New Article: Razon, Jews, Bedouins, and the Making of the Secular Israeli

Razon, Na’amah. “Entangled Bodies: Jews, Bedouins, and the Making of the Secular Israeli.” Medical Anthropology (early view; online first).

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01459740.2016.1138950

 

Abstract

Taking Israel’s National Health Insurance Law as a point of entry, in this article I probe how notions of equality and citizenship, secularism and religion become entangled in the experience of Negev/Naqab Bedouin, who are Palestinian citizens of Israel. Drawing on ethnographic and archival research, I show how Jewish citizens have come to represent the secular and modern citizens in the region, while Bedouins, although mandated and claimed by policy and providers to be the ‘same’ and ‘equal’, are always already imagined and characterized as other. Universal healthcare and the daily manner in which biomedicine is practiced in southern Israel provides an avenue for examining the Jewish valences medicine carries in southern Israel, Israel’s boundaries of inclusion, and the connection between biomedicine and secularism.

 

 

 

New Article: Southern et al, Varied Utilisation of Health Provision by Arab and Jewish Residents in Israel

Southern, Jo, Hector Roizin, Muhannad Daana, Carmit Rubin, Samantha Hasleton, Adi Cohen, Aviva Goral, Galia Rahav, Meir Raz, and Gili Regev-Yochay. “Varied Utilisation of Health Provision by Arab and Jewish Residents in Israel.” International Journal for Equity in Health (early view; online first).

 

URL: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12939-015-0193-8

 

Abstract

Introduction

Provision of healthcare is considered a basic human right. Delivery and uptake is affected by many complex factors. Routine vaccinations are provided free of charge in Israel to all residents. The Palestinian Israeli Collaborative Research (PICR) group conducted research on vaccine impact at eight primary care facilities in east Jerusalem (EJ) and central Israel (IL) which allowed assessment and comparison of interactions of these Arab and Jewish populations, respectively, with healthcare services.

Methods

Families attending clinic with a child under five years old were invited to participate. Utilisation of healthcare was assessed using data from standardise questionnaires completed after enrolment, using proxies of vaccination status, antibiotic use, primary care physician and hospital visits as well as demographics such as household size. Differences between EJ and IL were assessed using chi squared tests; univariate analyses identified potential confounders which were tested in a multiple logistic regression model for any independent associations between region and outcome.

Results

Children in EJ were significantly more likely to live in larger households, with tobacco smokers, to have been breastfed, hospitalised and used antibiotics recently than those in IL, who were significantly more likely to have recently seen a primary care physician (all p < 0.01). Receipt of routine vaccinations, given at well baby clinics, was similar between the regions at above 95 % (p = 0.11), except for influenza which was delivered separately at primary physician clinics to 5 % (EJ) and 12 % (IL). Receipt of pneumococcal vaccine when paid for separately was significantly higher in IL than EJ (3 % vs 31 %). Multivariate analysis identified the most important independent predictors of these differences as region, age and household size.

Conclusions

Healthcare in Israel is of a very high standard, but it is not uniformly utilised within the community in all geographical areas, though in some key areas, such as uptake of most routine childhood vaccination, equality seems to be achieved. To ensure excellent healthcare is achieved across the population, inequalities must be addressed, for instance in health promotion and other activities, which could improve and normalise health outcomes.

 
 
 
 

New Book: Navot, The Constitution of Israel: A Contextual Analysis

Navot, Suzie. The Constitution of Israel: A Contextual Analysis. Oxford: Hart, 2014.

 

 

This book presents the main features of the Israeli constitutional system and a topical discussion of Israel’s basic laws. It focuses on constitutional history and the peculiar decision to frame a constitution ‘by stages’. Following its British heritage and the lack of a formal constitution, Israel’s democracy grew for more than four decades on the principle of parliamentary supremacy. Introducing a constitutional model and the concept of judicial review of laws, the ‘constitutional revolution’ of the 1990s started a new era in Israel’s constitutional history. The book’s main themes include: constitutional principles; the legislature and the electoral system; the executive; the protection of fundamental rights and the crucial role of the Supreme Court in Israel’s constitutional discourse. It further presents Israel’s unique aspects as a Jewish and democratic state, and its ongoing search for the right balance between human rights and national security. Finally, the book offers a critical discussion of the development of Israel’s constitution and local projects aimed at enacting a single and comprehensive text.

