Thesis: Melamed, Israeli Homemade Video Memorials and the Politics of Loss

Melamed, Laliv. Sovereign Intimacy: Israeli Homemade Video Memorials and the Politics of Loss, PhD dissertation. New York: New York University, 2015.
 
URL: http://gradworks.umi.com/37/40/3740826.html
 
Abstract

Sovereign Intimacy takes as its subject of investigation video memorialization of dead Israeli soldiers done by their close family and friends. Mixing private loss, home-made video production, military conduct, state politics, and an institutionalized commemoration, it redraws the affinities between affective intimacy and forms of governing. It delineates the reshaping of sovereignty by filial relationships, video practicing and aesthetics, state and military administration of death and mass media. Sovereign Intimacy inquires into the political currencies of mourning and loss.

The videos respond to an event triggered by operations of state violence—figured by military power—with a personal lamenting of the breaking of intimate ties. These videos are made by the family and for the family, through amateur and semi-amateur modes of production. Although they were meant to be privately circulated, this phenomenon emerged in tandem to the videos being broadcast on television during the events of the National Memorial Day.

Home-made video memorials become a standard of Israeli memorialization during the 1990s. Largely the result of waning public support of the Israeli occupation of the south of Lebanon, and of a growing disavowal of state authority, the phenomenon represented a potential challenge to hegemonic narratives and aesthetic forms, through the appropriation of memory and means of production. However, it did not make way to a new political voice to emerge. Instead, these videos emotionalized violence and victimized its deliverers. Furthermore, the broadcasting of the videos on television—allegedly as a tribute to the families, a communal gesture of listening and a call for solidarity—participated in a national economy of death in which the lives of Lebanese, Palestinians and marginalized people within Israeli society had no value. Lastly, the phenomenon of memorial videos normalized the growing militarization of civil society and neutralized any call for political action.

 

 

 

New Article: Rozin, Infiltration and the Making of Israel’s Emotional Regime

Rozin, Orit. “Infiltration and the Making of Israel’s Emotional Regime in the State’s Early Years.” Middle Eastern Studies (early view; online first).
 
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00263206.2015.1124416
 
Abstract

After the 1948 war, the cease-fire lines between Israel and its neighbours remained porous. Palestinian refugees crossed the borders. Some returned to cultivate their fields; others crossed the border as thieves. Some intended to murder Israelis and wreak terror. Most of the refugees who made their way into Israel were not violent, but their presence frightened Jewish civilians living in frontier regions. Policy-makers and cultural agents of the social elite mobilized to mould the threatened population into Israelis who could display fortitude. The article analyzes the emotional regime the Israeli state sought to inculcate and the desirable and undesirable outcomes of this policy.

 

 

 

New Article: Kahn et al, Intergroup Sentiments in the Context of an Intractable Conflict

Kahn, Dennis T., Varda Liberman, Eran Halperin, and Lee Ross. “Intergroup Sentiments, Political Identity, and Their Influence on Responses to Potentially Ameliorative Proposals in the Context of an Intractable Conflict.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 60.1 (2016): 61-88.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0022002714535250

 

Abstract

Two studies examined the association of particular sentiments and political identities with Jewish-Israeli students’ responses to a generic plan to end the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and to narrower proposals for cooperative undertakings. Three composites—hatred/anger, compassion/empathy (reverse-coded), and guilt/shame (reverse-coded), and also a global composite combining these three sets of sentiments, were generally associated with negative responses to those plans and negative attributions about the wisdom and patriotism of supporters of those plans. Most of the associations between the global sentiments composite and the relevant responses continued to be statistically significant even after controlling for participants’ political identity. The interaction between the relevant sentiments and the putative authorship of one of the proposals was also investigated. Issues of generalizability, replicability, robustness, and of the relevance of mediational analysis, as well as implications for conflict resolution and potential directions for future research are addressed in a concluding discussion.

 

 

 

New Book: Galin, Fatherhood in Transition (Hebrew)

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.

