcastically, as being
   pro-settler: like, how unfortunate I am that I don't have a settler
   brother. You understand, if I saw this sticker I would stand in
   front of it confounded, and would not be able to figure out who
   invented it, and if there is an intention underlying it, then there
   are multiple intentions. This is a very very successful sticker,
   sticker-wise. You confront a riddle.

Elad--secular, very right wing:

   This is a left wing sticker, again, a nasty one, you can see that
   the right wing are constantly desiring unity, talking about unity,
   talking about closing ranks, and all that, and what does the left
   do? "No, I don't' have a settler brother," doesn't even recognize
   these people, "who are these settlers? They aren't my brothers at
   all! For all I care let them die there!" Here, this shows how low
   they are. For me, any Jew whoever he might be is a brother, even
   though I might talk about him a lot and attack him quite a bit.
   Look how far they are ready to go for their offensive peace with
   their Arab brother. They are willing to have the Arab and not a
   settler for a brother, it doesn't matter if his views are similar
   or if he is an extremist, they prefer the Arab to him.

3. HISTORICAL RHETORIC

[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] (Hebron ... Ever Since Then and Forever) [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] (Hebron, for our forefathers and for us) (25) [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] (Hebron, our Patriarchs' city for generations to come) [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] (Peace Now or Forever)

This rhetoric draws different kinds of ties between the past, present, and future. In several of the textual variations, the present functions as antithetical to the traditional and eternal, while in others, it is the continuity which is underscored. In many examples this historical rhetoric follows from the family rhetoric, because it employs the metaphor "forefathers of the nations" as the basis of an historical claim. The past, and the future derived from it, are grounded in religious and traditional sentiments, whose central concepts (some of which are connected to the family dimension, through the kinship terminology) are: "Our forefathers," "generations," "generations to come," "then and forever," while the present is expressed in the terms: "for us," "always," "now."

[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] Hebron ... Ever Since Then and Forever (27)

Boaz--secular, left wing, uses diminutive language:

   This is a very unambiguous, totalizing sticker. And I have a
   problem with totalizing in this world, because life has a dynamic
   of its own, and even if the Bibeleh [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN
   ASCII.] Boaz's diminutive appellation for the Bible (H. S.)] says
   that it's not true and it's not written anywhere. Even the Bibeleh
   has changes in it, but that's another issue. That's about the
   totalizing of the Bibeleh, of course, I don't forget the fact that
   immediately there are five hundred commentators who explain it.

Yael--centrist-left:

   This is talking about "since then"--since when is Hebron ours? Is
   it from the time of the Patriarch Abraham? Or is it from the time
   of the conquest of Joshua? In any event, I don't think it's
   legitimate to say, "since then and forever," because it wasn't
   always ours, but this is a kind of statement that negates the peace
   process. It's talking about "ever since then', without it even
   coming up as a question.

Miriam--apolitical:

   There are the expressions "from now and forever" [me-akhsav
   u-letamid] or "since ever and ever" [me!az u-mefiolam]. So he says
   "since then and forever." They created a conflation here that draws
   your attention because you're not used to hearing this combination
   "since then and forever" [me!az uletamid]. On the one had it has a
   kind of music, because it sounds familiar, because it's constructed
   from two familiar expression, its short and pithy. It seems like a
   very good sticker for right wing groups.

Tzippora--haredi, right wing:

   This reminds me of a song by Avraham Fried, or Mordechai Ben-David.
   It connects me to a place of belonging that the Jewish people
   possess in Hebron. If you ask me why [the phrase on the sticker]
   "Jerusalem--without you I'm half a person" achieves more, since
   that's a song too, well there it's something much stronger, there
   it's talking about what you love the most. I personally hold Hebron
   in great esteem, with the Tomb of Abraham, this is something very
   dear to me, since Abraham purchased the Cave of Machpela, for
   always, for eternity.

[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] Hebron ... for our forefathers and for us

Yael--Centrist-left wing:

   Today people don't even know what this whole deal with the
   forefathers is, from their perspective these are people who lived a
   few thousand years ago, it has nothing to do with us today, it's
   not something I'd send my children to get killed for. On the other
   hand, someone religious will view it as a will and
   testament--something that belonged to the forefathers is a will and
   testament that I am obliged to fulfill. "Hebron...since then and
   forever," "Hebron ... for our forefathers and for us," and
   especially since they put in the three dots ... the bottom line is
   that it is "since then and forever" and that is that.

Miriam--apolitical:

"This is what stood by our ancestors and for us"--so it builds on the fact that everyone reads the Passover Haggadah at least once a year, and the sounds "our ancestors and us" ring very familiar. It is as though to say that we are no different from our heritage and we are one people, as if one piece, and what was good for them is good for us, and what is good for us is good for them, and this produces a feeling of heritage and a historical outlook and then when you say it about Hebron, it is as though they took, they pieced together something that is agreed upon: "You should know that Hebron is in this category."

Elad--secular, very right wing:

   This is a religious sticker. Hebron for our forefathers and for
   us--as if it was bestowed from above both to our forefathers and to
   us, and it will remain ours. This is an improved version of "Hebron
   ... since then and forever," it is addressed mainly to the
   religious public, and it is a kind of "memo sticker" that reminds
   you what was given and to whom it was given.

4. RHETORIC OF LOYALTY AND BETRAYAL

This group of stickers accords centrality to the concepts of loyalty and betrayal, and designates who is to be included among the "loyal" and who among the "traitors." This rhetorical axis relates to the family axis, and therefore also to the somatic and historical axes, via the associations of blood, and the ideas of blood vengeance, and the blood-letting of those who betray the family and its hallowed truths. Similarly, this axis is closely tied to the rhetoric of inclusion and exclusion, central to the entire "identity" cluster, through the manner in which it erects intra-group boundaries by use of terms of treason: traitor, trespasser, informer.

[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] (A Jew does not betray Jerusalem) [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] (Accursed is he who trespasses the Holies of Israel) [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] (They are handing over (mosrim) the Jordan Valley too)

Batya--national-religious, right wing:

   A real Jew would not give up Jerusalem, because he knows why we are
   here. And if he won't fight for Jerusalem, it is as if he were not
   a Jew.

Boaz--secular, left wing:

   It's like what is written in Psalms: "if I forget thee Jerusalem
   may my right hand wither." This is the inspiration for it ...
   "treason": if you are willing to hand over East Jerusalem and the
   Temple Mount to the "cousin," you are betraying Jerusalem.

