(1) Melamed, G., ‘You are wrong, Honorable Judges’, Nekuda, LXXXIV, 1 (03 1985), 24–25Google Scholar. Melamed criticizes here the court decision in a case concerning a right-wing underground activist (In Hebrew. Sources in Hebrew will be indicated hereafter as [H]).

(2) We aim to address the challenge singled out by Offe, Claus in his remarks on rationality and social norms in this journal; namely, to explain ‘why particular social norms […] have lost their “grip” upon actors’ (The Puzzling Scope of Rationality, Archives européennes de sociologie, XXXII (1991), 83)Google Scholar; and analyze the inner logic of such transformation in terms of social experience as interpreted in a reflexive, active manner (S. Lukes, The Rationality of Norms, ibid. : 142–149).

(3) Illustrative is the literature on social norms, motivations, interests and benefits. See e.g. Ekeh, P., Social Exchange Theory. The Two Traditions (Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1974)Google Scholar; and the symposium on the puzzling limits of rationality, Archives européennes de sociologie, XXXII (1991), 83–149Google Scholar, especially the contributions by Jon Elster, Steven Lukes and Ralph Turner.

(4) Piliavin, J. A. and Charng, H. W., ‘Altruism: A Review of Recent Theory and Research’, Annual Review of Sociology, XVI (1990), 27–65CrossRefGoogle Scholar; R. Friedland and R. Alford, Bringing Society Back In: Symbols, Practices, and Institutional Contradictions, ms. On free riding see Coleman, J. S., Riders, Free and Zealots, , pp. 59–82in Cook, K. S., ed. Social Exchange Theory (London, Sage, 1987)Google Scholar; and section 8 below.

(5) Both collective and methodological individualistic approaches recognize the centrality of a long-term perspective, although they differ in its conceptualization. Thus, for instance, Maurice Bloch and Jonathan Parry refer to the ‘long-term order of exchange’ whereas Jon Elster addresses it in terms of ‘long-term self-interests’. See Bloch, and Parry, , Money and the Morality of Exchange (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1989), introductory chapterGoogle Scholar; Elster, , The Cement of Society (Cambridge University Press, 1989).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

(6) Sahlins, M., ‘On the Sociology of Primitive Exchange’, in Banton, M., ed. The Relevance of Models for Social Anthropology (New York, Praeger, 1965), p. 148.Google Scholar

(7) Whereas utility maximization or optimization stands as a trans-historical principle at the basis of specific, market exchange analyses, as developed especially by rational action theorists, research on ge has emphasized the historical and contextual character of exchange. Among the works that attempted to elaborate systematic analytical bridges between the two planes, see Hirschman, A. O., Shifting Involvements (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1982)Google Scholar; Eisenstadt, S. N. and Roniger, L., Patrons, Clients and Friends (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1984)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Elster, The Cement of Society. On rational action theory see Elster, , ed. Rational Choice (New York University Press, 1986), and below.Google Scholar

(8) Befu, H., ‘Social Exchange’, Annual Review of Anthropology (1977), 6: 255–281CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Eisenstadt and Roniger, Patrons, Clients and Friends, pp. 33–42.

(9) Karylowski, J., ‘Two Types of Altruistic Behavior: Doing Good to Feel Good or to Make the Other Feel Good’, pp. 396–419, in Derlega, V. and Grzelak, J., eds. Cooperation and Helping Behavior (New York, Academic Press, 1982).Google Scholar

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(11) Laquer, W., A History of Zionism (New York, Schoken Books, 1972)Google Scholar; Eisenstadt, S. N., Israeli Society (London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1967).Google Scholar

(12) Shapira, A., Visions in Conflict (Tel Aviv, Am Oved, 1988) [H]Google Scholar. This tendency, which Mordechai Rotenberg defines as ‘active designification of the self’ characterized earlier Jewish movements as well, for instance late eighteenth century Hassidism. See Rotenberg, M., Dialogue with Deviance (Philadelphia, ISHI, 1983), pp. 69–80.Google Scholar

(13) Geertz, C., ‘Religion as a Cultural System’, pp. 87–125, in The Interpretation of Cultures (New York, Basic Books, 1973).Google Scholar

(14) S. N. Eisenstadt, Israeli Society, pp. 17–19.

