Bulletin: Identity and Nationalism

ToC:

Shofar 34.4 (2016): Special issue on Exile, Center, and Diaspora in Modern Jewish Culture

Articles:

Hochman, Oshrat, and Sibylle Heilbrunn. “‘I am not a German Jew. I am a Jew with a German passport’: German-Jewish identification among Jewish Germans and Jewish German Israelis.” Identities (online first).

Reviews:

Kheir, Zaha. “Review of: Fran Markowitz, Stephen Sharot, Moshe Shokeid (eds.), Toward an Anthropology of Nation Building and Unbuilding in Israel (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 2015).” Nations and Nationalism 22.4 (2016): 850-852.

Theses:

Gelotte, Sara. National Identities among Israelis and Palestinians: Discourse Analysis of NGOs, MA Thesis. University of Gothenburg, 2016. (PDF)

Events:

Sammy Smooha, “Is Israel Really Western? Does it Have Viable Alternative Options?” October 26, 2016, 5:30pm, Brunei Gallery Room, SOAS, London.

Abstract: Israel is known as a Western state, culture and society. Applying various standards of Western civilisation, Smooha scrutinises and problematizes this international and self-image, questioning whether Israel is indeed Western. He discusses the barriers in Israel’s drive to the West and the alternative options it has (Middle-Eastern, Mediterranean, global).

 

New Article: Peleg, A New Hebrew Literary Diaspora? Israeli Literature Abroad

Peleg, Yaron. “A New Hebrew Literary Diaspora? Israeli Literature Abroad.” DSpace@Cambridge.

 

URL: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/254458

 

Abstract

Although the modern stage in the development of Hebrew began in Europe about two hundred years ago, after 1948 modern Hebrew became confined for the most part to the state of Israel. The tumultuous course of Jewish history in the past two centuries, including the Holocaust, the acculturation of North American Jewry, and above all the creation of a Hebrew speaking sovereign state in the Land of Israel, have by and large emptied the Jewish diaspora of Hebrew; certainly of the creative kind of modern Hebrew, which inspired the poets and writers of the Jewish Enlightenment and the Hebrew Revival in Europe, and the North American Hebraists in the first half of the twentieth century. And yet in the past few decades we are witnessing a growing number of Hebrew writers who are no longer confined by geography. Although they still publish their works in Israel, they write them elsewhere, mainly in the US and Europe. Increasingly, too, their works reflect their habitat as well, the peoples and cultures of their countries of residence. Are we witnessing the birth of what can perhaps be termed a “post-national Hebrew” era, an era in which Israel remains an inspiring cultural center, but no longer the only location for the creation of original work in Hebrew? This article looks at various Hebrew novels that were written outside of Israel in the last few decades and examines the contours of what may perhaps be a new chapter in the history of modern Hebrew.

Whether this level of private spending and its concentration on sicker and higher income individuals violates the commitment of equity and fairness is up to the citizens of Israel. For those of us in the U.S. we only wish our level of inequality was so low. In making the decision on what Israel should do about its inequality it would be helpful to understand why individuals use private funding for services that are covered by the national health insurance system. And, most importantly does using a different source of funds (private versus public) impact on the health outcomes of the care involved. This issue is particularly relevant with respect to the very high use of private financing for surgeries.

 

 

 

New Book: Arar & Haj-Yehia, Higher Education and Palestinians in Israel

Arar, Khalid, and Kussai Haj-Yehia. Higher Education and the Palestinian Arab Minority in Israel. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016.

 

 

Higher Education and the Palestinian Minority in Israel examines perceptions concerning the characteristics of higher education acquisition in the indigenous Palestinian Arab minority in Israel. Arar and Haj-Yehia show that Palestinian Arabs in Israel clearly understand the benefit of an academic degree as a lever for social status and integration within the state of Israel. The authors discuss difficulties met by Palestinian high school graduates when they attempt to enter Israel’s higher education institutes, and the alternative phenomenon of studying abroad. The cultural difference between Palestinian traditional communities and ‘Western’ Israeli campuses exposes Arab students to a mix of ethnicities and nationalities, which proves to be a difficult, transformative experience. The book analyzes patterns of higher education acquisition among the indigenous Palestinian minority, describing the disciplines they choose, the challenges they encounter, particularly for Palestinian women students, and explore the implications for the Palestinian minority and Israeli society.

