New Article: Peleg, A New Hebrew Literary Diaspora? Israeli Literature Abroad

Peleg, Yaron. “A New Hebrew Literary Diaspora? Israeli Literature Abroad.” DSpace@Cambridge.

 

URL: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/254458

 

Abstract

Although the modern stage in the development of Hebrew began in Europe about two hundred years ago, after 1948 modern Hebrew became confined for the most part to the state of Israel. The tumultuous course of Jewish history in the past two centuries, including the Holocaust, the acculturation of North American Jewry, and above all the creation of a Hebrew speaking sovereign state in the Land of Israel, have by and large emptied the Jewish diaspora of Hebrew; certainly of the creative kind of modern Hebrew, which inspired the poets and writers of the Jewish Enlightenment and the Hebrew Revival in Europe, and the North American Hebraists in the first half of the twentieth century. And yet in the past few decades we are witnessing a growing number of Hebrew writers who are no longer confined by geography. Although they still publish their works in Israel, they write them elsewhere, mainly in the US and Europe. Increasingly, too, their works reflect their habitat as well, the peoples and cultures of their countries of residence. Are we witnessing the birth of what can perhaps be termed a “post-national Hebrew” era, an era in which Israel remains an inspiring cultural center, but no longer the only location for the creation of original work in Hebrew? This article looks at various Hebrew novels that were written outside of Israel in the last few decades and examines the contours of what may perhaps be a new chapter in the history of modern Hebrew.

Whether this level of private spending and its concentration on sicker and higher income individuals violates the commitment of equity and fairness is up to the citizens of Israel. For those of us in the U.S. we only wish our level of inequality was so low. In making the decision on what Israel should do about its inequality it would be helpful to understand why individuals use private funding for services that are covered by the national health insurance system. And, most importantly does using a different source of funds (private versus public) impact on the health outcomes of the care involved. This issue is particularly relevant with respect to the very high use of private financing for surgeries.

 

 

 

New Article: Renshon et al, Paired Experiments on the Israeli Knesset and Public

Renshon, Jonathan, Keren Yarhi-Milo, and Joshua D. Kertzer. “Democratic Leaders, Crises and War. Paired Experiments on the Israeli Knesset and Public.” (online paper).

 

URL: http://jonathanrenshon.com/Site/CurrentResearch_files/DemocraciesWarCrises030216.pdf (PDF)

 

Abstract

IR theorists have focused in recent years on how and whether regime type affects conflict, and in particular on whether democracies have advantages over other types of states in either “contests of will” or war-fighting. Despite the remarkable amount of attention paid, the inherent limits of observational data – even with improved methods and newly-developed datasets – have prevented the formation of any consensus. We contend that one missing piece of the puzzle is direct evidence on a key aspect of theories of democratic credibility and success: the beliefs of leaders. To address this, we present evidence from a survey experiment fielded on a unique elite sample: current and former members of the Israeli Knesset. From them, we learn that Israeli leaders’ patterns of beliefs accord with some interpretations of bargaining theory: they see democracies as both more likely to back down in a crisis, but also more likely to emerge victorious should a dispute escalate to war. We also field our study on two representative samples of the Israeli Jewish public, giving us leverage to address the question of how similar leaders are to the public they represent, and the mechanisms through which democracy shapes beliefs about crisis behavior and war outcomes. Here, we find support for the notion that (at least in some cases), experiments on \the average citizen” generalize nicely to elites.

 

 

 

New Article: Weiss, The Politics of Yiddish in Israeli Popular Culture

Weiss, Shayna. “Shtisel’s Ghosts: The Politics of Yiddish in Israeli Popular Culture.” In Geveb, March 6, 2016.

