Setting Boundaries to the Rule of Law in Israeli Children’s Weeklies of the 1950s: A Test Case for the Concept of Heroism in Socio-Legal Discourse

Abstract Children’s weekly magazines in Israel’s first decade offer a unique arena for legal research, since they provide a broad field for learning about the nature of the effort made by their curators to instil legal consciousness in children. These publications, as prominent educational materials and popular leading leisure resources, mediated to their young readers the current events, and they are a barometer of values, including the rule of law. Accordingly, the article presents some of the values that the weeklies stressed for coping with the challenges of the time from a legal perspective. The article also describes how cultural heroes in Israel were presented in the magazines and defined the concept of the rule of law of the period. It shows that along with the weeklies’ general commitment to the rule of law and the appreciation of law-abiding figures who strived for good, the magazines, including their editorials and op-eds, featured in their literature, illustrations and other elements, a deeper layer of acceptance and even encouragement of some types of behaviour that were inconsistent with the principle of upholding public law and human rights in a broad sense. This is especially apparent concerning the conduct surrounding border security.