New Article: Erhard & Ben-Ami, The Schooling Experience of Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Youth in Israel

Erhard, Rachel L., and Eyal Ben-Ami. “The Schooling Experience of Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Youth in Israel: Falling Below and Rising Above as a Matter of Social Ecology.” Journal of Homosexuality (early view; online first).

 

URL: https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00918369.2015.1083778

 

Abstract

Research on the schooling experience of lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) youth in Israel and in other western countries has been largely risk focused, whereas extrinsic and intrinsic protective factors, which enable LGB adolescent students to cope with school homophobic bullying, are often overlooked. To address this shortcoming, the researchers conducted a qualitative study based on semi-structured interviews with twenty LGB-identified secondary school students. The findings and implications emphasized the key role of adequate ecological protective factors for LGB youth in enhancing effective coping mechanisms in response to school homophobic bullying.

 

 

New book: Khattab et al, Socioeconomic Inequality in Israel

Khattab, Nabil, Sami Miaari, and Haya Stier, eds. Socioeconomic Inequality in Israel. A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016.

 

 

This volume addresses different aspects and areas of inequality in Israel, a country characterized by high levels of economic inequality, poverty, and social diversity. The book expands on the mechanisms that produce and maintain inequality, and the role of state policies in influencing those mechanisms.

 

Table of Contents

The Correlates of Household Debt in Late Life
Lewin-Epstein, Noah (et al.)
Pages 13-40

Household Inequality and the Contribution of Spousal Correlations
Plaut, Pnina O. (et al.)
Pages 41-57

Religious Schooling, Secular Schooling, and Household Income Inequality in Israel
Kimhi, Ayal (et al.)
Pages 59-72

First-Generation College Students in an Expanded and Diversified Higher Education System: The Case of Israel
Ayalon, Hanna (et al.)
Pages 75-96

Ethno-Religious Hierarchy in Educational Achievement and Socioeconomic Status in Israel: A Historical Perspective
Friedlander, Dov (et al.)
Pages 97-121

Overqualification and Wage Penalties among Immigrants, Native Minorities, and Majority Ethnic Groups
Khattab, Nabil (et al.)
Pages 123-149

The Gender Revolution in Israel: Progress and Stagnation
Mandel, Hadas (et al.)
Pages 153-184

Gender Earnings Gaps in Ethnic and Religious Groups in Israel
Kraus, Vered (et al.)
Pages 185-204

The Role of Peripheriality and Ethnic Segregation in Arabs’ Integration into the Israeli Labor Market
Schnell, Izhak (et al.)
Pages 207-224

Horizontal Inequality in Israel’s Welfare State: Do Arab Citizens Receive Fewer Transfer Payments?
Shalev, Michael (et al.)
Pages 225-252

 

New Article: Troen, Secular Judaism in Israel

Troen, Ilan. “Secular Judaism in Israel.” Society (early view; online first).

 
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12115-016-9991-x
 
Abstract

Secularity among Israel’s Jews retains many elements associated with traditional Judaism. Comprising 80 % of Israel’s Jews, they define themselves as secular but nevertheless “do Judaism” by performing rituals and hold to traditional religious worldviews and values. Such behavior is comprehended in Eisenstadt’s “multiple modernities” as well as Berger’s multiple “altars” and “coexistence.” Such behavior may be explained in a new balance between the traditional triad of Peoplehood/Torah[The Law]/and the Land of Israel that has characterized Judaism through the ages and found expression by a Hebrew-speaking people who imported new and diverse modern concepts and sources of authority in the return to their homeland where they constructed a “Jewish” state of ambiguous meanings.

 

 

 

New Article: Tamari et al, Urban Tribalism: Negotiating Form, Function and Social Milieu in Bedouin Towns

Tamari, Shlomit, Rachel Katoshevski, Yuval Karplus, and Steven C. Dinero. “Urban Tribalism: Negotiating Form, Function and Social Milieu in Bedouin Towns, Israel.” City, Territory and Architecture 3.2 (2016): 14pp.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40410-016-0031-3

 

Abstract

Historically, the tribe was a central pillar of Bedouin society. Recently, the forcibly resettled-Bedouin of Israel’s Negev Desert have experienced profound socio-economic transition and change in addition to spatial relocation. This paper offers a critical examination of the manner in which the tribe has served to inform top-down State-led urban planning, resettlement and housing policies while remaining a vital aspect of Bedouin life. We suggest that in an ironic twist, these policies have generated a new form of urban tribalism that challenges the development of a “modern,” “western” social fabric and practices of citizenship as initially envisioned by State officials.

