Bulletin: Aliyah, Immigration, Refugees and Trafficking

Articles

• Ofir Abu, Fany Yuval, and Guy Ben-Porat, Responses of Ethiopian Jews in Israel to Stigmatization by the Police
• Debora Pricila Birgier et al, Self-Selection and Host Country Context in the Economic Assimilation of Political Refugees in the United States, Sweden, and Israel
• Jonah B. Cohen, Ethiopian-Israeli Community
• Ravit Talmi Cohn, Time Making and Place Making: A Journey of Immigration from Ethiopia to Israel
• David Dose et al, Comparing Immigrants from the Former Soviet Union to Israel and Germany
• Netanel Fisher and Avi Shilon, Integrating Non-Jewish Immigrants and the Formation of Israel’s Ethnic–Civic Nationhood
• Eti Gilad and Shosh Millet, The Identity of Ethiopian Immigrants in Israel
• Keith Goldstein and Pnina Golan-Cook, The Dilemma of Deviant Subcultures for Immigrant Youth Integration: An Analysis of Popularity Attainment in Israeli Schools
• Nelly Kfir and Adriana Kemp, The Legalization of Migrants and Human Rights Activism in Israel
• Michal Lev-Keren, Bias Factors in Mathematics Achievement Tests among Israeli Students from the Former Soviet Union
• Malka Muchnik et al, The Status of the Four Languages in Israel
• Larissa Remennick, Generation 1.5 of Russian-speaking immigrants in Israel and in Germany
• C. Zbenovich, Cross-Cultural Communication in Russian-Speaking Immigrant Families in Israel

Reviews

• Maina Chawla Singh, on Joseph Hodes’ From India to Israel: Identity, Immigration, and the Struggle for Religious Equality

Report

• Barry R. Chiswick, Linguistic and Economic Adjustment among Immigrants in Israel

Theses

• Noam Perry, The Promise and Pitfalls of Unilateral Pressure to Combat Human Trafficking: U.S. Pressure on Israel, the Philippines, and Thailand (PhD, Northeastern)

ToC: Israel Affairs 22.2 (2016)

Israel Affairs, Volume 22, Issue 2, April 2016 is now available online on Taylor & Francis Online. This new issue contains the following articles: Articles Writing Jewish history David Vital Pages: 257-269 | DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2016.1140346 How do states die: lessons for Israel Steven R. David Pages: 270-290 | DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2016.1140358Towards a biblical psychology for modern Israel: 10 guides for healthy living Kalman J. Kaplan Pages: 291-317 | DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2016.1140349 The past as a yardstick: Europeans, Muslim migrants and the onus of European-Jewish histories Amikam Nachmani Pages: 318-354 | DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2016.1140355 The mental cleavage of Israeli politics Eyal Lewin Pages: 355-378 | DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2016.1140352 Framing policy paradigms: population dispersal and the Gaza withdrawal Matt Evans Pages: 379-400 | DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2016.1140353 National party strategies in local elections: a theory and some evidence from the Israeli case David Nachmias, Maoz Rosenthal & Hani Zubida Pages: 401-422 | DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2016.1140356 ‘I have two homelands’: constructing and managing Iranian Jewish and Persian Israeli identities Rusi Jaspal Pages: 423-443 | DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2016.1140348 Avoiding longing: the case of ‘hidden children’ in the Holocaust Galiya Rabinovitch & Efrat Kass Pages: 444-458 | DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2016.1140350 ‘Are you being served?’ The Jewish Agency and the absorption of Ethiopian immigration | Adi Binhas Pages: 459-478 | DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2016.1140345 The danger of Israel according to Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi Shaul Bartal Pages: 479-491 | DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2016.1140343 Leisure in the twenty-first century: the case of Israel Nitza Davidovitch & Dan Soen Pages: 492-511 | DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2016.1140347 Limits to cooperation: why Israel does not want to become a member of the International Energy Agency Elai Rettig Pages: 512-527 | DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2016.1140357 The attitude of the local press to marginal groups: between solidarity and alienation Smadar Ben-Asher & Ella Ben-Atar Pages: 528-548 | DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2016.1140344 The construction of Israeli ‘masculinity’ in the sports arena Moshe Levy, Einat Hollander & Smadar Noy-Canyon Pages: 549-567 | DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2016.1140351 Book Reviews From empathy to denial: Arab responses to the Holocaust Alice A. Butler-Smith Pages: 568-570 | DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2016.1140354 Holocaust images and picturing catastrophe: the cultural politics of seeing Alice A. Butler-Smith Pages: 570-572 | DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2016.1140342s