Click here for a full Table of Contents (PDF).

New Article: Brody, The Dispute over the 2010 Safed Ban on Selling Land to Israeli Arabs

Brody, Shlomo M. “When Political Ideology Meets Jewish Law: The Dispute over the 2010 Safed Ban on Selling Land to Israeli Arabs.” En Route, Journal of the Aspen Center for Social Values (March 2015): 18-21.

 

URL: http://www.theaspencenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/March-2015.pdf (pages 18-21 on PDF file)

 

Excerpt

More fundamental critiques, with which I identify, came from other segments of the religious Zionist camp. Rabbi Hayim Druckman, head of Yeshivot Bnei Akiva, contended that one may prohibit real estate deals with “enemies of the state.” Yet it remains unacceptable to issue a blanket prohibition against all Gentiles, including many loyal citizens, such as college students, IDF veterans, and health care providers.

Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein of Yeshivat Har Etzion launched a more trenchant critique, contending that the Safed rabbis had greatly oversimplifed Jewish law. It remains unquestionable, he noted, that there is a halakhic basis for prohibiting the sale of land to Gentiles within Israel. Yet, as we saw, a few figures limited the prohibition to the seven Canaanite nations, while many other scholars applied different dispensations to the rule, including a strong albeit not exclusive tradition – originating with the medieval school of the Tosafists – that severely narrowed this and similar laws. ese points and others were made years earlier by Rabbi Hayim David HaLevi in sweeping essays that presented a Jewish legal stance in tune with democratic values (Aseh Lekha Rav 4:1, 8:68, 9:30).

In short, genuine political problems may exist in various parts of the country. But the solutions lie in education and political wisdom, not in overreaching legal statements that distort – and disgrace – Jewish law and its adherents.

 

New Article: Beinin, Regrouping in the Absence of a Two-State Solution

Beinin, Joel. “Coexistence, Equality, and Universal Principles in Israel/Palestine: Regrouping in the Absence of a Two-State Solution.” Tikkun 30.2 (2015): 9-15.

 

URL: https://muse.jhu.edu/journals/tikkun/v030/30.2.beinin.html

 

Excerpt

The inordinate focus on a Palestinian state has diverted attention from the fate of the Palestinian people. The conditions of many Palestinians — citizens of Israel, inhabitants of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, and refugees in Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq — have deteriorated dramatically since 2000. Evictions of Palestinians from the East Jerusalem neighborhoods of Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan by messianic religious-nationalist settlers, the expansion of settlements to surround East Jerusalem and prevent its return to Palestinian rule, home demolitions and disruption of normal economic and academic life throughout the West Bank, the siege (tighter or looser as Israel chooses) imposed on the population of the Gaza Strip, attacks on refugee camps in Lebanon and Syria, insecure and dysfunctional conditions throughout Iraq — all these have taken a toll on Palestinians. The most urgent task is to focus on the present and future conditions of actual Palestinians, not to speculate on the nature of a state or states that have little chance of coming into existence anytime soon.

This means exposing and resisting Israeli efforts to diminish the Palestinian presence through various mechanisms of expulsion. It means dismantling the separation barrier and other infrastructures that separate Palestinian communities, including the massive checkpoints at Qalandiya and Bethlehem in the West Bank that are effectively international frontier posts, and opposing the continuing confiscation of lands for new settlements and the violent campaign of settler fanatics like the “Hilltop Youth” to terrorize Palestinian farmers and shepherds. It means demanding an end to Israeli occupation of all the lands conquered in 1967. It means advocating the full equality, including individual and collective rights, of the Palestinian citizens of Israel. Perhaps most painfully for some, but nonetheless absolutely necessary, it means educating ourselves about and recognizing the full extent of the Palestinian Nakba, whose effects continue today. Resolution of the conflict necessitates that we confront our moral obligations as Jews, as Americans, and as global citizens to acknowledge responsibility, make restitution, and pay compensation.

