Concerned with how nationalist cultural codes are embedded in everyday life, studies of “nationalism-from-below” mistake nationalist meanings for the contents of official messages. Rather than studying the reception of spectacles and symbols produced from above, the article suggests looking at unofficial nationalism and focusing on the nationalist meanings of traditions and customs—especially those related to ritual and food—that are common to broad strata of the population but have almost no state involvement. Using the anthropological history of Israeli Independence Day as an exemplary case, and focusing on how people spend their country’s national day, the article examines the failure of official nationalism to design the holiday’s popular traditions. Next it surveys the development of what has become the popular mode of celebrating the day—the picnic and cookout. In due course, this practice was ritualized and iconized as representing “Israeliness,” an identity that is more ambivalent than the seamless images circulated from above. I argue that the meanings of unofficial practices, because of their triviality, lie not in the symbolic codes they enact, but rather in the synchronicity that ritualizes and iconizes a “way of life,” forms national solidarity, and imbues the performance with nationalist meanings.

中文翻译：

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以色列烧烤作为民族仪式：执行非官方的民族主义，或在琐碎中寻找意义

关注民族主义文化代码如何嵌入日常生活，“自下而上的民族主义”研究将民族主义的含义误认为是官方信息的内容。与其研究对从上而下产生的眼镜和符号的接受，这篇文章建议着眼于非官方的民族主义，并关注传统和习俗的民族主义意义——尤其是那些与仪式和食物有关的——为广大人口阶层所共有，但具有几乎没有国家参与。文章以以色列独立日的人类学历史为例，重点关注人们如何度过自己国家的国庆日，探讨官方民族主义未能设计节日流行传统的原因。接下来，它调查了已成为庆祝这一天的流行模式——野餐和野餐的发展。在适当的时候，这种做法被仪式化和图标化为代表“以色列”，一种比从上面传播的无缝图像更加矛盾的身份。我认为，非官方实践的意义，由于其琐碎，不在于它们制定的符号代码，而在于仪式化和象征化“生活方式”的同步性，形成民族团结，并为表演注入民族主义意义.