New Article: Seeman, Jewish Ethiopian Israelis

Seeman, Don. “Jewish Ethiopian Israelis.” The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Race, Ethnicity, and Nationalism Chichester: Wiley, 2016.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/9781118663202.wberen321
 

Abstract

Ethiopian Jews are the descendants of an ethnic and religious community known as Beta Israel or Falasha. Historically concentrated in the highlands of northern Ethiopia (Gondar and Tigre) they were in some cases denied the right to hold land unless they converted to Christianity. In modern times, intense Christian missionary efforts paradoxically helped to bring Ethiopian Jews into closer contact with foreign Jewish communities. In the past half-century nearly the whole Ethiopian Jewish community has migrated to Israel, where they have faced significant challenges and opportunities. Questions about their status under Jewish law have led to political conflicts of various kinds. In addition, the most recent groups of immigrants includes many whose ancestors converted to Christianity but have sought to return to Judaism in the context of migrating to Israel. The community has integrated into Israeli life but has also simultaneously taken its place as part of the global Ethiopian cultural diaspora.

 

 

 

New Article: Babis, Integration and Isolation within the Latin American Association in Israel

Babis, Deby. “The Paradox of Integration and Isolation within Immigrant Organisations: The Case of a Latin American Association in Israel.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies (early view; online first).

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2016.1166939

 

Abstract

Most immigrant organisations aim to facilitate the integration of immigrants into the host society while seeking to preserve their cultural heritage. In order to explore the tension between these two apparently opposite processes within immigrant organisations, a case study was carried out on the Organization of Latin American Immigrants in Israel (OLEI). The research question focuses on how, and to what extent, OLEI contributes to the integration of Latin American immigrants into Israeli society and how, and to what extent, it contributes to their isolation. The findings indicate that while individual services promote the integration of Latin American immigrants into Israeli society, communal services both isolate and integrate them simultaneously. To address this paradox, I suggest an interpretation of this process as ‘integration through isolation’, since OLEI socially isolates immigrants, but at the same time integrates them into the host society by providing Israeli culture in Spanish.

 

 

 

ToC: Israel Studies 21.2 (2016)

Israel Studies, 21.2 (2016)

Table of Contents

 

 Front Matter (pp. i-v)

Special Section—Dislocations of Immigration

The Politics of Defining Jews from Arab Countries (pp. 1-26)

Shayna Zamkanei 

Challenges and Psychological Adjustment of Religious American Adolescent Immigrants to Israel (pp. 27-49)

Avidan Milevsky

“Marginal Immigrants”: Jewish-Argentine Immigration to the State of Israel, 1948–1967 (pp. 50-76)

Sebastian Klor

Articles

Annexation or Separation? The Municipal Status of the Jewish Neighborhoods of Jaffa 1940–1944 (pp. 77-101)

Tamir Goren

Reasoning from History: Israel’s “Peace Law” and Resettlement of the Tel Malhata Bedouin (pp. 102-132)

Havatzelet Yahel and Ruth Kark

The Israeli Names Law: National Integration and Military Rule (pp. 133-154)

Moshe Naor

 Khilul Hashem: Blasphemy in Past and Present Israel (pp. 155-181)

Gideon Aran

The Construction and De-construction of the Ashkenazi vs. Sephardic/Mizrahi Dichotomy in Israeli Culture: Rabbi Eliyahou Zini vs. Rabbi Ovadia Yosef (pp. 182-205)

Joseph Ringel

Back Matter

 

 

Review article: Donno, Recenti studi sull’ebraismo, Israele e Medio Oriente

Donno, Antonio. “Recenti studi sull’ebraismo, Israele e Medio Oriente.” Eunomia 4.2 (2015): 627-32.
 
