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

New Article: Harris, Changing Attitudes among Israeli Migrants in Canada

Harris, Brent David. “Beyond Guilt and Stigma: Changing Attitudes among Israeli Migrants in Canada.” International Migration 53.6 (2015): 41-56.

 

 

URL: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-2435.2011.00732.x/abstract

 

 

Abstract

Over 60 years ago, the Jewish nationalist movement known as Zionism culminated in the creation of the State of Israel. Millions of Jews immigrated to Israel over the twentieth century, a process known as aliya (literally, “going up”). Yet over the years, thousands of Israelis have also chosen to leave Israel in a movement termed yerida (“going down”). As the term suggests, this reverse migration has been highly stigmatized. During the 1960s and 1970s, emigrants were publicly disparaged in the Israeli media for having abandoned a struggling state. Consequently, Israeli migrants suffered strong feelings of guilt that often, hampered their integration process abroad, a phenomenon observed as late as the 1990s. This paper, however, reveals that feelings of stigmatization have greatly decreased among Israeli migrants in recent years. The study is based on research that I conducted in 2008–2009, involving nine months of participant observation in Vancouver’s Israeli community and 34 in-depth interviews. Unlike in previous studies, most of my informants expressed no feelings of guilt over having left Israel. Of those who did, most framed their guilt as a longing for family and friends rather than the patriotic longing for the land as expressed by previous generations. Previous studies have also found that Israelis harbour a “myth of return”– a continuously expressed desire to return to Israel and a reluctance to accept their stay abroad as permanent. However, I have not found that the myth of return is still strong today, despite the continued prevalence of a strong sense of Israeli identity among Israelis abroad. I suggest that these changing attitudes are the product of shifting ideals in Israeli society that have developed as the state of Israel has matured. This paper thus serves to update the outdated image of Israeli migrants as it exists in the prevailing literature.

 

 

New Article: Oz-Salzberger, Israelis and Germany

Oz-Salzberger, Fania. “Israelis and Germany: A Personal Perspective.” In Being Jewish in 21st-Century Germany (ed. Olaf Glöckner and Haim Fireberg; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2015): 117-28.

 

 

Abstract

This article deals with a phenomenon that for many Israelis (and maybe even to many “bio-Germans”) – not to speak of the Jewish communities in Germany – is difficult to digest. It means, the almost mystical attraction of Germany (and Berlin in particular) to Sabras, that pushes so many to visit, to live for different periods of times among Germans and even to emigrate to Germany. Oz-Salzberger studied the various social networks of Israelis in Berlin (either in real life or in virtual networks) in order to find the common characteristics that bond all Israelis in Germany in general and Berlin in particular. Although she found that “many of the current Hebrew-speaking residents of Berlin whom I have met in recent years, Jews as well as Arabs, are enchanted, fascinated, and sometimes even obsessed with the dark past.” Yet, “Berlin remains problematic for them, and they live their problematic life in it as a matter of choice; because life is not meant to be simple, and because this urban, highly cultured, intense global-polis is not offering its newcomers either harmony or simplicity. It is not part of the deal.”

 

 

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: Gold, Adaptation and Return among Israeli Enclave and Infotech Entrepreneurs

Gold, Steven J. “Adaptation and Return among Israeli Enclave and Infotech Entrepreneurs.” In Immigration and Work (ed. Jody Agius Vallejo; Bingley: Emerald, 2015), 203-29.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/S0277-283320150000027022

 

Abstract

Purpose

Since the widespread adoption of the concept, transnational theorizing has attended to inequalities with regard to legal status, education, travel, and access to capital to understand the experience of migrant populations. This issue has become especially pertinent in recent years, as a growing body of journalistic and scholarly attention has been devoted to a new group of transnationals who work as entrepreneurs, professionals, and financiers involved in high tech and other cutting-edge economic activities. Regarded as among the world’s most powerful engines of economic growth and innovation, these entrepreneurs enjoy unprecedented levels of income, state-granted privileges (including permission to work), and access to elite institutions. Because of their level of resources, some observers contend that this group represents a fundamentally new category of immigrants distinct not only from labor migrants but also from merchants, professionals, and technicians.