 

 

 

Thesis: Chyutin, Judaism, Contemporary Israeli Film, and the Cinematic Experience

Chyutin, Dan. A Hidden Light: Judaism, Contemporary Israeli Film, and the Cinematic Experience, PhD dissertation. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh, 2015.
 
URL: http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/26366/
 
Abstract

Throughout its brief history, Israeli cinema largely ignored Jewish religious identity, aligning itself with Zionism’s rejection of Judaism as a marker of diasporic existence. Yet over the past two decades, as traditional Zionism slowly declined, and religion’s presence became more pronounced in the public sphere, Israeli filmmakers began to treat Judaism as a legitimate cinematic concern. The result has been a growth in the number of Israeli films dealing with the realities of devoutly religious Jews, amounting to a veritable “Judaic turn” in Israel’s cinematic landscape. As of now, this “turn” has received meager attention within Israeli film scholarship. The following, then, addresses this scholarly lack by offering an extensive investigation of contemporary Judaic-themed Israeli cinema.

This intervention pursues two interconnected lines of inquiry. The first seeks to analyze the corpus in question for what it says on the Judaic dimension of present-day Israeli society. In this context, this study argues that while a dialectic of secular vs. religious serves as the overall framework in which these films operate, it is habitually countermanded by gestures that bring these binary categories together into mutual recognition. Accordingly, what one finds in such filmic representations is a profound sense of ambivalence, which is indicative of a general equivocation within Israeli public discourse surrounding the rise in Israeli Judaism’s stature and its effects on a national ethos once so committed to secularism.

The second inquiry follows the lead of Judaic-themed Israeli cinema’s interest in Jewish mysticism, and extends it to a film-theoretical consideration of how Jewish mystical thought may help illuminate particular constituents of the cinematic experience. Here emphasis is placed on two related mystical elements to which certain Israeli films appeal—an enlightened vision that unravels form and a state of unity that ensues. The dissertation argues that these elements not only appear in the Israeli filmic context, but are also present in broader cinematic engagements, even when those are not necessarily organized through the theosophic coordinates of mysticism. Furthermore, it suggests that this cycle’s evocation of such elements is aimed to help its national audience transcend the ambivalences of Israel’s “Judaic imagination.”

 

 

 

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.

 

 

 

New Article: Seeman,Coffee and the Moral Order

Seeman, Don. “Coffee and the Moral Order: Ethiopian Jews and Pentecostals against Culture.” American Ethnologist 42.4 (2015): 734-48.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/amet.12167

 
Abstract

For Ethiopian Jews and (formerly Jewish) Pentecostals in Israel, coffee (buna) is more than just a stimulant, a cultural symbol, or even a social lubricant. It is a material medium for disputes about the limitations of moral agency, the experience of kin relations that have been broken or restructured, and the eruption of dangerous—but also healing—potencies in the social world. Buna consumption has become a focal point for at least three different forms of moral compulsion (physical addiction; zar, or spirit, affliction; and kinship obligations) that are experienced as isomorphic with “culture” and from which freedom is sought. The decision to drink or to refrain from drinking buna has therefore emerged as a fulcrum of moral experience around which different Ethiopian groups in Israel negotiate the limits of “culture” and the quest for an elusive moral freedom.

 

 

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 Book: Sasley and Waller, Politics in Israel: Governing a Complex Society

Sasley, Brent E., and Harold M. Waller. Politics in Israel: Governing a Complex Society. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016.

 

 

This is the first textbook on Israel to utilize a historical-sociological approach, telling the story of Israeli politics rather than simply presenting a series of dry facts and figures. The book emphasizes six specific dimensions of the conduct of Israeli politics: the weight of historical processes, the struggle between different groups over how to define the country’s identity, changing understandings of Zionism, a changing political culture, the influence of the external threat environment, and the inclusive nature of the democratic process. These themes offer students a framework to use for understanding contemporary political events within the country. Politics in Israel also includes several chapters on topics not previously addressed in competing texts, including historical conditions that led to the emergence of Zionism in Israel, the politics of the Arab minority, and interest groups and political protest.

