A sabra or tzabar ( he, צַבָּר, plural: ''tzabarim'') is an informal-turned-formal
modern Hebrew term that defines any
Jew
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
born in
Israel. The term came into widespread use in the 1930s to refer to a Jew who had been born in Palestine (including the
British Mandate of Palestine British Mandate of Palestine or Palestine Mandate most often refers to:
* Mandate for Palestine: a League of Nations mandate under which the British controlled an area which included Mandatory Palestine and the Emirate of Transjordan.
* Mandatory P ...
and
Ottoman Palestine; ''cf.
New Yishuv
Yishuv ( he, ישוב, literally "settlement"), Ha-Yishuv ( he, הישוב, ''the Yishuv''), or Ha-Yishuv Ha-Ivri ( he, הישוב העברי, ''the Hebrew Yishuv''), is the body of Jewish residents in the Land of Israel (corresponding to the s ...
&
Old Yishuv''), though it may have appeared earlier. Since the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, Israelis have used the word to refer to a Jew born anywhere in the
Land of Israel (inclusive of the
Israeli-occupied territories
Israeli-occupied territories are the lands that were captured and occupied by Israel during the Six-Day War of 1967. While the term is currently applied to the Palestinian territories and the Golan Heights, it has also been used to refer to a ...
).
The term alludes to a tenacious, thorny desert plant, known in English as
prickly pear, with a thick skin that conceals a sweet, softer interior. The cactus
is compared to
Israeli Jews
Israeli Jews or Jewish Israelis ( he, יהודים ישראלים, translit=Yehudim Yisraelim) are Israelis, Israeli Israeli citizenship law, citizens and nationals who are Jewish through either their Jewish ethnicity and/or their adherence ...
, who are supposedly tough on the outside, but delicate and sweet on the inside.
In 2010, over 4,000,000 Israeli Jews (70%) were sabras, with an even greater percentage of Israeli Jewish youths falling into this category. In 2015, about 75% of Israel's Jewish population was native-born.
In 2020, this had further increased to 78%.
History
The term came into widespread use within the
Yishuv, or Jewish population of Palestine, in the 1930s, but it is thought to have been used as far back as the early 20th century, when it was used to refer to the first generation of native-born (Hebrew speaking) Jews produced by the Zionist movement, the children of the immigrants of the
First Aliyah
The First Aliyah (Hebrew: העלייה הראשונה, ''HaAliyah HaRishona''), also known as the agriculture Aliyah, was a major wave of Jewish immigration (''aliyah'') to Ottoman Syria between 1881 and 1903. Jews who migrated in this wave came ...
that began in 1881 in
Romania. This generation of natives referred to themselves as "
etrog
Etrog ( he, אֶתְרוֹג, plural: '; Ashkenazi Hebrew: ', plural: ') is the yellow citron or ''Citrus medica'' used by Jews during the week-long holiday of Sukkot as one of the four species. Together with the ''lulav'', ''hadass'', and '' a ...
im." The term "Tzabar" may have been used by immigrants of the
Second Aliyah and the
Third Aliyah
The Third Aliyah ( he, העלייה השלישית, ''HaAliyah HaShlishit'') refers to the third wave—or aliyah—of modern Jewish immigration to Palestine from Europe. This wave lasted from 1919, just after the end of World War I, until 1923 ...
, originally as an insulting term. The
changing of the meaning of the term, to emphasize the softer interior rather than the roughness, was done by the journalist Uri Kesari, who himself was a sabra. Kesari published an essay, "We Are the Leaves of the Sabra!", on 18 April 1931 in the newspaper
Doar HaYom
Israel Post is the trading name of the Israel Postal Company ( he, דואר ישראל, Do'ar Yisra'el), formerly called the Israel Postal Authority, which is a government-owned corporation that provides postal services in Israel.
Israel Post ...
in which he argued against the discrimination which was cast against the native-born by the new immigrants.