Yaron--very secular, left wing:

   This is classic, it harks back to olden days--treason, Jews,
   Jerusalem. Those were times when they would hang someone with a
   dissenting opinion in the town square. It's clear that whoever put
   this out is from the extreme right wing, like Yigal Amir [the
   assassin of Prime Minister Yizhak Rabin, whose politics were in
   fact right wing] ... this is not a vicious sticker, it communicates a
   painful message. People are really sad, it hurts them that [others]
   want to give Jerusalem up, and they stress that the most shocking
   thing is the pain--Jews betraying Jerusalem is the worst thing of
   all. Jews who want to sell Jerusalem, it's like a mother hurting
   her child.

Tzippora--haredi, right wing:

   The juxtaposition of "Jew" and "treason" is effective, because a
   Jew is the opposite of treason: a Jew is something that you want to
   be part of, and treason is something that you move away from, and
   so placing these two words together with Jerusalem has a huge
   impact on people.

Shmuel--national-religious, right wing:

   Profile: Kahanists: (28) Orthodox Americans who came to
   Israel--typical extremists ... a "Jew" is someone who is Jewish
   according to Halakha and this insinuates that if he betrays
   Jerusalem then he is not a Jew. It's similar to one of those
   phrases: "this is a Jew, this?" "You consider yourself a Jew, you?"
   These are very common phrases. It's putting someone beyond the pale
   in the social and cultural sense. The attempt to connect it with
   the Jewish laws pertaining to rodef don't appear to me to be
   relevant. (29) When it is said explicitly--all right. But you have
   to be really careful because here there is something so ... "a Jew
   doesn't do this sort of thing."

[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] Accursed is he who trespasses the Holies of Israel

Yaron--very secular, left wing feels personally attacked:

   What is this? First of all, someone is cursing me. I am a
   trespasser of the Holies of Israel: I drive on Shabbat, there are
   lots of ways in which I am a "trespasser of the Holies of Israel,"
   in his words. I suppose it's more about the rage and the political
   issue. It's political because of the rage and because of
   "accursed." The Holies of Israel--Jerusalem, Hebron, Shabbat, the
   Jewish Festivals, etc.

Yael--centrist-left wing:

   Okay, "the Holies of Israel," that's probably the holy places, and
   the holy ideas. Accursed ... that's a curse. Haman, I think, was
   accursed. Curse, not in the sense of a swear-word people direct at
   you in the street, but rather in the sense that something has to be
   done about him, because he is accursed, and therefore he has to be
   killed or harmed, it's a call for action. It's probably right wing
   against the left, and actually directed against any government that
   might consider handing over sites that are holy for Israel, or the
   holy places. It's a religious sticker in the sense that it's
   originating from a religious place [= sentiment], the reason these
   places should not be abandoned is not that it is dangerous
   securitywise, or something like that, but because it is holy, and
   we are prohibited, and therefore this is religious. But its meaning
   is political. It also belongs to all the violent, extreme
   stickers--it's frightening.

Miriam--apolitical:

   All right. This is really ... it's really ... from the category of
   curses, defamations, denunciations. "Accursed" and all that, it's
   also, like, a sort of biblical language. That is, first of all it's
   very religious, very nationalist. It's really something terrible.
   You, a curse will lay over you, and an imprecation will come upon
   your head, because you are trespassing Israel's holies! That is to
   say, you know what the holies of Israel are, and you agree that
   these are the holies of Israel, and then with a steeled nerve, you
   trespass them, and therefore you will be cursed! This is really an
   outrage at any level you wish to describe it.

Tzippora--haredi, right:

   The word "accursed" is inflammatory whenever it's written, it
   doesn't matter about what. I think that the Holies of Israel are
   something different for every person. There are a lot of people
   that swear in the street, and there's no need to pay attention to
   it. Approximately: "you will go to hell."

5. RHETORIC OF INCLUSION AND EXCLUSION

The centrality of issues related to inclusion and exclusion, which inform the sticker discourse, is what makes this cluster the most explicit and diverse. The uneasy tension it conveys between the private identity of the person whose car bears the sticker and the identity that extends beyond it--turns the axis of inclusion and exclusion--with its own particular rhetorical characteristics and its various social, political, and even religious and cosmological associations--into a particularly generative one. Typical to this axis is the uses of terms of identity of generalizing semantic range, and which appear in shifting spheres, including personal spheres (for me, me, mine) and broader ones (us, them, to them, together, our camp, Israel, Jew, [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.], everyone):

[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] (Hafiam with the Golan) [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] (Hafiam with the peace) (30) [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] (Enough, Hafiam wants peace!) [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] (Hafiam with the Torah) [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] (I am with the Golan) [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] (Don't call me fiam) [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] Moh (Hafiam with Aryeh Derfii) [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] (Unity of Israel) [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] (Peace among us) [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] (And our camp will be pure) [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] (One fiam one draft) [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] (Hafiam is strong, together we will stand firmly for the Land of Israel) [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] (Netanyahu is good for the Jews) [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] (The Messiah is good for everyone) [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] (One fiam-many colors)31 [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] (Why did you give them guns?) [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] (They are handing over [mosrim] the Dead Sea too!) [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] (They are handing over [mosrim] the Jordan Valley too!) [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] (One Draft for A-l-l) [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] (Exemption for A-l-l) [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] (More than they kept the Sabbath, we kept watch at the camp gate) [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] (Together in the tank-together at the bank) [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] (This land is mine too!)

[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.]

Hafiam with the Golan (32)

Michal--traditional, right wing:

   The first time that I saw this it moved me terribly. I got the
   feeling that here was something general ... a common, uniform
   opinion, we are united, but after that you think about it and the
   idea of a herd comes up. Whoever wrote this sticker is trying to
   expose everyone to his opinion ... it's an attempt to dictate a
   position to people, if you are not with the Golan, you are not part
   of this people ... the reference is to the Jewish people, the
   people of Israel, the Israeli Jews ... the Arabs don't care about
   anything, they only want the state to belong to them, for us to be
   in the sea.

Sara--haredi, non-Zionist:

[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.], that's the entire people of Israel, secular, haredi, everyone, without Arabs but also without the left-wingers. The left wing is a "mixed multitude" [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.], they aren't really Jews. Even according to Jewish Law you don't have to sit shivfia over them; they aren't our brethren at all. In my opinion, they are Jewhaters, haters of religion, with no relation at all to Judaism.