 

Table of Contents

Abbreviations
Preface
Acknowledgments

INTRODUCTION
Chapter 1: Israel in Historical and Comparative Perspective
Studying Israel
Israel in a Comparative Framework
Major Themes of the Book
A Note on Terminology
 
PART I: HISTORICAL PROCESSES
Chronology of Key Events
Chapter 2: Zionism and the Origins of Israel
Jewish History before Zionism
The Jewish Predicament in the 19th Century
The Founding of the Zionist Movement
Implications of Zionism
Herzl’s Path to Zionism
Organizing the Zionist Movement
Zionist Ideologies
The Palestine Mandate
Summary
 
Chapter 3: Yishuv Politics during the Mandate Period
Constructing a Jewish Society
Development of a Party System
Conflict between Arabs and Jews in Mandatory Palestine
Deteriorating Zionist-British Relations
The End of the Mandate
The Mandate Period in Perspective
Summary
 
Chapter 4: State Building After 1948
Mamlachtiut
The Political Arena
Defense
Education
Economy
Personal Status Issues
Other State-Building Efforts
Summary
 
PART II: ISRAELI SOCIETY
Chapter 5: Political Culture and Demography
The Pre-State Period
Foundational Values of the State
Changes since 1967
From Collectivism to Individualism
Political Culture in the Arab Community
Demography
Summary
 
Chapter 6: Religion and Politics
Religion and the Idea of a Jewish State
Setting the Parameters of the Religion-State Relationship
Growing Involvement in Politics
Issues in Religion-State Relations after 2000
Religious Parties and Coalition Politics
Summary
 
Chapter 7: The Politics of the Arab Minority
What’s in a Name?
Changing Politics of the Community
Jewish Attitudes toward the Arab Minority
Arab Leaders and the Arab Public
Voter turnout
Sayed Kashua as Barometer?
Summary
 
PART III: THE POLITICAL PROCESS
Chapter 8: The Electoral System
The Development of an Electoral System
Election Laws
Parties and Lists
Electoral Reforms
Summary
 
Chapter 9: Political Parties and the Party System
Party Clusters
Leftist Parties
Rightist Parties
Religious Parties
Arab Parties
Center or “Third” Parties
Ethnic or Special Issues Parties
Party Organization
Summary
 
Chapter 10: Voting Patterns
Four Main Issues
Demographic Factors
Voter Turnout
Electoral Trends
Summary
 
Chapter 11: Interest Groups and Political Protest
Changing Access in the Israeli Political System
Interest Groups
Political Protest
Summary
 
PART IV: INSTITUTIONS
Chapter 12: The Knesset
Structure of the Knesset
Legal Aspects
Knesset Members
Functions and Powers of the Knesset
Relationship to the Government
Summary
 
Chapter 13: The Government
The Government at the Center of the System
Powers of the Government
Forming a Government
Maintaining and Running a Government
Relations with the Knesset
The President of the State
Summary
 
Chapter 14: The Judiciary and the Development of Constitutional Law
The Judicial System
Structure of the Court System
The Religious Court System
The Attorney General
Basic Laws: A Constitution in the Making?
Interpreting the Constitution
Summary
 

PART V: POLITICS AND POLICYMAKING
Chapter 15: Political Economy
Ideas about Economic Development in the Yishuv
A State(ist) Economy
Likud and the Free Market
Structural Weaknesses
Summary
 
Chapter 16: The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
Three Levels of Threat Perception
Israel’s Threat Environment
Hawks and Doves in the Political System
The Defense Establishment
Public Opinion
Summary
 
PART VI: THE TRANSFORMATiON OF ISRAELI POLITICS
Chapter 17: The Changing Political Arena
A More Complex Society
An Economic Transformation
Transformation of the Security Situation
The Israeli-Palestinian Relationship
Dampening of Ideology
Political Culture and the Party System
The Passing of a Heroic Generation
A More Consequential Arab Sector
The Transformation of the Judiciary
Change versus Continuity
 
Chapter 18: Confronting the Meaning of a Jewish State
The Political Question: What is Jewish and Democratic?
The Social Question: Who Belongs?
The Academic Question: Whose Historiography?
Conclusion
 
Appendices
Glossary
Bibliography

 

BRENT E. SASLEY is Associate Professor of Political Science at The University of Texas at Arlington.
HAROLD M. WALLER is Professor of Political Science at McGill University.

New Article: Gavriel-Fried & Shilo, Perception of Family in Israel and the United States

Gavriel-Fried, Belle, and Guy Shilo. “The Perception of Family in Israel and the United States. Similarities and Differences.” Journal of Family Issues (early view; online first).