URL: http://siba-ese.unisalento.it/index.php/eunomia/article/view/15754 [PDF]
 
Abstract

This article reviews recent publications such as Artur Patek’s Jews
on Route to Palestine, Hillel Cohen’s 1929, Eric Gartman’s Return to Zion, Ofer Shiff’s The Downfall of Abba Hillel Silver, Jesse Ferris’ Nasser’s Gamble, Daniel Zoughbie’s Indecision Points, and more.

 

 

 

New Article: Levin, Meanings of House Materiality for Moroccan Migrants in Israel

Levin, Iris. “Meanings of House Materiality for Moroccan Migrants in Israel.” In Ethno-Architecture and the Politics of Migration (ed. Mirjana Lozanovska; Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2016): 115-30.

 

 

Extract

The chapter has discussed two case studies which were chosen because they are very from one another: one migrant house has a Moroccan room which is the epitome of Moroccan design, while the other has barely anything to indicate the ethnic identity of its owner. Yet, the migrants who live in these houses have created, each in their own way through the use of material cultures, the means to tell the story of Moroccan migration to Israel and gain the long-desired recognition of Moroccan culture in Israeli society. Through the understanding of these material cultures in the migrant house, it is possible to understand the ethno-architecture of the migrant experience at the scale of the house. The analysis of house materiality of these two Moroccan migrant homes in Israel has shown that, for them, there is a collective aesthetic and sense of belonging that situates them in a role of representing their culture and explaining it to others.

 

 

 

CFP: “Promised Lands: Israel-Diaspora Relations and Beyond” Workshop for Young Scholars (Munich, May 23-25, 2016)

The young scholars’ workshop focuses on the relationship between the State of Israel and Jewish communities worldwide. This relationship is often conceptualized in ideologically charged terms. “Diaspora,” the term most frequently used for Jewish communities outside of Israel, describes these relations in terms of “center” and “periphery” and is filled with negative connotations going back to religious traditions of spiritual diminishment and exile. But beyond messianic utopias, the actual state plays a great variety of different roles among Jews and their communities. Since its creation in 1948, Israel has shaped and formed the perceptions and self-perceptions of Jews around the world. What is more, these communities influence and shape Israeli culture, society and politics. Migration in both directions is a key element of these relations as migrants serve as agents of transcultural exchange and considerably help shaping mutual perceptions. These complex and multilayered relations and their representations are at the center of the workshop.

The workshop offers young scholars from Europe in the field of Israel Studies a forum to discuss their work with their peers and senior scholars alike. Scholars on the doctoral and post-doctoral level (within three years after completing their Ph.D.) can expand their networks and help to foster a vivid academic community of Israel Studies in Europe.

The workshop is supported by the Israel Institute and will take place at the Center for Advanced Studies / LMU Munich, Mai 23-25, 2016 under the direction of Michael Brenner (LMU Munich), Daniel Mahla (LMU Munich) and Johannes Becke (Center for Jewish Studies Heidelberg). Featured speakers include Derek Penslar (Oxford/Toronto) and Michael Berkowitz (UCL London).

To apply please send in an abstract of up to 300 words about the proposed paper and a CV until January 18, 2016 to: daniel.mahla@lrz.uni-muenchen.de.

