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“How could such a thing happen?” A case study of the Israeli reaction to middle class delinquency

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Abstract

A survey of the Israeli press coverage of the twelfth grade gang, a group of middle-class delinquents who were accused and subsequently found guilty of housebreaking and robbery, indicated that it led to a wide-ranging debate about the merits and drawbacks of Israeli society in the wake of independence. There were three major kinds of response: that the gang was atypical of the country’s youth (self-defense); that it was indicative of much more basic flaws in the nascent Jewish state (self-criticism); and that it proved the superiority of certain life-styles within Israeli society (self-congratulation). By giving rise to these competing etiology stories, the twelfth grade gang led to a deepening of the divisions within Israeli society rather than the creation of a united front against delinquency.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Bar Ilan University, Israel

    Gerald Cromer

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  1. Gerald Cromer
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This study was carried out with the help of a grant from the Schnitzer Foundation for Research on the Israeli Economy and Society.

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Cromer, G. “How could such a thing happen?” A case study of the Israeli reaction to middle class delinquency. Cont Jewry 16, 14–26 (1995). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02962385

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02962385

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