[ Almog, Oz. 2000. The Sabra the creation of the new Jew. The S. Mark Taper Foundation imprint in Jewish studies. Berkeley: University of California Press] The
1931 census of Palestine
The 1931 census of Palestine was the second census carried out by the authorities of the British Mandate for Palestine. It was carried out on 18 November 1931 under the direction of Major E. Mills after the 1922 census of Palestine.
* Census of ...
found that of a recorded Jewish population of 174,610, 73,195 people (42%) were born in Palestine.
According to Israeli sociologist
Oz Almog, who studied the sociological development of the term, the first glimmers of a new culture appeared around the time of
World War I when the children of First Aliyah immigrants were already displaying traditional sabra characteristics.
Avshalom Feinberg
Avshalom Feinberg ( he, אבשלום פיינברג, 23 October 1889 – 20 January 1917) was one of the leaders of Nili, a Jewish spy network in Ottoman Palestine helping the British fight the Ottoman Empire during World War I.
Feinberg was ...
has been referred to as "the first sabra." In the 1920s this new Hebrew culture was visibly emerging. The term was in widespread use in the 1930s and 1940s, and it increasingly became a term of prestige as the sabra turned into a cultural hero. At this time, there was now a large number of native-born Jews in the kibbutzim and moshavim and in urban areas, and as a result, sabra culture blossomed. Almog wrote that "as the Sabra archetype and stereotype took shape, the students at the Hebrew gymnasiums, the young people of the kibbutzim and moshavim, and the members of the youth movements and Palmach began developing a consciousness about their cultural uniqueness. They also produced and honed native status symbols and a peculiarly native Israeli style in language, dress, and collective leisure culture". He also claimed that the idea that a new Hebrew nation had arisen was widespread among
Tel Aviv youth in the early 1940s.
[
In November 1948, with the ]1948 Arab-Israeli War
Events January
* January 1
** The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) is inaugurated.
** The Constitution of New Jersey (later subject to amendment) goes into effect.
** The railways of Britain are nationalized, to form British ...
in its closing stages, Arthur Koestler
Arthur Koestler, (, ; ; hu, Kösztler Artúr; 5 September 1905 – 1 March 1983) was a Hungarian-born author and journalist. Koestler was born in Budapest and, apart from his early school years, was educated in Austria. In 1931, Koestler join ...
published an article titled "Israel: the native generation" in which he profiled sabras as compared to Jewish immigrants from Europe and Arab and Muslim nations, who he described as a "lost generation", writing that "In their ensemble these form the lost generation of Israel, a transitory and amorphous mass which as yet lacks the character of a nation. Only in the native youth, born and reared in the country, does the first intimation of the future profile of Israel as a nation begin to outline itself." He claimed that "In his mental make-up the average young sabra is fearless to the point of recklessness, bold, extroverted, and little inclined towards, if not openly contemptuous of, intellectual pursuits" and that "The sabra's outlook on the world is rather provincial and hyper-chauvinistic. This could hardly be otherwise in a small and exposed pioneer community which had to defend its physical existence and build its State against almost impossible odds. One cannot create a nation without nationalism." That same month, Israel carried out its first census following independence. The census found that out of a Jewish population of 716,700, approximately 35% were native-born.[
An important influence on the Sabra personality was considered the participation in national youth movements, (such as the Hanoar Haoved Vehalomed, ]Hashomer Hatzair
Hashomer Hatzair ( he, הַשׁוֹמֵר הַצָעִיר, , ''The Young Guard'') is a Labor Zionist, secular Jewish youth movement founded in 1913 in the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, Austria-Hungary, and it was also the name of the group ...
and Hatsofim) followed by the universal participation in military service for both sexes. The term was used by the Zionist movement, to celebrate the "New Jew" that emerged in the Holy Land. Unlike the bourgeois
The bourgeoisie ( , ) is a social class, equivalent to the middle or upper middle class. They are distinguished from, and traditionally contrasted with, the proletariat by their affluence, and their great cultural and financial capital. They ...
