personal autonomous sphere immune from exterior intervention, and
guaranteeing the ability of any individual to effectuate her desires, have thus
come to occupy center stage in the American thinking, which revolves around
the notions of liberty and liberalism.306 As an important corollary, Americans
generally cherish individuals’ liberty to speak as they please in order to
achieve self-fulfillment and promote personal interests, even when their ideas
offend community values or other people.307 On the other hand, since identity
is independent of community in the eyes of the liberal American society, it
sees a diminished need to protect honor and reputation.308
The general observation that communitarianism leads to strict protection
of reputation whereas individualism strengthens the freedom of speech may
illuminate our analysis of the Israeli case. As we shall see, the inner tensions
within the Israeli law of defamation may be understood against the major
transformations that the Israeli society has undergone since the enactment of
the Defamation Act until the present day. This is so mainly with regard to
the principled balance between the right to reputation and freedom of speech
and, to a certain extent, also with regard to the particular context of the
definition of defamatory content. While the processes may be partially
attributed to social influences drawn directly from Germany and the United
States, as the foregoing discussion indicated, they are also grounded in more
distinctive Israeli phenomena.
B. The Defamation Act and Israeli Communitarianism
The Defamation Act was drafted and legislated in the early 1960s, less
than twenty years after the foundation of the State of Israel. The Jewish
majority, which is by far the most influential group in shaping the country’s
politics and culture, was characterized during that period by considerable
communitarianism, collectivism, and internal solidarity. Several reasons
contributed to this reality. First, in Jewish tradition the identity of the
individual is closely connected to membership in the community.309 Thus, the
shared ethnicity, religion, and history preserved strong communal bonds