 

New Book: Meydani, The Anatomy of Human Rights in Israel

Meydani, Assaf. The Anatomy of Human Rights in Israel. Constitutional Rhetoric and State Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013.

 

 

Why is there such a large gap between the declarations that countries make about human rights and their imperfect implementation of them? Why do states that have enacted laws and signed treaties about human rights choose to not enforce these laws in daily life? Why have activists failed to achieve the goals of ensuring human rights domestically and internationally? This book examines the issue of human rights in the Israeli domestic arena by analyzing the politics and strategies of defending human rights. To do so, it integrates the tools of social choice theory with a unique institutionalist perspective that looks at both formal and informal, and local and international factors. The book offers an analysis explaining the processes through which Israel is struggling to promote human rights within a specific institutional environment, thus determining the future of Israeli democracy and its attitude toward human rights.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. Institutional theory and social choice studies: understanding the anatomy of human rights
3. Human rights between constitutional rhetoric and state practice
4. Structural and cultural variables favoring a short-term orientation
5. The right to be free from the threat of torture in light of structural and cultural complexity
6. The right to equality: gender segregation on ultra-orthodox buses following the Israeli High Court of Justice ruling on the ‘segregation lines’ in 2011
7. The right to enjoy a decent lifestyle: the case of the Laron law – national insurance law (amendment no. 109, 2008) encouraging the disabled to work
8. The human rights commission in Israel that never was
9. Property rights – the issue of designing policy about the separation fence – the High Court of Justice case: Beit Sureiq Village v. the State of Israel, 2004
10. The right to human dignity and liberty: the organ transplant law, 5768 (2008)
11. Policy evaluation: analyzing the reality for human rights.

URL: http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/law/human-rights/anatomy-human-rights-israel-constitutional-rhetoric-and-state-practice

 

 

Dissertation: Razon, Citizenship, Science, and Medicine in the Negev/Naqab

Razon, Na’amah. Producing Equality: Citizenship, Science, and Medicine in the Negev/Naqab. University of California, San Francisco, 2013.

 

URL: http://search.proquest.com/docview/1461769531

 

Abstract

In 1994 Israel passed the National Health Insurance Law (NHIL), guaranteeing universal and equal healthcare services to all citizens. Universal healthcare, while unprecedented in Israel, did not have a significant impact on the country’s Jewish majority. Yet for minority citizens such as the Bedouin community in the southern Israel, the NHIL transformed access to medical services, increasing insurance coverage from 60% to 100%, and changing the patient demographic in the regional hospital. Nonetheless, since 1995 when the law was implemented, disparities in health outcomes between Jewish and Arab citizens in the country have widened. Healthcare reform took place within a geo-political landscape that continues to marginalize its Arab citizens. Thus the paradigm of equality of healthcare intersects with national policies that create a differential citizenship in Israel. This dissertation, Producing Equality: Citizenship, Science, and Medicine in the Negev/Naqab , examines the impact of Israel’s National Health Insurance Law as a site to understand how Israel’s policies of inclusion and exclusion of Bedouin Arab citizens become entangled. My work highlights the tensions that exist between expansive and technical medical care that the state allocates to its Bedouin citizens, and the limited financial and political support the Bedouin community receives from the government in other spheres. Healthcare in southern Israel provides an important site to study the active production of the boundaries of citizenship, medicine, and reconfiguring of discrimination. I argue that the emphasis on scientific discourse in the medical arena ignores the social and political problems that place much of the Bedouin community in poor health. Therefore social, political, and historical questions that are central to understanding health disparities in the region remain beyond the scope of what providers view as relevant to their work. This bounding of medical care allows for the continuation of discriminatory policies towards the Bedouin citizens, while permitting the state and healthcare providers to assert they provide equal care to all patients.