(15) Ortner, S. B., ‘On Key Symbols’, American Anthropologist, LXXV (1973), 1338–1346.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

(16) On the former see Friedman, M., ‘The State of Israel as Theological Dilemma’, pp. 165–215, in Kimmerling, B., ed. The Israeli State and Society: Boundaries and Frontiers (New York, SUNY Press, 1989).Google Scholar

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(18) This can best be seen in a book based on in-depth interviews of kibbutz members by Lieblich, A., Kibbutz Makom (Jerusalem, Shocken, 1984 [H]).Google Scholar

(19) Maier, C. S., ed. Changing Boundaries of the Political (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1987), p. 21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

(20) On these concepts, see Kavolis, V., ‘On the Self-Person Differentiation’, pp. 132–153, in Id. ed. Designs of Selfhood (London, Associated University Presses, 1984).Google Scholar

(21) Grathoff, R. H., The Structure of Social Inconsistencies (The Hague, Martinus Nijhoff, 1970)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Handelman, D., ‘Charisma, Liminality, and Social Types’, pp. 346–359, in Cohen, E., Lissak, M. and Almagor, U., eds. Comparative Social Dynamics. Essays in Honor of S. N. Eisenstadt (Boulder, Westview, 1985).Google Scholar

(22) Handelman, D., ‘Symbolic Types, The Body and Circus’, Semiotica, LXXXV (1991) (3/4): 205–225.Google Scholar

(23) Adler, C. and Kahane, R., ‘The Basic Images of Society in Pre-State Life’, pp. 1–13, in Eisenstadt, S. N. et al. Israel. A Society in Formation (Jerusalem, Magnes Press, 1972).Google Scholar

(24) David, J. Ben, ‘The Social Status of the Teacher in Israel’, Megamot, VIII (1957) (2): 201–212 [H].Google Scholar

(25) Feige, M., ‘Israeli Ambassadors; A Symbolic Interactionist Perspective.’ M. A. Dissertation, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1988 [H]Google Scholar; Curtis, M. and Gitelson, S. A., eds. Israel in the Third World (New Brunswick, Transaction Books, 1976).Google Scholar

(26) Eshkol, L., In the hardships of Settlement (Tel Aviv, Am Oved, 1958/1959), pp. 262–263 [H].Google Scholar

(27) ‘The Praise of the Private Sector or We are all Halutzim’, in Alterman, N., The Seventh Column (Tel Aviv, Hakibbutz Hameuhad, 1969) volume I, pp. 206–209 [H].Google Scholar

(28) Firer, R., ‘The Rise and Fall of the Pioneer Myth’, Kivunim, XXIII (1984), 5–23 [H].Google Scholar

(29) Zerubabel, Y., The Last Stand: On the Transformation of Symbols in Modern Israeli Culture. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Pensylvania, 1980Google Scholar. Trumpeldor (1880–1920) was involved in the structuring of Jewish proto-military forces and the self-defense of the Jewish settlements of Palestine. As he died during an Arab attack on a northern settlement, he allegedly phrased one of the most famous halutz statements: ‘It is good to die for our country’.

(30) For example, the controversy on the real or mythological character of the drying of malaria swamps. See Bar-Gal, Y. and Shamai, S., ‘The Swamps of the Yezreel Valley. Legend and Reality’, Cathedra, XXVII (1983), 163–174 [H].Google Scholar

(31) Aran, G., ‘Jewish Zionist Fundamentalism: The Bloc of the Faithful in Israel (Gush Emunim)’, pp. 265–344, in Marty, M. E. and Appleby, R. S., eds. Fundamentalism Observed (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1991)Google Scholar; Aran, G. and Feige, M., ‘The Movement to Stop the Withdrawal in Sinai: A Sociological Perspective’, Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, XXIII (1987), 73–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

(32) Aran, G., The Land of Israel. Between Politics and Religion (Jerusalem, Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies, 1985) [H].Google Scholar

(33) S. N. Eisenstadt, Israeli Society; Horowitz, D. and Lissak, M., Trouble in Utopia (Albany, SUNY Press, 1989).Google Scholar

(34) Shapira, A., ‘The Native Generation’, Alpaim (1990) 2, 178–203 [H].Google Scholar

(35) B. Kimmerling, ‘Between the Primordial and Civil Definitions of the Collective Identity: The State of Israel or Eretz Israel’, pp. 262–283, in Cohen, Lissak and Almagor, Comparative Social Dynamics, op. cit.