 
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0192513X15617798
 
Abstract

Social changes in recent years have led to a broadening of the definition of family. The perception of the concept of family among the American public was assessed in 2003 and 2006 by means of the Family Perception Scale, which found that the respondents fell into three clusters, dubbed Exclusionists, Moderates, and Inclusionists. Based on a sample of adult Jewish population in Israel (N = 1,518), this study examined whether these categories could apply to the Israeli public too, and if so, whether the distribution of these clusters were the same as in the United States. The study’s findings confirm that while this classification is well suited to the perception of family in Israel, the distribution of the three clusters differs from that in the United States. These findings may indicate that while global influences promote similar views of family structures, local influences may result in different cluster distribution patterns in each society.

 

 

 

New Article: Haj-Yahia & Zaatut, Beliefs of Palestinian Women About the Responsibility and Punishment of Violent Husbands

Haj-Yahia, Muhammad M., and Amarat Zaatut. “Beliefs of Palestinian Women From Israel About the Responsibility and Punishment of Violent Husbands and About Helping Battered Women.” Journal of Interpersonal Violence (early view; online first).

 

URL: https://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0886260515608802

 

Abstract

This article presents a study that examined beliefs about violent husbands and about helping battered women among Palestinian women living in Israel from the perspective of patriarchal ideology. A convenience sample of 701 married women was obtained, and a self-report questionnaire was administered. The findings reveal that the majority of participants held violent husbands accountable for their behavior; however, the majority of them did not support punishing violent husbands through formal agencies (i.e., the police) or through informal social institutions (i.e., the family). In addition, contrary to expectations, the majority of women perceived wife beating as a social problem rather than as a private one that should be dealt with within the family. Regression and multiple regression analysis revealed that women’s endorsement of patriarchal ideology was found to influence all three above-mentioned beliefs about violent husbands and battered women, over and above the amount of variance in each of these beliefs that could be attributed to the women’s sociodemographic characteristics. The limitations of the study and its implications for future research are discussed.

 

 

New Article: Kachtan, Performance of Ethnicity and the Process of Ethnicization

Kachtan, Dana Grosswirth. “‘Acting Ethnic’—Performance of Ethnicity and the Process of Ethnicization.” Ethnicities (early view; online first).

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1468796815610353

 

Abstract

This paper examines the process of “acting ethnic”, and demonstrates that, in certain circumstances, people act in keeping with an ethnic identity. Based on a study of two infantry brigades in the Israeli army (the IDF), the paper shows how organizational ethnic culture forms the basis of the process of “acting ethnic”. This paper highlights the tendency in certain situations to suspend nonethnic privileges by adopting an ethnic identity and in addition, to exaggerate ethnic performance. Moreover, it is argued that “acting ethnic” is a collective performance, aimed not only at belonging to the group, but also as a means of maintaining and reproducing ethnic identity and asserting a legitimate alternative to the hegemonic identity.

 

 

 

 

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.

 

 

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

.

New Article: Waterman, Ideology and Events in Israeli Human Landscape Revisited

Waterman, Stanley. “Ideology and Events in Israeli Human Landscape Revisited.” Jewish Journal of Sociology 57.1-2 (2015).

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.5750/jjsoc.v57i1/2.107

 

Abstract

This paper casts a retrospective gaze at an article written as a beginning academic who had immigrated to Israel just two years prior, some 40 years ago. Not wanting to alter anything I had written, it was subsequently published nearly five years later. In that paper, I observed a deep abyss between the Israel I “understood”—mainly through reading—before I immigrated and which I thought I “knew”, and the Israel I was experiencing following my arrival. This chasm led me to identify Israeli myths contra an Israeli reality and caused me to pose what were for me, at the time of writing, some disturbing questions about Israeli landscape and society. I did this by choosing three iconic landscapes — new towns, kibbutzim and the desert — and picking away at misunderstandings about them and the way in which we perceived Israel. Four decades on, I ask whether I had been impulsive in writing that paper then with so little experience and if a similar paper in a similar vein were to be written, set in 2015 rather than 1974, what questions might be asked about Israel now and what would they say about Israeli society and culture?

 

 

New Article: Rebhun and Brown, Patterns of Urban/Rural Migration in Israel

Rebhun, Uzi, David L. Brown. “Patterns and selectivities of urban/rural migration in Israel.” Demographic Research 33.5 (2015): 113-44.

 

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.4054/DemRes.2015.33.5

 

Abstract

Background: Movement from one type of area to another attests to factors of distance, socioeconomic barriers, and heterogeneity. Movement between two localities of one type entails fewer and different types of changes.

Objective: We examine urban-rural migration in Israel, a country that has experienced extensive development outside of its major cities.