This comprehensive study of higher education among the indigenous Palestinian Arab minority in Israel provides unique knowledge concerning the minority’s access to higher education in and outside its homeland. This knowledge can inform efforts to enhance Palestinian students’ access to Israeli universities, and advance Palestinians’ socio-economic status, with consequent benefit to Israel as a whole.

 

Table of Contents

• List of Tables vii
• List of Figures ix
• Acknowledgments xi
• Prologue 1
• 1 The Context of the Palestinian Arab Minority in Israel (PAMI) 11
• 2 Access to Higher Education among Minorities 23
• 3 Trends in Higher Education among the PAMI 41
• 4 Higher Education Abroad: The Case of the PAMI 73
• 5 Higher Education and PAMI Students’ Identity Formation 117
• 6 Employment Prospects of PAMI Graduates 137
• 7 Policy and Initiatives to Widen Access to Higher Education for the PAMI 161
• Epilogue 181
• Notes 187
• Bibliography 189
• Index 211

 

 

 

New Article: Kalagy, Separation and Integration of Educated Bedouin Women in the Negev

Kalagy, Tehila. “Between Separation and Integration: The Case of Educated Bedouin Women in the Negev.” Social Identities (early view; online first).

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13504630.2016.1161505

 

Abstract

In this qualitative paper, I have examined how women from a conservative minority group handle their encounter with the values of the majority group as they acquire academic education. This examination was undertaken in the general context of the research tradition that addresses the sociological and anthropological attributes of conservative societies when in confrontation with the processes of moderation, and is based on the acculturation model formulated by Berry. The source materials for this qualitative study are based on in-depth semi-structured interviews with 30 Bedouin students. The fact that Bedouin women who wish to study strive to maintain traditional values, such as their manner of dress, indicates their understanding that it is necessary to create change and acquire an academic education in order to earn a suitable salary and aid their communities, while at the same time upholding the boundaries and conventions set by the community. Tradition is thus maintained, and traditional and even religious values continue to exist within the boundaries of the minority group, alongside the stretching of those boundaries and the integration of values from ‘outside’ with those ‘inside.’

 

 

 

New Book: Randall, Sufism and Jewish-Muslim Relations

Randall, Yafiah Katherine. Sufism and Jewish-Muslim Relations. The Derekh Avraham Order in Israel. New York: Routledge, 2016.

 

 

In Israel there are Jews and Muslims who practice Sufism together. The Sufi’ activities that they take part in together create pathways of engagement between two faith traditions in a geographical area beset by conflict.

Sufism and Jewish Muslim Relationsinvestigates this practice of Sufism among Jews and Muslims in Israel and examines their potential to contribute to peace in the area. It is an original approach to the study of reconciliation, situating the activities of groups that are not explicitly acting for peace within the wider context of grass-roots peace initiatives. The author conducted in-depth interviews with those practicing Sufism in Israel, and these are both collected in an appendix and used throughout the work to analyse the approaches of individuals to Sufism and the challenges they face. It finds that participants understand encounters between Muslim and Jewish mystics in the medieval Middle East as a common heritage to Jews and Muslims practising Sufism together today, and it explores how those of different faiths see no dissonance in the adoption of Sufi practices to pursue a path of spiritual progression.

The first examination of the Derekh Avraham Jewish-Sufi Order, this is a valuable resource for students and scholars of Sufi studies, as well as those interested in Jewish-Muslim relations.

 

Table of Contents

• Part 1: Procedure and Contexts of the Research
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Contexts of the Investigation
• 3 Historical Encounters of Jewish and Islamic Mysticism: precedents of Contemporary Practice in Israel
• Part 2: Reading the Field Narratives
• 4 The Derekh Avraham/Tariqat Ibrahimiyya and its Contemporary Re-emergence in Israel
• 5 Beshara: Lovers of Ibn Arabi
• 6 Embracing the Sufi Path and the Dissemination of Knowledge
• 7 Jewish and Muslim Peacemakers
• Part 3: Conclusion
• 8 The Other Voice
• Appendices

 

YAFIAH KATHERINE RANDALL received her PhD at the University of Winchester. She combines academic research into Jewish-Muslim relations focusing on Sufism with grass-roots action for interreligious understanding and conflict transformation.

