New Article: Kranz, Changing Definitions of Germanness across Three Generations of Yekkes

Kranz, Dani.”Changing Definitions of Germanness across Three Generations of Yekkes in Palestine/Israel.” German Studies Review 39.1 (2016): 99-120.
 
URL: https://www.academia.edu/22106615/Changing_Definitions_of_Germanness_across_Three_Generations_of_Yekkes_in_Palestine_Israel
 
Abstract

German-speaking Jews arrived in Palestine in vast numbers from 1933 onwards. They are not Olim (ascenders, Jewish immigrants to Palestine/Israel) in the classical, Zionistic sense but emigrated out of necessity from Europe. Their history in Europe, and their arrival in Palestine reflect a particular integration into the nascent Jewish society, and resulted in a pronounced particularism that was transmitted across generations. To understand the interdependence of self-definition and superimposed ascription within a society that aims at absorbing immigrants, this paper chronicles the different definitions of Germanness amongst three generations of Yekkes (German-speaking Jews) in Palestine, later Israel, by focusing on community building, familial tradition, and everyday praxes of expressing Germanness.

 

 

 

New Article: Levin, Meanings of House Materiality for Moroccan Migrants in Israel

Levin, Iris. “Meanings of House Materiality for Moroccan Migrants in Israel.” In Ethno-Architecture and the Politics of Migration (ed. Mirjana Lozanovska; Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2016): 115-30.

 

 

Extract

The chapter has discussed two case studies which were chosen because they are very from one another: one migrant house has a Moroccan room which is the epitome of Moroccan design, while the other has barely anything to indicate the ethnic identity of its owner. Yet, the migrants who live in these houses have created, each in their own way through the use of material cultures, the means to tell the story of Moroccan migration to Israel and gain the long-desired recognition of Moroccan culture in Israeli society. Through the understanding of these material cultures in the migrant house, it is possible to understand the ethno-architecture of the migrant experience at the scale of the house. The analysis of house materiality of these two Moroccan migrant homes in Israel has shown that, for them, there is a collective aesthetic and sense of belonging that situates them in a role of representing their culture and explaining it to others.

 

 

 

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

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

 

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

 

Extract

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

 

 

New Article: Gagne et al, Family Expectations of Future Child Temperament

Gagne, Jeffrey R., Jerry C. Prater, Lior Abramson, David Mankuta, and Ariel Knafo-Noam. “An Israeli Study of Family Expectations of Future Child Temperament.” Family Science (early view; online first).

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19424620.2015.1076494

 

Abstract

Early emerging child temperament forms the basis for adult personality and has a multitude of developmental implications. Studies have shown that some aspects of temperament can be observed prenatally, and prenatal parent ratings predict postnatal child temperament, thereby influencing future family dynamics. Little research has examined prenatal mother–father agreement on predictions of temperament, or patterns of cross-dimension associations before birth. Parental expectations of their future child’s temperament were investigated in a sample of pregnant Israeli women and their partners. Three modified temperament questionnaires were used to investigate mother–father agreement and associations between temperament dimensions. There were few significant mean differences between mothers’ and fathers’ expectations of child temperament. Parent agreement within temperament dimensions, and associations across dimensions were consistent with the postnatal literature. Findings indicate that parent impressions of child temperament are partially formed before birth, and may represent a shared hope or a ‘self-fulfilling prophecy’ in families.

 

 

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.

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

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

 

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

 

Abstract

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

New Article: Shoham, Celebrating Israeli Familism around the Seder Table

Shoham, Hizky. “You Can’t Pick Your Family. Celebrating Israeli Familism around the Seder Table.” Journal of Family History 39.3 (2014): 239-60.

 

URL: http://jfh.sagepub.com/content/39/3/239

 

Abstract

Familism is a model of a social organization that assigns the family an important role in individual and collective identity. This article proposes a historical analysis and interpretation of the Seder celebrations of Jewish Israelis, in order to explore what is unique about Israeli familism—that it imagines the entire nation as an extended family. This ritual continues to be widely practiced today by Jews of every sector—secular, traditional, and religious. As a result, it has a significant presence in Israeli popular culture. The focus is on two questions: (1) who celebrates? That is, what forum convenes around the table? (2) How is it celebrated? That is, what ritual is conducted during the festive gathering? The historical and ethnographic analysis shows that over the course of the twentieth century, the extended family became the preferred forum for celebration, and that the conformist reading of the Haggadah and the other parts of the ceremony continue on the whole to follow the Orthodox rules, even in secular families. This mode of celebration is analyzed here as an expression of the political image of the entire Jewish people as one large extended family and as a demonstration of the extensive use of Jewish familism in the construction of Jewish identity in Israel today

Cite: Barromi Perlman, Public & Private Photographs of Children on Kibbutzim

Barromi Perlman, Edna. “Public and Private Photographs of Children on Kibbutzim in Israel: Observation and Analysis.” Photography and Culture 5.2 (2012): 149-166.