(36) Goffman, E., ‘On Cooling the Mark Out. Some Aspects of Adaptation to Failure’, Psychiatry, XV (1952), 451–463.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

(37) In several interviews and comments, people have suggested that the term may have entered Hebrew from idiomatic Yiddish. One informant recalled the use of the term among Yiddish speakers in World War II. Yiddish scholars have suggested that it may have been used only in the sense of a freethinker, secular person, as it actually appears in Abak's, Yiddish-Hebrew Dictionary (Paris, Elbrezniak, 1939)Google Scholar. Later dictionaries and anthologies of Yiddish do not include the term at all, probably hinting at a discontinuation in its use. It does not appear in Stutchkof's, Nahum monumental Treasure of the Yiddish Language (New York, Yiwo, 1950)Google Scholar nor in Morik's, LeibelYiddish Wisdom (Tel Aviv, s/e, 1984)Google Scholar, the most heavily coloured with Israeli Hebrew influences on Yiddish of its sort. Morik's anthology does not mention the word at all, despite its inclusion of a wide spectrum of terms designating suckers, many of which are of Hebrew origin: e.g. tipesh, golem, shoite, tam; as well as nar, bok, iotzmach, helmer, lekish, etc. (p. 171). Other informants have claimed that the term was used by Polish-speaking Jews in Eastern Europe. As early as 1966, a succint dictionary of Israeli slang suggested the word came to Hebrew [through Yiddish] from Polish (Sapan, R., The Dictionary of Israeli Slang (Jerusalem, Kiriat Sefer, 1966) [H], p. 57Google Scholar). In modern Polish, the word is indeed used in the sense of ‘fool’ (e.g. in Stanislawski's, Jan, Wielki Slownik Polsko-Angielski (Warsaw 1978), p. 262Google Scholar.—Thanks are due to Hava Turnianski for her comments on Yiddish use and her help with the Polish sources). It should be remarked that the term has become part of idiomatic Russian, with meanings somewhat similar to those of vernacular Hebrew. According to Eugene Rashkovsky of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, it refers to a person unconstrained by order, discipline or solidarity and, at the same time, foolish in interpreting the world and prone to be abused by others. Rashkovsky claims that the Russian neologism originated within the Jewish mafia of Odessa, depicted in Isaac Babel's, ‘Odessa Stories’ (personal communication, 17 June 1992).

(38) Oring, E., Israeli Humor. The Content and Structure of the Chizbat Tradition in the Palmach (Albany, SUNY Press, 1981)Google Scholar. The Palmach was a pre-state militia, supported by the central organizations of the Jewish community in Mandatory Palestine.

(39) Katriel, T., Talking Straight (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1986).Google Scholar

(40) Gelber, Y., New Homeland. Immigration and Absorption of Central European Jews 1933–1948 (Jerusalem, Leo Baeck Institute and Izhak Ben-Zvi Institute, 1990) [H].Google Scholar

(41) Probably the deformated Eastern European pronunciation of ‘jacket’, itself a metonym of formality in the hot climate of the Middle East. According to an alternative account of informants, yekke would be the acronym of the Hebrew expression ‘mentally numb Jew’ (yehudi kshe havana).

(42) In spite of its clear ‘unmarked’ linguistic stand, our contention is that the wider implications of the ‘freier syndrome’ can be fully comprehended only against the background of the dominant Jewish-Israeli sector and one of its hegemonic symbols of self representation, as developed below.

(43) Edna Lomsky-Feder, personal communication, November 1991. It should be remarked however that the expression can be used also in a friendly way between interlocutors who know each other sufficiently well to reflect jokingly on some act carried out thoughtlessly by one of them; this may generate joint laughter and only slight discomfort followed by a release of tension and displays of goodwill.

(44) Nitzan, G., ‘He is not a freier, Shalom Rokban…’, Hadashot, 5 02 1992 [H].Google Scholar

(45) Bloch, L. R., ‘The Meaning of Freier among American Immigrants’. Lecture delivered at the Hebrew University, 03 23, 1992.Google Scholar

(46) For instance, in Kishon, E., It all depends (Tel Aviv, Tversky, 1961) [H], pp. 44–46Google Scholar; and R. Sapan, The Dictionary, p. 57.

(47) Ben-Amotz, D. and Yehuda, N. Ben, Ecumenical Dictionary of Spoken Hebrew (Jerusalem, A. Lewin-Epstein, 1972), p. 190 [H]Google Scholar; and Id., Wit Dictionary of Spoken Hebrew (Tel Aviv, Zamora Bitan, 1982) [H].Google Scholar

(48) Wit Dictionary, p. 328.