ToC: Jewish Film & New Media 4.1 (2016; special issue on genres)

Jewish Film & New Media

Volume 4, Number 1, Spring 2016

Table of Contents

SPECIAL ISSUE: GENRES IN JEWISH AND ISRAELI CINEMA

Guest Editors: Yaron Peleg and Yvonne Kozlovsky-Golan

 

Introduction to the Special Issue

Genres in Jewish and Israeli Cinema

pp. 1-2

Yaron Peleg, Yvonne Kozlovsky-Golan

Articles

A Body in Every Cellar: The “New Violence” Movement in Israeli Cinema

pp. 4-24

Neta Alexander

Arnon Goldfinger’s The Flat: Holocaust Memory, Film Noir, and the Pain of Others

pp. 25-42

Yael Munk

The “New Psyche”: A Model of Different Femininity in Film: Viviane Amsalem, Heroine of the Trilogy by Ronit and Shlomi Elkabetz

pp. 43-67

Macabit Abramson

Frum with Benefits: Israeli Television, Globalization, and Srugim’s American Appeal

pp. 68-89

Shayna Weiss

Adapting Masculinities: Israeli and American Genres Redefining Mizrahi Masculinity in the TV Series Haborer

pp. 90-108

Ronen Gil

DIY: How to (Not So) Safely Dismantle the Bomb of On-Screen Jewish-Israeli Identity: The Synergies with Art and Television in the Representation of Jewish-Israeli Identity and What Can Be Learned from Them

pp. 109-138

Lee Weinberg

Workshop: at Taub Center, on memory, landscape and Moroccan Identities (NYU, April 15, 2016)

4/15/16 – Taub Center Graduate Workshop
10am – 2pm

The Taub Center organizes regular workshops for graduate students and faculty in the field of Israel Studies at NYU and other universities in the tri-state area. The regional workshops are an opportunity for students and faculty to present and discuss their respective areas of research. The workshops also serve as an important forum for networking and strengthening the field of Israel Studies.

• Noga Kadman, Independent Scholar (Israel): Erasing the Past: On the Side of the Road and the Edge of Consciousness
• Aviad Moreno, Tel Aviv University: Ethnicity in Motion: Rethinking Moroccan Identities in Israel

New Article: Cohen, Iterative Emplotment Scenarios: Being ‘The Only Ethiopian’

Cohen, Leor. “Iterative Emplotment Scenarios: Being ‘The Only Ethiopian’.” Discourse Studies 18.2 (2016): 123-43.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1461445615623903

 

Abstract

The realism-social constructionism debate has been consequential over the last several decades. Silverstein’s vocabulary of micro-/macro-contexts aids in understanding why the tension can be a useful epistemological heuristic for discourse analysts. Narratives were collected in focus groups of Ethiopian-Israeli college students. Five narratives were selected for ethnic mentions and found to have a particular ‘iterative’ ‘emplotment scenario’ (IES) – recurrent storylines and settings – across tellers and telling events. ‘the only Ethiopian’ is an IES of being sent away to a majority-White elementary/secondary school, socially isolated and denigrated. How are we to understand it when a particular plotline and setting recur in our corpora? I argue that although each story and storytelling is unique, they all borrow from a larger-than-single-telling, already existent trope, that is, a budding master narrative. Taken together, a unique view of a particular socio-cultural process – in this case, something of what it means to be an Ethiopian Israeli – emerges.

 

 

 

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 Book: Kahanoff, Jews and Arabs in Israel Encountering Their Identities

Kahanoff, Maya. Jews and Arabs in Israel Encountering Their Identities. Transformations in Dialogue. Lanham and London: Lexington Books and Jerusalem: Van Leer Institute, 2016.

 

 

Jews and Arabs in Israel Encountering their Identities reveals the powerful potential of inter-group dialogues to transform identities and mutually negating relations. Using meetings with Israeli Jewish and Palestinian Arabian students who attend the Hebrew University of Jerusalem as case studies, Kahanoff examines the hidden psychological dimensions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and illustrates how each participant’s sense of identity shifted in response to encounters with conflicting perspectives. Kahanoff contends that an awareness of the limitations of dialogue, without the renunciation of its value, is the most realistic basis upon which to build a sustainable agreement. This book is recommended for scholars of psychology, sociology, religious studies, political science, and communication studies.

