The Heroic Dead of Israel

Abstract

Living with the oppressive reality of death is difficult for most societies. Israel is no different in this respect. But there is a way in which Israel is impertinently different. Here death is somehow more fitly celebrated. Not in a macabre fashion, but accepted for what it is: both a tragedy and an opportunity for celebration. It is celebrated in the true meaning of that word: “solemnized, with appropriate rites and ceremonies.” Anthropologists studying primitive peoples find the rites associated with death a clue to many values of the tribes. I believe that a trenchant sociological analysis of societies from the perspective of funeral rites may get us closer to the inmost core of values than their other analytic strategies.'This essay is to be understood in that light.