Daniel--secular, centrist:

   [This carries] a biblical aroma. (33) [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE
   IN ASCII.], that's a biblical word. There's something less
   frightening about it. That is, this sticker is about something more
   pleasant, of identification, something more empathic. It doesn't
   reek of ugly politics. Part of the charm of this slogan is the
   feeling that it enfolds everyone under the same umbrella.

Talya (secular, left) transposed the sticker from its textual moorings to an oral performance, by spontaneously joining the vocalization of the word "with" with a sweeping horizontal gesture of her hand, indicating a removal or relinquishing of the [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] along with the Golan. Interestingly, just as other stickers elicited various interpretations, this visual gag was also given competing interpretations. Alongside the sarcastic interpretation of the gesture as getting rid of the [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] with the Golan, other interviewees, upon hearing from us a repetition of Talya's statement, responded that her implication was certainly tragic: the loss of the [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] that would ensue after handing over the Golan.

[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] Hacam with Golani [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] Hacam with the Golan Hacam with the Bikcah Hacam with the Land The Jew is not a Wanderer (34)

[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] hacam with the Torah (35)

This sticker, which belongs to the sub-cluster of slogans beginning with the phrase "[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.]," considers identity and the connection between the individuals who comprise the [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] to be founded on the common religion and a relationship with God. It is thus related to another category of stickers pertaining to the larger sphere of identity and identification, such as, [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] (I choose God and the Unity of Israel),36 "Only God will guard Jerusalem," or stickers that include a direct address to God: "We love/choose you," "We make you king."

Tzippora--haredi, right wing:

   This is also an imitation of "hacam is with the Golan" because
   "hacam is with the Golan" was a captivating sticker that had a
   positive impact. This sticker [hacam is with the Torah] expresses a
   wish, and not something that exists on ground, it's the wish of the
   haredi public and they are trying to introduce the concept of Torah
   to the rest of the population so that it will begin to have an
   impact on them ... the secular public doesn't relate to this sticker,
   and it even invites some resistance, it's an annoying and
   alienating sticker rather than a uniting one.

Batya--national-religious, right-wing:

It's as though--first of all to believe in the Torah. It's something that everyone should believe in, it's not just a book or a sticker, lehavdil ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] for the sake of contrast).

Daniel--secular, centrist, reads the letters of [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] as cam (hacam am hatorah) instead of the usual reading as a preposition (cim), a change which locates the sticker in the religious category:

This sticker doesn't work for me as a political sticker, it's more of a religious sticker. Maybe a politico-religious one if you insist. It seems to me that whoever put out this sticker are people who are concerned about the state becoming increasingly secular. cam=cam segula ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.]=the chosen people), [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] torah. [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] is the [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] of Torah. The Jewish people alone, even the Jews overseas, every Jew by virtue of his being a Jew.

Amnon--extremely secular, radical left wing:

   This is an allusion to the sticker "[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN
   ASCII.] is with the Golan." The Golan is national pride--it's a
   high place. It's a kippah, but what motivates him is the Torah:
   "more than Children of Israel kept the Torah, the Torah kept the
   Children of Israel."

[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] I am with the Golan

Amnon--extremely secular, radical left:

This is someone who feels uncomfortable about saying "[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] is with," because "I" am not the [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.], I am an individualist, I have a bit more education, I don't follow the herd, but I really am with the Golan, because I believe from a rational point of view that it is true, that it is forbidden to evacuate the Golan. "I" might be a student, a very young person. Someone who is at a phase of selfdetermination, and who is very aware of this fact. "I go to acid parties, I have sex with a same-sex partner, and I am with the Golan. But it's me, it's not the [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.]." This is a young person, who is deep into himself and on a personal identity quest.

Yaron--left-wing, very secular:

   Fine, be my guest, you are with the Golan?-Terrific. Much more
   acceptable to me than: "[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] is with
   the Golan." "I am with the Golan," terrific. Take two daily, I'll
   put on a sticker "I am with Tel-Aviv" [smiles]. This is a kind of
   pareve sticker, neither meat nor milk. To be truthful, fine,
   without knowing the person, at least he isn't coming and trying to
   speak in my name.

Batya--national-religious, right:

   I feel better with the sticker "[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.]
   is with the Golan," because I feel like part of a collective. I
   think that when it comes to all of the national issues, the
   consideration should not be personal, but rather public. For the
   good of the whole [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.].

Shmuel--national-religious, right-wing:

   "I am with the Golan" is a fact that really gets me down, it's
   related to processes that people have truly identified ... because
   they have figured that whatever is conveyed by the wording [TEXT
   NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.]--the general, the national, the
   popular, has lost its significance as a center of gravity ... the
   accumulation of individuals qua individuals is what will produce
   public pressure, while the statement "[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN
   ASCII.] is with the Golan" has a much more old-fashioned air to it,
   or even archaic, in the sense that at one time it was possible to
   speak for the [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.], to direct the will
   of the Mo, now, unfortunately, this is no longer relevant.

[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] Don't call me fiam

The explicit subversiveness of this sticker is well reflected in the emotional, sharp, and polarized reactions it elicited, and therefore I found it necessary to illustrate them with a large number of responses.

Yaron--very secular, left wing:

   I don't know what to say about this. I would never put up such a
   sticker, this was put up by someone who is paranoid [laughs]. There
   was once a musical in Israel: "Don't call me black." What does this
   mean "don't call me [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.]?" This is a
   totally disproportionate response, the person got carried away.

Miriam--apolitical:

   This is based on something: "Don't Call me Black." I don't
   remember, it's based on something familiar. This is an incredibly
   stupid sticker, because I am trying to understand who would say
   something like this, whose mind is behind something like this!?
   Maybe it's a person that is talking to a person who is "[TEXT NOT
   REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] is with the Golan," so he answers him by
   saying: "Don't call me [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.]," as if,
   don't include me, don't involve me in this, but it has to come
   side-by-side. It's as though someone is resisting being included
   and he wants to say that he is singular and unique, detests the
   collective, doesn't want to identify, doesn't want to belong to an
   ideological group of any kind, so he exempts himself by saying that
   he doesn't belong.

Batya--national-religious, right wing:

   "Don't call me [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.]?" Who wrote it? I
   can't even think about it. Maybe it's actually the Palestinians who
   don't see themselves as an [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] within
   the state? Maybe. Because one might also think of them, after all
   "[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] Yisrael hai vekayyam" [[TEXT NOT
   REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] Israel is alive and well (=!lit. "alive and
   abiding")], and they will have to come to terms with this even if
   they don't want to and they are trying to fight it.