ToC: Israel Studies Review 30.2 (2015)

Israel Studies Review 30.2 (2015)

Editors’ Note

Editors’ Note
pp. v-vi(2)

 

Articles

Does Israel Have a Navel? Anthony Smith and Zionism
pp. 28-49(22)
Author: Berent, Moshe

 

Book Reviews

Book Reviews
pp. 130-155(26)

ToC: Jewish Social Studies 21,1 (2015)

Jewish Social Studies 21.1 (2015)

Table of Contents

 Front Matter

JSS-Front

New Article: Hareli et al, A Cross-Cultural Study on Emotion Expression and the Learning of Social Norms

Hareli, Shlomo, Konstantinos Kafetsios, and Ursula Hess. “A Cross-Cultural Study on Emotion Expression and the Learning of Social Norms.” Frontiers in Psychology 6 (2015).

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01501

 

Abstract

When we do not know how to correctly behave in a new context, the emotions that people familiar with the context show in response to the behaviors of others, can help us understand what to do or not to do. The present study examined cross-cultural differences in how group emotional expressions (anger, sadness, neutral) can be used to deduce a norm violation in four cultures (Germany, Israel, Greece, and the US), which differ in terms of decoding rules for negative emotions. As expected, in all four countries, anger was a stronger norm violation signal than sadness or neutral expressions. However, angry and sad expressions were perceived as more intense and the relevant norm was learned better in Germany and Israel than in Greece and the US. Participants in Greece were relatively better at using sadness as a sign of a likely norm violation. The results demonstrate both cultural universality and cultural differences in the use of group emotion expressions in norm learning. In terms of cultural differences they underscore that the social signal value of emotional expressions may vary with culture as a function of cultural differences, both in emotion perception, and as a function of a differential use of emotions.

 

 

New Article: Lynch & McGoldrick, Psychophysiological Audience Responses to War Journalism and Peace Journalism

Lynch, Jack, and Annabel McGoldrick. “Psychophysiological Audience Responses to War Journalism and Peace Journalism.” Global Media and Communication (early view; online first).

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1742766515606295

 

Abstract

This article presents and discusses the results of an experiment in which television viewers were exposed to either a war journalism (WJ) or a peace journalism (PJ) version of two news stories, on Australian government policies towards asylum seekers and US-sponsored ‘peace talks’ between Israel and the Palestinians, respectively. Before and after viewing, they completed a cognitive questionnaire and two tests designed to disclose changes in their emotional state. During the viewing, they also underwent measurement of blood volume pulse, from which their heart rate variability (HRV) was calculated. HRV measures effects on the autonomic nervous system caused by changes in breathing patterns as subjects respond to stimuli with empathic concern. Since these patterns are regulated by the vagal nerve, HRV readings can therefore be interpreted as an indicator of vagal tone, which Porges et al. propose as an ‘autonomic correlate of emotion’. In this study, vagal tone decreased from baseline through both WJ stories, but showed a slightly smaller decrease during the PJ asylum story and then a significant increase during the PJ Israel–Palestine story. These readings correlated with questionnaire results showing greater hope and empathy among PJ viewers and increased anger and distress among WJ viewers, of the Israel–Palestine story.

 

 

New Article: Weiss, Humanitarian Sentiment and the Israeli–Palestinian Conflict

Weiss, Erica. “Provincializing Empathy: Humanitarian Sentiment and the Israeli–Palestinian Conflict.” Anthropological Theory 15.3 (2015): 275-92.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1463499614568571

 

Abstract

This article considers the role of the humanitarian sentiment empathy in peace initiatives in the Israeli-Palestine conflict. Recently, a sustained critique of humanitarianism has emerged. While many of these accounts focus on the ethical effects of specific manifestations of humanitarian governance, there is a significant strain criticizing the inherent logical structure of humanitarian empathy, and questioning the innate ability of the humanitarian tradition to understand ethical questions politically. This critique does not resonate with my fieldwork experiences with Jewish Israeli conscientious objectors, who are explicitly inspired by empathetic experiences with Palestinians, and interpret these experiences politically. Thus, following Dipesh Chakrabarty’s example, I suggest that provincializing the humanitarian tradition is a more productive anthropological stance than critique, because it similarly allows us to criticize universal claims and abuses of power, while not subscribing to determinism, and not repudiating our interlocutors’ core ethical beliefs.

