Bulletin: Aliyah, Immigration, Refugees and Trafficking

Articles

• Ofir Abu, Fany Yuval, and Guy Ben-Porat, Responses of Ethiopian Jews in Israel to Stigmatization by the Police
• Debora Pricila Birgier et al, Self-Selection and Host Country Context in the Economic Assimilation of Political Refugees in the United States, Sweden, and Israel
• Jonah B. Cohen, Ethiopian-Israeli Community
• Ravit Talmi Cohn, Time Making and Place Making: A Journey of Immigration from Ethiopia to Israel
• David Dose et al, Comparing Immigrants from the Former Soviet Union to Israel and Germany
• Netanel Fisher and Avi Shilon, Integrating Non-Jewish Immigrants and the Formation of Israel’s Ethnic–Civic Nationhood
• Eti Gilad and Shosh Millet, The Identity of Ethiopian Immigrants in Israel
• Keith Goldstein and Pnina Golan-Cook, The Dilemma of Deviant Subcultures for Immigrant Youth Integration: An Analysis of Popularity Attainment in Israeli Schools
• Nelly Kfir and Adriana Kemp, The Legalization of Migrants and Human Rights Activism in Israel
• Michal Lev-Keren, Bias Factors in Mathematics Achievement Tests among Israeli Students from the Former Soviet Union
• Malka Muchnik et al, The Status of the Four Languages in Israel
• Larissa Remennick, Generation 1.5 of Russian-speaking immigrants in Israel and in Germany
• C. Zbenovich, Cross-Cultural Communication in Russian-Speaking Immigrant Families in Israel

Reviews

• Maina Chawla Singh, on Joseph Hodes’ From India to Israel: Identity, Immigration, and the Struggle for Religious Equality

Report

• Barry R. Chiswick, Linguistic and Economic Adjustment among Immigrants in Israel

Theses

• Noam Perry, The Promise and Pitfalls of Unilateral Pressure to Combat Human Trafficking: U.S. Pressure on Israel, the Philippines, and Thailand (PhD, Northeastern)

Jobs and Grants: Application deadlines coming up (January 2017)

1. Hebrew lectureship at Fordham, apply by January 15, 2017.
2. Summer Institute for Israel Studies, Faculty fellowship, apply by January 20, 2017.
3. Yad Hanadiv visiting fellowships in Jewish Studies, apply by January 31, 2017.

New Book: Starr and Dubinsky, The Israeli Conflict System

Starr, Harvey, and Stanley Dubinsky, eds. The Israeli Conflict System. Analytic Approaches, Routledge Studies in Middle Eastern Politics. Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2016.

Table of Contents

Introduction : crossing disciplinary and methodological boundaries in conflict systems analysis / Harvey Starr and Stanley Dubinsky — Event Type, sub-state Actor and Temporal Dimensions of the Dissent-Repression Relationship : Evidence from the Middle East / Philip A. Schrodt and Ömür Yilmaz — Turbulence in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict System : Predicting Change / G. Dale Thomas — Causes and Consequences of Unbalanced Relations in the International Politics of the Middle East, 1946-2010 / Zeev Maoz and Belgin San-Akca — Trade Networks and Conflict Processes in the Israeli Conflict System / Nadia Jilani, Ashley Murph-Schwarzer, Dona Roy, Matthew Shaffer, and Brian Warby — Trade in Conflict Zones : The Israeli Conflict System / Katherine Barbieri and Adrian R. Lewis — The Geography of Conflict : Using GIS to Analyze Israel’s External and Internal Conflict Systems / Harvey Starr, Roger Liu and G. Dale Thomas — Language, Conflict, and Conflicting Languages in Israel/Palestine / Stanley Dubinsky and William D. Davies — The Role of Holocaust Memory in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict / Andreas Musolff — An Experimental Procedure Comparing How Students in Middle Eastern and Western Democracies Cope with International Conflicts / Ranan D. Kuperman — Subjectivity in the Application of the Just War Doctrine to Collateral Damage : An Experimental Test in Israel and the US / Nehemia Geva and Belinda Bragg — Predicting Revolution and Regime Instability in the Middle East : The Uncertain Future of Arab-Israeli Relations / Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith.