Methodology/approach

To better understand their experience, this chapter draws on in-depth interviews and ethnographic research to compare two groups of Israeli immigrants living in Western societies: high-tech entrepreneurs and enclave entrepreneurs. Focusing on their economic and collective lives, it identifies similarities and differences among the two.

Findings

Conclusions suggest that the mostly male high-tech migrants do enjoy incomes, contacts, and access to travel that far exceed those available to labor and skilled migrants. Moreover, infotech immigrants are not dependent upon contacts with local co-ethnics that are vital for the survival of most other migrant populations. However, the communal, identity-related and familial concerns of infotech migrants are not completely amenable to their considerable resources. Accordingly, as they address these matters, their experience reveals significant similarities to those of migrants bearing a less privileged status.

Research implications

Collective, familial and identificational issues play central roles in shaping patterns of work and travel among high-tech transnational entrepreneurs. As such, these issues deserve continued attention in studies of global migration and work.

Originality/value

Research is based on a multi-sited ethnographic study of Israeli enclave and infotech entrepreneurs.

 

New Article: Yair, The Germans: Cultural Trauma and the Israeli Habitus

Yair, Gad. “The Germans: Cultural Trauma and the Israeli Habitus.” American Journal of Cultural Sociology 3.2 (2015): 254-79.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/ajcs.2015.2

 

Abstract

This article reports results from a qualitative study of Israelis living in Germany, focusing on their traumatized national habitus. The study is based on 80 in-depth interviews and on replies of more than 100 respondents to an online questionnaire. The present article focuses on one specific aspect of the Israeli traumatized habitus: ‘the wounded eye and the scratched ear’. Specifically, it explores the ways by which the trauma of the Holocaust is inscribed in Israeli senses. It details how respondents’ eyes, ears and thoughts are activated by German mundane episodes, linking day-to-day experiences to the trauma of the Holocaust. Trains, suspect on-boarding Israelis, might end up in Auschwitz; snow brings up associations of the death marches; old people are perceived as Gestapo officers; and contemporary child-rearing practices ‘explain’ to Israelis the obedience and collaboration of ordinary Germans with the Third Reich. Using thick description from the interviews I expose the suspicious Israeli habitus – which always looks for ‘signs’ that might explain what happened in Germany 80 years ago.

 
 
 
 

New Article: Sabar and Pagis, African Labor Migrants Returning from Israel

Sabar, Galia, and Michal Pagis. “Enhancing the Spirit of Entrepreneurship: African Labor Migrants Returning from Israel.” Migration Studies 3.2 (2015): 260-80.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/migration/mnu045

 

Abstract

Contemporary studies on return migration express a growing interest in the cultural and social dimensions of its economic development. In this article we aim to extend this interest by focusing on economic values returning migrants bring back with them to their countries of origin, captured in what we call the ‘entrepreneurial spirit’. The article is based on in-depth ethnographic fieldwork with Sub-Saharan African labor migrants both in Israel and after their return to their country of origin. Utilizing a Weberian perspective on the connection between values and economic action, we illustrate that even though African migrants work in menial jobs in Israel and very few acquire professional training, they come to utilize Israel as an informal space for the enhancement of a ‘spirit of entrepreneurship’. This spirit contains three valuative transformations: a transformation concerning time (including a valuing of the future over the present); a transformation concerning individual action (replacing the primacy of community with a focus on individual flourishing)-Sahara; and a transformation in social relations (extending trust beyond friends and family to economic partners). These transformations are in line with economic values underlying a capitalist economic system. The expression of these value orientations acts as an important factor through which African countries have become increasingly interlinked and influenced by neoliberal culture. Yet, as the testimonies of African labor migrants reveal, local social structures reside side by side with this imported spirit of entrepreneurship. This hybridity may lead to increased opportunities, but also to feelings of estrangement and frustration.