Subject: Medical Ethics; Middle Eastern Studies; Public health

Classification: 0497: Medical Ethics; 0555: Middle Eastern Studies; 0573: Public health

Identifier / keyword: Social sciences, Health and environmental sciences, Bedouins, Citizenship, Equality, Israel, National Health Insurance Law, Access to services

Number of pages: 279

Publication year: 2013

Degree date: 2013

School code: 0034

Source: DAI-B 75/02(E), Aug 2014

Place of publication: Ann Arbor

Country of publication: United States

ISBN: 9781303486456

Advisor: Kaufman, Sharon

Committee member: Whitmarsh, Ian, Briggs, Charles

University/institution: University of California, San Francisco

Department: Medical Anthropology

University location: United States — California

Degree: Ph.D.

Source type: Dissertations & Theses

Language: English

Document type: Dissertation/Thesis

Dissertation/thesis number: 3599403

ProQuest document ID: 1461769531

New Article: Beeri and Saad, Minorities-within-Minorities in Israeli-Arab Mixed Municipalities

Beeri, Itai and Mansur Saad. “Political Participation Unconditioned by Inequality and Discrimination: The Case of Minorities-within-Minorities in Israeli-Arab Mixed Municipalities.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies (online first).

 

URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1369183X.2013.871490

 

Abstract

Against the backdrop of rising migration rates, the number of mixed communities in Western states has been growing. Such communities are populated not only by members of a national majority and national minority, but often, also by minorities-within-minorities. This study examines perceptions towards the equitableness of local policy, feelings of discrimination and participation in local politics among minorities and minorities-within-minorities in Israeli-Arab mixed municipalities comprised of Muslims, Christians or Druze, where most of the surrounding population is Jewish. The results confirm that among Israeli-Arabs in general, a perception of local policy as highly inequitable and a strong sense of local discrimination are both related to increased participation in local politics. However, among minorities-within-minorities this relationship did not obtain. Implications of the findings are developed and discussed in the context of local governance, communal abstention from local decision-making processes and the danger of illegitimate political behaviour.

ToC: Israel Studies 19.1 (2014)

1. Special Section—Arabs as Israeli Citizens
   1. Defense Minister Pinhas Lavon and the Arab Draft That Never Was (pp. 1-23)

      Randall S. Geller

      DOI: 10.2979/israelstudies.19.1.1

      Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/israelstudies.19.1.1
   2. The Contemporary Historiographical Debate in Israel on Government Policies on Arabs in Israel During the Military Administration Period (1948–1966) (pp. 24-47)

      Arik Rudnitzky

      DOI: 10.2979/israelstudies.19.1.24

      Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/israelstudies.19.1.24
   3. The Politization of History and the Negev Bedouin Land Claims: A Review Essay on Indigenous (In)justice (pp. 48-74)

      Seth J. Frantzman

      DOI: 10.2979/israelstudies.19.1.48

      Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/israelstudies.19.1.48
   4. Increased Constructive Engagement Among Israeli Arabs: The Impact of Government Economic Initiatives (pp. 75-97)

      Robert Cherry

      DOI: 10.2979/israelstudies.19.1.75

      Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/israelstudies.19.1.75
   5. Democracy, Clan Politics and Weak Governance: The Case of the Arab Municipalities in Israel (pp. 98-125)

      Yakub Halabi

      DOI: 10.2979/israelstudies.19.1.98

      Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/israelstudies.19.1.98
   6. The Quest for Identity in Sayed Kashua’s Let It Be Morning (pp. 126-144)

      Michael Keren

      DOI: 10.2979/israelstudies.19.1.126

      Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/israelstudies.19.1.126
2. Articles
   1. From Peace in the South to War in the North: Menachem Begin as Prime Minister, 1977–1983 (pp. 145-165)

      Yechiam Weitz

      DOI: 10.2979/israelstudies.19.1.145

      Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/israelstudies.19.1.145
   2. Societal Values: Impact on Israel Security—The Kibbutz Movement as a Mobilized Elite (pp. 166-188)

