Tag Archives: Autonomy

New Article: Paul-Binyamin & Gindi, Autonomy and Religious Education

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Paul-Binyamin, Ilana, and Shahar Gindi. “Autonomy and Religious Education: Lessons from a Six-Year Evaluation of an Educational Reform in an Israeli School Network.” British Journal of Religious Education (early view; online first).

 
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01416200.2015.1025698
 
Abstract

This study investigated the tension that exists between promoting an educational agenda and practising an educational approach which emphasises autonomy within the framework of religious education. Our main thesis is that every educational deed contains a dialectical tension between endorsing an educational agenda and the promotion of autonomy. Moreover, this tension is not restricted to religious education. The intensity of such a conflict varies in accordance with the flexibility (or inflexibility) of the dogma, the conceptual cohesion of the educational agenda and the perceived importance of granting autonomy to students. The more cohesive and inflexible the educational agenda is, the greater the danger that autonomy will be discarded. The present research examined an educational reform implemented in the National-Religious School Network in Israel, which included the promotion of autonomy among principals, teachers and students. Conducted over a six-year period (2006–2012), the research employed both qualitative and quantitative methodologies and involved various stakeholders in the school network. The multifaceted picture that emerged of the relationship between educational autonomy and religious agenda is presented.

 

 

 

New Article: Sher-Censor, Gender Differences in Observed Autonomy and Adolescent-Mother Interactions

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Sher-Censor, Efrat. “The Challenges of Israeli Adolescent Girls: Gender Differences in Observed Autonomy and Relatedness in Adolescent-Mother Interactions.” Sex Roles 72.3-4 (2015): 150-62.

 
 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11199-015-0445-5

 

Abstract
This study examined gender differences in autonomy and relatedness in adolescent-mother interactions, to evaluate two competing notions. The first, based on social role theory, suggested that girls and their mothers would show lower autonomy and higher relatedness than boys and their mothers. The second, stemming from the psychodynamic perspective, suggested that girls would show higher autonomy than boys, and that girls and their mothers would show lower relatedness than boys and their mothers. Participants were 122 Jewish Israeli mothers and their 16.5 years old adolescents (58.19 % girls) from middle class families residing in northern and central cities in Israel. Dyads were observed during a family disagreement (i.e., a high-conflict condition) and while planning a vacation (i.e., a low-conflict condition). Autonomy and relatedness of each participant in each task were coded using the Individuality and Connectedness Q-sort (Bengston & Grotevant 1999). Our findings indicated that girls displayed higher autonomy than boys across the two conflict conditions. In addition, girls and their mothers showed lower relatedness than boys and their mothers, but only under the high-conflict condition. These results are in line with the notions offered by the psychodynamic perspective. They reveal the unique challenges which Jewish Israeli girls and their mothers may face with respect to autonomy and relatedness, and highlight the importance of assessing autonomy and relatedness under varied conflict conditions.

 
 
 
 

New Article: Alroey, The Idea of a Jewish State in Western Africa, 1907-1913

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Alroey, Gur. “Angolan Zion. The Jewish Territorial Organization and the idea of a Jewish state in Western Africa, 1907–1913.” Journal of Modern Jewish Studies 14.2 (2015): 179-98.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14725886.2015.1006009

 

Abstract

This article traces the attempts in 1907–1913 by the Jewish Territorial Organization to set up an autonomous Jewish entity in West Africa. The Territorialists laid down three criteria for the choice of a territory: (1) A tract of land that must be large enough in size to allow for the absorption of mass Jewish migration. (2) A fertile territory that could provide a livelihood for the Jews who went there. (3) A sparsely populated territory so that no ethnic tensions would be created between the Jews settling there and the local residents. One likely territory was Angola, which at the beginning of the twentieth century was under the protection of the Portuguese government. The plan failed. However, the importance of the “Angola Plan” was to highlight the position of the Territorialists towards Africa in general and Angola in particular.

 

New Book: Rovner, In the Shadow of Zion

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Rovner, Adam L. In the Shadow of Zion. Promised Lands before Israel. New York: New York University Press, 2014.

9781479817481_Full

URL: http://nyupress.org/books/9781479817481/

 

Table of Contents (click for PDF)

Preface

Introduction: They Say There Is a Land . . .

  1. Noah’s Ark on the Niagara: Grand Island, New York (1818–1848)
  2. Greetings from the Promised Land: Uasin Gishu, East Africa (1903–1905)
  3. Angolan Zion: Benguela Plateau (1907–1914)
  4. The Lost Jewish Continent: Madagascar (1933–1942)
  5. New Jerusalem, Down Under: Port Davey, Tasmania (1940–1945)
  6. Welcome to the Jungle: Suriname (1938–1948)

Epilogue: Go to Uganda

Acknowledgments

Notes

Bibliography

Index

About the Author

 

Abstract

From the late nineteenth century through the post-Holocaust era, the world was divided between countries that tried to expel their Jewish populations and those that refused to let them in. The plight of these traumatized refugees inspired numerous proposals for Jewish states. Jews and Christians, authors and adventurers, politicians and playwrights, and rabbis and revolutionaries all worked to carve out autonomous Jewish territories in remote and often hostile locations across the globe. The would-be founding fathers of these imaginary Zions dispatched scientific expeditions to far-flung regions and filed reports on the dream states they planned to create. But only Israel emerged from dream to reality. Israel’s successful foundation has long obscured the fact that eminent Jewish figures, including Zionism’s prophet, Theodor Herzl, seriously considered establishing enclaves beyond the Middle East.
In the Shadow of Zion brings to life the amazing true stories of six exotic visions of a Jewish national home outside of the biblical land of Israel. It is the only book to detail the connections between these schemes, which in turn explain the trajectory of modern Zionism. A gripping narrative drawn from archives the world over, In the Shadow of Zion recovers the mostly forgotten history of the Jewish territorialist movement, and the stories of the fascinating but now obscure figures who championed it.
Provocative, thoroughly researched, and written to appeal to a broad audience, In the Shadow of Zion offers a timely perspective on Jewish power and powerlessness.

 

 

Visit the author’s website: http://www.adamrovner.com/

ToC: Israel Studies Review 28,2 (2013)

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Guest Editors’ Introduction: Rethinking the Family in Israel

pp. vii-xii(6)
Authors: Fogiel-Bijaoui, Sylvie; Rutlinger-Reiner, Reina

Articles: The Transformation of Intimacies

pp. 1-17(17)
Author: Engelberg, Ari

Articles: Families in Transition

pp. 83-101(19)
Author: Rutlinger-Reiner, Reina

Articles: The Boundaries of Family Life

pp. 140-156(17)
Author: Lustenberger, Sibylle

Articles: Legal Discourse, Private Life

pp. 210-227(18)
Author: Fogiel-Bijaoui, Sylvie

Articles: Articles: Legal Discourse, Private Life

pp. 247-263(17)
Author: Mazeh, Yoav

pp. 300-313(14)
Author: Kreiczer-Levy, Shelly

Book Reviews

pp. 314-324(11)