 

URL: http://ingeveb.org/blog/shtisel-s-ghosts-the-politics-of-yiddish-in-israeli-popular-culture

 

Extract

The popular embrace, in newspapers and talkbacks, of Shtisel’s Yiddish stands in contrast to the unease with which Arabic is received in Israeli society, even on television; Yiddish is a softer, safer other for mainstream Jewish Israeli viewers. Yet Yiddish is not feminized and defanged, because Shtisel succeeds in challenging those stereotypes by displaying the breadth of Yiddish in the Israeli Hasidic context. Shtisel also humanizes Israeli Haredim, whose reputation among secular Israelis is often stereotyped to the point of invoking anti-Semitic tropes. Not all non-Hebrew languages in Israel are created equal.

Policy Paper: Göbel, The Israeli Lobby for Research and Innovation in the European Union

Göbel, Benedict. “The Israeli Lobby for Research and Innovation in the European Union. An Example of Efficient Cooperation in the European Neighbourhood?” Bruges Political Research Papers 49/2015 (2016).

 

URL: https://www.coleurope.eu/system/files_force/research-paper/wp49_gobel.pdf (PDF)

 

Abstract
Israel figures among the world-leaders in R&D expenditure and has a high-performing scientific community. Since the 1990s it has been associated with the Scientific Policy of the European Union via the European Research Framework Programmes (FP). The cooperation between Israel and the EU in this domain has gradually increased and benefits the scientific communities on both sides. In 2014 the association of Israel to the latest and biggest European FP ever adopted (Horizon 2020) was renewed for the fourth time. Based on all the scientific evidence provided, the elaboration of a European Research Policy can be identified as a highly regulated domain, offering relevant ‘channels of influence’. These channels offer Israel the opportunity to act within the Research Policy system. Being a member of several formal EU bodies in charge of implementing EU Research Policy, Israel is able to introduce its positions effectively. This is accompanied by an outstanding level of activity by Israel in linking concrete EU Research Policy measures to the Israeli Scientific Community at the national level. To carry out this task, Israel relies on an effective organization, which remodels the provided EU structures: European ‘National Contact Points’ (NCPs) are concentrated within the ‘Europe Israel R&D Directorate’ (ISERD). ISERD connects efficiently all the relevant actors, forums and phases of EU-Israeli Research Policy. ISERD can be recognized as being at the heart of Israel’s research cooperation with the EU.

 

 

 

New Article: Jha and Shayo, Financial Market Exposure Raises Support for Peace

Jha, Saumitra, and Moses Shayo. “Financial Market Exposure Raises Support for Peace.” January 17, 2016.
 
URL: http://web.stanford.edu/~saumitra/papers/Political_Economist_piece.pdf (PDF)
 
Extract

A month and a half prior to the highly contested 2015 Israeli elections, we randomly
assigned 1,345 Jewish Israeli voters to either a financial asset treatment or a control group. Individuals in the asset treatment received endowments of assets that tracked the value of specific funds or company stocks from both Israel and the Palestinian Authority, or an endowment of cash they could invest in an asset that tracked the Tel Aviv 25 index. They were also given incentives to monitor the performance of their asset and to make weekly decisions to buy or sell part of their portfolio. We further randomized the dates at which individuals would be entirely divested of their portfolio to be either before or after the elections, and randomly assigned the initial value of the portfolio ($50 or $100).

 

 

 

Policy paper: O’Donnell, The European Union as a Mediator in Israel-Palestine

O’Donnell, Hugh. “The European Union as a Mediator in Israel-Palestine: Operations Cast Lead and Protective Edge.” EU Diplomacy Paper 01/2016.

 

URL: https://www.coleurope.eu/system/files_force/research-paper/edp_1_2016_odonnell.pdf (PDF)

 

Abstract
The European Union (EU) has played an important, yet inconsistent role in the Israel-Palestine conflict since the1980 Venice Declaration. This paper analyses how the EU’s role as a mediator has changed more recently in the Israel-Gaza conflict. Specifically, it examines how the ‘Concept on Strengthening EU Mediation and Dialogue Capacities’ adopted in 2009 and the creation of the European External Action Service and the High Representative by the Lisbon Treaty have changed the EU’s resources and strategies as a mediator as well as how these developments improved cooperation and coordination with other mediators. This analysis is done through a comparison of the EU’s role in the Israeli Operation Cast Lead in 2008/2009 and Operation Protective Edge in 2014. It is argued that the aforementioned changes made the EU a more capable mediator and facilitated internal coordination. However, these changes did not create more resources for the EU as a mediator, rather they changed how the EU used its resources.

