Gymnasia Herzliya in Tel Aviv Discoveres the Maccabees’ Tombs, 1907-1911: The Shaping of Collective Memory and National Identity
Keywords:
Gymnasia Herzliya in Tel Aviv, Jacob Moser, ‘The Order of the Ancient Maccabees’, ‘The Tombs of the Maccabees’, Hanukah, ‘The Maccabees’, The Arab–Israeli Conflict, Collective MemoryAbstract
Gymnasia Herzliya in Tel Aviv was built with money donated by Judge Jacob Moser. The venerable judge belonged to ‘The Order of the Ancient Maccabees’, a group whose members had failed to purchase what was known as ‘The Tombs of the Maccabees’. The principal of the school wanted to thank the generous donor by carrying out an educational activity linked to the Hanukah holiday and the Maccabees, especially since Hanukah was the Zionist Movement’s ‘National Holiday’ and Hanukah leaders the Zionists’ heroes.
The principal initiated a school trip to Modi’in, during which a new set of Maccabees’ Tombs was ‘discovered’, but whose ‘identification’ was not supported by historical or archaeological evidence. Nonetheless, the gymnasium nourished the newly ‘invented tradition’ by holding annual Hanukah pilgrimages that other schools soon participated in.
The intensification of the Arab-Israeli conflict and the patriotic dimension bestowed upon martyrdom strengthened the status of the Maccabees’ Tombs as a symbol of national heroism. The article shows that collective memory can be created by the initiative of ‘reputational entrepreneurs’ and not by manipulation by the hegemonic elite.
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