Topics can include, but are not limited to:

– Political, economic and social relations between the State of Israel and Jewish communities worldwide

– Israeli emigration and its representation

– The concept of Jewish Diaspora and its changes after 1948

– The meanings and significance of the concept of a “dispersed people” for Jews and Israel

– The roles of exile and home in Jewish weltanschauung

– The influence of the state on Jewish-Gentile relations outside of Israel

– The impact of the establishment of a Jewish state on world Jewry

– The relationship between global and local in Jewish history

-Comparative perspectives on diaspora nationalism and Homeland-Diaspora relations

– Israeli Arab/Palestinian conceptions of “Diaspora”

– Palestinian emigration and its representation

– Non-Jewish diaspora communities in Israel (e.g. Armenians)

– Jewish and non-Jewish migration into Israel

ToC: Hebrew Studies 56 (2015)

Below are the relevant articles for Israel Studies from the latest issue of Hebrew Studies. For a full Table of Contents,click here.

 

Innovative Designation of Diminution in the Writings of Abraham Shlonsky

pp. 231-243

Bat-Zion Yemini

Memory and History in Israeli Post-Apocalyptic Theater

pp. 245-263

Zahava Caspi

Questioning Boundaries of Language and the World: Ambivalence and Disillusionment in the Writings of Shimon Adaf

pp. 265-294

Dorit Lemberger

Hebrew Neologisms in the Writings of Anton Shammas

pp. 295-314

Adel Shakour, Abdallah Tarabeih

The Pain of Two Homelands: Immigration to Israel in Twenty-First Century Hebrew Prose Fiction

pp. 315-331

Smadar Shiffman

“Our Virgin Friends and Wives”?: Female Sexual Subjectivity in Yona Wallach’s Poetry

pp. 333-356

Amalia Ziv

New Testament Jesus in Modern Jewish Literature: A Symposium

pp. 357-358

Zev Garber

Jesus and the Pharisees through the Eyes of Two Modern Hebrew Writers: A Contrarian Perspective

pp. 359-365

Neta Stahl

A Question of Truth: Form, Structure, and Character in Der man fun Natseres

pp. 367-376

Melissa Weininger

Overtones of Isaac and Jesus in Modern Hebrew Narrative

pp. 377-384

Aryeh Wineman

The Jewish Jesus: Conversation, Not Conversion

pp. 385-392

Zev Garber

Reviews

 

Compassion and Fury: On The Fiction of A. B. Yehoshua by Gilead Morahg (review)

pp. 433-436

Yael Halevi-Wise

---

Periodicals

pp. 437-456

Books Received — 2015

pp. 457-460

New Article: Johnston, Aliyah le-Berlin

Johnston, Zachary. “Aliyah Le Berlin: A Documentary about the Next Chapter of Jewish Life in Berlin.” In Being Jewish in 21st-Century Germany (ed. Olaf Glöckner and Haim Fireberg; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2015): 152-62.

 

 

Abstract

The American movie director and producer Zachary Johnston shares with us his insights on the emergence of a diaspora of Israeli youth in Berlin. In many ways – second only to Fania Oz-Salzberger – he is one of the pioneers in identifying the phenomenon that he follows in his documentary, and he had done it well before it became a hot issue in the Israeli media in 2014. Johnston challenges the common Israeli set of values about migration. “One cannot use the term ‘aliyah‘ out-of-context without eliciting a knee-jerk response due to its value-loaded nature of the word, which is tied to the ‘ascent’ of Jews to Israel.” He adds: “Perhaps, this new age of Israeli and Jewish exploration in Germany has a higher purpose that has yet to be ascertained, that down the road the concept of aliyah will receive a something deeper, stronger, and broader meaning for the nation of Israel and its citizens.”

 

 

New Article: Semyonov et al, Immigration and the Cost of Ethnic Subordination

Semyonov, Moshe, Rebeca Raijman, and Dina Maskileysonc. “Immigration and the Cost of Ethnic Subordination: The Case of Israeli Society.” Ethnic and Racial Studies (early view; online first).