" Old Jew" born in the diaspora
A diaspora ( ) is a population that is scattered across regions which are separate from its geographic place of origin. Historically, the word was used first in reference to the dispersion of Greeks in the Hellenic world, and later Jews afte ...
, the "New Jew" was a kibbutz member or a farmer. The "Old Jew" often spoke broken Hebrew with a heavy accent, while the sabra spoke the language as a mother tongue. Unlike the "Old Jew" who did not fight for his self-defense, the Sabra fought in the Jewish resistance movements, in the Palmach and, after the establishment of Israel, in the Israel Defense Forces. The prestige of the Sabra increased during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War
The 1948 (or First) Arab–Israeli War was the second and final stage of the 1948 Palestine war. It formally began following the end of the British Mandate for Palestine at midnight on 14 May 1948; the Israeli Declaration of Independence had ...
. The Israeli public, and especially the older generation, tended to attribute the achievements of the war to the country's "sabras", while minimizing the part of the new immigrants and other groups. Even descriptions of the achievements of Operation Kadesh (1956) emphasized the image of the Sabra.
The large immigration to Israel of Jews from Muslim countries during the 1950s, the penetration of Western culture and primarily American culture, as well as the social and political changes which were created following the Six-Day War and Yom Kippur War
The Yom Kippur War, also known as the Ramadan War, the October War, the 1973 Arab–Israeli War, or the Fourth Arab–Israeli War, was an armed conflict fought from October 6 to 25, 1973 between Israel and a coalition of Arab world, Arab state ...
, resulted in a decline of the use of the term after the 1970s. Those who were born in the country after independence in 1948 became known as the "Dor haMedina" ( he, דור המדינה), or "Statehood Generation", and have been largely described by cultural commentators as being motivated less by the strident nationalism and/or socialism of the pre-independence generations and more by a general cultural pragmatism and sensitivity to the mass-cultural output of Western powers.
With the establishment of the State of Israel in May 1948, large-scale Jewish immigration ensued from Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa, greatly increasing the Jewish population. As a result, the amount of native-born Jews as a percentage of the population went down from 35% in 1948 to 25% in 1951. However, as the immigration wave tapered off, the percentage of the native-born Jewish population gradually increased as more children were born, many to immigrants who arrived after independence. The percentage of the Jewish population that was native-born reached 33% in 1956, 38% in 1961, and 40% in 1965.
In culture
The Sabra received an artistic and symbolic representation in the form of the illustrated character "Srulik
Srulik ( he, שרוליק, ) is a cartoon character symbolizing Israel. The character was created in 1956 by the Israeli cartoonist Kariel Gardosh, known by his pen name ''Dosh.''
The cartoon appeared for many years in the newspaper '' Maariv ...
" (which wears shorts, sandals
Sandals are an open type of footwear, consisting of a sole held to the wearer's foot by straps going over the instep and around the ankle. Sandals can also have a heel. While the distinction between sandals and other types of footwear can some ...
and a Tembel hat), created by cartoonist Dosh. Another such character is the Israeli children's television character Kishkashta
Kishkashta (Hebrew: קישקשתא) was the main character in one of the first Israeli Educational Television shows, ''Ma Pit'om'' (''מה פתאום;'' ''"What on earth?"'' or ''"No way!"''), written by, among other screenwriters, Tamar Adar. Th ...
, a talking anthropomorphic cactus; the plant is another symbol of the Sabra.
The English form of the word, Sabra, served Israeli manufacturers who wanted to brand their products as recognisably Israeli products, which are sold in the foreign markets. As a result, " Sabra liqueur" and "Sabra sport" (the sports model of the " Sussita") were created. The world's largest hummus manufacturer (as of 2009) is a U.S. company called the Sabra Dipping Company.