Rivka--religious, extreme right wing:

   This shocks me. Simply shocking. I don't see any purpose in my
   personal life and that of my family without the collective of the
   [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.]. We were chosen not as
   individuals but as an [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.]. And our
   moral imperatives all revolve around this concept of the [TEXT NOT
   REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.], the collective, even though each
   individual is nourished by their own personal [domain]. Even
   history teaches us that to disengage from being an [TEXT NOT
   REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.], to become individuals, did not succeed, it
   didn't work, and each individual Jew went to the incinerator.

Geula--haredi, shas, bafialat teshuva [newly religious]:

   This is a shocking slogan. It is proof of something worse than
   dissolution ... so what is left? May God have mercy on us. People
   who say something like this, they don't have Torah. Because in
   truth "our nation is not a nation without its Torah."

Batya--national-religious right wing:

   The secular can talk as though they are disengaging themselves from
   the state. They don't care if eretz Yisracel will be only for [TEXT
   NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] Yisracel or whether there will be a
   mixture. Like a government which is not only Mo Yisra!el's, but a
   government that doesn't have an [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.],
   that merely survives and that's it. They don't want to be called
   [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.]. If we don't call ourselves an
   [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.], what shall we call ourselves? In
   my opinion, whoever cannot appreciate wholeheartedly what the State
   of Israel is, doesn't belong to the [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN
   ASCII.]. It wasn't easy to establish the state.

Naomi--who defined herself as "between extreme right wing and radical left":

   Nice, very nice. Wonderful, lovely. I don't know, it has some kind
   of passion to it, it sounds a bit like "Don't Call Me Black."
   Something with socialistcommunist roots, they don't want any
   people, neither this one nor that one. No nationalities, workers of
   the world, without national boundaries.

Amnon--extremely secular, radical left wing:

   Counter-contrariwise ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.]): I am such
   an individualist, I live here, but I don't live here. I don't
   really want to live here. What bugs me is that they speak in the
   name of the [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.]. I am not an [TEXT
   NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.]-I am myself. [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN
   ASCII.]-a mob speaking from instinct. I am not from the herd. I am
   an individual. This is the thinking of a copywriter, to take a line
   out of a song...very north-Tel-Avivi. Secular, Meretz voters, aware
   of themselves, living here, but not living here. Living in
   dissonance from their environment.

Rivka--religious, extreme right wing:

   This you must have found in Tel-Aviv, not in Jerusalem. The first
   word that comes to my mind is Sheinkin ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN
   ASCII.])(37) ... this one, don't bother him with slogans,
   everything is rotten to the core, there is no ideology; to each his
   own, everyone leads there own life, it doesn't matter whether it's
   here or overseas, it's treating Sheinkin as a stigma, but it could
   just as well be Florentine ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.]) ...
   more than any other sticker it is addressed to all the individuals
   in this [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.], so many people who want
   to break the rules, not to play at the game anymore.

Shmuel--national-religious, right-wing:

   This is a handful of bleeding-hearts [sarcastically]. We're talking
   more or less about my friends; this implies educated people, even
   very educated. Mostly from the academic fields, the arts, and
   philosophy-related education, with very selfconscious post-modern
   influences, or being artistic and individualistic is very
   important. And the same marginal groups I mentioned before who are
   related to this, who are threatened by the word [TEXT NOT
   REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.], because it's a very coercive term and
   marginal groups don't want to be included in it, there is a need
   here to affront or to deride. I automatically connect this to young
   people, unless it is artists.

Shulamit--secular, left:

   To me this is someone who says, whether I am for or against, I
   refuse to have my position presented in name of the [TEXT NOT
   REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.], to be included in the slogans.

[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] To be a free fiam in our land38

Gila--traditional, centrist:

   Every time I hear this, I get excited. It relates to our history.
   Maybe it's related to "free"--as from enslavement in Egypt, or
   perhaps "free" from the Holocaust. But it's ambivalent, I
   understand that this can be disturbing to part of the population,
   like the Arabs. It's a message of the memory of our past, now we
   are free in our land. And I like it because it relates to our
   national anthem, to our memory.

Sara--haredi, non-Zionist:

   This is a very very secular sticker. They want to shrug off all
   responsibility in [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.]. This saying:
   "live and let live," is not right, because all of Israel are bound
   to one another, when they transgress, we pay dearly for it, not
   only are they punished, all of [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] is
   punished. And they, the secular, don't understand this, they just
   want to shrug off their obligations and they don't understand how
   much we and they will pay for this in the future. We are all
   brothers, and we are all one body.

Yossi--haredi, non-Zionist expounds:

   "Ha-Tikva" is an anthem which is derived from a haredi liturgical
   poem of entreaties, and they distorted it, and used the words to
   their own ends. "A free [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.]"-they
   mean free from the burden of the Torah's commandments. But the
   Rabbinic sages preempted them and said "ba-metim hofshi" [[TEXT NOT
   REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.]=free among the dead], as soon as a man
   dies, he is free from the Torah's commandments, but how can he be
   alive and free? The Sages said that if they were without the
   Torah's commandments during their lifetime, they are called "dead."
   A person who did not fulfill his destiny in the world is as good as
   dead.

Amnon--extremely secular, radical left wing:

   The Meretz party campaign slogan for the '84 elections was "medinat
   Halakha-halkha ha-medina" ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.]), (39)
   which was quite brilliant. To take lofty ideas about the country,
   the state, the Mo, the anthem, in the sense of the Jewish [TEXT NOT
   REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.], making the point that is it really
   possible to for a secular Judaism to exist. It's interesting that
   "free" (hofshi) is religious terminology, rather than secular, and
   relevant to the connection to the land "in our land."

[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] And our camp will be pure

Boaz--left-wing secular, views the sticker with disgust: (40)

   Aha ... this belongs to the dosim =pejorative term for religious
   (H.S.)] with a large crocheted kippah. It's the feeling of people
   who think they are chosen. Because all the others not pure. This is
   about marriage, about Jewish family law. All the laws. The others
   are impure and you, your camp, must preserve its purity.