New Article: Walfish & Brody, How Religious Teachers View Problems in Bible Teaching

Walfish, Ruth A., and David L. Brody. “‘Students get bogged down’: How Religious Israeli Elementary Teachers View Problems and Solutions in Bible Teaching.” British Journal of Religious Education (early view; online first).

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01416200.2015.1134442

 
Abstract

Bible teachers in contemporary society confront serious problems related to the nature of the biblical text and the socio-cultural context of their teaching. This study, based on semi-structured interviews, examines the problems that five expert religious Israeli elementary school teachers encounter in their teaching and the solutions they employ. Our findings show two major domains of pedagogic issues: unfamiliar biblical linguistics and problematic content. Teachers reported student difficulties in understanding biblical Hebrew. Problematic content includes irrelevant topics, emotionally laden material, and age inappropriate issues. Linguistic solutions relied on reading comprehension techniques and use of features specific to Bible reading such as diacritical marks. Regarding content issues, teachers were motivated by faith in the sanctity of the text to find effective solutions. These include selectivity, reinterpretation using homiletic tools, a holistic understanding and contextualising the narrative. Though teachers felt ill-prepared by their pre-service training in dealing with these challenges, they demonstrated resilience in their solution-oriented pedagogy. These findings suggest attention to mentoring and professional development, and to the creation of a community of practice to support teachers’ dealing with the ongoing challenges in their teaching.

 

 

New Article: Kijek, Hebraism, Polonization, and Tarbut Schools in the Last Decade of Interwar Poland

Kijek, Kamil. “Was It Possible to Avoid ‘Hebrew Assimilation’? Hebraism, Polonization, and Tarbut Schools in the Last Decade of Interwar Poland.” Jewish Social Studies 21.2 (2016): 105-41.

 

URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/jewisocistud.21.2.04

 

Abstract

This article examines the problem of the chasm between Zionist ideology, Jewish cultural reality in interwar Poland, and the praxis of Zionist education of this period, manifested in the activities of the Tarbut school network. According to the Zionist idea of monocultural nationalism, the process of acculturation to which interwar Polish Jewry was subjected was conceived as assimilation, which threatened the possibility of the existence of Hebrew culture and Zionist activities in the diaspora. In this article I present reactions to acculturation (or assimilation) through the prism of the polemic of Polish- and Erets Yisrael–based ideologues and educators and through the dissonance between Tarbut educational ideology and praxis, as manifested in the Hebrew educational journal Ofakim, in other publications, and in school programs. I also analyze recollections of Tarbut pupils, their educational experiences, and accounts of how they were perceived in those schools.

 

 

 

New Article: Salmon, Akiva Yosef Schlesinger—A Forerunner of Zionism or of Ultra-Orthodoxy

Salmon, Yosef. “Akiva Yosef Schlesinger—A Forerunner of Zionism or a Forerunner of Ultra-Orthodoxy.” Journal of Modern Jewish Studies 15.2 (2016): 171-87.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14725886.2015.1111549

 

Abstract

Rabbi Akiva Yosef Schlesinger (Pressburg 1838—Jerusalem 1922) is considered by some scholars to be a forerunner of ultra-Orthodoxy, but by others as a forerunner of Zionism. This article unravels this enigmatic personality, demonstrating that he was indeed a forerunner of ultra-Orthodoxy who was motivated by a complete rejection of modernity and promoted religious positions that were more radical than those of the Hatam Sofer. Those who associate Schlesinger with Zionism are misled by the fact that he encountered fierce opposition from his Hungarian colleagues and from the “Yishuv hayashan” in Jerusalem, advocated the use of the Hebrew language and promoted a “settlement” programme in Palestine. The article suggests that Schlesinger’s programme was in reality designed to create a sacred utopian society, and was motivated by his desire to isolate the traditional Jewish community from modernity, rather than by a nationalist ideology. Furthermore, the opposition of the Jerusalem rabbis to Schlesinger’s ideas was based largely on his unusual religious positions and his suggestion that the youth should be engaged in work. In analysing Schlesinger’s legacy, the article also clarifies the distinctions between ultra-Orthodoxy and Zionism, as well as some common elements that they share.