In popular culture, an episode of the American '' Saturday Night Live'' series contained a sketch entitled "Sabra Price Is Right" featuring Tom Hanks as the guest host. The sketch was written by Robert Smigel and is a parody of Israel-born Jews making bargains with people who believe this show is '' The Price Is Right''. In the sketch, Hanks's character "Uri Shurinson" and the other Sabra are swindling the contestants, conning them into purchasing shoddy products (a Summit clock-radio, a "Pinnacle satellite dish" that's a v-aerial, a cordless phone that's a defective rotary phone, a microwave that's a toaster oven, a CD-player that's a child's bank, and a defective buzzer from the game show itself) for which they guess the price rather than winning them. The sketch concludes with an Arab
The Arabs (singular: Arab; singular ar, عَرَبِيٌّ, DIN 31635: , , plural ar, عَرَب, DIN 31635: , Arabic pronunciation: ), also known as the Arab people, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in Western Asia, No ...
portrayed by Dana Carvey
Dana Thomas Carvey (born June 2, 1955) is an American stand-up comedian, actor, impressionist, screenwriter, and producer. He is best known for his seven seasons as a cast member on ''Saturday Night Live'' from 1986 to 1993, which earned him fiv ...
who bargains in the same manner as the Sabra and in the middle of their argument, they all "disco" as the sketch concludes. A sketch featured in an earlier ''SNL'' episode was entitled "Sabra Shopping Network" and also featured Uri (Tom Hanks) and his crew, this time bargaining with callers phoning into a television shopping show.
The American comedy film ''You Don't Mess with the Zohan
''You Don't Mess with the Zohan'' is a 2008 American satirical action comedy film directed by Dennis Dugan, written by Adam Sandler, Robert Smigel, and Judd Apatow, and produced by Sandler, Smigel, and Jack Giarraputo. The film stars Sandler in th ...
'' (2008) plays heavily on sabra stereotypes
In social psychology, a stereotype is a generalized belief about a particular category of people. It is an expectation that people might have about every person of a particular group. The type of expectation can vary; it can be, for example ...
.
" Marvel Comics" created a superhero named Sabra (Ruth Bat-Seraph's alter ego) in the 1980s, whose name is based on the Israeli Sabra. In September 2022, it was announced that the Israeli actress Shira Haas
Shira Haas ( he, שירה האס; born ) is an Israel, Israeli actress. She initially gained national prominence for her roles in local film and television, having won two Israeli Ophir Awards out of five nominations since 2014. In 2020, she ga ...
will play this character in the film " Captain America: New World Order" (part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe
The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) is an American media franchise and shared universe centered on a series of superhero films produced by Marvel Studios. The films are based on characters that appear in American comic books published by Ma ...
) which is to be released on May 3, 2024.
In politics
The first ''sabra'' to exercise the powers of the office of the Prime Minister of Israel was Yigal Allon, who served as acting prime minister from February to March 1969; he was born in Kfar Tavor
Kfar Tavor ( he, כְּפַר תָּבוֹר, ar, كفر تافور) is a village in the Lower Galilee region of Northern Israel, at the foot of Mount Tabor. Founded in 1901, it was awarded local council status in 1949. In it had a population of ...
. The first ''sabra'' to serve as Prime Minister rather than acting Prime Minister was Yitzhak Rabin
Yitzhak Rabin (; he, יִצְחָק רַבִּין, ; 1 March 1922 – 4 November 1995) was an Israeli politician, statesman and general. He was the fifth Prime Minister of Israel, serving two terms in office, 1974–77, and from 1992 until h ...
, who first held the office 1974–77, and then again 1992–1995. Since Rabin first took office, there have been four other ''sabra'' Prime Ministers: the former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is the first ''sabra'' Prime Minister to have been born in the modern state after Israel's declaration of independence
The Israeli Declaration of Independence, formally the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel ( he, הכרזה על הקמת מדינת ישראל), was proclaimed on 14 May 1948 ( 5 Iyar 5708) by David Ben-Gurion, the Executive ...
in 1948; he first took office in 1996, before leaving office in 1999 and returning in 2009. Furthermore, Ehud Barak, Ariel Sharon, and Ehud Olmert were all born in what is now the territory of the State of Israel during the Mandate period.