Yosef--haredi, shas:

   This seems more haredi to me. Something from the "modesty patrol."
   (41) Maybe the final lines of a broadside. They post broadsides
   against immodesty and this might be the final lines of such a
   posting. "Our camp" is a limited section. Their camp. The concept
   of purity comes from the Torah and it relates to matters of
   immodesty, and therefore it seems to me to come from them. (42)

Daniel--secular, centrist, responds with an amused air:

   This has something to do with the Bible. It has biblical
   associations--Moses, Aaron, who walked ahead of the camp, and their
   camp was holy. A very religious sticker ... "our camp"=the Jewish
   religious [camp]. We have here an attempt to exclude people,
   whoever is not in the camp is not pure, and therefore is cast out.
   Only whoever is with us is pure. First of all it excludes, and
   after you have been excluded, and you then want to secure a pure
   identity, come to us, live by our terms. This is not an outright
   racist sticker, it's a religious sticker, and every religion has
   something egocentric or racist [about it]. Maybe it carries the
   connotation of Germany, the purity of the race, so maybe it is
   somewhat racist.

Amnon--extremely secular, radical left wing:

One of the more "nerdy" stickers around. It belongs to Bnei-Akiva. (43) To be pure of evil thoughts, this is a desire for homogeneity, that we walk the right path, the path of Torah. Pure of the perturbations of the corrupt modern age. Let us go back to the old order we once knew: let's die for the motherland, let's stand still for the minute of silence, let's wear white shirts on Memorial Day. Let's return to the original values of Zionism ... wolves in a sheepskin.

6. RHETORIC OF GOD-Mo RELATIONSHIP

This rhetoric, which emphasizes the close and special relationship with the God who dwells in heaven, relates to cosmological notions by means of an intimate and folkloric language. This group of stickers includes stickers with identical dimensions to the typical stickers, alongside a group of exceptionally large stickers of unusual dimensions, (44) (about 20!x!50 cm) written in blue letters against a white or yellow background, which the interviewees viewed as being of the same cast. Among the slogans:

[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] The Holy one Blessed He We love you

[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] The Holy one Blessed He We choose you (45)

[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] The Holy one Blessed He, we are your children (46)

[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] The Holy one Blessed He, we make you our King (47)

Yael--center-left wing:

   Yes, I am familiar with this entire "series." I associate it also
   with cars that have stickers of "Derci" ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN
   ASCII.]. (48) From an analytical point of view this comes from a
   need for protection: when things are tough, we need to feel that
   there is something above us, who is our father, and who will look
   after us. We love you, therefore you love us back. We make you our
   King, therefore you look after us because you are our king. It's an
   appeal for help and it is born of lack of security, the need for
   something. And we choose you, that could come from people who are
   anti-Zionist, who don't participate in the elections and who even
   oppose the government, "we don't vote for an Israeli-Zionist
   government. We choose the Holy One Blessed be He, whatever he tells
   us, we will do." I also connect it with Shas, because Shas are more
   out-reaching concerning their religion, you would never see a
   sticker like that about God on my car or my friend's car, as if
   this were not the place for [the expression of] religious faith, to
   express my support and faith in the Holy One Blessed be He.

Miriam--apolitical:

   To speak this way to God as though he were some kind of pen-pal.
   "We love you, your children, your darlings ... it's an American way
   of thinking, sort of like in the movie Clueless." It's something
   low, pathetic. What is this--the Holy One Blessed He, we love you?
   Does God need you to tell him that you love him? You love him in
   order that others will know that you love him? What is this? This
   is true of this entire group of stickers. We are making you king,
   now this turns it into a whole horde of hozrim bi-teshuva [=!newly
   religious], it's a kind of wheeling and dealing, a kind of cheap
   candy made of religious faith, awful!

Tzippora--haredi, right-wing:

   I know this song. The original is "The Holy One Blessed He we love
   you." I don't know who composed it, but the haredi community knows
   who composed it. I remember that Rabbi Aryeh Derfii sang it a bit.
   Now, Rabbi Amnon Yizhak turned it into a real song with verses and
   a refrain and he is the one who created the [variations] "we love,"
   "we choose," "we make you king," I don't know [...] Now, let's take
   Rabbi Mendelson, he talked about it at a lecture: What is this
   about our loving the Holy One Blessed be He? This is something
   which, according to his outlook lowers or simplifies things, and he
   is against taking God and singing songs to him at this level.
   Because this is a low level, which is undignified. And there are a
   lot of these types of proselytizers, who, on the contrary,
   they view it as something that actually creates a bond between man
   and God, and he feels our love for God. You know, I remember that
   at Simkhat-Torah they sang this song, and then someone said:
   "Hush, hush, hush, I have a message from the heavenly entourage,
   everyone be quiet one moment: [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN
   ASCII.] Yisrael, I love you'" [singing enthusiastically], so that
   it is also really good.

Elad--secular, very right wing:

   These are all religious stickers. Stickers belonging to shas
   people, which I have noticed the public identifies with, either the
   simple religious person, or the hozer bitshuva [newly] religious
   person. It isn't a sticker which is out to offend any particular
   public. It's a sticker which truly tries to show the positive side
   of the Holy One Blessed be He, it's purpose is to strengthen, to
   unite, to bind people together, all of them, to Him [...] these
   aren't harmful stickers, they are simple [aimed] at a particular
   population.

7. CONCLUDING WORDS

The interviewees' sense of participation and of taking a position, whether through identification, debate, or conflict, testifies to the folkloric experience, which lies at the basis of this study, and which it sets out to illustrate. This was demonstrated time and again, and most notably, when one of the interviewees, Michal (traditional right wing) offered a comment about a sticker she had never seen before: "Where is this from? I haven't seen such things. Someone gets up in the morning, let's say, my husband Menash has often decided to invent [stickers], but never had them printed ... and you are occupying yourself with this? So to sit with all sorts of ideas that some guy has ... and to conduct research on it? Come on ..."

The canvas revealed by the sticker-discourse carries potential for broad and flexible interpretation, though it has neither one addressee nor one author. From this point of view, one can view the rhetorical axes drawn across the field, not only as a tool for classification, but as a store of patterns, from which, time and again, the building blocks of identity are consolidated anew. (49) Any attempt to interpretatively summarize the field or distil the message, will deprive it of its generative power.

The stickers presented, as well as their interpretation, base their political statements on foundational concepts of Jewish identity, while producing a popular discourse relating to the political agenda. However, while doing so, they also produce a "discourse of depth," which is no less foundational and passionate, concerning collective identity and Jewish and Israeli nationality. The nature of this identity, its boundaries, and its sources in the past, present and future--including both overt and covert aspects--are woven into the consciousness of the participants in the popular discourse, at different levels of explicitness or even awareness. Seen from this perspective, the kinetic sticker discourse spans the multivocality of positions and the axes of collective identity, extending between that which binds together and that which pulls apart.