New Article: Kislev, Multicultural Policies on Migrants’ Identification: Israeli Diaspora in the USA

Kislev, Elyakim. “The Transnational Effect of Multicultural Policies on Migrants’ Identification: The Case of the Israeli Diaspora in the USA.” Global Networks 15.1 (2015): 118-39.

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/glob.12043

Abstract

While it is difficult to gauge the effect of multicultural policies within countries, it is even more difficult to measure them across countries. In this article, I use fundamental multicultural changes that have occurred in Israeli society in recent decades as a case study, and track their effect on how Israelis who reside in the USA identify with Israel. Analysing the US census and the American Community Survey, I have focused my research on three groups of Israeli-born migrants in the USA – Israeli Arabs, ultra-Orthodox Jews and the Jewish majority. Findings indicate that originating from a minority community in the homeland predicts not only a different rate, but also different longitudinal trends of Israeli identification. I offer several possible explanations for these variations, but an in-depth analysis of the Israeli case indicates that the transnational effect of the changing multicultural agenda in Israel is the leading mechanism at play.

New Article: Yehudai, Jewish Repatriation from Palestine to Europe, 1945–48

Yehudai, Ori. “Displaced in the National Home: Jewish Repatriation from Palestine to Europe, 1945–48.” Jewish Social Studies 20.2 (2014): 69-110.

 

URL: https://muse.jhu.edu/journals/jewish_social_studies/v020/20.2.yehudai.html

 

Abstract

At the end of World War II, thousands of European Jews who had found refuge in Palestine during the war sought to return to their countries of origin through a repatriation program launched by the Middle East office of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA). Their repatriation was a source of conflict between the Zionist leadership in Palestine and UNRRA. The former accused the latter of encouraging Jewish return to Europe, whereas UNRRA officials accused Zionists in the Yishuv of trying to prevent repatriation and of ostracizing those opting to return. The controversy derived from conflicting ideological and political considerations regarding the role of Jewish refugees in postwar reconstruction. Yet the positions of the quarreling parties were disconnected from those of repatriation applicants, who were determined to rebuild their lives outside Palestine but conceived of postwar reconstruction mainly in material and personal rather than ideological and political terms.

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: Rebhun, Israeli Émigrés in the United States and Europe Compared

Rebhun, Uzi. “Immigrant Acculturation and Transnationalism: Israelis in the United States and Europe Compared.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 53.3 (2014): 613-35.

URL: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jssr.12135/abstract

Abstract

This article examines relations between social integration into host societies, religio-ethnic acculturation into group belonging, and ties to home country among Israeli émigrés in the United States and Europe. I use data from a 2009–2010 Internet survey into which I incorporated country-contextual characteristics. The results of multivariate analyses show that a social integration combining duration of residence abroad and local citizenship enhances religio-ethnic identification. Another measure of integration, social networks, deters group behaviors. All measures of general integration inhibit attachment to the home country, whereas religio-ethnic acculturation is largely insignificant for transnationalism. The religiosity of the new country does not influence immigrants’ religio-ethnic patterns or homeland attachment. Insofar as group size is a significant determinant of particularistic behaviors, it weakens them. The more policy-based opportunities newcomers receive, the more they dissociate from group behaviors and homeland ties. Irrespective of individual and contextual factors, living in the United States encourages group affiliation more than living in Europe does. The results are discussed in reference to four working hypotheses—marginalization, integration, assimilation, and separation—and from a U.S.-European comparative perspective.

 

New Article: Rebhun, English-Language Proficiency Among Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs

Rebhun, Uzi. “English-Language Proficiency Among Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs in the United States, 1980–2000.” International Migration Review 49.2 (2015): 271-317.