The first ''sabra'' who became President of Israel was Yitzhak Navon
Yitzhak Rachamim Navon ( he, יצחק נבון; 9 April 1921 – 6 November 2015) was an Israeli politician, diplomat, playwright, and author. He served as the fifth President of Israel between 1978 and 1983 as a member of the centre-left ...
, who was born in Jerusalem. The first ''sabra'' born after Israel's declaration of independence, who exercised the powers of the office of the President of Israel, was Dalia Itzik
Dalia Itzik ( he, דליה איציק ''Dalya Itsik''; born 20 October 1952) is a former Israeli politician who last served as a member of the Knesset for Kadima. She has previously served in several ministerial positions, and on 4 May 2006 bec ...
. The first ''sabra'' born after Israel's declaration of independence, who became President of Israel rather than acting President, is the incumbent Isaac Herzog. He is also the first son of a former Israeli president to also become President.
Statehood Generation leaders
In addition to Netanyahu being the first of the Statehood Generation to serve as Prime Minister, Avraham Burg
Avraham "Avrum" Burg ( he, אברהם בורג; born 19 January 1955) is an Israeli author, politician and businessman. He was a member of the Knesset, chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel, Speaker of the Knesset, and Interim President of I ...
, speaker of the Knesset from 1999–2003, was also the first Speaker to have been born in the modern state since 1948. The first of the Statehood Generation to serve as acting President, was Dalia Itzik and to serve as the actual President is Isaac Herzog. Naftali Bennett, former Prime Minister and Yair Lapid
Yair Lapid ( he, יָאִיר לַפִּיד, transliterated: , ; born 5 November 1963) is an Israeli politician and former journalist who has been serving as the 14th prime minister of Israel since 1 July 2022. He previously served as the alt ...
, outgoing Prime Minister, were also born in the modern state.
See also
* Sabra (comics)
Sabra is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by Bill Mantlo and Sal Buscema, Sabra first appeared in '' Incredible Hulk'' #250 (August 1980) in a cameo, before making a full appearance in ' ...
* Culture of Israel
The roots of the culture of Israel developed long before modern Israel's independence in 1948, and traces back to ancient Israel ( 1000 BCE). It reflects Jewish culture, Jewish history in the diaspora, the ideology of the Zionist movement that de ...
* Israeli Jews
Israeli Jews or Jewish Israelis ( he, יהודים ישראלים, translit=Yehudim Yisraelim) are Israelis, Israeli Israeli citizenship law, citizens and nationals who are Jewish through either their Jewish ethnicity and/or their adherence ...
* Kibbutz
* Moshav
* Muscular Judaism
Muscular Judaism (german: Muskeljudentum) is a term coined by Max Nordau in his speech at the Second Zionist Congress held in Basel on August 28, 1898. In his speech, he spoke about the need to design the " new Jew" and reject the " old Jew", wi ...
* Negation of the Diaspora
The negation of the Diaspora ( he, שלילת הגלות, ''shlilat ha' galut'', or he, שלילת הגולה, ''shlilat ha' golah'') is a central assumption in many currents of Zionism. The concept encourages the dedication to Zionism and it is u ...
* Srulik
Srulik ( he, שרוליק, ) is a cartoon character symbolizing Israel. The character was created in 1956 by the Israeli cartoonist Kariel Gardosh, known by his pen name ''Dosh.''
The cartoon appeared for many years in the newspaper '' Maariv ...
References
External links
*
Hebrew site with video of Kishkashta
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sabra (Person)
Hebrew slang
Israeli culture
Society of Israel
Jewish ethnic groups
1930s neologisms