The rhetoric of the discourse is saturated with expressions of unity and schism, and with key terms of Jewish and Israeli identity. This rhetoric branches out into five major organizing axes: somatic rhetoric; familial rhetoric; historical rhetoric; rhetoric of loyalty and betrayal; rhetoric of inclusion and exclusion. To these one can add a cluster of rhetoric emphasizing the ongoing relationship between the [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] and God.

These axes stood out as explicit organizing axes concerning the sources of legitimacy and de-legitimacy in relation to identity and the boundaries of the collective engaged in the discourse. An additional axis, which glimmers through the interview material occasionally, relates to the connection between territory and identity. This issue came up, not unexpectedly, in concrete statements concerning the deeply contested territorial politics of Israel (the future of the Golan Heights, the possibility of a future division of sovereignty in Jerusalem, territorial compromise in Judea, Samaria and Gaza [= Yesha], and more). Just as in the past, the construction and paving of roads served as a highly charged Zionist metaphor, signifying the process of conquest of the land through development, technological progress and resettlement, it appears as though the very act of driving on Israel's roads, is a political act, which is not devoid of the import of significations which are woven into the discourse. Thus, an additional axis binding medium to message was presented to me as I listened again to the interviews, and found that interviewees anchored their interpretations in geographic and political space, such as: "You found that in Tel Aviv," "This is a sticker you will find on lots of roads leading to the settlements, on the by-pass roads." Because stickers are glued to cars, terms of identity circulate on the roads. Consequently, the images of roads, in all their variations, become a clear political signifier. The connection between a concrete space and identity presents itself in a very real way through the cars which conquer the roads. (50)

The central role occupied by the variants of the concept Mo in the sticker discourse emphasizes (and focuses) the popular voice that this discourse aims to represent. At the same time, the use of concepts of identity, which are perceived as traditional and hallowed, in such a contemporary and ephemeral discourse, produces a fascinating tension between these concepts and the political and social conflicts to which the discourse refers.

The choice of the car for the popular negotiation of the boundaries of identity, social, and political issues, is essential to our argument, and acts simultaneously as both a cause and effect. The highways, with their rapid flow of traffic, and the traffic jams during which drivers sit and stare at the car ahead, is an everyday representation of life's multi-vocal hubbub. The sticker discourse allows a flexible and creative reworking of critical and reflexive processes, by those who participate in it--the objects of identity themselves. It can be viewed as an expression of a basic ambivalence pertaining to identity-one the one hand it is private, marking, and publicly declaring the car owner as bearer of a particular identity vis-a-vis the other drivers in the adjacent lanes, and on the other hand, it is an identity which tends to subordinate the individuals marks of identity to ever-expanding categories (such as "[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.]," "Israel," "everyone," etc.)

The sticker's physical format--usually a 5 by 25 cm piece of adhesive paper (and more recently, larger ones, particularly of the [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] -God religious type), becomes itself a "sticky trap" for additional meanings. The sticker is a popular artifact, available to all, and the phenomenon as a whole affords those participating in the discourse opportunities for ongoing ritualistic activities of adding-on, sticking-on, and peeling off. (51) These practices produce an ongoing tension between the messages of identity and belonging, on the one hand and the ephemerality of the medium, on the other. (52) This was made explicit when interviewees spoke about stickers of the "religious" type. (53) The acceleration of the closely enmeshed social and political processes, imposes a constant need for change and innovation within the conceptual and sentimental realm of identity. This tension is also reflected in the interviews, when time and again interviewees expressed their disappointment with the fact that such important issues are discussed in Israel in such a temporary, ephemeral, and "non-serious" medium.

[ILLUSTRATIONS OMITTED]

* I am grateful to the Mann Foundation of the Mandel Institute for Jewish Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, for deeming this subject worthy of their generous support. My gratitude is extended to Galit Hasan-Rokem for her comments on an earlier draft, Hila Eisenberg, Simona Tammuz-Cohen, Michal Cohen-Shemesh, Rivka Gavra, and Sarina Chen who assisted in conducting the interviews, and for the numerous interviewees who agreed to share their opinions and sentiments. A final thanks to the Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace at the Hebrew University who provided me with a professional and supportive work environment.

(1) The use of this term is closely tied to the inquiry of identity terms appearing in the "sticker discourse." For an interesting discussion of the competing concepts of "A Jewish State," and "A State for all its Citizens," or between Jewish and democratic, See M. Zuckerman, [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] (Charoshet ha-Yisrae'liyut, On the fabrication of Israelism) (Tel Aviv: Resling, 2001), pp.192-202. The colloquial use of the anglicized term "sticker" and not its Hebrew equivalent "midbaka, madbeka," is to be explained, most probably, by the cultural associations pertaining to the medium. The accepted view of the provenance of bumper stickers is that they originated in the United States, and therefore their original name is retained (despite the fact that in Israel they are not known as " bumper stickers," but only as "stickerim"--which distinguishes them from ordinary adhesive strips, and marks them as car stickers.

The stickers are ordinarily applied to the rear window of the car. For a discussion of the formal and hermeneutical aspects of the medium, see H. Salamon, "Political Bumper Stickers in Contemporary Israel: Folklore as an Emotional Battleground," Journal of American Folklore 114 (no 453) (2001): 277-308. The Israeli articulation of this iconic genre has unique characteristics, most notably: a rapid and pandemic entry of the genre in the early 1990s, and the overwhelming political content of the discourse. Thus, for example, in the United States, political content comprises only a small percentage of all the messages contained on bumper stickers. For a discussion of bumper sticker content in the United States, see C. E. Case, "Bumper Stickers and Car Signs: Ideology and Identity," Journal of Popular Culture 26:3 (1992): 107-118; R. W. Dasenbrock, "A Rhetoric of Bumper Stickers" in Defining the New Rhetorics, ed. T. Enos and S. Brown (Newbury Park: Sage, 1993), pp. 191-206; J. W. Endersby and M. J. Towle, "Tailtage Partnership: Political and Social Expression through Bumper Stickers," Social Science Journal 33 (1996): 307-317.

(2) The vitality of this popular genre became evident to us both through the documentation of the material presented here, accompanied by comments of people who heard about the study. A typical response included the pronouncement of a sticker slogan that they had themselves invented, usually couched in clear terms, which resonated with existing stickers and the existing discourse. This was generally delivered enthusiastically, while the speakers reprimanded themselves at the same time for not following through with their idea, by producing a new sticker. For the relationship between emotion, discourse, and the politics of everyday life in varied cultural contexts, see L. Abu-Lughod and C. A. Lutz, "Introduction: Emotion, Discourse, and the Politics of Everyday Life," in Language and the Politics of Emotions, ed. C. A. Lutz and L. Abu-Lughod (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), pp. 1-23.