 

Table of Contents

• Part I. Center Stage Conversations
• Chapter One: Split Discourse: Jews and Arabs Converse
• Part II. Behind the Scenes
  
• Chapter Two: Internal Jewish-Israeli Dialogues
  
• Chapter Three: Internal Palestinian-Arab Dialogues
  
• Part III. Inner/Hidden Dialogues
  
• Chapter Four: Jewish Israeli Dilemmas
  
• Chapter Five: Palestinian Arab Dilemmas
  
Chapter Six: Theoretical Aftertalks: Dialogical Transformations

 

MAYA KAHANOFF is lecturer at the Swiss Center Graduate Program for Conflict Research, Management and Resolution and associate research fellow at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

New Article: Amit & Bar-Lev, Transnational Identity among French Immigrants Employed in French-Speaking Companies in Israel

Amit, Karin, and Shirly Bar-Lev. “The Formation of Transnational Identity among French Immigrants Employed in French-Speaking Companies in Israel.” International Migration (early view; online first).

 
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/imig.12239
 
Abstract

This study focuses on the formation of a transnational identity among immigrants from France who are employed in French-speaking companies in Israel (mostly call-centres). The preliminary qualitative analysis shows that this unique employment pattern contributes to the formation of their transnational identity, which is a combination of their francophone, Jewish and Israeli identity. The findings obtained from a larger-scale online survey indicated that French immigrants employed in French-speaking companies are more ethnically, socially and culturally segregated, and less fluent in Hebrew than French immigrants who are not employed in such companies. However, no significant differences were found between these two groups in their Israeli identity and sense of belonging to Israeli society. In general, the French immigrants feel at home in Israel, are satisfied with their life in Israel and plan to remain there. The implications of these findings for policymakers are discussed.

 

 

 

New Article: Shalev et al, Change in the Religious Identity of Young Religious Jewish Newlyweds in Israel

Shalev, Ofra, Nehami Baum, and Haya Itzhaky. “Religious Identity in Transition. Processes of Change in the Religious Identity of Young Religious Jewish Newlyweds in Israel.” The Family Journal 24.2 (2015): 132-9.

 
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1066480716628598
 
Abstract

When researchers started to explore the cultural context of marriage, studies about how religious beliefs act within the marriage context have emerged. Most studies focused on Christian population, exploring how religiosity shape the nature of the marital relationship. The present study, however, examined the religious dynamics in one’s religious identity as a result of the transition to matrimony. Using qualitative tools, we interviewed 18 young Israeli Jewish Orthodox couples during their first year of marriage. The study exposes that although both partners come from the same religious group, the transition to marriage creates significant changes in their self-religious identity.

 

 

 

Dissertation: Poppe, Constructions of the I in the German Poetry of Israeli Writers

Poppe, Judith. “I am writing into deserted times” – Constructions of the I in the German Poetry of the Israeli Writers Netti Boleslav and Jenny Aloni, PhD dissertation. Göttingen: Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, 2015 (in German).

 

URL: https://ediss.uni-goettingen.de/handle/11858/00-1735-0000-0028-86AD-7

 

Abstract

This study examines a subject that has been disregarded in literary history, namely Israeli literature written in the German language. Two authors, Jenny Aloni and Netti Boleslav, as well as their poetry, are used as paradigmatic case studies to show the relevance of this literature that crosses political and cultural borders. In the late thirties Boleslav and Aloni emigrated from Nazi-Germany and Prague to Palestine/Israel where they found a new home. They wrote poetry and prose in German until their death in the 1980s and 1990s. Their lives and works are reconstructed on the basis of documents such as diaries, letters and unpublished manuscripts that are contained in their literary estates and made public partly for the first time. From a methodological perspective, the hermeneutical analysis of the poems in their poetic value is here complemented by poststructuralist approaches of the Cultural Studies. Focusing on the construction of the “I” (the “I” in the poetry as well as the “I” of the empirical authors), this study pursues the traces of different times and places, where the literature has left its mark. The oeuvres of Aloni and Boleslav emerges at the intersections of two worlds, the German and the Israeli, and they wander between various regions and political units such as Bohemia, Nazi and post-Nazi Germany, the State of Israel and Czechoslovakia. Their poems draw from “Jewish” and “Israeli” literature, German pop culture, bucolic poetry and Zionist historiography. Until now the unique position of German Literature in Israel has been almost completely neglected. The present study fills this scholarly gap. The research combines concepts by Deleuze/Guattari and Kühne in order to coin the notion of “Kleine Zwischenliteratur”, which describes the main features of this literature. One of the main goals of the present examination is to grant this literature a more prominent place in the history of literary. Based on the results of the present thesis’ analysis it becomes apparent that notions of transdisciplinary and transnationality need to be mobilised in order to challenge the accepted categories of the discipline, enabling us to close the blind spot of the Israeli literature written in German.

