Cooking Up Independence – Barbecues on Israel Independence Day

In the State of Israel’s the formative years, its education minister called for a haggada to mark Independence Day, and the Histadrut’s Folk Dance Department envisioned mass horas. Much to the chagrin of the country’s elite, however, popular festivities coalesced around something else entirely. How did the barbecue become Israel’s ultimate Independence Day ritual?

Like other nations, the fledgling State of Israel invested much thought and copious resources in creating the symbols and ceremonies of its Independence Day. In 1949, to mark the country’s first birthday, the Independence Day Law made 5 Iyar a national holiday. A government committee organized the festivities, aiming to etch the national story in every citizen’s heart. Launched during the Jewish state’s first decade, a torch-lighting event, the Israel Prize award ceremony, and a Bible quiz all continue to this day. The first of these three events has proven especially popular, mainly because it eases the abrupt transition from Memorial Day, observed the day before. During Israel’s first two decades, a military parade capped the celebrations, but it was abolished in the 1970s.

Not content with national symbols, the architects of Independence Day aspired to create a tradition most civilians would adopt. Yet how could mass celebrations be organized yet spontaneous? How to fashion an official folk culture (as historian Yaakov Shavit called it) that was both high-brow and appealing even to the common folk? 

Open-air performance stages were erected at considerable cost to get people out into the streets. The committee also organized fireworks in the big cities (except for the year these American imports arrived too late). The pyrotechnics generally kicked off the festivities.

Yet the political and cultural establishment wanted Israelis to be more than just spectators at parades, ceremonies, and outdoor entertainment. Repeated attempts to actively involve the populace included folk dancing, then the epitome of Zionist culture. The Histadrut’s Folk Dance Department stationed bands and loudspeakers in public places and made sure radio channels broadcast appropriate music on Independence Day eve. Department chairman Gurit Kedman urged restaurateurs and shopkeepers to crank up the volume on their transistors so folks could dance in the street. Few chose to kick up their heels, however, and Kedman blamed the Jewish national psyche:

Everyone expected the Folk Dance Committee to achieve the impossible: to organize a spontaneous mass celebration, in itself a contradiction in terms but one made even harder when it comes to the Jews, who don’t know how to be happy. (Maoz Azaryahu, State Rituals: Independence Celebrations and Memorializing the Fallen, 1948–56 [Ben-Gurion Heritage Center, 1995], p. 53 [Hebrew])

 

 

Read All About It

Some advocated a family celebration rather than a public one, in keeping with the Jewish holiday tradition of a festive family meal accompanied by a ceremonial reading. In 1952, at the behest of Education Minister Ben-Zion Dinur, author and playwright Aharon Megged wrote an Independence Day haggada modeled on its Passover predecessor. A vigorous press campaign across the political spectrum included detailed recipes for appropriate fare, such as khubeza (mallow) patties, in remembrance of the siege of Jerusalem, during which there was little else to eat. Yet the family “Thanksgiving” never caught on. 

Religious Zionists suggested additions to the prayer service to commemorate the miracle of a Jewish state, but these too met with limited acceptance, even within this sector. 

Until the mid-1950s, officials continued trying to actively engage the public. Many attributed the failure of these efforts to a lack of awareness, given that new immigrants dominated the population. So yearly gatherings were organized in various locales to explain how Independence Day was to be celebrated:

The festivities will commence a few days before Independence Day with an extensive information campaign in immigrant centers, transit camps, and suburbs. Hagana veterans and IDF reserve officers will visit communities, and more than eighty portable stages and fifteen permanent PR ones will bring Independence Day to residents. (“Independence Day 5716 to Last a Week,” Davar, March 16, 1956, p. 12) 

The PR blitz didn’t really help, and the lack of response wasn’t limited to newcomers. Even veteran Israelis voted with their feet and sat out the “spontaneous” celebrations.

Wondering what to do on Independence Day, many took to the streets in search of activity. The fireworks and parades (including gymnastic displays by local youth) lasted only part of the day. Performances went on for longer but were rarely sufficiently engaging, plus they were too few and far between, making them terribly overcrowded.

All these activities combined didn’t take up the whole day and never became a popular pastime. Thus, despite great efforts, one member of the National Celebration Committee claimed in 1951 that Tel Aviv on Independence Day was dark and desolate. Two years later, a colleague described the situation:

People wandered the streets aimlessly, looking for something to do but not finding it. (Azaryahu, State Rituals, p. 52)

If Independence Day was boring even in Tel Aviv, entertainment in smaller and peripheral communities was almost nonexistent, particularly in the new-immigrant transit camps.