 

 

 

New Article: Reshef, Written Hebrew of the Revival Generation

Reshef, Yael. “Written Hebrew of the Revival Generation as a Distinct Phase in the Evolution of Modern Hebrew.” Journal of Semitic Studies 61.1 (2016): 187-213.
 
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jss/fgv036
 
Abstract

A well-known fact is that the consolidation of the use of Hebrew for practical communication after World War I involved the transformation of Hebrew into a spoken language. The aim of this article is to show that the 1920s witnessed a marked transformation in the written language as well. Focusing on written texts from the emergence period of Modern Hebrew, it is shown that a series of features that were commonly used by revival generation writers were not absorbed into the mundane written practices of the emergent speech community. Based on this marked change, this article suggests to recognize the period between the 1880s and the 1920s as a distinct phase in the evolution of written Modern Hebrew.

 

 

 

New Article: Marienberg-Milikowsky, Transmitting Tradition in the Work of Haim Be’er

Marienberg-Milikowsky, Itay. “Upon a Certain Place: On the Dialectics of Transmitting Tradition in the Work of Haim Be’er.” Zutot (early view; online first).
 
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/18750214-12341276
 
Abstract

Haim Beʾer is recognized by Hebrew literary criticism as a writer who conducts a profound dialogue between ancient Jewish texts and modern Jewish-Israeli culture. This article offers a critical appraisal of this view. Through a reading of Beʾer’s novel Lifnei ha-makom (Upon a Certain Place, 2007), the article offers a new way of looking at how Beʾer sees the relation between old and new. Instead of mediating between tradition and modernity and translating the old for a generation that has partly severed ties with it, Lifnei ha-makom undermines the very mediation that is so much identified with Beʾer’s work. Beʾer’s novel boldly examines what it means to live a Jewish life almost devoid of books. The role of tradition, in this scheme, is to be present in the world of the new generation without undergoing interpretation. The article links between this attitude and deep processes in contemporary Israeli culture.

 

 

 

Resources: New Website for the Corpus of Spoken Israeli Hebrew (CoSIH)

The site of The Corpus of Spoken Israeli Hebrew (CoSIH) has changed its location. The new address is http://cosih.com (Hebrew main page) or click here for English: http://cosih.com/english/index.html

Plans for The Corpus of Spoken Israeli Hebrew (CoSIH) started to take shape in 1998. CoSIH aimed at compiling a large database of recordings of spoken Israeli Hebrew in order to facilitate research in a range of disciplines. A corpus is a preliminary desideratum for larger projects that cannot otherwise be accomplished. The research potential of such a corpus is extremely large, including, inter alia, applications in the following areas: general and theoretical linguistics, Hebrew language and linguistics, applied linguistics, language engineering, education, and cultural and sociological studies.

CoSIH was designed with the intention to include a representative sample of both demographically and contextually defined varieties. The model according to which CoSIH would be compiled was to consist of a thousand sets of recordings (“cells”) with 5000 words each, i.e., a corpus of five million words. We have taken a culture-dependent approach for the compilation of CoSIH. CoSIH aspires to bridge between the infinite number of varieties used by the Israeli Hebrew speech community and their representation in the corpus, by characterizing their diversity in both demographic and contextual terms. CoSIH seems to be a first and singular attempt to establish a representative corpus using the axes of both demographic and contextual variables, based on statistical and analytic criteria.

The selection of informants for the recordings of CoSIH would be made by a random sample of the Israeli population, in order to reflect the social structure of the Israeli Hebrew speech community. The segmentation of the corpus for analytic purposes would be done using well-defined criteria, notwithstanding the fact that all sociolinguistic data of the recorded informants will be made available for CoSIH’s endusers. The working hypothesis of CoSIH is based on demographic criteria that seem to be most significant for the representation of the linguistic diversity in Israel: (1) place of birth, familial land of origin, ethnic group or religion; (2) age; (3) education; and (4) sex.¹

For the analysis of the contextual variables for each discourse, CoSIH’s working hypothesis is based on five variables. There are three primary variables: interpersonal relationships, discourse structure and discourse topic; and two secondary variables: number of participants and medium (i.e. face-to-face conversation and telephone conversation).