 

 

New Book: Schilling, Emotional State Theory. Friendship and Fear in Israeli Foreign Policy

Schilling, Christopher L. Emotional State Theory. Friendship and Fear in Israeli Foreign Policy. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2015.

 

schilling

 

This book develops “emotional state theory” as a new contribution to international relations theory (IR). The text addresses the State of Israel vis-à-vis the rest of the world. The rationale for this research perspective stems from the trajectory of Israeli state-building since its foundation in May 1948 to the present date. This trajectory is constructed reflecting the trauma of the past and dreams about the future. Both contribute decisively to a better understanding of the current image and position of the state of Israel. The reference builds on two great Jewish thinkers’ works, Theodor Herzl and his book The Jewish State and Sigmund Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams.

The author argues that despite the fact that both never met, taken together their ideas lend themselves to shed light on and offer an explanation for Israel’s troubled and uncertain position in current international relations. The resulting question underlying this work on the emotionality of states and its impact on international relations is therefore “whether Israel is still in a process of dreaming” and whether it is therefore to be understood a “state which has not yet woken from the trauma of the Jewish past. Not a dream’s fulfilment of an end of the Diaspora, but a nightmare based on this experience.” Drawing on these two parallel and rather influential texts, Schilling rephrases the leading questions of this book as this: “Has Israel developed an understanding of itself which sees the country as a modern state among the nations, which is dealing with its neighbors, or rather, does Israel understand itself more as being like a ghetto that is still surrounded by a hostile world? Has Israel become a strong, self-confident country, or has it continued with the nervousness of the Diaspora Jews to become a state with an emotional problem?”.

 

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Theoretical Framework
Chapter 2: Methodological Strategy
Chapter 3: Jewish Identity Constructions in Israel
Chapter 4: Israeli Foreign Policy
Chapter 5: Conclusion

 

Christopher L. Schilling is political scientist and lawyer.

 

 

New Article: Shalev et al, Mate Selection Patterns in Modern Orthodox Society

Shalev, Ofra, Nehami Baum, and Haya Itzhaky. “‘Whose Marriage is this?’ – Mate Selection Patterns in Modern Orthodox Society in Israel: A Dialogue between Two Cultural Systems.” Journal of Psychology and Psychotherapy 5.3 (2015).

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.4172/2161-0487.1000181

 

Abstract

In modern societies, mate selection process has received extensive attention in the theoretical and research literature. Researchers were primarily concentrated in identifying the parameters that motivate and influence the choice of partner, as similarity, mutual benefits, and emotional aspects. Little attention, however, was given to the social and cultural context under which the selection process takes place. The present study attempted to explore this process among Modern Orthodox couples in Israel, as they combine two simultaneous cultural systems; modern and traditional. 36 in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with couples during their first year of marriage. The analysis revealed several mate selection styles, which were classified into two main groups: the “cognitive selectors” and the “emotional selectors”. Both groups relate to their social context as a main factor in their selection process and outcome. The study findings throw light on the cultural complexity and duality of parallel value systems.

 

 

New Article: Stern, Sanctity and Separateness among Jewish Religious Zionists

Stern, Nehemia Akiva. “‘I Desire Sanctity’: Sanctity and Separateness among Jewish Religious Zionists in Israel/Palestine.” Anthropology of Consciousness 26.2 (2015): 156-69.

 

URL: https://dx.doi.org/10.1111/anoc.12039

 

Abstract
This article expands on anthropological understandings of affect and emotion to include certain theological and religious concepts that structure and give meaning to the daily lives of religious nationalists in areas of ethnic and political conflict. In doing so, it will ethnographically explore the relationship between theological notions of sanctity and the way those notions manifest themselves in the context of contemporary Jewish religious Zionism in both Israel and the Occupied West Bank. I will argue that analyzing mystical conceptions of sanctity as a distinct affect opens new areas of human experience, which anthropologists may use to better grapple with the dilemmas posed by nationalism and religious extremism in an increasingly politically fraught world.