 

URL: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/imre.12064/abstract

 

Abstract

This study assesses the determinants of English-language proficiency among three subgroups of Israeli immigrants in the United States, namely native-born Israeli Jews, foreign-born Israeli Jews, and Palestinian Arabs, and how these determinants have changed over time. Multivariate analyses of decennial censuses from 1980, 1990, and 2000 reveal substantial differences in the directions and significance of the relationships between the independent variables and English proficiency of the subgroups under investigation. Ethnoreligious affiliation per se is seen to be an important factor that consistently explains intra-group variation in English proficiency. This lends support to the split approach over the lump approach in attempting to understand immigrants’ linguistic dynamics in the new country. The findings are discussed in reference to three working hypotheses – “exposure,” “efficiency,” and “economic incentives” – and in the specific sociopolitical conditions of Jews and Arabs at both origin and destination.

Dissertation: McCLure, ELL Parent Involvement of Recent Immigrants from Israel, Russia, and Uzbekistan

McClure, Noel M. ELL Parent Involvement of Recent Immigrants from Israel, Russia, and Uzbekistan. Jones International University, 2011.

 

URL: http://udini.proquest.com/view/ell-parent-involvement-of-recent-pqid:2336119021/

Abstract

Abstract: The purpose of this research is to determine successful ways schools, teachers, and classrooms can effectively foster partnerships with parents of English language learners who are recent immigrants from Russia, Uzbekistan, and Israel. As schools struggle to overcome institutional bias and lack of understanding of how to accommodate the needs of the growing population of immigrant students from diverse countries, immigrant parents also struggle to fit into a new cultural environment and to secure the best education for their children. This qualitative study was conducted in one school in Phoenix, Arizona. Through interviews with ten parents of English language learners and nine teachers of ELL students, this research provides information about the barriers and opportunities that teachers and parents of English language learners faced in improving academic success for English language students who were children of immigrants. The findings and conclusions consist of the following: (a) schools and parents must communicate well in order to develop into a team that supports the students, (b) schools may need to provide additional resources to ELL teachers and parents in order to support the students, and (c) school cultures may need to change through cultural trainings and signage in order to become more welcoming toward ELL parents. This work is limited by the fact that it was completed in only one school with a narrow population. The information gathered here informs the discussion in schools regarding ways that school leaders and teachers can work more effectively with immigrant parents to support in the home the academic goals of English language students. Key search terms: English Language Learners, immigrant parents, school-parent communication, school-family connection, Bukharian students.

Subject: English as a Second Language; Multicultural Education; Judaic studies

Classification: 0441: English as a Second Language; 0455: Multicultural Education; 0751: Judaic studies

Identifier / keyword: Education, Social sciences, Bukharian, ELL, ESL, Parent involvement, Recent immigrants, School-parent communication, English as a second language, Israeli, Russian, Uzbek

Number of pages: 297

Publication year: 2011

Degree date: 2011

School code: 1590

Source: DAI-A 72/06, Dec 2011

Place of publication: Ann Arbor

Country of publication: United States

ISBN: 9781124591469

Advisor: Hargiss, Kathleen

Committee member: Howard, Caroline, Orth, Judith

University/institution: Jones International University

Department: School of Education

University location: United States — Colorado

Degree: Ed.D.

Source type: Dissertations & Theses

Language: English

Document type: Dissertation/Thesis

Dissertation/thesis number: 3450476

ProQuest document ID: 864579837

Reviews: Kanaaneh and Nusair, eds. Displaced at Home

Kanaaneh, Rhoda Ann and Isis Nusair, eds. Displaced at Home. Ethnicity and Gender among Palestinians in Israel. Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 2010.

Reviews

• Sa’ar, Amalia. “Review.” Review of Middle East Studies 45.1 (2011): 113-115.
• Bachal, Lauren, et al. “Review.” Contemporary Sociology 40.5 (2011): 639-40.
• Gluck, Sherna Berger. “New Directions in Palestinian Oral History.” Oral History Review 39.1 (2012): 100-111.
• Vivier, Elmé. “Review.” Journal of International Women’s Studies 13.3 (2012): 203-207.
• Arar, Khalid. “Review.” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 40.2 (2013): 227-30.