 

URL: http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/berg/pgcj/2012/00000005/00000002/art00003

 

Abstract

This article analyzes the private and public practices and conventions of photographing children on kibbutzim between 1948 and 1967. It examines the effects of kibbutz egalitarian socialist ideology and lifestyle on the practices of creating photographs of children and the role of the photographers on kibbutzim. Photographs of children in children’s homes and communal child rearing, created on kibbutzim in Israel, were viewed as a representation of the epitome of kibbutz life. The photographs were created to serve the needs of the community and its ideology and eventually developed into a genre of their own. The analysis relates to the process of creation of private photographs of children, found in photo albums of individual families on kibbutzim. The article relates to the role of the kibbutz archive and the practices of archiving and their effect in consolidating collective memory. The research employs a semiotic approach to the analysis of the photographs and relates to social communications that developed and their contribution to the construction of meaning in the images.

Cite: Razi, Perceptions of the Jewish Family in Mandate Palestine

Tammy Razi, "The Family Is Worthy of Being Rebuilt: Perceptions of the Jewish Family in Mandate Palestine, 1918-1948," Journal of Family History 35,4 (2010): 395-415.

URL: http://jfh.sagepub.com/content/35/4/395.abstract

Abstract

Although the Jewish community of Palestine was an extremely family-oriented society and the institute of the family played a major role in the establishment of the new Zionist nationhood, the historiography has henceforth paid little attention to its role, images, and functions. This article will examine the diverse and often contradictory perceptions and influences that have shaped the Zionist discourse regarding the family in the Jewish settlement of Palestine during the British mandate period. Traditional Jewish perceptions intertwined with modern, bourgeois, and revolutionary notions of the family, whether national or socialist. These contradictory perceptions were manifested in the contested professional and public discourse regarding the many dysfunctional urban families in Tel Aviv, who were treated by welfare authorities and mental health specialists during the 1930s and 1940s.

 

Cite: Tartakovsky, Acculturation Narrative of Immigration from the FSU

Tartakovsky, Eugene. "Found in Transition: An Acculturation Narrative of Immigration from the Former Soviet Union to Israel," Culture & Psychology 16,3 (2010): 349-363.

URL: http://cap.sagepub.com/content/16/3/349.abstract

Abstract

This article presents a personal narrative exemplifying acculturation processes and their theoretical analysis. The author describes the development of his Jewish identity in the Soviet Union, emigration, and adjustment to Israel. The author’s affiliations with his ethnic group, the country of origin, and the country of immigration are described and analyzed as an ever-changing process. The role of family and society in creating a multifaceted ethnic identity is discussed. The validity of the theories on ethnic identity development (Camilleri & Malewska-Peyre, 1997; Phinney, 1990), acculturation (Berry, 1997), and the theories of culture shock and cultural learning (Ward, Bochner, & Furnham, 2001) are tested in light of the acculturation narrative presented here. The author argues that acculturation is a multidimensional process, which relates to the ethnic group, the homeland, and the receiving country. Each of these dimensions has its own dynamic of change in the process of immigration, which depends on the circumstances of the immigrants’ adjustment first in the homeland and after that in the receiving country.

 

Cite: Dollberg, Shalev & Chen, Parent-Child Co-Sleeping in Israeli Families

Dollberg, Daphna, Orly Shalev and Pascale Chen. "’Someone’s Been Sleeping in My Bed!’ Parental Satisfaction Associated with Solitary and Parent-Child Co-Sleeping in Israeli Families with Young Children," Early Child Development and Care 180,7 (2010): 869-78.