      Zeev Drory

      DOI: 10.2979/israelstudies.19.1.166

      Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/israelstudies.19.1.166
   3. Postsecular Jewish Theology: Reading Gordon And Buber (pp. 189-213)

      Hagar Lahav

      DOI: 10.2979/israelstudies.19.1.189

      Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/israelstudies.19.1.189
3. Notes on Contributors (pp. 214-215)

   DOI: 10.2979/israelstudies.19.1.214

   Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/israelstudies.19.1.214
4. Guidelines for Contributors (pp. 216-218)

   DOI: 10.2979/israelstudies.19.1.216

   Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/israelstudies.19.1.216

Cite: Allon, Gender Segregation, Effacement, and Suppression: Trends in the Status of Women in Israel

Allon, Michal L. “Gender Segregation, Effacement, and Suppression: Trends in the Status of Women in Israel.” Digest of Middle East Studies 22.2 (2013): 276-291.

 

URL: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/dome.12030/abstract

 

Abstract

The aim of this article is to analyze the phenomenon of the exclusion of women from the public sphere in Israel. The article describes some of the causes of this phenomenon, its impact on Israeli society, and the difficulty in confronting it. Israeli women have made impressive gains on many fronts, but the exclusion of women from the public sphere as a result of the influence of the growing Ultra-Orthodox minority, which imposes its norms on the general public, raises serious concerns. The exclusion of women manifests itself in several forms: gender segregation in public spaces, the effacement of women’s images from the public sphere, and the suppression of women’s voice. The infiltration of Orthodox Jewish fundamentalism into Israeli society may cause the regression of advancements previously made in women’s rights in Israel. The article points to the limitations of the treatment of this phenomenon within a theory of multiculturalism, and suggests an alternative framework of discourse, which relies on concepts that are drawn from the literature on environmental ethics, public rights, and public ownership of space and resources.

Cite: Irshai, Dignity, Honor,and Equality: Torah Reading by Women in Israeli Modern Orthodoxy

Irshai, Ronit. “Dignity, Honor, and Equality in Contemporary Halachic Thinking: The Case of Torah Reading by Women in Israeli Modern Orthodoxy.” Modern Judaism 33.3 (2013): 332-56.

URL: mj.oxfordjournals.org/content/33/3/332.extract.html

Extract

The past few years have witnessed the halachic discussion, in Modern Orthodox circles, of various suggestions for radical changes in the structure of prayer in the synagogue.According to these suggestions, women would be permitted to perform the reading of the Torah in synagogue in the framework of a standard orthodox congregation, and not in separate women’s prayer groups.

[…]

Can we honestly say, even in this case, that the dignity of women is not impinged upon as a result of their being deprived of honor? In other words, we can see that in situations in which one must set an order of precedence, women’s inferior religious status (their lower level of “holiness”) becomes more prominent, and a wealth of such examples exists throughout halachic literature.

As a result of all that has been said thus far I would like to challenge the claim that an attitude of “different but equal” does not, in practice, constitute an injury to women’s religious status or their level of holiness.

Cite: Ben-Shitrit, Women Activists in Shas and the Islamic Movement

Ben Shitrit, Lihi. “Women, Freedom, and Agency in Religious Political Movements: Reflections from Women Activists in Shas and the Islamic Movement in Israel.” Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies 9.3 (2013): 81-107.