 

 

New Book: Shoham, Prison Tattoos. A Study of Russian Inmates

Shoham, Efrat. Prison Tattoos. A Study of Russian Inmates in Israel. New York: Springer, 2015.

 
 
9783319158709

 

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction 1
  2. The Inmates Community   5
  3. Tattoos 41
  4. Anthropological Study 59
  5. Typology of Tattoos Among Russian Inmates in Israeli Prisons   63
  6. Tattoos and Gender  83
  7. Criminals’ Tattoos Versus Normative Tattoos 87
  8. Rehabilitation Programs for Russian Inmates in the Israeli Prisons 91
  9. Summary 95

Bibliography 101

Index 107

 
 
 
 
Prof. Efrat Shoham is a senior criminologist in Ashkelon Academic College, Israel. She is the Chairperson of the Israeli Society of Criminology, and the research committee of the Israeli Prisoners Rehabilitation Authority.

New Article: Kaplan & Werczberger, Jewish New Age and the Middle Class

Kaplan, Dana, and Rachel Werczberger. “Jewish New Age and the Middle Class: Jewish Identity Politics in Israel under Neoliberalism.” Sociology (early view; online first).

 

URL: https://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0038038515595953

 

Abstract
This article asks why middle-class Israeli seculars have recently begun to engage with Jewish religiosity. We use the case of the Jewish New Age (JNA) as an example of the middle class’s turn from a nationalised to a spiritualised version of Judaism. We show, by bringing together the sociology of religion’s interest in emerging spiritualities and cultural sociology’s interest in social class, how after Judaism was deemed socially significant in identity-based struggles for recognition, Israeli New Agers started culturalising and individualising Jewish religiosity by constructing it in a spiritual, eclectic, emotional and experiential manner. We thus propose that what may be seen as cultural and religious pluralism is, in fact, part of a broader system of class reproduction.

 

 

New Article: Abu-Raiya and Agbaria, Religiousness and Subjective Well-Being Among Israeli-Palestinian College Students

Abu-Raiya, Hisham, and Qutaiba Agbaria. “Religiousness and Subjective Well-Being Among Israeli-Palestinian College Students: Direct or Mediated Links?” Social Indicators Research (early view; online first).

 

URL: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11205-015-0913-x

 

Abstract

Espousing a positive psychology orientation, this study aimed to explore the links between religiousness and subjective well-being, and test whether social support and self-control mediate the expected associations between these two variables. Participants were 264 Israeli-Palestinian college students, who were asked to provide demographic information and complete measures of religiousness, social support, self-control, subjective happiness, positive emotions and negative emotions. We found that religiousness was positively correlated with both subjective happiness and positive emotions, but no significant correlation was found between religiousness and negative emotions. Both social support and self-control partially mediated the links between religiousness and both subjective happiness and positive emotions. The findings of the study, as well as its implications and limitations, are discussed.

New Article: Tarablus et al, Cyber Bullying Among Teenagers in Israel

Tarablus, Tamar, Tali Heiman, and Dorit Olenik-Shemesh. “Cyber Bullying Among Teenagers in Israel: An Examination of Cyber Bullying, Traditional Bullying, and Socioemotional Functioning.” Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma 24.6 (2015): 707-20.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10926771.2015.1049763

 

Abstract
In this study, the relationships between cyber bullying and involvement in traditional bullying, with reference to social support and gender differences, was examined. Social support plays an important role in empowering victims of cyber bullying and has a significant influence on children and teenagers’ well-being. A sample made up of 458 Israeli junior high students (242 female, 216 male) in the age range of 11 to 13 completed 4 questionnaires. Results indicated that there is an overlap between involvement in cyber bullying and involvement in traditional bullying. The findings indicate that girls were more likely to be cyber victims than boys and that boys were more likely to be cyber bullies than girls. Examination of the relationships between gender and social support variables such as friends, family, and others, shows that girls who were cyber victims reported having more support in all 3 types than cyber bullied boys. These findings can serve as a basis for prevention and intervention programs to cope with cyber bullying.