A comprehensive study of the demographic and circumstantial variables in Hebrew discourse in Israel remains a desideratum. Therefore, in order to design a proper model for CoSIH, the setting of the corpus would be done in phases, during which a research program would be taken in order to verifty the wortking hypothesis suggested above.

This model was first published online, in both Hebrew and English. The English version eventually found its place in Hary & Izre’el 2003. A more sophisticated model has been published in English in Izre’el, Hary & Rahav 2001.

CoSIH was initiated, designed and operated by a team of Israeli and international scholars:

Core team: Shlomo Izre’el, Tel-Aviv University (director); Benjamin Hary, Emory University (principal investigator); John Du Bois, University of California at Santa arbara (corpus analyst); Mira Ariel, Tel-Aviv University (discourse analysis and pragmatics); Giora Rahav, Tel-Aviv University (statistics and sociology). Esther Borochovsky-Bar Aba, Tel Aviv University (syntax) joined the team at a later stage.

Advisory board: Eliezer Ben-Rafael, Tel Aviv University (sociolinguistics – sociological aspects); Yaakov Bentolila, Ben Gurion University (sociolinguistics – linguistic aspects); Otto Jastrow, Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (transcription, phonology, dialectology); Shmuel Bolozky, University of Massachusetts at Amherst (phonology, morphology); Geoffrey Khan, Cambridge University (syntax); Elana Shohamy, Tel Aviv University (language education).

The Present State of CoSIH

As of 2012, this ambitious project still awaits its realization. The limited financial support that was at our disposal enabled us to compile two sets of recordings, the first of which was made during the initial preparatory phase, while the second was done as a pilot study. The initial preparatory phase produced 11 recordings spanning at least 6 hours each, with some being much longer. Although we initially designed a pilot of 20 sets of 3-hour recordings, we have eventually ended up with 42 sets, each including between 8 to 16 hours of uninterrupted recording of everyday speech. Taken together, we now possess 6 to 18 hour recordings by 53 volunteers, which we believe to be a reasonable source of data for the study of Spoken Hebrew. The recordings, which were all made between August 2000 and October 2002, are all real life conversations of CoSIH’s informants. As such, they naturally include both the speech of the volunteers who recorded them and their interlocutors.

 

New Article: Shoshana, The Language of Everyday Racism and Microaggression in the Workplace

Shoshana, Avihu. “The Language of Everyday Racism and Microaggression in the Workplace: Palestinian Professionals in Israel.” Ethnic and Racial Studies (early view; online first).

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2015.1081965

 

Abstract

Based on interviews with Palestinian professionals in Jewish organizations in Israel, this article discloses a distinctive practice of ‘everyday racism’ and microaggression – a language of everyday racism. This ‘language of everyday racism’ refers to Hebrew words and expressions that are routinely used by Jews in their mundane conversations and that include the word ‘Arab’ when describing a deficiency or defect, some sort of unsightliness, filth, or general negativity (as in the expression ‘You’re dressed like an Arab woman’). This article not only describes the language of everyday racism as a specific form of everyday racism and microaggression (national microaggression), it also illustrates how this language activates the Palestinian professionals in a reflexive manner. The discussion section describes how the internal dialectic between structure and agency is critical to understanding the language of everyday racism, which in turn acts as a mechanism of the inequality that underlies face-to-face interactions.

 

 

New Book: Bekerman, The Promise of Integrated Multicultural and Bilingual Education

Bekerman, Zvi. The Promise of Integrated Multicultural and Bilingual Education. Inclusive Palestinian-Arab and Jewish Schools in Israel. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2016.

