Tag Archives: Divorce

New Book: Galin, Fatherhood in Transition (Hebrew)

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גלין, אראלה. אבהות במעבר. סיפורה של האבהות במעבר הגירושים מנקודת מבט פסיכו-חברתית. תל אביב: רסלינג, 2015.

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This book explores the fatherly experience during the transition of divorce, alongside a study of the phenomenological experience related to the construction of fatherhood in Israeli context. It examines the perspective of fathers, while bringing the stories and interpretation of forty non-custodial fathers. This book offers a glimpse into their emotional world and gives voice to their experience of fatherhood. They describe the loss of the obvious paternal space and their renewed grappling with their paternal identity, the role, their visibility in the family and Israeli society. The fathers range as subjects from traditionalism and innovation in their paternal conduct, as they continue to seek their identity and location.

This psychological research, which deals with fathers and their fatherhood in a major junction of Israeli discourse about parenting and parental relationships during divorce transition, allows academic and social discussion to acknowledge the experiences and attitudes of fathers in relation to themselves and their families. The inclusion of paternal perspectives in regards to themselves enhances the body of knowledge, raises questions about what is taken for granted and outlines new insights with respect to fathers, mothers, children and the family as a whole during the divorce process.

This book presents new theoretical conceptualizations about fatherhood in the divorce transition as a contextual experience, one which is complex and multidimensional. Fatherhood develops in an emotional space characterized by a dialectic of absence-presence, attachment-separation, and withdrawing-approaching. It is formed by four separate development routes leading to the construction of separate identities, describing four key narratives of paternity: present fatherhood, struggling fatherhood, erratic fatherhood and excluded fatherhood.

Table of Contents
1. חקר חוויית האבהות במעבר הגירושין

2. ‘להיות ברקע’

3. ההוויה האבהית: ‘להיות אב לא-משמורן’

4. הבניית האבהות הלא-משמורנית, תהליכי ההבניה: תנועה במרחב רגשי דיאלקטי

5. אבהות לא-משמורנית

6. אבהות לא-משמורנית: פרספקטיבה פסיכו-חברתית

7. הבניית האבהות הלא-משמורנית בישראל: גורמים תרבותיים וחברתיים.

New Article: Meier, Palestinian Divorced and Widowed Mothers in Israel

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Meier, Tal. ““I Do What I Please, but Even So, I See a Psychologist”: Palestinian Divorced and Widowed Mothers in Israel.” Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies 11.3 (2015): 306-324.

 
URL: https://muse.jhu.edu/journals/journal_of_middle_east_womens_studies/v011/11.3.meler.html
 
Abstract

Divorce, separation, and widowhood produce great psychological stress for Palestinian women in Israel. Very often family support is a set of demands seeking to regulate and reshape their conduct. This article is based on a study conducted between 2007 and 2011 with twenty-four divorced, separated, and widowed Palestinian single mothers in Israel. In contrast to claims in most existing scholarship, all of the women turned to nonfamilial sources of support to deal with family and community regulation, restrictions, and stigmatization and to acquire resources. Level of surveillance and regulation was most highly associated with socioeconomic class. The poorer the women, the fewer their choices and the less freedom they had to determine their lives and their children’s lives. The women interviewed disproportionately reported turning to outsiders, such as psychologists, spiritualists, and feminist activists, for “expressive” support.

 

 

New Article: Cohen-Israeli & Remennick, ‘As a Divorcee, I Am a Better Father’

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Cohen-Israeli, Laliv, and Larissa Remennick. “‘As a Divorcee, I Am a Better Father’: Work and Parenting Among Divorced Men in Israel.” Journal of Divorce & Remarriage 56.7 (2015): 535-50.

 

URL: https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10502556.2015.1080083

 

Extract

The article presents the emotional and cognitive experiences of divorced fathers in Israel faced with the need to balance work and family. The analysis is based on in-depth interviews with 22 divorced fathers. The main finding of the study is that divorced fathers face a more intense family–work conflict, which they did not have to contend with as married fathers. Many interviewees reported a shift in the perceived importance of work in their lives. Divorced fathers described their parenting experience as enhanced in comparison to prior married life; many of them felt that after the divorce they became better fathers.