 

 

 

New Article: First, Common Sense, Good Sense, and Commercial Television

First, Anat. “Common Sense, Good Sense, and Commercial Television.” International Journal of Communication 10 (2016): 530-48.

 

URL: http://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/3551

 

Abstract

In an era when identity is a hybrid process, it is interesting to examine whether and how it is possible to glean the presence or absence of certain cultural groups from their representations in a given culture. To do so, I employ two key Gramscian concepts: common sense and good sense. Using three research reports (from 2003, 2005, and 2011) that employed content analysis techniques, this article assesses the visibility of various subgroups in Israeli TV programs and majority-minority power relations in a variety of genres on commercial channels in the prime-time slot. This article focuses on three aspects of identity: nationality, ethnicity, and gender.

 

 

 

New Article: Dekel, Immigrant Women Artists from the FSU in Contemporary Israel

Dekel, Tal. “In Search of Transnational Jewish Art: Immigrant Women Artists from The Former Soviet Union in Contemporary Israel.” Journal of Modern Jewish Studies 15.1 (2016): 109-30.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14725886.2015.1120432

 

Abstract

The article explores the subject of contemporary Jewish identity through the case of young immigrant women artists from the former Soviet Union in Israel, with particular emphasis on an analysis of the gendered aspects of their religious identity. Drawing on an interdisciplinary method, the research is based on in-depth interviews with artists, artwork analysis, and various theories from the social sciences and humanities. The article’s main argument is that an analysis of the artistic practices of this and similar understudied social groups, particularly those practices undertaken in moments of conflict or times of deep social change, produces a more subtle understanding of the shifting modes of Jewish identity in the age of globalization and transnationalism, whose phenomenon of mass migration has led to the construction of new multi-hyphenated, hybrid identities.

 

 

 

ToC: Israel Affairs 22.1 (2016)

Israel Affairs, Volume 22, Issue 1, January 2016 is now available online on Taylor & Francis Online. This new issue contains the following articles: Articles Sixty-two years of national insurance in Israel Abraham Doron Pages: 1-19 | DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2015.1111632 Rethinking reverence for Stalinism in the kibbutz movement Reuven Shapira Pages: 20-44 | DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2015.1111640 Making war, thinking history: David Ben-Gurion, analogical reasoning and the Suez Crisis Ilai Z. Saltzman Pages: 45-68 | DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2015.1111638   Military power and foreign policy inaction: Israel, 1967‒1973 Moshe Gat Pages: 69-95 | DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2015.1111636 Arab army vs. a Jewish kibbutz: the battle for Mishmar Ha’emek, April 1948 Amiram Ezov Pages: 96-125 | DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2015.1111633 Lip-service to service: the Knesset debates over civic national service in Israel, 1977–2007 Etta Bick Pages: 126-149 | DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2015.1111630 State‒diaspora relations and bureaucratic politics: the Lavon and Pollard affairs Yitzhak Mualem Pages: 150-171 | DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2015.1111637 Developing Jaffa’s port, 1920‒1936 Tamir Goren Pages: 172-188 | DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2015.1111634 University, community, identity: Ben-Gurion University and the city of Beersheba – a political cultural analysis Yitzhak Dahan Pages: 189-210 | DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2015.1111631 The Palestinian/Arab Strategy to Take Over Campuses in the West – Preliminary Findings Ron Schleifer Pages: 211-235 | DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2015.1111639 Identity of immigrants – between majority perceptions and self-definition Sibylle Heilbrunn, Anastasia Gorodzeisky & Anya Glikman Pages: 236-247 | DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2015.1111635 Book Reviews Jabotinsky: a life David Rodman Pages: 248-249 | DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2016.112095 Ethos clash in Israeli society David Rodman Pages: 250-251 | DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2016.1120967 Nazis, Islamists and the making of the modern Middle East David Rodman Pages: 252-254 | DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2016.1120968 The new American Zionism David Rodman Pages: 255-257 | DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2016.1120969 Rise and decline of civilizations: lessons for the Jewish people David Rodman Pages: 258-259 | DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2016.1120970

New Article: Guetzkow & Fast, Symbolic Boundaries and Social Exclusion: A Comparison of Arab Palestinian Citizens and Ethiopian Jews

Guetzkow, Josh, and Idit Fast. “How Symbolic Boundaries Shape the Experience of Social Exclusion. A Case Comparison of Arab Palestinian Citizens and Ethiopian Jews in Israel.” American Behavioral Scientist (early view; online first).