 

 

The Promise of Integrated and Multicultural Bilingual Education presents the results of a long-term ethnographic study of the integrated bilingual Palestinian-Jewish schools in Israel that offer a new educational option to two groups of Israelis–Palestinians and Jews–who have been in conflict for the last one hundred years. Their goal is to create egalitarian bilingual multicultural environments to facilitate the growth of youth who can acknowledge and respect “others” while maintaining loyalty to their respective cultural traditions. In this book, Bekerman reveals the complex school practices implemented while negotiating identity and culture in contexts of enduring conflict. Data gathered from interviews with teachers, students, parents, and state officials are presented and analyzed to explore the potential and limitations of peace education given the cultural resources, ethnic-religious affiliations, political beliefs, and historical narratives of the various interactants. The book concludes with critique of Western positivist paradigmatic perspectives that currently guide peace education, maintaining that one of the primary weaknesses of current bilingual and multicultural approaches to peace education is their failure to account for the primacy of the political framework of the nation state and the psychologized educational perspectives that guide their educational work. Change, it is argued, will only occur after these perspectives are abandoned, which entails critically reviewing present understandings of the individual, of identity and culture, and of the learning process.

 
Table of contents

• Introduction
• Part 1
• 1. Positioning the Author
• 2. Theoretical Perspectives
• 3. Methodology: From Theory to Implementation
• 4. Schools in Their Contexts
• Part 2
• 5. The Parents
• 6. Teachers at Their Work
• 7. The Children
• Part 3
• 8. School Routines: Culture, Religion, and Politics in the Classroom
• 9. Ceremonial Events
• 10. Conflicting National Narratives
• Part 4
• 11. The Graduates
• 12. Conclusions
• Author Index
• Subject Index

 

ZVI BEKERMAN teaches anthropology of education at the School of Education and The Melton Center, Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His main interests are in the study of cultural, ethnic, and national identity, including identity processes and negotiation during intercultural encounters and in formal/informal learning contexts. He is particularly interested in how concepts such as culture and identity intersect with issues of social justice, intercultural and peace education, and citizenship education.

 

 

 

Workshop: University Teaching of Hebrew Language (Hebrew U; July 10-14, 2016)

Continuing Workshop on University Teaching of Hebrew Language

Jerusalem, July 10-14, 2016 / 4-8 Tammuz 5776

Teaching Hebrew Morphology in the 21st Century

 

Workshop Director: Dr. Tania Notarius, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

The International Center for University Teaching of Jewish Civilization is pleased to announce that it is now accepting applications for this year’s session of the Continuing Workshop on University Teaching of Hebrew Language. The workshop will take place in Jerusalem from Sunday through Thursday, July 10-14, 2016 / 4-8 Tammuz 5776, and will focus on Teaching Hebrew Morphology in the 21st Century.

The International Center’s workshops on University Teaching of Hebrew Language are designed to meet the interests of the professors of Hebrew in universities outside of Israel and to provide theoretical knowledge and practical tools relevant for their teaching. The workshop includes meetings with scholars, lecturers and Hebrew teachers from Israel and abroad, as well as sessions in small groups of colleagues held in an informal setting, aimed to promote fruitful discussion and interchange of ideas.

The workshop is conducted in cooperation with the Division of Hebrew Language Instruction at the Rothberg International School for Overseas Students. Workshop participants will have an opportunity to observe classes conducted by the Division teachers and to hold joint discussions on various issues connected to Hebrew teaching. The workshop program will also include a visit to the Academy Language (the co-organizer of this workshop) and attend lectures and presentations by the Academy staff.  In the varied sessions the workshop participants will also be welcome to present the results of their teaching experience.

Hebrew is known for its rich inflectional morphology (verbal, nominal and pronominal), the acquisition of which is often considered difficult, dull and time-consuming, particularly at the beginners’ levels. This year the workshop on Hebrew teaching at the universities abroad will explore the most updated methods that have the potential to optimize this process for both the teacher and the student, addressing the following questions: Do the Web and the Interactive Technologies propose interesting tools? What can be the role of immersion and communication in acquiring morphological patterns?  How should the challenge of linguistic variationism in Modern Hebrew be addressed – by learning ‘normative’ morphology through the access to classical and literary forms or by adhering to conversational vernacular innovations? All these questions will be treated in their practical aspects with a special consideration of the teaching technologies applied in the classroom.