(3) It is commonly thought the first political sticker documented in Israel was the [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] "Peace Now" sticker, designed by the artist David Tartakover 1977 in A. Levinson and Y. Ze'evi "[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.]" (Sticker Akh-shav, Sticker Now), [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] (Kol Hacir) (Dec. 8, 1995), sec. 2, pp.10-13. For a discussion of this sticker, see H. Salamon, "Political Bumper Stickers," pp. 279-284, 300-303.

(4) A disputational cluster which I focused on in an earlier study, revolved around the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin (H. Salamon, "Political Bumper Stickers"), and specifically the dominant cluster of stickers that were derivatives of [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] (Shalom Chaver). Recently researchers have drawn attention to the functioning of this discourse as an alternative channel of communication, including Y. Perry, "[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.]" (Stickerim, tsvafiim, smalim; Stickers, colors, symbols), [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] (Davar) (Oct. 21, 1988):14, and L-R. Bloch, who analyzed the structural regularities characteristic of this channel, see L-R. Bloch, "Rhetoric on the Roads of Israel: The Assassination and Political Bumpers" in The Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, ed. Y. Peri (London: Macmillan, 2000), pp. 257-279; L-R. Bloch, "Mobile Discourse: Political Bumper Stickers as a Communication Event in Israel," Journal of Communication 50 (2000): 48-76. For the connection between folklore, politics, and nationality, see J. R. Dow, ed., "Folklore, Politics and Nationalism," Special Issue. Asian Folklore Studies 50 (1991); and in the context of Nazism, J. R. Dow and H. Lixfeld, eds., The Nazification of an Academic Discipline-Folklore in the Third Reich (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1994) and I. Rosen, "[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.]" (Mechkar ha-folklore ha-germani be-shirut ha-idiologia ha-natsit, German folkloristic research in the service of Nazi idelogy) [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] (Jerusalem studies in Jewish folklore) 17 (1995): 119-127.

(5) In this context it is interesting to mention Dotan's treatment of the "sterilization" of the wall of graffiti--a folkloric medium which is akin to that of the stickers--that sprung up spontaneously at the site of Yitzhak Rabin's assassination. Dotan sees this as a single surface where "a diversity of opinions and voices in Israel mingles almost indistinguishably, and without even the possibility of reading their mingling," (E. Dotan, "[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.]" (Ha-kets la-trauma: sterelizatsia vetishtush be-yetsug ha-zikaron, An end to the trauma: sterilization and obliteration in memory representation) [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] (teoria u-vikoret) 17 (2000): 27-34.

(6) For a critical discussion of the "impossibility" of Israeli identity, its contradictions and conflicts, and of the "Israeli-ness fabrication," in the terms of the Frankfurt school, see M. Zuckerman, On the Fabrication of Israelism, pp. 201-202.

(7) This tension is underscored even more, when many stickers, or combinations of words, "choose" to use the "Koren" typeface, marked by its use in a popular printed edition of the Hebrew Bible. See also H. Salamon, "Political Bumper Stickers," p. 280.

(8) M. Herzfeld, Cultural Intimacy: Social Poetics in the Nation State (New York: Routledge, 1997).

(9) B. Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1983).

(10) M. Herzfeld, "Introducing Cultural Intimacy," in Cultural Intimacy: Social Poetics in the Nation State (New York: Routledge, 1997), pp. 10-11.

(11) In a future study we intend to examine how individuals from different groups, especially Palestinians and Israeli Arabs, relate to the same stickers.

(12) In Hebrew, respectively: [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.]

(13) The names are all fictitious, preserving only the gender of the speaker.

(14) Meimad is a political movement, founded in 1988, which aims to represent a largely religious constituency, while presenting a left-wing or centrist alternative to right-wing religious Zionism.

(15) Examples of similar stickers, which relate the centrality of Jerusalem to somatic metaphors, of individual bodies, are [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] (Jerusalem, without you I am half a person); [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] (If I forget the Jerusalem, may my right hand wither).

(16) See this bumper sticker in a context in photos 1 and 6 at the end of this article.

(17) M. Herzfeld, "Introducing Cultural Intimacy," pp. 10-11.

(18) For the connection between nationalism and somatic metaphors see M. Herzfeld, "Introducing Cultural Intimacy," pp. 5, 20. For the uses of adages which form a link between the body and the nation in Nazi rhetoric see W. Mieder, ed., The Politics of Proverbs: From Traditional Wisdom to Proverbial Stereotypes (Madison, Wis.: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1997), pp. 9-38.

(19) On blood as a key symbol marking inter-group boundaries see H. Salamon, "[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.]" (Dam ben beta Yisra'el ve-shkhenehem be-Ethiopia: simley mafteach be-heksher ben-kvotsati, Blood between the Beta Israel and their Christian neighbors in Ethiopia-key symbols in an inter-group context) [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] (Jerusalem studies in Jewish folklore) 15 (1993): 117-134. The use of blood metaphor as a conspicuous element in the rhetoric of the Temple adherents, Jewish groups who place the re-establishment of the Jewish Temple at the center of their Messianic vision, has been pointed out in the excellent work of S. Chen, [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.]" (temot merkaziyot be-retorika uba-praksis shel shocharei hamikdash), (M.A. Thesis, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2001), pp. 40-44.

(20) See this bumper sticker in a context in photo 1 at the end of this article.

(21) Yamit, a settlement in the Northern Sinai desert, was evacuated because it had been built on territory that was returned to Egypt. It has become a symbol of evacuation within the framework of the Middle East peace process.

(22) The first two interviewees saw a connection with the abandonment of Yousouf Madhat, a Druze IDF soldier, during the battle over Joseph's tomb in Nablus, during the early days of the Al-Aksa Intifada.

(23) [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] (Yesha) is an acronym for [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] (Yehuda, Shomron, 'Aza; Judea, Samaria, and Gaza), the territories occupied by Israel in 1967. The Hebrew word [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] means "salvation," thus the acronym expresses the messianic world view of many of the settlers.

(24) See this bumper sticker in a context in photos 1 and 7 at the end of this article.

(25) The phrase [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] (for generations to come) simulates the graphic format of the "Dor Shalom" (Generation of Peace) sticker, a pro-peace volunteer movement that was founded following the assassination of Prime Minster Yitzhak Rabin.