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2015.1081968

 

Abstract

This study focuses on earnings disadvantages experienced by three ethnic groups of Jewish immigrants in Israel. Data were obtained from the 2011 Income Survey gathered by the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics. The findings reveal that when compared to Israeli-born, all ethnic groups are disadvantaged in earnings attainment in the first generation. The earnings disadvantages of immigrants as compared to Israeli-born decrease with the passage of time and become negligible in the second generation. To disentangle the impact on earnings penalty of ethnic origin from that of immigrant status, a procedure for decomposing mean differences between groups is introduced. The analysis reveals that earnings disadvantage among Ashkenazim and Soviet immigrants can be attributed to immigrant status but not to ethnicity. By contrast, earnings penalties among Sephardim immigrants can be attributed to both ethnicity and immigrant status. The implications of the long-lasting effect of ethnicity versus the short-term effect of immigrant status are discussed.

 

 

Conference: AJS Program Book now online (Boston, Dec 13-15, 2015)

The 47th Annual Conference of the Association for Jewish Studies will take place in Boston, December 13-15, 2015.

The full program is now available on the AJS website: http://www.ajsnet.org/conference-menu.htm

You may also download the program here: PDF

 

 

ToC: Journal of Israeli History 34.2 (2015)

Journal of Israeli History, 34.2 (2015)

No Trinity: The tripartite relations between Agudat Yisrael, the Mizrahi movement, and the Zionist Organization
Daniel Mahla
pages 117-140

Judaism and communism: Hanukkah, Passover, and the Jewish Communists in Mandate Palestine and Israel, 1919–1965
Amir Locker-Biletzki
pages 141-158

Olei Hagardom: Between official and popular memory
Amir Goldstein
pages 159-180

Practices of photography on kibbutz: The case of Eliezer Sklarz
Edna Barromi Perlman
pages 181-203

The Shishakli assault on the Syrian Druze and the Israeli response, January–February 1954
Randall S. Geller
pages 205-220

Book Reviews

Becoming Israeli: National Ideals and Everyday Life in the 1950s

Deborah Bernstein
pages 221-224

The “Magic Carpet” Exodus of Yemenite Jewry: An Israeli Formative Myth

Ari Ariel
pages 224-227

The Bride and the Dowry: Israel, Jordan, and the Palestinians in the Aftermath of the June 1967 War

Itamar Radai
pages 227-230

Editorial Board

Editorial Board

.

Lecture: Egorova, Bene Menashe Negotiations of Migration and Citizenship (SOAS London, Oct 28, 2015)

SOAS ANTHROPOLOGY 

DEPARTMENTAL SEMINAR

Race, Religion and the Lost Tribes of Israel:

Bene Menashe Negotiations of Migration and Citizenship

 

Dr. Yulia Egorova 

University of Durham

Wednesday, 28 Oct, 3:15-5 PM

SOAS Main Building, Ground Floor

Room 52 (to the left of the elevators)

Abstract: The Bene Menashe stem from a number of Christian groups of the Indo-Burmese borderland, some of whom back in the 1950s declared their descent from the Lost Tribes of Israel. In 2005 the Bene Menashe became recognized as people of Israelite descent by the then Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Israel, and in 2011 were allowed by Israeli government to continue their migration through conversion. The paper will use the example of the Bene Menashe migration to cast analytical light on different ways in which race and religion co-constitute each other in processes of transnational migration. To do so, I will focus on one specific aspect of the Bene Menashe migration – the way the community has to construct and enact their religious affiliation to be able to become Israeli citizens and to be considered part of the Jewish people by their ‘hosts’. The paper argues that in the case of the Bene Menashe race and religion co-produce each other in ways that reinforce racialized understandings of Judaism and Jewishness, and will suggest that what accounts for this phenomenon is that the opportunities that the Bene Menashe immigrants had in defining their religiosity in Israel were limited by the conditions of their migration, which developed against the backdrop of multiple colonial contexts. In the end, I will reflect on the situation of other ‘emerging’ Jewish communities in India who are in the process of organizing their migration to Israel.