 

General information:

• Participation is limited to a small number of university teachers of Hebrew language, chosen from applicants from all over the world.
• The costs of accommodation, board, and travel to and from Israel are the responsibility of participants or their sponsoring institutions.
• The fee for participation in the workshop is NIS 1,000.

Interested applicants should submit a CV by e-mail or fax to:

International Center for University Teaching of Jewish Civilization

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Tel: +972-2-5881772; Fax: +972-2-5819096;

E-mail:  jewish.civilization@mail.huji.ac.il

New Article: Avni, Hebrew Learning Ideologies and the Reconceptualization of American Judaism

Avni, Sharon. “Hebrew Learning Ideologies and the Reconceptualization of American Judaism: Language Debates in American Jewish Schooling in the Early 20th Century.” International Journal of the Sociology of Language 237 (2016): 119-37.

ְְ

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/ijsl-2015-0038

 

Abstract

This article examines the ways in which Hebrew education was construed in the United States by tracing the Hebrew ideology debate of the early and mid-1900s, when dramatic changes were made to modernize Jewish schooling and its place within American society. Focusing on the Hebrew learning ideologies and educational philosophies of Samson Benderly and his followers, it examines how the Ivrit b’Ivrit movement – teaching Jewish content in Modern Hebrew – re-conceptualized Hebrew education not only as a form of language acquisition, but as a means of defining and giving shape to American Judaism for the Jewish immigrant community at that time.

 

 

 

ToC: Hebrew Studies 56 (2015)

Below are the relevant articles for Israel Studies from the latest issue of Hebrew Studies. For a full Table of Contents,click here.

 

Innovative Designation of Diminution in the Writings of Abraham Shlonsky

pp. 231-243

Bat-Zion Yemini

Memory and History in Israeli Post-Apocalyptic Theater

pp. 245-263

Zahava Caspi

Questioning Boundaries of Language and the World: Ambivalence and Disillusionment in the Writings of Shimon Adaf

pp. 265-294

Dorit Lemberger

Hebrew Neologisms in the Writings of Anton Shammas

pp. 295-314

Adel Shakour, Abdallah Tarabeih

The Pain of Two Homelands: Immigration to Israel in Twenty-First Century Hebrew Prose Fiction

pp. 315-331

Smadar Shiffman

“Our Virgin Friends and Wives”?: Female Sexual Subjectivity in Yona Wallach’s Poetry

pp. 333-356

Amalia Ziv

New Testament Jesus in Modern Jewish Literature: A Symposium

pp. 357-358

Zev Garber

Jesus and the Pharisees through the Eyes of Two Modern Hebrew Writers: A Contrarian Perspective

pp. 359-365

Neta Stahl

A Question of Truth: Form, Structure, and Character in Der man fun Natseres

pp. 367-376

Melissa Weininger

Overtones of Isaac and Jesus in Modern Hebrew Narrative

pp. 377-384

Aryeh Wineman

The Jewish Jesus: Conversation, Not Conversion

pp. 385-392

Zev Garber

Reviews

 

Compassion and Fury: On The Fiction of A. B. Yehoshua by Gilead Morahg (review)

pp. 433-436

Yael Halevi-Wise

---

Periodicals

pp. 437-456

Books Received — 2015

pp. 457-460

New Article: Gonen et al, The Discourse Marker axshav (‘now’) in Spontaneous Spoken Hebrew

Gonen, Einat, Zohar Livnat, and Noam Amir. “The Discourse Marker axshav (‘now’) in Spontaneous Spoken Hebrew: Discursive and Prosodic Features.” Journal of Pragmatics 89 (2015): 69-84.

 
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2015.09.005
 
Abstract

This study describes the discursive characteristics of the discourse marker axshav (‘now’) in spoken Hebrew and explores its prosodic features using instrumental methods. This is the first attempt to use acoustical analysis to examine the prosodic aspects of discourse markers in Hebrew.

The corpus includes more than 5 h of everyday Israeli Hebrew conversations, in which 106 occurrences of the word axshav were found. More than one-third of these occurrences were identified as DMs, while the others are temporal adverbials.