Methods: We first describe and compare the urban and rural migration patterns of Jews and non-Jews. However, due to the small number of non-Jewish migrants in the 2008 census data set, the explanatory analysis focuses solely on Jews, probing the characteristics of migrants and non-migrants and differentiating among the former by whether migration is between urban and rural places, or among urban or rural areas.

Results: Examination of migration over five years points to a strong tendency to change residence, often involving a change of residence type. Urban-rural migration emphasizes the importance of specific individual characteristics and reflects the impact of life course and sociodemographic characteristics. We found a favorable sociodemographic profile of persons who leave the city for rural places, and a somewhat less favorable profile of people who are likely to move in the opposite direction. Migrants who move within settlement types are also somewhat more highly selected than persons moving toward cities.

Conclusions: Urban-rural population exchanges among Jews in Israel, while generally in accord with studies in other countries, tend to be less definite with respect to educational attainment and age.

Comments: Regardless of these differences, urban-rural exchanges of Jewish population in Israel are not a random process.
.

 

 

New Book: Jonathan-Zamir et al, Policing in Israel

Jonathan-Zamir, Tal, David Weisburd, and Badi Hasisi, eds. Policing in Israel: Studying Crime Control, Community, and Counterterrorism. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 2016.

 

 

Policing in Israel presents important advances in Israeli police science during the past decade. It demonstrates how empirical research in countries outside the traditional research domains of the United States, Europe, and Australia can provide comparative legitimacy to key concepts and findings in policing. It also addresses innovative questions in the study of police, showing that there is much to learn about the police enterprise by looking to Israel.

The studies included in this book contribute to the policing literature in three significant ways. They replicate findings from English-speaking countries on key issues such as hot-spots policing, thereby supporting the validity of the findings and enabling a wider scope of generalization. Also, they utilize unique Israeli conditions to address questions that are difficult to test in other countries, such as in counterterrorism. Finally, they ask innovative questions in the study of policing that are yet to be addressed elsewhere.

Aside from providing better knowledge about policing in Israel, the broader advances in police science that the book illustrates play an important role. It contributes to major areas of contemporary interest in policing literature, including crime control, police–community relationships, and policing terrorism. Policing in Israel gives you not only a broad picture of Israeli policing and police research in the past decade, but also carries critical implications for policing scholars and practitioners around the world.
.

 

Table of Contents

 
Policing in Israel: Studying Crime Control, Community, and Counterterrorism: Editors’ Introduction
Tal Jonathan-Zamir, David Weisburd, and Badi Hasisi

CRIME CONTROL

Law of Concentrations of Crime at Place: Case of Tel Aviv-Jaffa
David Weisburd and Shai Amram

Vehicle Impoundment Regulations as a Means of Reducing Traffic Violations and Road Accidents in Israel
Tova Rosenbloom and Ehud Eldror

Lean Management for Traffic Police Enforcement Planning
Nicole Adler, Jonathan Kornbluth, Mali Sher, and Shalom Hakkert

Organizational Structure, Police Activity, and Crime
Itai Ater, Yehonatan Givati, and Oren Rigbi

THE POLICE AND THE COMMUNITY

Police, Politics, and Culture in a Deeply Divided Society
Badi Hasisi

Crime Victims and Attitudes toward Police: Israeli Case
Gali Aviv

Procedural Justice, Minorities, and Religiosity
Roni Factor, Juan Castilo, and Arye Rattner

Police Understanding of Foundations of Their Legitimacy in the Eyes of the Public: Case of Commanding Officers in Israel National Police
Tal Jonathan-Zamir and Amikam Harpaz

POLICING TERRORISM

Terrorist Threats and Police Performance: A Study of Israeli Communities
David Weisburd, Badi Hasisi, Tal Jonathan-Zamir, and Gali Aviv

Police Legitimacy under the Spotlight: Media Coverage of Police Performance in the Face of High Terrorism Threat
Revital Sela-Shayovitz

Policing Terrorism and Police–Community Relations: Views of Arab Minority in Israel
Badi Hasisi and David Weisburd

How Has Israel National Police Perceived Its Role in Counterterrorism and Potential Outcomes? A Qualitative Analysis of Annual Police Reports
Tal Jonathan-Zamir and Gali Aviv

Lessons from Empirical Research on Policing in Israel: Policing Terrorism and Police–Community Relationships
Simon Perry and Tal Jonathan-Zamir

 

 

 

New Article: Levy, Dialectics of Legal Gambling in Israel

Levy, Moshe. “Rationalization and the Re-Enchantment of Play: the Dialectics of Legal Gambling in Israel.” Human Affairs 25.3 (2015): 317-26.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/humaff-2015-0026