 

 

New Article: Meier, Palestinian-Israeli Single Mothers Accord Motherhood a New Meaning

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Meier, Tal. “Palestinian-Israeli Single Mothers Accord Motherhood a New Meaning ‘I would like to teach my children a new way of life … I’m responsible for them now’.” International Review of Sociology (early view; online first).

 
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03906701.2015.1065563

 
Abstract

Over the last three decades, Palestinian society in Israel has undergone numerous changes, reflected in the rising numbers of families headed by single mothers. This article is based on a study conducted between 2007 and 2011 among 24 divorced, separated, and widowed Palestinian single mothers in Israel. I analyze this emerging family configuration, focusing on these women’s experiences as mothers and on how they accord new meaning to motherhood. My analysis will deal with the diverse ways these women ‘do motherhood’ and negotiate with different familial players. It will extend beyond the discourse on motherhood to shed light on the current changes in power and gender relations taking place in Palestinian-Israeli society.

 

 

Reviews: Ben-Porat, Between State and Synagogue

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Ben-Porat, Guy. Between State and Synagogue: The Secularization of Contemporary Israel. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013.

 

BenPoratSecularization

Reviews

    • Lassen, Amos. “The Times They Are A-Changing.” Reviews by Amos Lassen, April 7, 2013.
    • Tabory, Ephraim. “Review.” Middle East Journal 67.4 (2013): 646-7.
    • Omer, Atalia. “Review.” American Journal of Sociology 119.5 (2014): 1518-1520.
    • Sorek, Tamir. “Review.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 46.2 (2015): 421-2.
    • Weiss, Shayna. “Review.” Journal of Church and State 57.3 (2015): 565-7.
    • Hollander, Philip. “Judaism in Israel.” VCU Menorah Review 82 (Winter/Spring 2015).

 

 

 

New Article: Finzi-Dottan & Cohen, Predictors of Involvement and Warmth of Custodial Fathers in Israel

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Finzi-Dottan, Ricky, and Orna Cohen. “Predictors of Involvement and Warmth of Custodial Fathers in Israel: Comparison with Married and Noncustodial Divorced Fathers.” Family Process (early view; online first).

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/famp.12124

 

Abstract

This study compared the levels and predictors of paternal warmth and involvement of 218 custodial fathers to 222 married fathers and 105 noncustodial (NC) divorced fathers in Israel. The examined predictors were fathers’ perceptions of their own fathers; their own caregiving behaviors and parental self-efficacy; and child characteristics and coparental coordination. Results indicated that being a custodial father was associated with more involvement than being a married or NC divorced father. Regression analyses revealed that experience of care with own father predicted fathers’ involvement, whereas own father control was related to lower paternal warmth. Lower avoidant caregiving and high paternal self-efficacy predicted both paternal involvement and warmth, whereas perceiving the child as more difficult predicted lower paternal warmth. Higher levels of coparental coordination were associated with more paternal involvement, whereas low coparental coordination was associated with less involvement, primarily among NC divorced fathers. These interactions highlight the distinct paternal behavior of custodial fathers. Unlike married and NC divorced fathers, they showed more warmth, regardless of their avoidant caregiving. Results are discussed in light of the different roles played by fathers in the three groups.

New Article: Zion-Waldoks, Agency, Feminism, and Religion among Orthodox Agunah Activists

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Zion-Waldoks, Tanya. “Politics of Devoted Resistance. Agency, Feminism, and Religion among Orthodox Agunah Activists in Israel.” Gender & Society 29.1 (2015): 73-97.