The main discursive functions of the DMs identified were segmentation; accentuation of the importance of certain pieces of information, sometimes by means of comparisons and contrasts; and holding the floor.
The acoustical analysis of the performances of axshav in both functions showed that most DMs have characteristic intonation contour, including a sharp decrease in the frequency inside the second syllable. An examination of the average duration of the performance of axshav as a DM as compared to its performance as a temporal adverbial found a significant statistical difference, showing that the duration of the performance of axshav as a DM was shorter, both for the performance of the first syllable as well as the overall duration of the word. These findings seem to strengthen the hypothesis that prosodic data play a role in deciphering the function of axshav as a DM.

 

 

 

New Article: Stavans, If you know Amharic you can read this: Emergent Literacy in Multilingual Pre-Reading Children

Stavans, Anat. “‘If you know Amharic you can read this’: Emergent Literacy in Multilingual Pre-Reading Children.” In Crosslinguistic Influence and Crosslinguistic Interaction in Multilingual Language Learning (ed. Gessica De Angelis et al; London and New York: Bloomsbury, 2015): 149-72.

Extract

The Ethiopian families, who immigrated to Israel in the early 1990s, represent an instrumental example for the study of the social and cultural integration of an immigrant community with low socio-economic status, limited schooling and non-Western oral or literate cultural traditions. Children from such backgrounds, even those born in the new country, have to cope with at least three languages to greater or lesser degrees and for different purposes in their day-to-day lives. These families are overt bilinguals with Amharic/Tigris as their home language and Hebrew as the dominant language of the host society and the language of schooling; however, they are also latent trilinguals because in addition they contend with English presence in the daily life with its influence into the local languages, its presence in all media input, its economic (local production must be marked in Hebrew, Arabic and English) and geopolitical attributes, as well as the core curricular requirement for scholastic graduation. The Ethiopian family exhibits mostly oral literacy in the home language while school requires literacy in Hebrew and in English (at times as early as first and second grades). Unlike veteran or higher SES families, most Ethiopian parents cannot afford the benefits of extracurricular enrichment programs or tutors and they rely mostly on what is available in their environment and what they as members of the community can provide for their children.

 

 

ToC: Journal of Israeli History 34.2 (2015)

Journal of Israeli History, 34.2 (2015)

No Trinity: The tripartite relations between Agudat Yisrael, the Mizrahi movement, and the Zionist Organization
Daniel Mahla
pages 117-140

Judaism and communism: Hanukkah, Passover, and the Jewish Communists in Mandate Palestine and Israel, 1919–1965
Amir Locker-Biletzki
pages 141-158

Olei Hagardom: Between official and popular memory
Amir Goldstein
pages 159-180

Practices of photography on kibbutz: The case of Eliezer Sklarz
Edna Barromi Perlman
pages 181-203

The Shishakli assault on the Syrian Druze and the Israeli response, January–February 1954
Randall S. Geller
pages 205-220

Book Reviews

Becoming Israeli: National Ideals and Everyday Life in the 1950s

Deborah Bernstein
pages 221-224

The “Magic Carpet” Exodus of Yemenite Jewry: An Israeli Formative Myth

Ari Ariel
pages 224-227

The Bride and the Dowry: Israel, Jordan, and the Palestinians in the Aftermath of the June 1967 War

Itamar Radai
pages 227-230

Editorial Board

Editorial Board

.

Reviews: Helman, Becoming Israeli

Helman, Anat. Becoming Israeli. National Ideals and Everyday Life in the 1950s, Schusterman Series in Israel Studies. Waltham, Mass.: Brandeis University Press, 2014.

Reviews

• Burghardt, Linda F.”Review.” Jewish Book Council, n.d.
• Bernstein, Deborah. “Review.” Journal of Israeli History (early view; online first).
• Hirsch, Dafna. “Review.” Israel Studies Review 30.2 (2015).

 

 

New Book: Burla and Lawrence, eds. Australia and Israel

Burla, Shahar, and Dashiel Lawrence. Australia and Israel. A Diasporic, Cultural and Political Relationship. Eastbourne: Sussex Academic Press, 2015.

