Terms of visibility: Eldercare in an aging nation state - The Israeli case

Viewed within a sociohistorical context, eldercare in Israel is examined as a cultural construct evolving from invisibility of the old to growing visibility. Visibility is a function of the presence of eldercare in the public discourse that changes in correspondence with societal transformations such as globalization, fundamentalistic orientations, and post-Zionist trends. Three ethnographic case studies are analyzed to demonstrate the effects of these processes on alternative conceptions of eldercare. It is suggested that the symbolic languages of eldercare in Israeli culture are embedded in a unitary mode of exchange, namely, generalized reciprocity. The properties of these communal vocabularies are ascertained in an attempt to advance an argument interlinking care, identity, memory, and symbolic immortality.