A sabra or tzabar (, plural: tzabarim) is a modern Hebrew term that defines any Jew born in Israel. The term came into widespread use in the 1930s to refer to a Jew who had been born in Palestine (including the British Mandate of Palestine and Ottoman Palestine; cf. New Yishuv & Old Yishuv), though it may have appeared earlier. Since the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, Israelis have used the word to refer to a Jew born anywhere in the Land of Israel.
The term alludes to a tenacious, thorny desert plant, known in English as prickly pear, with a thick skin that conceals a sweet, softer interior. The cactus is compared to Israeli Jews, who are supposedly tough on the outside, but delicate and sweet on the inside.
In 2010, over 4,000,000 Israeli Jews (70%) were sabras, with an even greater percentage of Israeli Jewish youths falling into this category. In 2015, about 75% of Israel's Jewish population was native-born. In 2020, this had further increased to 78%.
History
The term came into widespread use within the Yishuv, or Jewish population of Palestine, in the 1930s, but it is thought to have been used as far back as the early 20th century, when it was used to refer to the first generation of native-born (Hebrew speaking) Jews produced by the Zionist movement, the children of the immigrants of the First Aliyah that began in 1881 in Romania. This generation of natives referred to themselves as "etrogim." The term "Tzabar" may have been used by immigrants of the Second Aliyah and the Third Aliyah, originally as an insulting term. The changing of the meaning of the term, to emphasize the softer interior rather than the roughness, was done by the journalist Uri Kesari, who himself was a sabra. Kesari published an essay, "We Are the Leaves of the Sabra!", on 18 April 1931 in the newspaper Doar HaYom in which he argued against the discrimination which was cast against the native-born by the new immigrants. The 1931 census of Palestine found that of a recorded Jewish population of 174,610, 73,195 people (42%) were born in Palestine.
According to Israeli sociologist Oz Almog, who studied the sociological development of the term, the first indications of a new culture appeared around the time of World War I when the children of First Aliyah immigrants were already displaying traditional sabra characteristics. Avshalom Feinberg has been referred to as "the first sabra." In the 1920s this new Hebrew culture was visibly emerging. The term was in widespread use in the 1930s and 1940s, and it increasingly became a term of prestige as the sabra turned into a cultural hero within Israeli culture. At this time, there was now a large number of native-born Jews in the kibbutzim and moshavim and in urban areas, and as a result, sabra culture blossomed. Almog wrote that "as the Sabra archetype and stereotype took shape, the students at the Hebrew gymnasiums, the young people of the kibbutzim and moshavim, and the members of the youth movements and Palmach began developing a consciousness about their cultural uniqueness. They also produced and honed native status symbols and a peculiarly native Israeli style in language, dress, and collective leisure culture". He also claimed that the idea that a new Hebrew nation had arisen was widespread among Tel Aviv youth in the early 1940s.
In November 1948, with the 1948 Arab-Israeli War in its closing stages, Arthur Koestler published an article titled "Israel: the native generation" in which he profiled sabras as compared to Jewish immigrants from Europe and Arab and Muslim nations, who he described as a "lost generation", writing that "In their ensemble these form the lost generation of Israel, a transitory and amorphous mass which as yet lacks the character of a nation. Only in the native youth, born and reared in the country, does the first intimation of the future profile of Israel as a nation begin to outline itself." He claimed that "In his mental make-up the average young sabra is fearless to the point of recklessness, bold, extroverted, and little inclined towards, if not openly contemptuous of, intellectual pursuits" and that "The sabra's outlook on the world is rather provincial and hyper-chauvinistic. This could hardly be otherwise in a small and exposed pioneer community which had to defend its physical existence and build its State against almost impossible odds. One cannot create a nation without nationalism." That same month, Israel carried out its first census following independence. The census found that out of a Jewish population of 716,700, approximately 35% were native-born.