 

 

 

Online paper: Ben-Meir, The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. Time for a New Strategy

Ben-Meir, Alon. “The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. Time for a New Strategy.”

URL: http://www.socialistsanddemocrats.eu/sites/default/files/Proposal%20Full%20Document_EU_final_saving_jordan_river_160303.pdf (PDF)

Abstract

After nearly seven decades of conflict, peace between Israel and the Palestinians remains elusive. The longer the conflict persists, the more intractable it will become. Those Israelis and Palestinians who wish to have it all are dangerously misguided and will ultimately condemn any prospect for peaceful coexistence.
The new international effort led by the US and the EU to resume the peace negotiations must not lose sight of the popular demand of the majority on both sides to live in peace, because on their own, they will not come to terms with one another. The regional turmoil must not forestall the Israeli-Palestinian peace process; on the contrary, it should serve as the catalyst that could end one of the longest conflicts in modern history.
Past experiences also revealed that although some progress was made through US mediation, the negotiations failed to produce an agreement and nothing indicates that the resumption of the negotiations under US auspices would lead to different results. As such, it has become increasingly clear that only international intervention would provide the practical channel for the peace negotiations and motivate or incentivize both sides to come to terms with the inevitability of coexistence. The EU role is central to the success of these efforts, provided that Obama or his successor stop enabling Israel to pursue its self-destructive path by no longer providing Israel with unconditional political backing as well as economic and military support. Indeed, the two-state solution remains the only viable option that allows for peaceful coexistence, on which any new initiative must be based.

Online paper: Shay, The Islamic State (ISIS) and the Subterranean Warfare

Shay, Shaul. “The Islamic State (ISIS) and the Subterranean Warfare.” Institute for Policy and Strategy Publications, IDC Herzliya, December 2015.

 

URL: http://www.herzliyaconference.org/_Uploads/dbsAttachedFiles/ISISshay2015.pdf [PDF]

 

Extract

Since the IDF’s discovery and detonation of 32 terror tunnels dug by Hamas in Gaza beneath Israeli territory during the course of Operation Protective Edge (2014), the Israeli security agencies are concerned by the potential threat of tunnels across the border with Lebanon and Syria. The ISIS branch in Sinai ‘Vilayet Sinai’ (former Ansar Beit al Maqdis)and jihadi groups in Gaza strip can use tunnels to infiltrate into Israel or “tunnel bombs” against Israeli positions along the borders. Israel has to be ready to deal with sub terrain threats along all its borders and to find technological and operational solutions to the sub terrain strategic threats.

 

 

 

New Publication: The Battle over Legitimacy; 2014 Protective Edge and International Law

New Issue of Terror and Democracy (27, January 2016), by the Israel Democracy Institute:

This issue focuses on the analysis of an incident around the investigation of an Israeli soldier in Britain on suspicion of involvement with war crimes during Operation “Protective Edge”. This manifestation of a growing phenomenon, whereby information on IDF soldiers is gathered for the purpose of pressing charges against them in foreign countries. Against the background of this phenomenon, you can read Prof. Amichai Cohen’s article on the employment of the universal jurisdiction principle against Israel, and an article by Dr. Moran Yarchi (IDI and the IDC) on the role of this event in the ongoing battle over the image of Operation “Protective Edge”.

