Coping with fear: Frontier Kibbutzes and the Syrian-Israeli border war

In her article "Coping with Fear: Frontier Kibbutzes and the Syrian-Israeli Border War,” Orit Rozin discusses the practices and norms of border kibbutzes coping with daily hostilities. The Israel-Syrian border was a constant point of friction. Hostilities erupted over the cultivation and the control of the demilitarized zones and over water resources. Northern Kibbutzes both took part in triggering Syrian violence and were victims of that violence. Covering the interwar period 1956-1967, Rozin traces the subjective emotional reaction of kibbutz members exposed to Syrian violence. Focusing on fear and employing Barbara Rosenwein’s concept of emotional communities, she shows that members developed unique cultural practices to cope with the emotional challenge. However, despite genuine feelings and gestures of solidarity demonstrated by the city residents, these emotional norms were considered alien. Rozin shows that the emotional norms developed in the pre-State period and still nurtured in the kibbutzes were losing their grip.