URL: muse.jhu.edu/journals/journal_of_middle_east_womens_studies/v009/9.3.shitrit.html

 

Abstract

Women’s activism in conservative religious-political movements poses a
challenge to liberal feminism. Why do women participate in great numbers
in political organizations that seem to limit women’s freedom and
equality? My work with women activists in the Islamic Movement and the
Jewish ultra-Orthodox Shas Movement in Israel, both explicitly
patriarchal religious revivalist groups similar to other movements
across the Middle East, finds that these movements offer women powerful
liberatory narratives. This paper takes issue with recent arguments that
suggest that pious women experience agency in acts of submission rather
than in resistance and that the association of agency with emancipatory
desire and action is an expression of a patently Western tradition that
celebrates the fiction of the autonomous individual. I find that women
activists’ interpretations of agency in piety practices are highly
invested in the idea of the autonomous individual. The validity of
practices, according to activists, rests on the choice and consciousness
of the individual and on the rejection of submission to social norms.
Furthermore, when we take into account the various class and cultural
contexts of Middle Eastern women’s piety practices and activism, we find
that for many women religious movements offer real liberation from
oppressive socio-economic realities and limiting cultural norms.

Reviews: Peleg and Waxman, Israel’s Palestinians

Peleg, Ilan and Dov Waxman. Israel’s Palestinians. The Conflict Within. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011.

Reviews

• Uncredited, “There May Be Trouble Ahead.” The Economist, May 26, 2011.
• Green, David B. “Israel’s Arab Citizens: The Ones who Stayed Behind.” Haaretz, October 6, 2011.
• Press, Eyal. “Rising Up in Israel.” New York Review of Books, November 24, 2011.
• Frantzman, Seth. “Review.” Domes 21.1 (2012): 239-41.
• Mendilow, Jonathan. “Israel’s Palestinian Minority: From ‘Quietism’ to Ethno-Nationalism.” Israel Studies Review 27.1 (2012): 142-160.
• Ghanem, As’ad. “Palestinians in Israel — The Victory of Discourse vs. the Retreat of Politics.” Middle East Journal 66.2 (2012): 361-8.
• Sultany, Nimer. “Debating Israel’s Palestinian Minority.” Journal of Palestine Studies 41.3 (2012): 126-30.
• Gopher, Uri. “Review,” Middle East Books Reads, October 29, 2012.
• Cohen-Almagor, Raphael. “Review.” Israel Affairs 19.2 (2013): 391-392.
• Nassar, Maha. “Review.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 45.3 (2013): 631-3.

ToC: Israel Affairs 19,3 (2013)

Israel     Affairs, Vol. 19, No. 3, 01 Jul 2013 is now available on Taylor & Francis Online. This new issue contains the following articles: Original Articles ‘We     need the messiah so that he may not come’: on David Ben-Gurion’s use of     messianic language Nir Kedar Pages: 393-409 DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2013.799864 Beyond     a one-man show: the prelude of Revisionist Zionism, 1922–25 Jan Zouplna Pages: 410-432 DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2013.799871 Another     Orient in early Zionist thought: East Asia in the press of the Ben-Yehuda     family Guy Podoler Pages: 433-450 DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2013.799866 Jerusalem     in Anglo-American policy in the immediate wake of the June 1967 war Arieh J. Kochavi Pages: 451-467 DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2013.799865 A     farewell to arms? NGO campaigns for embargoes on military exports: the case     of the UK and Israel Gerald M. Steinberg, Anne Herzberg & Asher Fredman Pages: 468-487 DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2013.799869 The     politics of ‘over-victimization’ – Palestinian proprietary claims in the     service of political goals Haim Sandberg Pages: 488-504 DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2013.799868 Equality,     orthodoxy and politics: the conflict over national service in Israel Etta Bick Pages: 505-525 DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2013.799862 The     establishment of a political-educational network in the State of Israel:     Maayan Hahinuch Hatorani Anat Feldman Pages: 526-541 DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2013.799863 Between     the dream and the reality: vocational education in Israel, 1948–92 Nirit Raichel Pages: 542-561 DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2013.799867 The     influence of mergers on the capital market Tchai Tavor Pages: 562-579 DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2013.799870 Book Reviews 1973:     the way to war Raphael Cohen-Almagor Pages: 580-582 DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2013.778094 Land     and desire in early Zionism David Rodman Pages: 583-584 DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2013.799881 Israel     in Africa, 1956–1976 David Rodman Pages: 584-585 DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2013.799899 Zion’s     dilemmas: how Israel makes national security policy David Rodman Pages: 586-587 DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2013.799882 Should     Israel exist? A sovereign nation under attack by the international     community David Rodman Pages: 588-589 DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2013.799885 The     role of US diplomacy in the lead-up to the Six Day War: balancing moral     commitments and national interests David Rodman Pages: 589-590 DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2013.799886 The     wars of the Maccabees: the Jewish struggle for freedom, 167–37 BC David Rodman Pages: 590-592 DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2013.799887 In     the aftermath of Operation Pillar of Defence: the Gaza strip, November 2012 David Rodman Pages: 592-593 DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2013.799888 The     future of the Jews: how global forces are impacting the Jewish people,     Israel and its relationship with the United States David Rodman Pages: 593-595 DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2013.799889 The     lives of ordinary people in ancient Israel: where archaeology and the Bible     intersect David Rodman Pages: 595-597 DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2013.799890 Israel     vs. Iran: the shadow war David Rodman Pages: 597-599 DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2013.799883 The     triumph of Israel’s radical right Evan Renfro Pages: 599-601 DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2013.799884