(26) [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] (now) in red and the other words in black.

(27) See this bumper sticker in a context in photos 1 and 6 at the end of this article.

(28) Kahanist are followers of Rabbi Meir Kahana who founded an extremist political movement, which was outlawed in Israel because of its racist platform.

(29) Din rodef refers to a status defined in Jewish law, which permits shedding the blood of someone considered a traitor.

(30) For a similar, more personal version see the next sticker.

(31) This slogan also appeared in relation to the Ethiopian Jews, as a group whose identity caused a discourse to surface concerning the connection between race and religion in Judaism. For a discussion see H.

Salamon, "In Search of Self and Other: A Few Remarks on Ethnicity, Race, and Ethiopian Jews," in Jewish Locations: Traversing Racialized Landscapes, ed. L. Tessman and B-A. Bar On (Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield, 2001), pp. 75-88.

(32) See this bumper sticker in a context in photos 1 and 2 at the end of this article.

(33) Note the use of sensory rhetoric, and specifically the sense of smell, as a hermeneutic tool. Mention of the "smell" of a sticker was not a singular occurrence, and recurred in the speech of many other interviewees. For the reference of icons of taste and smell and their connection to a national "gastronomy" see, among others, A. Appadurai, "How to Make a National Cuisine: Cookbooks in Contemporary India," Comparative Studies in Society and History 30 (1988): 3-24.

(34) The first sticker documents a private domestically fabricated version which says [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] (Golani, an infantry unit of the IDF). Another private sticker, which responds to this sticker, is the huge

poster on a car window in Tel-Aviv bearing the four slogans, each written on a separate row: the Bikcah ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.]) is the Jordan Valley.

(35) See this bumper sticker in a context in photos 1 and 3 at the end of this article.

(36) See this bumper sticker in a context in photo 2 at the end of this article.

(37) Sheinkin is a shop-lined street in the center of Tel-Aviv, in the residential area between the Carmel Market place and the wealthy Rothschild Boulevard. Most of the businesses and restaurants, fashion clothing and jewelry stores, art and design shops, music and video rentals, new-age haunts, etc. cater to a young, bohemian and artsy, cosmopolitan clientele. Sheinkin is often spoken of as a local attempt to imitate fashionable urban areas like Greenwich Village or Soho, and is imagined by Israelis since the 1980s as the strongest emblem of the hedonistic turn in Israeli culture, and dissociation from national ideologies. Florentine, a poor neighborhood in Southern Tel-Aviv, close to Jaffa, has undergone a partial gentrification, with an influx of young urban dwellers since the 1990s, opening cafes, bars, restaurants, and design studios, has on the whole a more downscale, grungy, and politically, radical character, somewhat like New York's East Village. Florentine was the center of a successful 22 part TV series in the 1990s.

(38) Usually translated: "To be a free people in our land," from the final line of Israel's national anthem, "HaTikva."

(39) Play on words meaning, roughly "a state based on Jewish law-you can kiss the state good-bye."

(40) This sticker evoked strong emotional responses from most of the interviewees, and was interpreted by most in a religious-, or politico-religious context. Despite the fact that this was not mentioned in any of the interviews, it clearly resonates with the biblical verse: "let your camp be holy," Deut 23:15 (NJPS).

(41) [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] (modesty patrol) are vigilante groups in the haredi community who use threats and violence to enforce norms of modesty in the community and to keep out damaging outside influences.

(42) Apparently the concepts of purity (tohara), and its opposite, impurity (tumfia), and their deep cultural and social associations evoked the strong response in relation to these stickers.

(43) Bnei Akiva is a religious youth organization, affiliated with the religious Zionist parties, broadly identified with right wing pro-settlement politics.

(44) See the following examples. Many of the interviewees related to the size of the stickers: size is an indicator of importance and seriousness, large stickers were considered to be "above all small disputes," tied to larger cosmological truths. Other interviewees belittled the message on the large stickers, and viewed their size as proof of their falseness ("maybe they need to be large, so that God, who is so far away, will be able to see them").

(45) See these bumper stickers in a context in photos 3 and 5 at the end of this article.

(46) See this bumper sticker in a context in photo 5 at the end of this article.

(47) See this bumper sticker in a context in photo 4 at the end of this article.

(48) Aryeh Derci, (b. Morocco, 1959), was one of the charismatic founders of the shas movement, who enjoyed a meteoric rise to power in the late 1980s and was appointed Minister of Interior in 1998 before he turned thirty. During the 1990s Derfii was investigated and later indicted on charges of bribery, and was sentenced in 1999 to a four year prison sentence. The Derfii case became a rallying point for ethnic political struggles in Israel, with his supporters charging the Israeli judicial establishment with persecuting him because he represented a threat to Ashkenazi political hegemony.

(49) Thus, for example, as this article was being written, a new sticker slogan was documented [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] (The Holy Land for the Holy People).

(50) Although beyond the scope of this article, it is important to note in this context the sticker slogans: "Yesha is Here," "My home is in Kedumim, Ariel, Karnei Shomron," etc. A privately produced sticker, relevant to this connection appears in the large photo on page 220. For the spatial aspects of Israeli identity see, e.g., E. Ben Ari and Y. Bilu, eds., Grasping Land: Space and Place in Israeli Discourse and Experience (Albany: SUNY Press, 1997). For the practical and symbolic aspects of the struggle between Gush Emunim and Shalom Akhshav in shaping Israeli space see M. Feige, "[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.]" (Shtei mapot la-gada: gush emunim, shalom akhsav ve-itsuv ha-merchav be-Yisrael, One space, two places: Gush Emunim, peace now and the construction of Israeli space) (Jerusalem: Magnes, 2002).

(51) In this context, it is interesting to think of the "ritual" aspect of sticking-on and peeling-off as part of broader Israeli culture, similar to the phenomenon documented and analyzed by Tamar Katriel, among school children who busy themselves with "sharing" and "exchanging" of various collections (including stickers) as a folkloric expression of communication in negotiations. See T. Katriel, "'Hachlafot: Rules and Strategies in Children's Swapping Exchanges," Research on Language and Social Interaction 22 (1988/1989): 157-178.

(52) The removal of a sticker, even if stuck on to one's own car, was perceived as magically potent, when interviewees spoke about "bad luck" that befell them after removing a sticker with a religious message.

(53) The belittling of the stickers' importance both within academic research and in the media is also noted by L-R. Bloch, "Mobile discourse," p. 49.

Hagar Salamon

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem