New Article: Paz, Biopolitics and Public Opinion in Recognizing Non-Citizen Children in Israel

Paz, Alejandro I. “Speaking like a Citizen: Biopolitics and Public Opinion in Recognizing Non-Citizen Children in Israel.” Language & Communication 48 (2016): 18-27.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.langcom.2016.01.002

 

Abstract

This paper examines the public sphere process by which non-citizen children of labor migrants came to be recognized as Israeli citizens. In response to a public campaign, three government resolutions were issued in the 2000s to provide Israeli citizenship for these young non-citizens. Generally, studies of non-citizen migrants have emphasized their deportability and illegality as the primary aspect of the biopolitics of contemporary citizenship. On the other hand, I draw attention to the mass mediated process from which public opinion emerges to set the boundary between citizen and non-citizen. To describe this, I examine the pragmatics of voicing non-citizen children in public discourse. I also describe how legal documentation became the semiotic technology through which public opinion was rationalized bureaucratically.

 

 

 

ToC: Israel Affairs 22.2 (2016)

Israel Affairs, Volume 22, Issue 2, April 2016 is now available online on Taylor & Francis Online. This new issue contains the following articles: Articles Writing Jewish history David Vital Pages: 257-269 | DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2016.1140346 How do states die: lessons for Israel Steven R. David Pages: 270-290 | DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2016.1140358Towards a biblical psychology for modern Israel: 10 guides for healthy living Kalman J. Kaplan Pages: 291-317 | DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2016.1140349 The past as a yardstick: Europeans, Muslim migrants and the onus of European-Jewish histories Amikam Nachmani Pages: 318-354 | DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2016.1140355 The mental cleavage of Israeli politics Eyal Lewin Pages: 355-378 | DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2016.1140352 Framing policy paradigms: population dispersal and the Gaza withdrawal Matt Evans Pages: 379-400 | DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2016.1140353 National party strategies in local elections: a theory and some evidence from the Israeli case David Nachmias, Maoz Rosenthal & Hani Zubida Pages: 401-422 | DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2016.1140356 ‘I have two homelands’: constructing and managing Iranian Jewish and Persian Israeli identities Rusi Jaspal Pages: 423-443 | DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2016.1140348 Avoiding longing: the case of ‘hidden children’ in the Holocaust Galiya Rabinovitch & Efrat Kass Pages: 444-458 | DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2016.1140350 ‘Are you being served?’ The Jewish Agency and the absorption of Ethiopian immigration | Adi Binhas Pages: 459-478 | DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2016.1140345 The danger of Israel according to Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi Shaul Bartal Pages: 479-491 | DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2016.1140343 Leisure in the twenty-first century: the case of Israel Nitza Davidovitch & Dan Soen Pages: 492-511 | DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2016.1140347 Limits to cooperation: why Israel does not want to become a member of the International Energy Agency Elai Rettig Pages: 512-527 | DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2016.1140357 The attitude of the local press to marginal groups: between solidarity and alienation Smadar Ben-Asher & Ella Ben-Atar Pages: 528-548 | DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2016.1140344 The construction of Israeli ‘masculinity’ in the sports arena Moshe Levy, Einat Hollander & Smadar Noy-Canyon Pages: 549-567 | DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2016.1140351 Book Reviews From empathy to denial: Arab responses to the Holocaust Alice A. Butler-Smith Pages: 568-570 | DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2016.1140354 Holocaust images and picturing catastrophe: the cultural politics of seeing Alice A. Butler-Smith Pages: 570-572 | DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2016.1140342s

New Article: Seeman, Jewish Ethiopian Israelis

Seeman, Don. “Jewish Ethiopian Israelis.” The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Race, Ethnicity, and Nationalism Chichester: Wiley, 2016.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/9781118663202.wberen321
 

Abstract

Ethiopian Jews are the descendants of an ethnic and religious community known as Beta Israel or Falasha. Historically concentrated in the highlands of northern Ethiopia (Gondar and Tigre) they were in some cases denied the right to hold land unless they converted to Christianity. In modern times, intense Christian missionary efforts paradoxically helped to bring Ethiopian Jews into closer contact with foreign Jewish communities. In the past half-century nearly the whole Ethiopian Jewish community has migrated to Israel, where they have faced significant challenges and opportunities. Questions about their status under Jewish law have led to political conflicts of various kinds. In addition, the most recent groups of immigrants includes many whose ancestors converted to Christianity but have sought to return to Judaism in the context of migrating to Israel. The community has integrated into Israeli life but has also simultaneously taken its place as part of the global Ethiopian cultural diaspora.

 

 

 

New Article: Shoshana, Ethnicity without Ethnicity

Shoshana, Avihu. “Ethnicity without Ethnicity: ‘I’m beyond that story’ State Arrangements, Re-Education and (New) Ethnicity in Israel.” Social Identities (early view; online first).

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2016.1166939

 

Abstract

This article examines the connection between state ethnic classifications and the way they are perceived by individuals in everyday life. Using the case of the Boarding School for the Gifted Disadvantaged in Israel which is open to immigrants, an attempt was made to reach an understanding of how individuals who have experienced deliberate state intervention in the ethnic component of their selfhood, experience this intervention years after the (re)construction. The main findings illuminate how boarding school graduates transformed the governmental intervention into a unique ethnic identity for everyday life: ‘ethnicity without ethnicity’. This identity rejects any overt engagement with the ethnic component of the concept of self. This identity even relies on the subject’s constant reminders to himself that ‘he is beyond the ethnic story’ and that meritocratic identity (devoid of ethnic consciousness) is preferable to ascriptive identity. The findings also show that ethnic identity is not necessarily expressed in everyday practices (language, food consumption, music, festivals) but rather in ongoing cognitive engagement of the agent distanced from the available official ethnic classifications. The discussion section tracks the state-organizational sources of this ethnic identity and its relation to the unmarked ethnicity amongst the upper-middle classes.

 

 

 

New Article: Babis, Integration and Isolation within the Latin American Association in Israel

Babis, Deby. “The Paradox of Integration and Isolation within Immigrant Organisations: The Case of a Latin American Association in Israel.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies (early view; online first).

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2016.1166939

 

Abstract

Most immigrant organisations aim to facilitate the integration of immigrants into the host society while seeking to preserve their cultural heritage. In order to explore the tension between these two apparently opposite processes within immigrant organisations, a case study was carried out on the Organization of Latin American Immigrants in Israel (OLEI). The research question focuses on how, and to what extent, OLEI contributes to the integration of Latin American immigrants into Israeli society and how, and to what extent, it contributes to their isolation. The findings indicate that while individual services promote the integration of Latin American immigrants into Israeli society, communal services both isolate and integrate them simultaneously. To address this paradox, I suggest an interpretation of this process as ‘integration through isolation’, since OLEI socially isolates immigrants, but at the same time integrates them into the host society by providing Israeli culture in Spanish.

 

 

 

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: Enosh et al, Attitudes Toward Domestic Violence Among FSU Immigrants

Enosh, Guy, Elazar Leshem, and Eli Buchbinder. “Attitudes Toward Domestic Violence and Corporal Punishment Among Former Soviet Union Immigrants in Israel.” Violence Against Women (early view; online first).

 

URL:http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1077801215623382

 

Abstract

The study regards attitudes of Russian immigrants in Israel toward wife abuse and corporal punishment. The sample consisted of 1,028 participants, based on a multistage cluster sampling. The study used a questionnaire related to immigration, acculturation, and attitudinal issues. The findings indicate a dual-causal model, in which corporal punishment attitudes contribute to wife abuse attitudes and vice versa. However, the effect of attitudes supporting corporal punishment was stronger than the effect of wife abuse attitudes, indicating that the attitudinal system as a precursor of violent behavior is already merging the two types of violence.

 

 

 

New Article: Kemp & Kfir, Migrant Workers’ Rights Activism in Israel and Singapore

Kemp, Adriana, and Nelly Kfir. “Mobilizing Migrant Workers’ Rights in ‘Non-immigration’ Countries: The Politics of Resonance and Migrants’ Rights Activism in Israel and Singapore.” Law & Society Review 50.1 (2016): 82-116.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/lasr.12179

 

Abstract

How are the rights of migrant workers mobilized in non-immigration regimes? Drawing on an ethnography of human rights NGOs in Israel and Singapore, two countries that share similar ethnic policies but differ in their political regime, this study contributes to scholarship on migrants’ rights mobilization by expanding cross-national analysis beyond the United States and West Europe and diverting its focus from legal institutions to the places where rights are produced. Findings show that differences in the political regime influence the channels for mobilizing claims but not the cultural politics of resonance that NGOs use when dealing with the tensions between restrictive ethnic policies and the expansion of labor migration. While restraints in authoritarian Singapore operate mainly outside the activists’ circle, in the Israeli ethno-democracy they operate through self-disciplining processes that neutralize their potential challenge to hegemonic understandings of citizenship. Paradoxically, success in advancing rights for migrants through resonance often results in reinforcing the non-immigration regime.

 

 

 

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: Isralowitz et al, Quality of Life among Former Soviet Union and Israeli Origin Methadone Users

Isralowitz, Richard, Alexander Reznik, and Itay Pruginin. “Quality of Life among Former Soviet Union and Israeli Origin Methadone Users.” Journal of Ethnicity in Substance Abuse (early view; online first)
 
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15332640.2015.1046009
 
Abstract

A common treatment intervention for heroin addiction is methadone maintenance. In recent years a wider perspective has been adapted to understand and evaluate addiction through quality of life. This article examines quality of life conditions of 170 male former Soviet Union and Israeli origin drug users in methadone maintenance and provides an understanding of conditions linked to the World Health Organization Quality of Life project’s best available techniques reference document. Having a partner or spouse and less chronic illness are positive factors affecting quality of life regardless of country of origin. Israeli born drug users reported better quality of life based on their psychological health and environment domain responses; no difference was found for the physical health and social relationship domains of the Israeli and former Soviet Union origin males. Because heroin addiction is a chronic and relapsing illness, one of the goals of methadone maintenance is to address patients’ health status from a broad perspective. Based on clinical observations, the treatment of special populations may be enhanced if their particular needs are considered and met. Quality of life factors are relevant for assessing high risk groups, including those from different ethnic origins, in poor physical and psychological health, their treatment and personal adjustment, and their service personnel training needs.

 

 

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: Eksner, Germany, Israel, and German Muslim Youth

Eksner, H. Julia. “Thrice Told Tales: Germany, Israel, and German Muslim Youth.” In Being Jewish in 21st-Century Germany (ed. Olaf Glöckner and Haim Fireberg; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2015): 208-28.

 

Abstract

Julia Eksner analyses the complicated attitudes of Muslim youth in Germany with Jews and with Israel and vis-à-vis their German ‘homeland.’ “The argument made here is that German Muslim youth’s positioning against Israel is by no means a ‘natural’ or ‘cultural’ given; rather, Muslim youth’s responses are structured by preexisting discursive relations in Germany.” Her conclusions back that of other authors in this book that antisemitism is well rooted in the German culture and in contemporary German society, especially in its anti-Israel form. “In effect,” Eksner concludes, “German social and discursive context legitimizes and encourages both the critique of Israel and Muslim youths’ anti-Israeli attitudes as ‘normal and acceptable’, thus channels expression of anger at their disenfranchisement from the object much closer to home (both literally and figuratively) to a ‘legitimized’ transnational object – the State of Israel, and, by implication, its (Jewish) citizens.”

 

 

CFP: “Promised Lands: Israel-Diaspora Relations and Beyond” Workshop for Young Scholars (Munich, May 23-25, 2016)

The young scholars’ workshop focuses on the relationship between the State of Israel and Jewish communities worldwide. This relationship is often conceptualized in ideologically charged terms. “Diaspora,” the term most frequently used for Jewish communities outside of Israel, describes these relations in terms of “center” and “periphery” and is filled with negative connotations going back to religious traditions of spiritual diminishment and exile. But beyond messianic utopias, the actual state plays a great variety of different roles among Jews and their communities. Since its creation in 1948, Israel has shaped and formed the perceptions and self-perceptions of Jews around the world. What is more, these communities influence and shape Israeli culture, society and politics. Migration in both directions is a key element of these relations as migrants serve as agents of transcultural exchange and considerably help shaping mutual perceptions. These complex and multilayered relations and their representations are at the center of the workshop.

The workshop offers young scholars from Europe in the field of Israel Studies a forum to discuss their work with their peers and senior scholars alike. Scholars on the doctoral and post-doctoral level (within three years after completing their Ph.D.) can expand their networks and help to foster a vivid academic community of Israel Studies in Europe.

The workshop is supported by the Israel Institute and will take place at the Center for Advanced Studies / LMU Munich, Mai 23-25, 2016 under the direction of Michael Brenner (LMU Munich), Daniel Mahla (LMU Munich) and Johannes Becke (Center for Jewish Studies Heidelberg). Featured speakers include Derek Penslar (Oxford/Toronto) and Michael Berkowitz (UCL London).

To apply please send in an abstract of up to 300 words about the proposed paper and a CV until January 18, 2016 to: daniel.mahla@lrz.uni-muenchen.de.

Topics can include, but are not limited to:

– Political, economic and social relations between the State of Israel and Jewish communities worldwide

– Israeli emigration and its representation

– The concept of Jewish Diaspora and its changes after 1948

– The meanings and significance of the concept of a “dispersed people” for Jews and Israel

– The roles of exile and home in Jewish weltanschauung

– The influence of the state on Jewish-Gentile relations outside of Israel

– The impact of the establishment of a Jewish state on world Jewry

– The relationship between global and local in Jewish history

-Comparative perspectives on diaspora nationalism and Homeland-Diaspora relations

– Israeli Arab/Palestinian conceptions of “Diaspora”

– Palestinian emigration and its representation

– Non-Jewish diaspora communities in Israel (e.g. Armenians)

– Jewish and non-Jewish migration into Israel

New Article: Strier, Fathers in Israel

Strier, Roni. “Fathers in Israel: Contextualizing Images of Fatherhood.” In Fathers Across Cultures: The Importance, Roles, and Diverse Practices of Dads (ed. Jaipaul L. Roopnarine; Santa Barbara, Calif.: Praeger, 2015): 350-67.

 

Extract

Walking the Israeli fatherhood labyrinth means rediscovering fatherhood as a highly changing and multifaceted construction. The Israeli case confirms the dynamic nature of fatherhood. Fatherhood trajectories (Zionist, ultra-Orthodox, and Immigrant Jewish, as well as Palestinian) already reviewed help us disclose the fluctuating character of fatherhood as a historical, cultural, and class-based construction. The Israeli case also questions the validity of a possible essential Israeli fatherhood and suggests the need to discuss changing fatherhoods in Israel – fatherhood as facing shared processes (westernization, familism, growing inequalities, and national conflict) and huge divides.
Of equal importance is the recognition of the complexity of the fatherhood experience as a multilayered phenomenon in which gendered images of masculinity interact with changing views of fatherhood. The Israeli case study presents fatherhood as a puzzle of internal tensions and external constraints. This frame helps us to acknowledge the contributions and shortfalls of the nation-state to grasp the changing and dynamic nature of fatherhood as a historical construction. finally, the Israeli case calls on fatherhood scholars to keep examining the impact of war and political violence on the well-being of fathers and families. In a more broad, global scope, the experience of fatherhood in Israel should call for a new discourse of fatherhood that includes the respect for human rights, the repudiation of any form of violence and injustice, and the pursue of political goals through nonviolent means.

 

 

New Article: Fleischman et al, Migration as a Social Determinant of Health for Irregular Migrants

Fleischman, Yonina, Sarah S. Willen, Nadav Davidovitch, and Zohar Mor. “Migration as a Social Determinant of Health for Irregular Migrants: Israel as Case Study.” Social Science & Medicine (early view; online first).