 

 

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

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.

ToC: Hebrew Higher Education 17 (2015)

Hebrew Higher Education 17 (2015): Table of Contents

Click here to download the full issue as a PDF.

EDITOR’S NOTE
5 ADINA OFEK

 

ARTICLES
Hebrew literature over various periods

 

7-18 ESTHER HANOCH
האומנם מרחם אלוהים על ילדי הגן? אינטרפרטציה לארבעה שירי יהודה עמיחי
(Does God Pity Little Children? An Interpretation of Four Yehuda Amichi Poems)

 

19-34 TAMAR SETTER
קריאה חדשה בחיי נישואים בעקבות גילויו של רומן וינאי לדוד פוגל
(A New Reading of Married Life Following the Discovery of Viennese Romance by David Vogel)

 

35-47 MICHAL FRAM COHEN

הפילוג החסידי-מתנגדי בספר מזכרונות ימי ילדותי או מראה העיר דווינסק מאת שרה פייגה פונר: עדות היסטורית או הטיה אישית?

(The Hasidic-Mitnagdi Schism in the book Memories of My Childhood or a View of Dvinsk by Sarah Feiga Foner: Historical Testimony or Personal Bias?)

 

49-73 ABDALLAH TARABEIH and ADEL SHAKOUR
The Influence of the Letter of the Sword and the Pen by Ibn Burd on the Maḥbarot of Alharizi and Ibn Ardutiel

 

Linguistics

 

75-86 LIOR LAX
שקיפות מורפו-סמנטית ומורפו-קטגוריאלית כגורם לשינוי לשוני
(Morph-Semantic and Morpho-Categorical Transparency as a Trigger for Language Change)

 

87-99 BAT-ZION YEMINI
רטוריקה ריגושית בסוגה השימושית בלשון העיתונות
(Emotional Rhetoric in the Journalistic Instrumental Genre)

 

101-115 SHMUEL BOLOZKY and RESPONDENTS
אוריינות בעברית הישראלית ומעמד הגרוניות-לשעבר א’ ה’ ע’
(Literacy in Israeli Hebrew and the Status of the Formerly-“Guttural” ‘alef, he, and `ayin)

 

Teaching Biblical Hebrew

 

117-129 MICHAEL B. SHEPHERD
Hebrew Exegesis Worksheets

 

131-152 RAHEL HALABE
Realistic and Effective Practice and Assessment System for the Biblical Hebrew Introductory Course Teaching Modern Hebrew

 

153-158 ESTER SIMONS
שיקולים לשוניים ותוכניים בכתיבת ספרי לימוד בעברית: עדויות מן השטח
(Writing Hebrew Language Textbooks: Linguistic Considerations and Content Choices)

 

BOOK REVIEWS
159-162 ERAN BUCHALZEV
Modern Hebrew: The Past and Future of a Revitalized Language. By Norman Berdichevsky
163-167 RUTH BEN-YEHUDA ADLER
קשרים. A Text Book for Advanced Learners of Hebrew
מאת אביטל פויר, טל נורמן, שירלי מליחי, רינה קרייטמן ומיכל כהן
(Ksharim: A Text Book for Advanced Learners of Hebrew.
by Avital Feuer, Tal Norman, Shirly Malichi, Rina Kreitman and Michal Cohen)

 

169-170 RINA DONCHIN
חדשון בעברית קלה
(Hadshon: An Online Newspaper for Hebrew Learners)

 

171-173 MICHAL RAIZEN
Israel/Palestine. By Lital Levy

 

175-180 ORA (RODRIGUE) SCHWARZWALD
The Languages of the Jews: A Sociolinguistic History. By Bernard Spolsky

 

181-183 JODY WASHBURN
Learning Biblical Hebrew Interactively. Instructor
Edition. By Paul Overland

 

OTHER PUBLICATIONS IN THE SUBJECT OF HEBREW

 

185-188 HED HA’ULPAN 102-103: Table of Contents

 

189-198 HELKAT LASHON 47-46: Table of Contents

 

INFORMATION FOR CONTRIBUTERS