הקרב על הלגיטימציה: מלחמת התדמית הממושכת של מבצע “צוק איתן” ד”ר מורן ירחי מבצע “צוק איתן” הסתיים בקיץ 2014, אך הקרב על הלגיטימציה שלו עדיין חי וקיים, כפי שניתן היה ללמוד מחקירתו בבריטניה של קצין מילואים אשר לחם במבצע. מאמר זה בוחן את העמדה לפיה מאבקים צבאיים כיום אינם מוגבלים למלחמה צבאית אלא הם כוללים מאבק על התודעה, ומכאן כל מדינות לנהל את מאבקן גם בזירות הלחימה הנוספות, ובראשן בחזית התדמיתית.

המשפט הפלילי הבינלאומי והעמדה לדין של ישראלים פרופ’ עמיחי כהן מאז ראשית המאה הנוכחית אנו עדים לניסיונות שונים להפעיל סמכות שיפוט בינלאומית נגד אזרחים ישראלים, שפעלו במסגרת העימותים בין ישראל לשכנותיה. על רקע חקירתו של חייל ישראל בבריטניה ביחס למבצע “צוק איתן”, סוקר מאמר זה את האופן בו ניתן לעשות שימוש נגד ישראלים במנגנון הסמכות האוניברסלית או בסמכות בית הדין הפלילי הבינלאומי.

Research Paper: Sayag and Zussman, Distribution of Rental Assistance Between Tenants and Landlords: The Case of Students in Central Jerusalem

Sayag, Doron, and Noam Zussman. “The Distribution of Rental Assistance Between Tenants and Landlords: The Case of Students in Central Jerusalem.” Discussion Paper No. 2015.1 (February 2015), Bank of Israel Research Department(41 pp).

 

URL: http://www.boi.org.il/he/Research/DocLib/dp201501e.pdf (PDF)

Abstract

Students living in rental apartments in central Jerusalem were provided grants in 2006–11, in order to encourage urban renewal. This led to a marked increase in the number of students in the area. This study examined the distribution of the benefit between the tenants and the landlords. It relied predominantly on rental advertisements as well as actual rents from 2000–2012, and on administrative data of the rent paid by grant recipients. The research method was based on hedonic estimations of the rent using a difference-in-differences method—the rent in the center of the city during the grants period compared with the periods before and after, vis-à-vis that difference in similar neighborhoods (including adjacent to the city center) during those periods. The research indicates—subject to the assumption that actual rents and prices quoted in rental notices moved together—that in the periods around the start of the grant program and around its cancellation, the share of the grants reaching the recipients’ landlords ranged from one-fifth to two-fifths. The grants led to an increase in rents in the center of the city for nonrecipients as well, so that the overall additional rent is equivalent to four-fifths of the grant amounts. These rates are within the broad range of findings worldwide.

 

 

Conference Paper: Kimhi, Is Foreign Farm Labor a Blessing or a Curse?

Kimhi, Ayal. “Is Foreign Farm Labor a Blessing or a Curse? Evidence from Israel”. International Association of Agricultural Economists, August 9-14, 2015.

 

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/211852 [PDF]

Abstract

After Israel became self-sufficient in food in the late 1960s, farmers started migrating out of agriculture while production continued to increase towards export markets. This process intensified considerably when foreign labor became available. Traditional production theory predicts that foreign workers replace local workers, but the number of Israeli hired farm workers has actually increased since the arrival of foreign labor. This paper develops a modified theoretical model in which farm labor is heterogeneous, so that changes in the number of foreign and local hired workers are not necessarily opposite in sign. The results of the model are consistent with the observation that the availability of foreign labor has led to an increase in the production and export of labor-intensive horticultural products. Farms became larger and more specialized, and this has led to labor specialization, with foreign workers doing manual tasks and Israeli hired employees doing mostly managerial and professional tasks.

 

 

 

Conference paper: Moskovich, Ramon’s Leadership in the new Israeli Labor Union

Moskovich, Yaffa. “Ramon’s Leadership in the new Israeli Labor Union: The Histadrut.” European Conference on Management, Leadership & Governance (November 2015).