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2015.10.046

 

Abstract

More than 150,000 irregular migrants reside in Israel, yet data regarding their utilization of and perceived barriers to health care services are limited. Drawing on semi-structured interviews conducted with 35 irregular migrant adults between January and September 2012, this paper analyzes the role of migration as a social determinant of health for irregular migrants, and especially asylum seekers. We analyze two kinds of barriers faced by migrants when they attempt to access health care services: barriers resulting directly from their migration status, and barriers that are common among low-income communities but exacerbated by this status. Migration-related barriers included a lack of clear or consistent legislation; the threat of deportation; the inability to obtain work permits and resulting poverty and harsh living and working conditions; and discrimination. Barriers exacerbated by migrant status included prohibitive cost; poor and confusing organization of services; language barriers; perceived low quality of care; and social isolation. These findings support recent arguments that migrant status itself constitutes a social determinant of health that can intersect with other determinants to adversely affect health care access and health outcomes. Findings suggest that any meaningful effort to improve migrants’ health will depend on the willingness of clinicians, public health officials, and policymakers to address the complex array of upstream political and socio-economic factors that affect migrants’ health rather than focusing on narrower questions of access to health care.

 

 

New Article: Bernstein, Russian Food Stores and Their Meaning in Germany and Israel

Bernstein, Julia. “Russian Food Stores and Their Meaning for Jewish Migrants in Germany and Israel. Honor and ‘Nostalgia’.” In Being Jewish in 21st-Century Germany (ed. Olaf Glöckner and Haim Fireberg; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2015): 81-102.

 

Abstract

This article deals with the process of integration into a new society through preservation of food habits from the former ‘home-land.’ The text is based on a comparative study that was conducted in Germany and Israel. Sticking to food habit, concludes Bernstein “in the migration process obviously contribute to ‘living memories,’ yet they do much more: They also ‘make a place’ for a virtual home that preserves social status and stabilizes the self-esteem of customers. Food consumption in the migration process seems to promote contouring collective ‘we’-identities.”

 

 

New Article: Semyonov et al, Immigration and the Cost of Ethnic Subordination

Semyonov, Moshe, Rebeca Raijman, and Dina Maskileysonc. “Immigration and the Cost of Ethnic Subordination: The Case of Israeli Society.” Ethnic and Racial Studies (early view; online first).

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2015.1081968

 

Abstract

This study focuses on earnings disadvantages experienced by three ethnic groups of Jewish immigrants in Israel. Data were obtained from the 2011 Income Survey gathered by the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics. The findings reveal that when compared to Israeli-born, all ethnic groups are disadvantaged in earnings attainment in the first generation. The earnings disadvantages of immigrants as compared to Israeli-born decrease with the passage of time and become negligible in the second generation. To disentangle the impact on earnings penalty of ethnic origin from that of immigrant status, a procedure for decomposing mean differences between groups is introduced. The analysis reveals that earnings disadvantage among Ashkenazim and Soviet immigrants can be attributed to immigrant status but not to ethnicity. By contrast, earnings penalties among Sephardim immigrants can be attributed to both ethnicity and immigrant status. The implications of the long-lasting effect of ethnicity versus the short-term effect of immigrant status are discussed.

 

 

New Article: Pasquetti, West Bank and Israeli Palestinians between Closeness and Distance

Pasquetti, Silvia. “Entrapped Transnationalism: West Bank and Israeli Palestinians between Closeness and Distance.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 38.15 (2015): 2738-2753.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2015.1077984

 

Abstract

Studies of transnationalism typically frame it in opposition to the entrapping effects of borders. Yet, for many people, transnationalism is negotiated in contexts marked by forced separation and differential mobility. Drawing on long-term fieldwork among West Bank and Israeli Palestinians, this article explores transnational ties and orientations in relation, not in opposition, to the entrapping effects of borders. Specifically, I examine the two-way traffic in emotions and perceptions that marks family, social and symbolic relationships between West Bank and Israeli Palestinians. I show how entrapping and transnational processes combine to generate a tense interplay between closeness and distance, solidarity and estrangement. The paper calls attention to complex transnational formations among people prone to entrapment such as detained and deported migrants, refugees and minorities divided by rigid borders, and it suggests that a focus on emotions and perceptions is critical if we are to understand such formations.