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

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

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

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

 

 

New Article: Meier, Intersections in Palestinian Single Mothers’ Lives in Israel

Meier, Tal. “Intersections in Palestinian Single Mothers’ Lives in Israel.” Social Identities (early view; online first).

 
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13504630.2015.1100990
 
Abstract

The present article addresses the support and supervisional relations of Palestinian Israeli single mothers vis-à-vis their families and communities. It links the theoretical discussion on intersectional analysis with power relations and gender. In this article I focus on the importance of employing analytical models that take into consideration the internal variance within this social category of ‘Palestinian Israeli single mothers’ which emerge due to the contradictory social trends typifying Palestinian society in Israel today – models that examine the implications of the complexity of women’s lives in discrete locations, the changes society is undergoing, together with processes of discrimination and the strengthening of conservative trends. The article is based on data gathered during in-depth, semi-structured interviews that were conducted and analyzed with a commitment to the principles of feminist research.

 

 

New Article: Ram, Israeli Sociology: Social Thought amidst Struggles and Conflicts

Ram, Uri. “Israeli Sociology: Social Thought amidst Struggles and Conflicts.” Irish Journal of Sociology 23.1 (2015): 98-117.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.7227/IJS.23.1.6

 

Abstract

The basic challenge of Israeli sociology always has been, and continues to be to present days, the designation of its object of study; i. e.’Israeli society’. The history of Israeli sociology and its conception of ‘Israeli society’ may be discerned into the five following modules: 1. Proto-sociology. In the pre-state era, sociological thought thrived within the context of the socialist Zionism. The two prominent’ proto-sociologists’ were Arthur Ruppin and Martin Buber, who professed German communal perspectives. 2. Modernization sociology. The formative phase of sociology as a discipline was from 1950 to 1977. It was led by Shmuel Noah Eisenstadt, who effected a transition from the German anti-modernist paradigm to an American modernization theory. 3. Critical sociology. The critical phase took place in the 1970s and 1980s. Critical sociology was manifested in elitism, pluralism, Marxism, feminism and colonization approaches. Simultaneously there emerged a robust branch of’ quantitative sociology’. 4. Post-modern sociology. The turn towards post-modernity started in the 1990s. The three noticeable post-modern perspectives are: post-structuralism, post-colonialism and post-Marxism. 5. Palestinian Arab sociology in Israel. Palestinian Arab sociology is emerging and coming to its own since the 1990s. It reflects integration as well as alienation.

New Book: Fuchs, Israeli Feminist Scholarship

Fuchs, Esther, ed. Israeli Feminist Scholarship. Gender, Zionism, and Difference. Austin, TX : University of Texas Press, 2014.

More than a dozen scholars give voice to cutting-edge postcolonial trends (from ecofeminism to gender identity in family life) that question traditional approaches to Zionism while highlighting nationalism as the core issue of Israeli feminist scholarship today.

Table of Contents

Preface

Introduction. Israeli Feminist Scholarship: Gender, Zionism, and Difference

Esther Fuchs

Chapter One. The Evolution of Critical Paradigms in Israeli Feminist Scholarship: A Theoretical Model

Esther Fuchs

Chapter Two. Politicizing Masculinities: Shahada and Haganah

Sheila H. Katz

Chapter Three. The Double or Multiple Image of the New Hebrew Woman

Margalit Shilo

Chapter Four. The Heroism of Hannah Senesz: An Exercise in Creating Collective National Memory in the State of Israel

Judith T. Baumel

Chapter Five. The Feminisation of Stigma in the Relationship Between Israelis and Shoah Survivors

Ronit Lentin

Chapter Six. Gendering Military Service in the Israel Defense Forces

Dafna N. Izraeli

Chapter Seven. The Halachic Trap: Marriage and Family Life

Ruth Halperin-Kaddari

Chapter Eight. Motherhood as a National Mission: The Construction of Womanhood in the Legal Discourse in Israel

Nitza Berkovitch

Chapter Nine. No Home at Home: Women’s Fiction vs. Zionist Practice

Yaffah Berlovitz

Chapter Ten. Wasteland Revisited: An Ecofeminist Strategy

Hannah Naveh

Chapter Eleven. Tensions in Israeli Feminism: The Mizrahi-Ashkenazi Rift

Henriette Dahan-Kalev

Chapter Twelve. Scholarship, Identity, and Power: Mizrahi Women in Israel

Pnina Motzafi-Haller

Chapter Thirteen. Reexamining Femicide: Breaking the Silence and Crossing “Scientific” Borders

Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian

Chapter Fourteen. The Construction of Lesbianism as Nonissue in Israel

Erella Shadmi

Chapter Fifteen. From Gender to Genders: Feminists Read Women’s Locations in Israeli Society

Hanna Herzog

Acknowledgments

Contributors

Index

 

Purchase from publisher: https://utpress.utexas.edu/index.php/books/fucisr