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0002764215607581

 

Abstract

Symbolic boundaries, understood as the conceptual distinctions used to demarcate in-groups and out-groups, are fundamental to social inequality. While we know a great deal about how groups and individuals construct and contest symbolic boundaries along lines of class, race, ethnicity, religion, and nationality, less attention is given to (a) national belonging as a component of symbolic boundaries distinct from citizenship and (b) comparing how distinct symbolic boundaries shape individuals perceptions of, and reactions to, instances of stigmatization and discrimination. To examine these issues we compared two marginalized groups in Israel, Arab Palestinian citizens and Ethiopian Jewish immigrants. Analyzing 90 in-depth interviews, we find that exclusion based on boundaries of nationality engenders different ways of interpretating and responding to stigmatizing and discriminatory behavior, compared with exclusion based on racial and ethnic boundaries. While Ethiopians see everyday stigmatizing encounters as part of their temporary position as a recently immigrated group from a developing country, and react accordingly with attempts to prove their worth as individuals and ultimately assimilate, Palestinians view the line between them and the Jewish majority as relatively impermeable and attempts to fully integrate as mostly useless, viewing solidarity and education as a means to improve their group’s standing.

 

 

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

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

 

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

 

Abstract

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

 

 

 

New Article: Perez & Sasson-Levy, Avoiding Military Service in a Militaristic Society

Perez, Merav, and Orna Sasson-Levy. “Avoiding Military Service in a Militaristic Society: A Chronicle of Resistance to Hegemonic Masculinity.” Peace & Change 40.4 (2015): 462-88.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/pech.12143

 

Abstract

This article examines the connection between masculine identity and avoidance of military service in a militaristic society. Based on retrospective interviews with Israeli middle-class men who initiated their release from military service on medical–psychological grounds, we argue that this choice embodies resistance to patterns identified with the local hegemonic masculinity and that this resistance gradually intensifies over the life course. The first signs of opposition emerge in early adolescence, when the perception of self diverges from the conventional masculine mold. The emotionally charged encounter with the military deepens this resistance, which is then reinforced by the decision not to serve, and ultimately leads to the construction of the present nonconformist identity. The development of a nonconformist self that is not subject to the dictates of the local hegemonic masculinity demonstrates how in a militaristic society, even a personal decision not to serve becomes an act rife with gendered meanings and political significance.

 

 

 

New Article: Bar, The Nexus of Enmity: Ideology, Global Politics, and Identity in the Twenty-First Century

Bar, Eyal. “The Nexus of Enmity. Ideology, Global Politics, and Identity in the Twenty-First Century.” CrossCurrents 65.3 (2015): 392-400.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/cros.12148

 

Extract

The discourses that framed nationalist movements, as soon as they proved useful tools for political power, became tools that could be wielded in a violent fashion under the guise of liberal equal rights. As the French case of laïcité demonstrates, the liberal urge for equal rights is already parasitic on an identity chauvinism that works to assimilate, homogenize, and manage various life worlds. In the name of freedom, these approaches advance constraints on the possible social and political imaginings that we might conjure. Through these ideologies of identity, the demand that Muslims renounce Daish can appear seemingly reasonable. Similarly, the blame cast on Jews the world over for the policies of the Israeli government are strengthened by the presumptive affiliation between Judaism and nationalism. In either case, the identity politics appears necessary for modern-day nationalism to function within an era of so-called globalization. Without recourse to identity, the imperative to manage and maintain power-political hierarchies through the division of the sociopolitical terrain (i.e., nationalism) would be rendered impotent. The first step toward eliminating the recent forms of prejudicial political violence is the recognition that modern identity politics militates against a world where physical barriers, political boundaries, and discursive networks are rapidly reorganizing.