 

About the speaker: Dr. Yulia Egorova is Reader in Anthropology and Director, Centre for the Study of Jewish Culture, Society and Politics at the University of Durham. Her research interests include Anthropology of Jewish communities, the social aspects of science and biotechnology, and the relationship between science and religion. She recently completed an AHRC-funded project devoted to the Indian Jewish community of the Bene Ephraim of Andhra Pradesh, and a cluster of studies exploring the socio-cultural implications of population genetics with particular reference to South Asia. She is presently developing a new project on Jewish-Muslim relations in the UK.

 

 

 

New Book: Goldscheider, Israeli Society in the Twenty-First Century

Goldscheider, Calvin. Israeli Society in the Twenty-First Century. Immigration, Inequality, and Religious Conflict, Schusterman Series in Israel Studies. Lebanon, NH: Brandeis University Press (imprint of University Press of New England), 2015.

This volume illuminates changes in Israeli society over the past generation. Goldscheider identifies three key social changes that have led to the transformation of Israeli society in the twenty-first century: the massive immigration of Jews from the former Soviet Union, the economic shift to a high-tech economy, and the growth of socioeconomic inequalities inside Israel. To deepen his analysis of these developments, Goldscheider focuses on ethnicity, religion, and gender, including the growth of ethnic pluralism in Israel, the strengthening of the Ultra-Orthodox community, the changing nature of religious Zionism and secularism, shifts in family patterns, and new issues and challenges between Palestinians and Arab Israelis given the stalemate in the peace process and the expansions of Jewish settlements.

Combining demography and social structural analysis, the author draws on the most recent data available from the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics and other sources to offer scholars and students an innovative guide to thinking about the Israel of the future.

This book will be of interest to scholars and students of contemporary Israel, the Middle East, sociology, demography and economic development, as well as policy specialists in these fields. It will serve as a textbook for courses in Israeli history and in the modern Middle East.

Table of Contents

• List of Tables and Figure
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Nation-Building, Population, and Development
• Ethnic Diversity Jewish and Arab Populations of Israel
• Immigration, Nation-Building, and Ethnic-Group Formation
• Arab Israelis Demography, Dependency, and Distinctiveness
• Urbanization, Residential Integration, and Communities
• Religiosity, Religious Institutions, and Israeli Culture
• Inequality and Changing Gender Roles
• Education, Stratification, and Inequality
• Inequality and Mortality Decline
• Family Formation and Generational Continuities
• Emergent Israeli Society Nation-Building, Inequalities, and Continuities
• Appendix: Data Sources and Reliability
• Bibliography
• Index

Reviews: Meir-Glitzenstein, The “Magic Carpet” Exodus of Yemenite Jewry

Meir-Glitzenstein, Esther. The “Magic Carpet” Exodus of Yemenite Jewry. An Israeli Formative Myth. Eastbourne: Sussex Academic Press, 2014.

 

 
Reviews

• Frantzman, Seth J. “Book review: The Yemenite tragedy.” Jeruslaem Post , January 10,, 2015.
• Ariel, Ari. “Review.” Journal of Israeli History (early view; online first).

See also interview: Lee, Vered. “The Frayed Truth of Operation Magic Carpet.” Haaretz, May 28, 2012 (on Hebrew version).

 

 

New Book: Raviv, Falafel Nation

Raviv, Yael. Falafel Nation. Cuisine and the Making of National Identity in Israel, Studies of Jews in Society. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2015.

 

When people discuss food in Israel, their debates ask politically charged questions: Who has the right to falafel? Whose hummus is better? But Yael Raviv’s Falafel Nation moves beyond the simply territorial to divulge the role food plays in the Jewish nation. She ponders the power struggles, moral dilemmas, and religious and ideological affiliations of the different ethnic groups that make up the “Jewish State” and how they relate to the gastronomy of the region. How do we interpret the recent upsurge in the Israeli culinary scene—the transition from ideological asceticism to the current deluge of fine restaurants, gourmet stores, and related publications and media?