 

URL: http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a907493597

 

Abstract

The study examined differences in parental satisfaction associated with solitary and parent-child co-sleeping in a sample (N = 61) of Israeli families with children ranging in age from 12 to 48 months (M = 28.04, SD = 10.71). Questionnaire data regarding the family sleeping arrangement, parental satisfaction with the sleeping arrangement, child temperament (Infant Characteristics Questionnaire (ICQ)), breastfeeding history and parental sleep control attitudes were collected. Differences in reported satisfaction between solitary and co-sleeping parents, as well as between mothers and fathers were examined. Results showed that 50 (82%) of the mothers and 41 (73.2%) of the fathers were satisfied with their sleeping arrangement. However, solitary sleeping was associated with significantly higher parental satisfaction compared to co-sleeping. Mothers and fathers were equally satisfied with their family sleeping arrangement. History of extended breastfeeding and frequent co-sleeping were associated with parental dissatisfaction, for mothers and fathers alike. The implications of these findings for child rearing practices are discussed.

Keywords: co-sleeping; sleeping arrangement; difficult temperament; breastfeeding; parental satisfaction, Israel: Society, Israel: Sociology, Family Life and Culture,

Cite: Lieblich, Family Life in the Kibbutz

Lieblich, Amia. "A Century of Childhood, Parenting, and Family Life in the Kibbutz." Journal of Israeli History 29,1 (2010): 1-24.

–

Abstract

A vast amount of diverse works in various genres have described, analyzed, and interpreted the experience of childhood, parenting, and family life in the kibbutz’s hundred years of existence: quantitative and qualitative studies, real-time or retrospective accounts, both factual and fictional, and in a variety of art forms. This article presents a brief history of the kibbutz’s system of communal child rearing and education, and then examines the multi-angled perspectives of the body of work about it. The main results of the objective studies are that only negligible differences exist between children raised on kibbutz and those from a more traditional upbringing. The qualitative studies, however, indicate that children raised in the kibbutz’s communal living system, especially females, carry significant scars into adulthood. Kibbutz mothers, too, express regrets regarding their past parental behavior. This is most apparent in case studies from therapeutic settings. While memoirs present kibbutz childhood in a heroic and entertaining vein, most works of fiction exude pain and criticism. Because all these works are serious and significant portrayals of kibbutz experiences, we can infer that a comprehensive image of childhood and parenthood in the kibbutz is multicolored, and that this image is indicative of a complex social and psychological reality.

–

URL: http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~db=all~content=a919915713

–

Keywords: Israel: Society, Education, Family Life and Culture, Kibbutz Movement, Israel: Children and Youth, Motherhood, עמיה ליבליך

ToC: Journal of Israeli History 29,1 (2010)

The Journal of Israeli History has its first issue out for 2010. Below is the full Table of Contents, with links to abstracts and (limited) online access. As always, I will try (nut do not commit) to post the articles as separate entries, too.

Articles

A century of childhood, parenting, and family life in the kibbutz
Amia Lieblich
Pages 1 – 24
Abstract | References | Full Text PDF | Full Text HTML | Request Permissions
Related Articles
ACCESS

The formation of secondary education in Israel, 1948–1964
Avner Molcho
Pages 25 – 45
Abstract | References | Full Text PDF | Full Text HTML | Request Permissions
Related Articles
ACCESS

The 1948 war veterans and postwar reconstruction in Israel
Moshe Naor
Pages 47 – 59
Abstract | References | Full Text PDF | Full Text HTML | Request Permissions
Related Articles
ACCESS

The transformation of Israel’s religious-Zionist middle class
Nissim Leon
Pages 61 – 78
Abstract | References | Full Text PDF | Full Text HTML | Request Permissions
Related Articles
ACCESS

Was the Balfour Declaration at risk in 1923? Zionism and British imperialism
Michael J. Cohen
Pages 79 – 98
Abstract | References | Full Text PDF | Full Text HTML | Request Permissions
Related Articles
ACCESS

Hotel design in British Mandate Palestine: Modernism and the Zionist vision
Daniella Ohad Smith
Pages 99 – 123
Abstract | References | Full Text PDF | Full Text HTML | Request Permissions
Related Articles
ACCESS

Book Reviews

1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War
Motti Golani
Pages 125 – 129
Abstract | Full Text PDF | Full Text HTML | Request Permissions
Related Articles
ACCESS

The Others within Us: Constructing Jewish-Israeli Identity
Noam Pianko
Pages 129 – 132
Abstract | Full Text PDF | Full Text HTML | Request Permissions
Related Articles
ACCESS

Beyond Sacred and Secular: Politics of Religion in Israel and Turkey
Efrat E. Aviv
Pages 132 – 134
Abstract | Full Text PDF | Full Text HTML | Request Permissions
Related Articles

Cite: Schellekens and Eisenbach, Religiosity and Marital Fertility

Schellekens, Jona and Zvi Eisenbach. "Religiosity and Marital Fertility: Israeli Arab Muslims, 1955—1972." Journal of Family History 35,2 (2010): 147-163.