Cite: Sienkiewicz, Western intervention and gender in the Palestinian public sphere

Sienkiewicz, Matt. “Here to Help? Western Intervention and Gender in the Palestinian Public Sphere.” International Journal of Cultural Studies 16.4 (2013): 335-350

 

URL: http://ics.sagepub.com/content/16/4/335.abstract

 

Abstract

This article analyzes the impact of western funding projects on the place of women in the mediated Palestinian public sphere. Drawing upon archival evidence, it shows that – in an effort to avoid overt discussion of Israeli occupation – joint projects between foreign funders and outlets such as the Ma’an Network focused on issues of gender ‘conflict’. The article argues that these projects simultaneously played the disturbing role of reaffirming western resistance to the expression of Palestinian experience under occupation while nonetheless playing the laudable role of creating new opportunities for female media figures.

Cite: Lachover, Feminist Discourse in Women’s Business Magazines

Lachover, Einat. “Influential Women: Feminist Discourse in Women’s Business Magazines—The Case of Israel.” Communication, Culture & Critique 6.1 (2013): 121-41.

 

URL: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/cccr.12005/

 

Abstract

The study seeks to analyze how a major Israeli business magazine aimed at women—Lady Globes—defines a successful “career woman.” Characterizing this discourse enables us to identify the gendered and social ideology embedded in the magazine. The study concentrates on the magazine’s major projects, the choice of the “50 Most Influential Women” in Israel. The study indicates that the discourse in Lady Globes’s project is an expression of “career feminism.” The project seeks to empower the individual woman and it does not echo the call of liberal feminism for a collective fight for a change in social policy. The dominance of the business and financial sector reflects the magazine contribution to the discursive legitimation of neoliberalism.

Berkovitch et al., Blind Spots of Women’s Discrimination in Academy

Berkovitch, Nitza, Anat Waldman & Niza Yanay. “The Politics of (In)Visibility: On the Blind Spots of Women’s Discrimination in the Academy.” Culture and Organization 18.3 (2012): 251-275.

 

URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14759551.2011.644669

 

Abstract

The aim of this study is to show how invisible institutional culture participates in the production and propagation of gender difference and hierarchy. To that end, we examine the official publications of one Israeli university in order to explore cultural mechanisms that signify hidden conceptions, ideologies and iconic images of women in the academe. Conceptualizing these publications as cultural products that operate as the public image of the university and hence participate in its overall construction of ideologies of gendered reality, we analyze, both qualitatively and quantitatively, images, visual representations and scripts of university women as they appear in the university bulletins, president’s reports, and various newsletters from 1974 to 2004 (in Hebrew and in English). Having looked at over 5000 articles and photographs, we found that although the presence of women in the publications has increased over the years, their images and roles continue to be feminized and sexist. Thus, more space is devoted and more visibility given to stereotyped femininity and womanhood. Moreover, we explore the ways in which mechanisms that create a complex politics of visibility and invisibility produce contested and contradictory messages and participate in the creation of what we call the blind spots of discrimination.

