Hebrew is Hard to Learn, but Everyone Spoke Football

Abstract

The article discusses the football’s special role in Israel’s first decade, a period characterized by mass immigration. Hundreds of thousands of new immigrants lacking a common language were expected (almost forced) to integrate into the developing society by adopting the values and symbols of the elites - the veteran settlers. 

The veterans founded and preserved almost every cultural item: newspapers, weeklies, the theater, music, literature, poetry and so forth. These potential instruments of cultural integration were inaccessible to the newcomers who neither spoke nor read Hebrew, who were unfamiliar with the symbols and codes of the local culture, and who generally lived in the geographical periphery, out of touch with most cultural items. 

Football, however, was an almost universally recognized game. Because of its popularity and accessibility football became an instrument of integration and, in some cases, even a means of social protest. This function was neither planned nor consciously encouraged by the state leadership. Certain factors, such as political support of various teams, transformed the game into the most effective means of integration.