During Israel’s first decade, the cultural, administrative, and political elite discovered how little it could educate the masses and influence their leisure pursuits. The only traditions meriting an extensive response were the public ones – such as the torch-lighting ceremony and the stage shows. However, the establishment failed to come up with anything other than spectator events. Perhaps for lack of anything better to do, Independence Day’s most familiar pastime emerged – picnicking in nature, which over the years came to focus on the family mangal (barbecue; see “In a Word,” below). Ultimately, a festive family meal indeed developed, but not exactly as the education minister had envisioned it.

 

Picnic! 

Independence Day wasn’t originally a family holiday. Schools were in session, albeit with special programs to mark the occasion. Only in 1952 did educational institutions begin closing for the day, meaning that parents had to entertain their children. Some organizations sponsored events for younger families, running through late afternoon. There were also activities for older kids, including tours of military or police installations or hikes farther afield. Other youngsters apparently spent the day roaming around their neighborhoods or city centers. The family-oriented Independence Day as we know it developed during the country’s first decade, after picnics became entrenched in Israel’s leisure culture.

Picnics as a form of recreation emerged among the European bourgeoisie in the 19th century. In the 20th, as mechanized transport simplified day trips to public parks and woods, the practice spread to the lower classes. In the U.S. as well, picnicking dates back to the 1800s, especially on the Fourth of July, American Independence Day. 

In the pre-state land of Israel, some were indulging in picnics before anyone had ever heard the term. Already during the Ottoman era, folks were venturing out into the open for lengthy repasts on Jewish, Muslim, and Christian holidays. Many Jerusalemites, Jewish and Arab alike, spent holidays and vacations in a clearing near the tomb of Simeon the Just (in today’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood), and others headed out to Nabi Musa (between Jerusalem and Jericho) or Nabi Rubin, in the Judean Foothills. North African Jews too “dined out” during Mimouna, their post-Passover festival, often celebrated outdoors.

Among European immigrants (some 80 percent of the Mandate-era population), family meals in the wild weren’t a thing. Picnics appeared in the press only in reports from the Diaspora, whereas the Holy Land lacked designated picnic grounds. A visit to a village or kibbutz, especially on holidays, was considered an excursion into nature. Eating outside for fun was known mainly from the kumsitz. Members of youth movements and young Palmah comrades sat around a bonfire, singing and munching on potatoes roasted in the flames. Sometimes there were dances and games too. Yet the kumsitz was a nighttime activity mainly for youngsters, not families.

In the 1950s, we find increasing references to picnics in Israel. Perhaps one catalyst for the spread of the phenomenon was the American film Picnic, a hit in Israeli cinemas in 1956. Tour companies also began organizing picnics. Early in the decade, the term “picnic” began popping up in the Israeli press, generally in quotation marks, followed by failed attempts to coin a Hebrew equivalent. By decade’s end, both word and pastime had settled into the country’s language and leisure culture.

 

Burners and Buses

Lengthy meals outdoors were standard among Mizrahi and North African immigrants, so they were the first to celebrate Independence Day that way:

This Independence Day, passersby were distracted by a unique occurrence. Entire Sephardic families came to Zion Square and other central spaces, spread themselves out on the ground with their children and packages of food, and spent most of the day there alongside a great many others similarly occupied. Mothers nursed their babies out in the open. A large contingent of vendors gathered there, selling sandwiches, wafers, cake, falafel, nuts, candy, gum, etc., to all and sundry. (“Independence Day Celebrations throughout the Country – Jerusalem Scenes,” Haaretz, 6 Iyar 5713/April 21, 1953, p. 4) 

The phenomenon the paper found so remarkable was apparently widespread among Jewish immigrants from Muslim countries; given the rare opportunity of a weekday with no school or work, picnicking was naturally how this population chose to spend the first national Independence Day holiday. About a decade later, Israel’s Maariv daily reported similar goings-on in Beersheba:

Equipped with kerosene burners and food supplies, hundreds of families “invaded” picnic areas in the parks outside the municipality and by the town library. (Shlomo Givon, “Beersheba Realizes It’s Possible to Enjoy Independence Day Celebrations,” Maariv, 12 Iyar 5722/May 16, 1962, p. 7)

Unlike the classic American picnic, featuring ready-made food, the Beersheba version was a cookout on portable gas burners. Meals of this sort typified holidays and vacations in Islamic Arab culture, primarily on the Feast of the Sacrifice (Eid al-Adha). Now the Israeli press was surprised to discover a wave of such happenings. There was nothing organized about these picnics; families simply camped out on beaches and any other available public space.

In the 1950s, Israel’s middle class spent Independence Day participating in organized outings or hikes. In 1954, for example, the Egged public transport company bused residents of Ramat Gan and Givatayim to Sodom and the Dead Sea, and in 1958, members of the Givatayim Labor Council enjoyed a trip to Eilat. Both supply and demand increased, and many groups arranged tours for their members. A growing number of families owned cars, so they could of course set out on their own.