——–

Abstract: This study examines the relationship between religiosity and marital fertility in a Muslim society around the onset of the transition using the 1973—74 Israeli Fertility Survey. In rural areas, where no decline was discernable, there was a negative relationship between religiosity and marital fertility, while in urban areas there was no relationship. The results of this study suggest that the negative relationship in rural areas is because of differences in breast-feeding. Following Quranic recommendations, the more religious seem to breast-feed longer. Demographic, social, and economic characteristics of the more and less religious do not account for the negative relationship. Demographic, social, and economic characteristics and the use of contraceptive methods, however, do explain, in part, the absence of a negative relationship in urban areas.

———-

URL: http://jfh.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/35/2/147

———

KeyWords: breast-feeding • marital fertility • Muslim • religiosity • repeated events duration model, Israeli Palestinians, Israel: Religion, Islam and Muslims, Gender, Family Life and Culture, Israel: Demographics, Israel: Economy, Israel: Society

New Publication: Teman, Birthing a Mother

————

Elly Teman. Birthing a Mother. The Surrogate Body and the Pregnant Self. Berkeley / Los Angeles / London: University of California Press, 2010.

————

Birthing a Mother is the first ethnography to probe the intimate experience of gestational surrogate motherhood. In this beautifully written and insightful book, Elly Teman shows how surrogates and intended mothers carefully negotiate their cooperative endeavor. Drawing on anthropological fieldwork among Jewish Israeli women, interspersed with cross-cultural perspectives of surrogacy in the global context, Teman traces the processes by which surrogates relinquish any maternal claim to the baby even as intended mothers accomplish a complicated transition to motherhood. Teman’s groundbreaking analysis reveals that as surrogates psychologically and emotionally disengage from the fetus they carry, they develop a profound and lasting bond with the intended mother.

———

URL: http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/11401.php

——–

Keywords: Israel: Society, Anthropology, Ethnography, Gender, Family Life and Culture, Femininity, Motherhood, Psychology, Israel: Demographics

Cite: DellaPergola, Family Size Among Jews in Israel

———

DellaPergola, Sergio. "Actual, Intended, and Appropriate Family Size Among Jews in Israel." Contemporary Jewry 29,2 (2009): 127-152.

———–

Abstract: Israel’s population reflects a unique combination of large-scale immigration and comparatively high fertility. Demographic trends impact on Israel’s regional and global relations. With a current measure of 3.9 children for Muslims and 2.8 for Jews in 2007, Israel’s fertility stands much above European, American, and some Mid-Eastern countries. This article examines fertility patterns and attitudes among Jews (79% of Israel’s total population) based on a 2005 national survey of women and men at reproductive ages, married or in stable unions. Different demographic, socioeconomic and cultural contexts affect Jewish fertility levels in Israel. The impact of countries of origin and socioeconomic differences greatly diminished over time. Cultural factors, primarily religiosity, continue to be important determinants of a relatively high and stable quest for children. We compare actual, intended, and appropriate (according to the self-perception of respondents) family sizes. Diffuse gaps exist between ideal perceptions (focusing on 3–4 children) and actual performances (2–3 children). Significant gaps also exist between intended and appropriate family size, in both directions—the intended being either higher or lower than the perceived appropriate. Analysis of these discrepancies may provide important clues on the determinants of fertility norms and decisions, and on future family policies.

——-

URL: http://www.springerlink.com/content/43r666463110r226/

———

Keywords: Israel: Society, Family Life and Culture, Israel: Demographics, Family Planning, Jewish population, Fertility, Religion, סרג’ו דלה-פרגולה

Cite: Work and Family Among Israeli High-Tech Workers

Snir, Raphael, Itzhak Harpaz and Dorit Ben-Baruch. "Centrality of and Investment in Work and Family Among Israeli High-Tech Workers. A Bicultural Perspective." Cross-Cultural Research 43,4 (2009): 366-385.

——————

For abstract and (restricted) access click here.

——————

Keywords: Hi-tech, family, work and family balance, gender, cultural studies