Cite: Shalhoub-Kevorkian, Palestinian Women in Israel

Shalhoub-Kevorkian, Nadera. “The Grammar of Rights in Colonial Contexts: The Case of Palestinian Women in Israel .” Middle East Law and Governance 4.1 (2012): 106-151.

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URL: http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/brill/melg/2012/00000004/00000001/art00003

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Abstract

This article examines the limitations of human rights activism in a colonial context by invoking the voices, experiences, and insights of Bedouin women living in Israel. Through extensive interviews, Bedouin women living in unrecognized villages in the Naqab/Negev reveal their struggles as unrecognized and “invisible“ members of society. The article explores the ways in which the prevailing “grammar of rights“—the formal and informal mechanisms constructed and maintained by the colonial power to accord or withhold rights—delimits and confines the lives of the women, and also human rights activism. The women’s personal stories are juxtaposed against the legal justifications used to regulate and discriminate against them, as members of the indigenous Palestinian community, within the context of a “fear industry“. The article explores, from the perspective of the interviewed women, the internalization of that culture of fear, where they are constructed as the ones to be feared, and its personal, familial, and communal implications.

The interviewed women offer a critique of the existing human right framework, and question whether a human rights activism operating in a colonial context can be an emancipating force, so long as it is constrained by the regime’s rules. Furthermore, their voices assert that acknowledging historical injustice and its effect on women’s rights is central to re-thinking feminist human rights activism. The article ends by returning to the voices of women living in the unrecognized villages of the Naqab/Negev to investigate whether, and how, feminist politics and human rights activism could operationally function together within the context of Israeli state law. The article concludes that, in order to create a “grammar of rights“ that is based on equality, respect, and dignity, and which challenges the balance of power in colonial contexts, it is essential to fully include the lived experiences and insights of “invisible“ and unrecognized women.

Cite: Toren, Oriental Faculty Women in Israel

Toren, Nina. “Intersection of Ethnicity, Gender and Class: Oriental Faculty Women in Israel.” Gender Issues 26.2 (2009): 152-166.

 

URL: http://www.springerlink.com/content/5991810431274210/

Abstract

Ethnicity, gender and class are the major factors of social inequality and have been studied extensively leading to a large literature pertaining to each one of them. The issue of the intersection of ethnicity, gender and class has been introduced into the social sciences by feminist critical theory. Intersection theory postulates that minority groups are discriminated against on the basis of more than one characteristic which are “inextricably tied” leading to complex forms of inequality in various social domains. This study examines the intertwined effects of these factors as they are experienced and narrated by Mizrachi women (19) who are employed in universities and colleges. Although the intersection approach is generally supported by the data it was found that under certain conditions ethnicity, gender and class may be separated. One type of decomposition is when one identity encroaches upon another or others; the second is the separation of diverse identities assigning them to different life areas. These change processes do not support stereotypical dichotomies between Ashkenazi and Mizrachi, women and men and so on, and enable the creation of new hybrid identities.

Cite: Daoud, Palestinian Working Women in Israel

Suheir Abu Oksa Daoud. “Palestinian Working Women in Israel: National Oppression and Social Restraints.” Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies 8.2 (2012): 78-101.

 

URL: http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/journal_of_middle_east_womens_studies/v008/8.2.daoud.html

 

 

Abstract

The paid labor force participation of women in Arab states has always been among the lowest in the world. The same is true for Palestinian Arab women who are citizens of Israel. In sharp contrast, the paid labor participation of Jewish women in Israel is among the highest globally. This paper looks at the consequences of Israeli policy and changing social norms on the Palestinian minority in Israel through the prism of female Palestinian activism in Israel’s economy. In particular, it examines the causes, consequences, and changes in the labor force participation of Palestinian women citizens in Israel. Drawing on fieldwork and interviews with some of these women, this paper also examines the impact of their newfound earning power on social attitudes and the division of labor in their homes.