Danny Kaplan: The Men We Loved
Home Books    The Men We Loved    Brothers & Others in Arms    David, Jonathan and other Soldiers Articles & Other Publications CV Current research interests Teaching Related Links		The Men We Loved Male Friendship and Nationalism in Israeli Culture This book explores the interrelations between male friendship in everyday life and the place of fraternal friendship in Israeli national sentiments. The author analyzes selected stories of friendship across the life course and in unique war experiences, following in-depth interviewing with Israeli veterans. Conducting participant observations in sites of commemoration he then examines the symbolism of friendship in rituals for the fallen soldiers, the commemoration of Yzhak Rabin, and the infatuation with recovering bodies of missing soldiers. This important study finds that although some settings, most noticeably in the military, encourage the production of male intimacy and desire, it is often displaced through humor and aggression. However, homosocial desire is outright acknowledged and celebrated once associated with heroic death. Declaring the friendship for the dead epitomizes the political blood pact between men, taking precedence over the traditional blood ties of kinship and matrimony. This book underscores nationalism as a homosocial-based emotion of commemorative desire. Berghahn Books, New York and Oxford, 2006 190 pages, bibliog., index ISBN 978-1-84545-192-9 Hb ISBN 978-1-84545-193-6 Pb May also be purchased at Amazon.com
		"Against conventional popular and academic views, the author interprets friendship as a unique social form bordering the personal and political, the intimate and the collective, and the secular and the sacred. This fascinating and original volume argues for the central symbolic role of male friendships in constructing an Israeli national identity. This important book deserves a wide audience". - Steven Seidman, SUNY University at Albany "Danny Kaplan's eye-opening interviews with both young Israeli male soldiers and older male veterans reveal personal emotions and nationalist ideology in a continuous, intricate dance with each other. [It] reveals how intimate are the actual dynamics that sustain the exclusionary, masculinized notions of citizenship." - Cynthia Enloe, author of "The Curious Feminist: Searching for Women in a New Age of Empire" “We feel both the exquisite “manly love of comrades” that is sustained through military life, and the ways in which nationalism and patriotism seep into everyday friendship relations. This is important work.”   - Michael Kimmel, editor of Men and Masculinities
		Peer reviews have appeared in various academic the Journals, among them: Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies link Men and Masculinities link
Hebrew