 

Abstract

Romantic notions and critical theories of play describe an assault by rationalization processes on the free and spontaneous nature of play. Other theories seek to describe the dialectical nature between rationalization and freedom, between routine, and magic, and between planning and spontaneity. This article seeks to focus on the rationalization processes of play and to examine whether and in what dimensions, these processes shape the characteristics of play and hamper its spontaneity and freedom. Examination of these processes, performed by socio-historical analysis of legal gambling in Israel, shows that rationalization processes were active on both the practical and technological levels, and on the discursive level of the games of chance. Nevertheless, the characteristics of freedom, joy and spontaneity appeared only on the discursive level of the game and were designed to deliberately serve the economic interests of the various agents in the Israeli gambling field.

 

 

Conference: Reinventing Israel. Transformations of Israeli Society in the 21st Century (American U, Washington, Oct 28-29, 2015)

For full program [PDF], click here.

Please Join The Center for Israel Studies and Jewish Studies Program next week for our Reinventing Israel conference!
FREE WITH RSVP (by session).

Featured presentations include:
“From BG to Bibi: The End of an Era in Israel-Diaspora Relations?” by David Ellenson 
Wednesday, October 28, 7:30 PM 
Keynote address to kick off “Reinventing Israel: Transformations of Israeli Society in the 21st Century” conference.  Ellenson is director of the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies, Brandeis University and Chancellor Emeritus of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion.
Location: SIS Building Abramson Family Founders Room.  (Free parking in SIS Building garage)   

“Reinventing Israel: Transformations of Israeli Society in the 21^st Century” conference featuring international scholars and AU faculty 
Thursday, October 29, all-day 
Sessions featuring History and Memory, Economy and Hi-Tech, Politics and Law, Religion and Ethnicity.  
Location: Butler Board Room (Floor 6 of Butler Pavilion).
Pre-paid parking by kiosk (on level P-1 by elevator – note parking space number) in Katzen Arts Center or SIS Building Garage (free after 5:00 PM).   

Imagining Israel in 2035 – Different Visions 
Thursday, October 29 7:30 PM   
With Fania Oz-Salzberger (University of Haifa) Mohammed Wattad (Zefat College, UC Irvine) James Loeffler (University of Virginia) Moderator: Michael Brenner (AU). 
Location: Butler Board Room.  Free parking after 5:00 PM in all university parking garages.   

New Book: Goldscheider, Israeli Society in the Twenty-First Century

Goldscheider, Calvin. Israeli Society in the Twenty-First Century. Immigration, Inequality, and Religious Conflict, Schusterman Series in Israel Studies. Lebanon, NH: Brandeis University Press (imprint of University Press of New England), 2015.

This volume illuminates changes in Israeli society over the past generation. Goldscheider identifies three key social changes that have led to the transformation of Israeli society in the twenty-first century: the massive immigration of Jews from the former Soviet Union, the economic shift to a high-tech economy, and the growth of socioeconomic inequalities inside Israel. To deepen his analysis of these developments, Goldscheider focuses on ethnicity, religion, and gender, including the growth of ethnic pluralism in Israel, the strengthening of the Ultra-Orthodox community, the changing nature of religious Zionism and secularism, shifts in family patterns, and new issues and challenges between Palestinians and Arab Israelis given the stalemate in the peace process and the expansions of Jewish settlements.

Combining demography and social structural analysis, the author draws on the most recent data available from the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics and other sources to offer scholars and students an innovative guide to thinking about the Israel of the future.

This book will be of interest to scholars and students of contemporary Israel, the Middle East, sociology, demography and economic development, as well as policy specialists in these fields. It will serve as a textbook for courses in Israeli history and in the modern Middle East.

Table of Contents

• List of Tables and Figure
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Nation-Building, Population, and Development
• Ethnic Diversity Jewish and Arab Populations of Israel
• Immigration, Nation-Building, and Ethnic-Group Formation
• Arab Israelis Demography, Dependency, and Distinctiveness
• Urbanization, Residential Integration, and Communities
• Religiosity, Religious Institutions, and Israeli Culture
• Inequality and Changing Gender Roles
• Education, Stratification, and Inequality
• Inequality and Mortality Decline
• Family Formation and Generational Continuities
• Emergent Israeli Society Nation-Building, Inequalities, and Continuities
• Appendix: Data Sources and Reliability
• Bibliography
• Index