(49) Maariv Lanoar, 10 June 1975, p. 31 [H].

(50) Yosef, R. Bar, ‘De-socialization and Re-socialization: The Process of Adaptation of New Immigrants’, International Migration Review, II (1968) 3, 27–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

(51) Kizel, A., ‘I'm not the State's freier’, Yediot Aharonot, 27 11 1991 [H].Google Scholar

(52) This is not to say that the freier was from the beginning the shadow side of the halutz. Even if theoretically a ‘fixed halutz’ could have already existed in the 1920s, the over-serious and realistic frame of mind of the pioneers precluded its wording in public discourse.

(53) Ben-Meir, D., Voluntary Activity in Israel: Theory and Practice. (Jerusalem, Karta, 1988) [H]Google Scholar; Kramer, R. M., Voluntary Agencies in the Welfare State (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1981)Google Scholar; Freidman, R. K. et al. ‘Local Action on Behalf of Local Collectivities in the US and Israel’, Journal of Voluntary Action Research, XVII (1988), 36–54.Google Scholar

(54) Interview, 31 May 1991. A clear indication of the emotional colouring of the term especially in the 1970s, is provided by the massive Hebraization of the family name of Freier, to names such as Herut, Heruti, Dror and Drori, all of which retain the original German meaning of freedom.

(55) Bloch, ‘The Meaning of Freier’.

(56) A 12-year old girl defined him for us as ‘half Arab, half Jewish’. Other youngsters too could not make up their minds as to a clear ethnic identification.

(57) The free rider (fr) is the person who makes use of available collective goods without participating in their cost. The fr thus takes advantage of others’ willingness to carry out social obligations, in order to evade his/her own share. Naturally enough, as the literature points out, the fr himself pretends to play out his/her duty, since otherwise his/her behavior might induce others’ withdrawal from generalized exchange, thus ultimately leading to the disappearance of the public good.

(58) It is discussed in works dealing with the unintended consequences of social action (e.g. Boudon, R., Undesired Consequences and Types of Structures of Systems of Interdependence, in Blau, P. M. and Merton, R. K., eds. Continuities in Structural Inquiries (London, Sage, 1981), pp. 255–284)Google Scholar; the rationality of social norms (e.g. Gambetta, D., Did they Jump or Were they Pushed? (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1987)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; the articles on ‘The Puzzling Scope of Rationality’, A.E.S., XXXII (1991), 81–149)Google Scholar; the models of zealot and free rider behavior (Coleman, ‘Free Riders and Zealots’); and the Prisoner and Altruistic Dilemma [PD, AD] (e.g. Buchanan, J. M., The Samaritan's Dilemma, pp. 71–85, in Phelps, E. S., ed. Altruism, Morality and Economic Theory (New York, Russel Sage Foundation, 1975)Google Scholar; Heckathorn, D. D., Collective Sanctions and the Emergence of Prisoner's Dilemma Norms, American Journal of Sociology, XCIV (1988), 535–562).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

(59) This similarity is most clearly shown in Israel in Anglophone movies and programs, where ‘sucker’ is routinely translated into the Hebrew ‘freier’.

(60) Nozick, R., Anarchy, State and Utopia (New York, Basic Books, 1974), p. 233.Google Scholar

(61) For a general discussion see Barhaim, G., ‘Popular Culture and Ideological Discontents: A Theory’, Politics, Culture and Society, III (1990) 3, 279–296.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

(62) Heckathorn, D. D., ‘Extensions of the Prisoner's Dilemma Paradigm: The Altruist's Dilemma and Group Solidarity’, Sociological Theory, IX (1991), 45–47.Google Scholar

(63) Heckathorn, ‘Extensions’, p. 47.

(64) We suggest tentatively that a persistent overcontrol and a subsequent sudden demise and dramatic confrontation around the hegemonic models of ge, as occurred in the Soviet Union, may be counterproductive for the institutionalization of idioms of oppositional control that retain a positive orientation to the public realm.

(65) Bellah, R. N. et al. Habits of the Heart (New York, Harper and Row, 1985)Google Scholar; Kapferer, B., Legends of People, Myths of State (Washington, Smithsonian Institute Press, 1988).Google Scholar