 
URL: http://search.proquest.com/openview/d52d59af091005feb53467157ab3e094/1
 
Abstract

In Israel, the old Histadrut, or organization of trade unions, was founded as a welfare agency, it employed about one third of the labor force, and it was the dominant health-service provider, primarily funded by insurance premiums. As a socialist entity, the Histadrut was linked politically and economically to the Labor Party, which helped fund it while in power. The old Histadrut was managed on a political basis, and suffered from organizational decline, including huge debts and economic bankruptcy in most of its institutions and assets. In 1994, a new leader, Haim Ramon, was elected to run the organization. Acting against union members, Ramon transformed the Histadrut into a confederation of autonomous labor unions, selling off Histadrut enterprises and assets to private investors, and severing all political ties. This paper demonstrates the unusual union leadership style of Ramon, who downsized, weakened, and destroyed the Israeli union, while most union leaders act to empower their organization.

 

 

 

Conference Paper: Iganski and Sweiry, Antisemitism and Social Media

Iganski, Paul, and Abe Sweiry. “Antisemitism and Social Media”.

 

URL: http://eprints.lancs.ac.uk/75744/

 
Abstract

It is now well-known that each time there is an upsurge in the Israel-Palestine conflict there is a rise in violent and other abusive incidents against Jews around the world. So it was in 2014 with Israel’s ‘Operation Protective Edge’ military action in July and August. Numerous backlash incidents against Jews in the UK and elsewhere in the world were reported by news media. The news reporting mainly focused on physical acts: violence and the daubing of insults and slogans on synagogues and other communal buildings. This time around, however, there were also numerous instances of anti-Jewish abuse on social media, to the extent that by the end of July 2014, the Israeli daily newspaper Ha’aretz reported “an explosion of anti-Semitic abuse on social networks, including Facebook and Twitter”. There has, however, been little sustained or in-depth analysis of the problem of antisemitism on social media. Using the methodology of corpus linguistics, we carried out a rapid response analysis of the phenomenon on Twitter to inform the recent report of the All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry against Antisemitism. In our paper, we discuss our methods of analysis, the key findings, and the potential we see for the future in using corpus approaches for the analysis of antisemitism and other manifestations of discriminatory discourse.

 

 

 

Conference Paper: Bar-Ilan et al, Israeli Parties and Party Leaders on Facebook during the 2013 Election Campaign

Bar-Ilan, Judit, Jenny Bronstein, and Noa Aharony. “Israeli Parties and Party Leaders on Facebook during the 2013 Election Campaign.” iConference 2015 Proceedings, 12 pp.

 

URL: http://hdl.handle.net/2142/73671

 

Abstract

During the 2013 elections in Israel one of the major methods of interaction of the political parties and their leaders with potential voters was through their Facebook pages. These pages were followed for 50 days preceding the elections. For each page, 30% of the posts on the page were analyzed in terms of their rhetoric and subject. The largest number of the analyzed posts was intended for bonding with the audience, and unsurprisingly politics was the most frequent topic. The findings show that personal posts received the largest number of likes pointing to the personal nature of the elections. Findings were compared with results of analysis of the Facebook pages of the US Presidential candidates. Similarities were found, even though in Israel there is a party system and elections are not personal.

Conference Paper: Kagan, Judicial Resistance to Detention of Asylum-Seekers in Israel and the United States

Kagan, Michael. “Limiting Deterrence: Judicial Resistance to Detention of Asylum-Seekers in Israel and the United States.” Texas International Law Journal Symposium: Immigration and Freedom of Movement, February 5, 2015.

 

URL: http://scholars.law.unlv.edu/facpub/936  For symposium program, click here.

 

Abstract

Governments have advanced the argument that asylum­-seekers may be detained in order to deter other would-­be asylum­-seekers from coming. But in recent litigation in the United States and Israel, this justification for mass detention met with significant resistance from courts. This essay looks at the way the American and Israeli courts dealt with the proposed deterrence rationale for asylum­-seeker detention. It suggests that general deterrence raises three sequential questions:

1. Is deterrence ever legitimate as a stand alone justification for depriving people of liberty?
2. If deterrence is sometimes legitimate, is it valid as a general matter in migration control, or is it limited to certain exceptional circumstances?
3. If deterrence is a legitimate goal, is there any effective proportionality limit on the measures a government may take against asylum-­seekers?