Focusing on the period between the 1905 immigration wave and the Six-Day War in 1967, Raviv explores foodways from the field, factory, market, and kitchen to the table. She incorporates the role of women, ethnic groups, and different generations into the story of Zionism and offers new assertions from a secular-foodie perspective on the relationship between Jewish religion and Jewish nationalism. A study of the changes in food practices and in attitudes toward food and cooking, Falafel Nation explains how the change in the relationship between Israelis and their food mirrors the search for a definition of modern Jewish nationalism.

Yael Raviv is the director of the Umami food and art festival in New York City. She has a PhD in performance studies from New York University and is an adjunct professor in the Department of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health at NYU. Her work has appeared in Women and Performance, Gastronomica, and elsewhere.

New Article: McGonigle & Herman, DNA Testing and the Israeli Law of Return

McGonigle, Ian V., and Lauren W. Herman. “Genetic Citizenship: DNA Testing and the Israeli Law of Return.” Journal of Law and the Biosciences (early view; online first).

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jlb/lsv027

 

Abstract

The Israeli State recently announced that it may begin to use genetic tests to determine whether potential immigrants are Jewish or not. This development would demand a rethinking of Israeli law on the issue of the definition of Jewishness. In this article, we discuss the historical and legal context of secular and religious definitions of Jewishness and rights to immigration in the State of Israel. We give a brief overview of different ways in which genes have been regarded as Jewish, and we discuss the relationship between this new use of genetics and the society with which it is co-produced. In conclusion, we raise several questions about future potential impacts of Jewish genetics on Israeli law and society.

Lecture: Yehudai, Israel and Its Emigrants in the Early Years of the State (Taub NYU, Apr 6 2015)

 

4/6/15 – 5:30pm
14A Washington Mews, 1st Floor

Dr. Ori Yehudai

‘We Know Better Than You What is Good for You’ –
Israel and Its Emigrants in the Early Years of the State

 

 

Following the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, masses of Jewish immigrants and refugees flooded into the country, and their absorption became a formidable challenge for the young Jewish state. But during the same years tens of thousands of Jews also left the country, some returning to their countries of origin and others heading to new destinations. Who were these people and why did they leave? How did Israeli government and society react to the troubling phenomenon of Jewish out-migration? Based on new archival material, the lecture will shed light on a little-known yet significant chapter in Israel’s history, which has not lost its relevance even today.

 

Dr. Ori Yehudai is currently a Schusterman-Taub Postdoctoral Fellow at the Taub Center for Israel Studies at NYU. He holds a PhD in history from the University of Chicago and has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned societies, the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research and the Israel Institute in Washington, DC, among other sources. Ori’s dissertation on Jewish emigration from Palestine and Israel between 1945 and 1960 was commended for the Fraenkel Prize in contemporary history. He is currently writing a book based on his dissertation.

RSVP here.

New Article: Alroey, Israeli Historiography and the Mass Jewish Migration to the United States, 1881–1914

Alroey, Gur. “Two Historiographies: Israeli Historiography and the Mass Jewish Migration to the United States, 1881–1914.” Jewish Quarterly Review 105.1 (2015): 99-129.

 

URL: http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/jewish_quarterly_review/v105/105.1.alroey.html

 

Abstract

The mass Jewish migration from Eastern Europe (1881–1914) was one of the seminal events in the life of the Jewish people in modern times. During this period, more than 2.5 million Jews migrated to countries across the sea. Two Jewish centers emerged as a result of the mass emigration from Eastern Europe: the State of Israel and North America. Despite the similar reasons for the development of the Jewish collectives in the United States and Israel, two completely different historiographies have emerged over the years. This article investigates how the Zionist narrative, which saw Jewish immigration to Palestine from 1881–1914 as an exceptional case in the history of Jewish migration, was constructed. try and understand the attitude of Zionist historiography towards the first aliyot to Palestine and why it ignored the large Jewish migration from Eastern Europe to the United States.