Paper short abstract:

I argue that the paradox that contrasts the success of scientific and technological Jewish-Israeli creativity with its unsupportive geopolitical environment promotes the public assertion of Jewish chosenness and overpowers certain private epistemological uncertainties in this regard.

Paper long abstract:

I argue that paradox, in the case of the numerous and widely celebrated scientific and technological Jewish-Israeli creative achievements in Israel, is a key player in the arising of mythical impetuses and fantastical assertions.

The paradox that lies at the heart of this celebrated creativity emphasizes its impressive and successful emergence in spite of Israel's geopolitical challenge-ridden environment. Ethnographic findings show that a strongly fantastical element pervades the public sphere which, on the one hand, promotes the construction of a fictional-historical narrative of miraculous transcendence that establishes an inherent implausibility in Israel's creative success story, and, on the other, dissipates the tension between implausibility and achievement through the simultaneous display of implausibility with various Jewish symbols, thus evoking traditional cultural myths and fantastical theological notions of superiority, chief among them is the mythical cultural key symbol of (intellectual) chosenness - the Jewish genius.

In private interviews, Israeli inventors and entrepreneurs (the chosen), thrown off balance by the paradox but devoid of alternative explanations for Israeli creative exploits, express an uncomfortable and reluctant acceptance of the myth of chosenness. Through the public ideology and private ontologies' mutual engagement and despite chosenness' fantasticality, these social actors' critical uncertainties are overpowered and their epistemologies oriented towards state-supported mythical and mystically flavored explanations.

This presentation shows that paradox can be used by institutional power to mediate between a mythical cultural reservoir and state-supported narratives through which the Israeli scientific and technological context becomes imbued with a cultural fantastical spectre.