In Hebrew, the term “kitchen,” or “kitchenette,” is used to describe the inner forum of policy makers composed of senior officials and advisors, which convenes to formulate security assessments. This term was first used during Golda Meir’s tenure as prime minister in the early 1970s, when she regularly convened meetings with political leaders and advisers on Saturday nights to prepare for the following day’s full cabinet meeting. These meetings took place in her private kitchen, over a cake she had just baked. The original forum, which was nicknamed “Golda’s kitchen,” included Moshe Dayan, Yigal Allon, Yisrael Galili, and Yaakov Shimshon Shapira, who were accompanied by other senior officials as required.
Marcus’ video centers on the invasion of the domestic territory of the kitchen by political space, so that state and home are transformed into a single entity. The scene he enacts refers to the blurring of boundaries between family and state that characterizes life in Israel, symbolically transforming the state into an extension of the biological family.
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