 

 

Australia and the State of Israel have maintained a cordial if at times ambiguous relationship. The two countries are geographically isolated: strategic, economic and cultural interests lie increasingly with Asia for one, and with the US and the EU for the other. But for all that divides the two states, there is also much they share. Australia played an important role in the Jewish state’s establishment in 1948, and is home to the most Zionist centered Jewish diaspora globally. Jewishness for most Australian Jews has been shaped and defined by engagement with and support for Israel. At the heart of this engagement is a small but thriving Israeli community within the larger multicultural Australia.

Australia and Israel: A Diasporic, Cultural and Political Relationship draws attention to the important historical and contemporary nexus between this diaspora and its imagined homeland. The collection also considers the ways in which these two states mobilise national myths and share environmental challenges. In recent time relations between the two states have been tested by the illegal use of Australian passports in 2010, the mysterious death of dual national Ben Zygier, and growing disquiet within the ranks of the Australian Labor Party and the Australian Greens over Israel’s handling of the Israel-Palestinian conflict. One prominent world-wide issue is the Palestinian BDS (Boycotts, Divestments and Sanctions) movement, which has attracted sympathy and support that has brought about substantive differences of opinion regarding its legitimacy within the Jewish Australian community. These issues demonstrate the multifaceted and complex picture of two very different nations, that nevertheless share an abiding connection.

 

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
Introduction: Why the Book?
Shahar Burla and Dashiel Lawrence

Part One Australia and Israel – Diasporic Relationship

1 Rewriting the Rules of Engagement: New Australian Jewish
Connections with Israel
Dashiel Lawrence

2 The Personal, the Political and the Religious: Bnei Akiva
Australia and its Relationship with Israel
Ari Lander

3 Israeli Government and Diaspora Mobilisation: The Flotilla
to Gaza and the Australian Jewry as a Case Study
Shahar Burla

4 The Place of Hebrew and Israel Education in Australian
Jewish Schools
Suzanne Rutland and Zehavit Gross

5 The Ausraeli Approach: the Diasporic Identity of Israelis
in Australia
Ran Porat

Part Two Australia and Israel – Political and Cultural Relationship

6 Overcoming Water Scarcity and Inequity in Arid Lands:
Comparing Water Management in Australia and Israel
Dominic Skinner and Stephanie Galaitsi

7 Ben Zygier’s Story and Australia–Israel Relations
Ingrid Matthews

8 A Fight Worth Having: Rudd, Gillard, Israel and the
Australian Labor Party
Alex Benjamin Burston-Chorowicz

9 An Alliance of Forgetting: National Narratives of Legitimacy
on the Occasion of Israel–Australia’s Joint Stamp Issue
Commemorating the Battle of Beersheba
Micaela Sahhar

Part Three Australia, Israel and the Boycott Divestment and
Sanction Scheme

10 The Australian Greens and the Israeli–Palestinian Conflict
Philip Mendes

11 Academic Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions: Implications
for Australian–Israeli Relations
Ingrid Matthews and James Arvanitakis

Conclusion: First Cousinhood, Political Unease, and the Limits
of Comparison
Fania Oz-Salzberger

The Editors and Contributors
Index

 

Shahar Burla is a research Associate at the Sydney Jewish Museum. He is the author of Political Imagination in the Diaspora: The Construction of a Pro-Israeli Narrative (2013). He has received several awards, including a President’s Fellowship for outstanding PhD student, Bar-Ilan University and the Menahem Begin Foundation academic award.

Dashiel Lawrence is a doctoral candidate at the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, University of Melbourne. His research interests include Jewish diaspora–Israel contemporary relations, and Jewish critics of Israel.

 

 

Reviews: Levy, Poetic Trespass

Levy, Lital. Poetic Trespass: Writing between Hebrew and Arabic in Israel/Palestine. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014.

 

Reviews

• Irving, Sarah. “Can literature disrupt Israel’s identity?” Electronic Intifada, May 19, 2015.
• Stern, Ramon. “Review.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 47.3 (2015): 605-607.