The American and Israeli courts did not answer these questions in the same way, and they did not foreclose all potential future uses of deterrence by their respective governments. But they signaled considerable judicial resistance, which may make it more difficult for governments to justify mass detention in the future.

 

 

Conference Paper: Meidan and Ben-Haroush, Self Evalutaion of Higher Education Colleges

Meidan, Arthur, Kathy Ben-Haroush. “Self Evalutaion of Higher Education Colleges: The Case of Israel.” International Academic Research Conference University of London, Aug 3-6, 2015.

 

URL: http://www.ijbts-journal.com/images/column_1439518397/Full Paper TRACT3.pdf

 

Abstract
The issue of quality has become lately the key element of assessing performance in higher education throughout the world. In order to increase efficiency,continuous improvement and promotion of teamwork, the checking and assessment of quality in higher education has become of paramount importance. This paper presents the process of evaluation of higher education in Israeli colleges. This is a requirement by the Council of Higher Education (CHE) that supervises the standards and controls the quality of delivery through its Quality Assurance Division. This is done via a “Self Evaluation Process”, through which every department/faculty in each college is evaluated every 5 years or so , on a number of parameters. The study presents and discusses these parameters of evaluation and presents the main elements in the process of self evaluation problems, strengths and weaknesses , that are part of this process. It further enables to compare this method to other methods of evaluation of higher education in other countries. In addition, it presents the benefits of the self evaluation approach, to the individual institution and its staff (academic, managerial and support).

 

 

New Article: Farah and Shani, Assessing the Safety of Israeli Arab Children in their Travel to and from School

Farah, Haneen, and Maor Shani. “A Multi-Faceted Approach for Assessing the Safety of Israeli Arab Children in their Travel to and from School.” Paper submitted for the 94th Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board, January 2015, Washington D.C.

 

URL: http://repository.tudelft.nl/view/ir/uuid:6d62f54d-51f7-4afe-9fd4-b88a4b3b6fda/

 

Abstract
Road crashes are considered as one of the main threats to human life around the world. Children pedestrians are most at risk to be seriously injured in road crashes, in particular, those from economically disadvantaged communities. Various factors contribute to their high involvement in road crashes. Some of these factors are related to the characteristics of the children and their parents, while others are related to the physical urban road environment. The share of Arab children in Israel ( The present research, a part of a larger ongoing project, proposes a multifaceted approach and applies it to a real case study in the Arab local council of Jadeidi-Makr in Israel. The proposed approach is based on: (1) data collected by means of questionnaires posted to the children and their parents concerning the travel characteristics of the children to school; (2) objective data on the children walking routes collected by GPS-enabled watches; and (3) road safety auditing of the school environment and the main routes to the school.
The results of this study found that children’s characteristics, their travel behavioral patterns, their parents’ safety perceptions, and the road environment are all significant factors when considering children’s safety as pedestrians. Thus, improvements in the infrastructure, children and parents’ safety awareness, and police enforcement are essential to increase Arab children’s safety. The responsible authorities, decision and policy makers are called to join forces and take immediate actions to realize the suggested improvements in reality.

 

 

Report: Ram et al, Forecasting the Israeli 2015 Elections Using a Smartphone Application

Ram, Yoav, Ofer Moshaioff, Idan Cohen, and Omri Dor. “Forecasting the Israeli 2015 Elections Using a Smartphone Application.” arXiv:1503.04784

 

URL: http://arxiv.org/abs/1503.04784 [PDF]

 

Abstract
We developed a smartphone application, Ha’Midgam, to poll and forecast the results of the 2015 Israeli elections. The application was downloaded by over 7,500 people. We present the method used to control bias in our sample and our forecasts. We discuss limitations of our approach and suggest possible solutions to control bias in similar applications.