 

URL: http://gas.sagepub.com/content/29/1/73

 

Abstract

 This study explores how religious women become legitimate actors in the public sphere and analyzes their agency—its meanings, capacities, and transformative aims. It presents a novel case study of Israeli Modern-Orthodox Agunah activists who engage in highly politicized collective feminist resistance as religious actors working for religious ends. Embedded in and activated by Orthodoxy, they advocate women’s rights to divorce, voicing a moral critique of tradition and its agents precisely because they are devoutly devoted to them. Such political agency is innovatively conceptualized as “devoted resistance”: critique within relationship, enabled by cultural schema, and comprising both interpretive skills and “relational-autonomy” capacities. This study contends that understanding agency within religious grammars reveals its underlying logics, highlighting how structures shape the meanings and realization of women’s varied “agentive capacities.” It challenges current dichotomies like feminism/religion, resistance/submission, and autonomy/dependence. Overall, the author argues for a nuanced, culturally specific, capacity-based, relational approach to analyzing religious women’s agency.

New Article: Cohen et al., Fatherhood of Divorced Custodial Fathers in Israel

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Cohen, Orna, Ricky Finzi-Dottan, and Gali Tangir-Dotan. “The Fatherhood Experience of Divorced Custodial Fathers in Israel.” Family Relations 63.5 (2014): 639-53.

 

URL: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/fare.12092/abstract

 

Abstract

This qualitative study examines the fatherhood experience of 20 divorced men who are raising children on their own. The findings were gathered from semistructured in-depth interviews. The interviewees’ depictions revealed a process of making place for oneself in a multiparticipant arena facing social systems, the mother of the children, and the children themselves. The main findings concern the circumstances of single fatherhood: a constraint and a choice stemming from the mother’s incapacity, the nature of the relationships created between mother and children and between father and mother, and the burden and pleasure contained within single parenthood. The discussion looks at the findings through the prism of Baxter and Montgomery’s (1996) dialectic theory. It sheds light on the ongoing, contrast-filled process of establishing a perception of fatherhood, and the experiences of divorced fathers raising their children on their own.

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)

Cite: Kaplan, Enforcement of Divorce Judgments in Jewish Courts in Israel

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Kaplan, Yehiel S. “Enforcement of Divorce Judgments in Jewish Courts in Israel: The Interaction Between Religious and Constitutional Law.” Middle East Law and Governance 4.1 (2012): 1-68.

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URL: http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/brill/melg/2012/00000004/00000001/art00001

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Abstract

In the State of Israel, Rabbinical courts are granted sole jurisdiction in the adjudication of marriage and divorce of Jews. In these courts, the husband presents the divorce writ of Jews, the get, to his wife on the occasion of their divorce at the end of the adjudication process. When Jews sue for divorce in Rabbinical courts, the courts occasionally determine that the man should grant his wife a get or that the wife should accept the get granted by her husband. Sometimes one spouse disobeys the ruling. Although the Rabbinical courts occasionally impose sanctions in an attempt to enforce divorce judgments, they are generally reluctant to do so. The implementation of inappropriate measures can lead to the conclusion that a given divorce is in fact a legally ineffectual coerced divorce. Consequently, the Jewish courts occasionally delay the imposition of these sanctions out of concern that inappropriate coercive measures invalidate the get, rendering the couple still legally married. The Supreme Court of Israel has ruled, though, that the Rabbinical courts in Israel should act in light of the constitutional principles in Basic Law: Human Dignity and Freedom. However, the Supreme Court of Israel has not clearly or specifically addressed the balance between the rights and obligations of the husband and wife in the process of enforcing divorce judgments, neither before nor after the enactment of the of the two important constitutional Basic Laws enacted in 1992. A detailed policy analysis of the sanctions against recalcitrant spouses in Rabbinical courts in Israel—in light of the principles of Jewish and constitutional law in the country—has not yet been undertaken. The aim of this essay is therefore to present the appropriate formula pertaining to the imposition of sanctions against recalcitrant spouses given the principles of Jewish and constitutional law. The formula is presented in light of constitutional law in Israel. However, it is also applicable in other countries with similar constitutional legislation, such as Canada, where legislation sometimes allows for the civil enforcement of Jewish divorce.