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Cite: Cohen, Negotiation of Second-Generation Citizenship in the Israeli Diaspora

Cohen, Nir. “State, Migrants, and the Negotiation of Second-Generation Citizenship in the Israeli Diaspora.” Diaspora 16.1-2 (2012): 133-158.

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URL: http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/diaspora_a_journal_of_transnational_studies/v016/16.1-2.cohen.html

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Abstract

Using second-generation Israeli migrants in the United States as a case study, this article explores one unusual site in which the politics of diasporic citizenship unfolds. It examines the North American chapter of the Israeli Scouts (Tzofim Tzabar) as an arena of negotiation between representatives of the sending state apparatus and migrants over the meaning (and practices) of citizenship outside national territory. This quotidian space is important to migrants’ contestation with the state concerning their claims for a form of membership that is neither territorial nor contingent upon the fulfillment of traditional civic duties (e.g., military service). Challenging the state-supported model of republicanism, in which presence in territory and the fulfillment of a predetermined set of civic duties are preconditions for citizenship, Israeli migrants advocate instead an arrangement based on a strong cultural identity and a revised set of diaspora-based material practices of support.

New Publication: Rebhun and Lev-Ari: American Israelis

Rebhun, Uzi and Lilach Lev Ari. American Israelis. Migration, Transnationalism, and Diasporic Identity. Jewish Identities in a Changing World 13. Leiden: Brill, 2010.

 

Cite: Rozin, Israel and the Right to Travel Abroad

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Rozin, Orit. "Israel and the Right to Travel Abroad, 1948–1961." Israel Studies 15,1 (2010): 147-176.

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Abstract

Today, no one questions that criminals, minors, or those seeking to shirk their civic duties may be restricted or even barred from leaving their respective countries. However, during the 1950s, several democratic countries, including Israel, restricted foreign travel by their citizens on other grounds. This article examines the right of departure policies of Israel in comparison with three models—Soviet, British, and American—which served Israeli policy makers as criteria in this regard. The policy promulgated by a country sheds light on its character, its society, and its perception of citizenship. The article not only describes the right to travel abroad as exercised in Israel, but also opens a window onto the conceptual world of those who set such policy.

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URL: http://inscribe.iupress.org/doi/abs/10.2979/ISR.2010.15.1.147

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Keywords: Freedom of Movement, Israel: Law, Israel: Tourism from, Emigration from Israel, History, Ideology, Israel: Economy

Cite: Cohen, Migration Patterns to and from Israel

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Cohen, Yinon. "Migration Patterns to and from Israel." Contemporary Jewry 29,2 (2009): 115-125.

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Abstract:  Israel’s migration patterns have been conducive in several ways to the demographic success of Zionism and Israel since 1947. In addition to the decisive success with respect to the growth in the number of Jews in Israel, their proportion in the Israeli population, and the proportion of world Jewry residing in Israel, following the 1967 war Israel attracted immigrants of higher educational level than those arriving during the 1950s and 1960s. In addition, Israel has been successful in keeping emigration rates of Jews relatively low during most years, including the last decade. Moreover, the rate of return migration among Israeli-born Jewish emigrants has been relatively high and the returnees highly educated compared to non-returning emigrants. Finally, it seems that Israel has been quite successful in integrating into Israeli society non-Jewish immigrants from the former Soviet Republics. However, this cannot be said about the non-Jewish labor migrants who arrived in Israel since the early 1990.

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URL: http://www.springerlink.com/content/1741573x0qt7qu24/

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Keywords:  Aliyah / Immigration to Israel, Emigration from Israel, Israel: Society, Russian Immigrants, Labor Migrants / Ovdim Zarim,  Immigrants’ skills, ינון כהן