During the 1960s, the two customs coalesced, with a hike preceding the traditional picnic (or vice versa). Some local authorities subsidized trips, while others organized public picnics, such as in a Jewish National Fund (JNF) forest near Kiryat Gat. Municipalities hired buses to transport whole families and their provisions to out-of-town picnic sites accessible only by car. Jaffa residents were bused to the Hulda Forest, and similar arrangements were made in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. The Government Information Center – responsible for Independence Day celebrations – brought thousands from immigrant agricultural villages to JNF forests near battlefields of the War of Independence so these newcomers could learn its history, have a picnic, and enjoy a free show. Despite local government involvement, all these efforts sprang from grassroots activities on Independence Day; the authorities were simply responding to popular demand.

 

From Picnic to Cookout

Picnics were considered an American import, and Maariv even referred to “American-style mass picnics,” even though, as stated, the custom actually originated with immigrants from Muslim countries. Perhaps European arrivals adopted the practice so readily because it recalled the kumsitz, identified with Palmah culture. Combined with a hike, this type of picnic filled the time on Independence Day and was particularly suited to families.

In the 1960s, the JNF encouraged the trend by developing extensive picnic grounds modeled on American national parks. The first such campsite was established in 1962 on Mount Meron, and by 1968 there were fifty-six more, visited by hundreds of thousands annually, mainly on holidays. Many picnic areas were built on the ruins of deserted Arab villages. Families without cars hung out in urban parks near their homes, while motorists drove farther away for cookouts in the wild (aided by JNF picnic tables). Ever since then, this pastime has defined Independence Day for most sectors of Israeli society.

In the 1960s and ’70s, the press described picnickers’ cooking on camping stoves, but no barbecues were mentioned, barring one dispatch from 1966:

Folks flocked to the groves and woods around the capital to fulfill the “festive obligation” of picnicking. We were among the thousands who spent Independence Day in the Jerusalem Forest [amid] a smokescreen from bonfires roasting kebabs, shishlik, and vegetables. Entire clans relaxed around these fires. Anyone who saw how much both young and old enjoyed these picnics realized the type of pastime that the masses long for – leaving the urban routine for the bosom of nature. (Y. Bitzur, “Mundane Doings in the Holy City,” Maariv, 7 Iyar 5726/April 27, 1966, p. 15)

Throughout the 1970s and ’80s, this menu became the Independence Day standard. Meat was charcoal-broiled and served with finely chopped salad, hummus, tahini, and pita. This phenomenon was evidently part of a worldwide cookout craze.

During the 1980s, the JNF began installing grills in picnic areas, and barbecuing became the main symbol of Independence Day and its hardiest tradition, virtually unchanged to this day.

 

Feeling the Heat 

Over the last four decades, the mangal has become largely synonymous with Israel Independence Day.

Family cookouts aren’t unique to Yom Ha’atzma’ut; they’re also common on other holidays in Israel. On Passover and Sukkot, for example, the parks and forests are full of families with portable grills; so too on the major Muslim holidays – the Feast of the Sacrifice and Eid al-Fitr, at the end of Ramadan. But whereas on other days barbecuing is only one option of many, it is the Independence Day ritual par excellence, which almost no one skips. Even vegetarians grill vegetables and tofu. (Hizky Shoham, Israel Celebrates: Jewish Holidays and Civic Culture in Israel [Brill, 2017,] pp. 175–6)

Although cookouts are popular the world over, since around the 1980s barbecuing has symbolized Israeliness. Ever since 1974, Meir Uziel’s widely read column in Maariv has been called “Skewers,” and in 1984 entertainer Yossi Banai premiered his Mixed Grill show. Two theatrical productions critical of the Israeli public ethos – Hanan Peled’s Hevre (Folks) and Yehoshua Sobol’s Jerusalem Syndrome – represented it by grilling meat on stage. And in 1989, writing in Maariv, Yael Paz-Melamed declared barbecuing a life skill that new immigrants simply must acquire.

Many have dismissed the Independence Day cookout as an empty pastime. Others have identified it with either Orientalism or populism. Outdoor eating, including grilling, may have come to Israel via immigrants from Islamic lands, but barbecuing has never been a leisure activity among Arabs in the region.

In countries such as Australia, Argentina, South Africa, and the U.S., cookouts are commonplace on national holidays. All are countries built on immigration and settlement, and barbecuing encapsulates that pioneer spirit. In Israel as well, grilling is associated with masculinity and the settlement ideal, perhaps as an extension of the Palmah kumsitz. “And in the yard, the soldiers would grill big fish over coals,” sang Naomi Shemer in “At the Nahal Settlement in the Sinai,” which embraced the settlement ethos. 

Like Israel itself, the Independence Day barbecue is a complex symbol – equal parts Palmah kumsitz, national hike, and family get-together. It’s thus a perfect expression of Israel’s melting pot culture, combining the favorite pastimes of both eastern European secular pioneers and North African and Middle Eastern clans. What better way to celebrate Israel’s independence?