New Article: Mor & Davidovich, Same-Sex Attraction, Behavior, and Practices of Jewish Men in Israel

Mor, Zohar, and Udi Davidovich. “Same-Sex Sexual Attraction, Behavior, and Practices of Jewish Men in Israel and the Association with HIV Prevalence.” AIDS Care (early view; online first).

 
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09540121.2016.1146400
 
Abstract

In order to efficiently direct efforts and resources required for the prevention of HIV and other sexually transmitted infection among men who have sex with men (MSM) in Israel, it is necessary to define their particular behaviors, estimate their size, and assess the HIV-burden. This cross-sectional study included a sub-sample from a random representative National study performed in Israel, which included Jewish males aged 18–44 who completed online anonymous questionnaires regarding their sexual attraction and practices, commercial sex-work, as well as condom and substances’ use. Additionally, participants were asked to identify themselves as gay, bisexual, or heterosexual. National estimates regarding prevalence of risk-behaviors and HIV-infection among MSM were based on the Statistical Abstract of Israel and the National HIV Registry, respectively. Of the total sample of 997 men, 11.9% reported lifetime male sex encounters, while 4.5% and 3.7% self-identified as gay or bisexual, respectively. The estimated population of self-identified Jewish gays/bisexuals aged 18–44 in Israel was 94,176, and in Tel-Aviv 33,839. HIV prevalence among MSM was estimated at 0.7% in Israel and 1.0% in Tel-Aviv. MSM were more likely to live in Tel-Aviv, had higher levels of education, and were scored higher on several determinants of sexual risk in comparison to those attracted to women, including early sexual debut, greater number of sexual partners, ever paid/been paid for sex, sexually coerced, and substance use. In conclusion, MSM were involved in greater risk behaviors than those who only had female sex partners. Most MSM were living in Tel-Aviv and their estimated HIV prevalence was 1.0%.

 

 

 

New Article: Mor et al, Arab Men Who Have Sex with Men in Israel

Mor, Z., Grayeb, E., and A. Beany. “Arab Men Who Have Sex with Men in Israel: Knowledge, Attitudes and Sexual Practices.” HIV Medicine (early view; online first).

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/hiv.12301

 

Abstract

Objectives
Arab men who have sex with men (AMSM) are becoming visible in society, and reports of HIV infection and sexually transmitted infections (STIs) are emerging. This study aimed to assess the knowledge of AMSM regarding HIV transmission, their attitudes towards condom use and their sexual practices compared with Jewish MSM (JMSM), and to evaluate AMSM–JMSM friendships and sexual encounters.

Methods
Participants in this cross-sectional study completed questionnaires in Arabic or Hebrew. The outcome variable was unprotected anal sex (UAI) in the previous 6 months with a partner(s) whose HIV status was discordant or unknown. AMSM and JMSM indicated if they had friends or sexual encounters from the other ethnic group.

Results
The questionnaires were completed by 342 (16.2%) AMSM and 1775 (83.8%) JMSM in 2012. AMSM were more likely to be religious, ‘closeted’ and married than JMSM; their knowledge regarding HIV transmission was inferior and attitudes towards condom use were less favourable. AMSM reported less alcohol and drug use than JMSM, were more likely to be attracted to and have sex with women, and reported a greater number of sexual partners and more UAI. Being AMSM was a predictive variable for UAI in the multivariate model. While 178 AMSM (52.0%) reported that most of their close friends were JMSM, 251 (73.4%) had only/mostly sexual encounters with JMSM. Among JMSM, 41 (2.3%) reported that their close friends were AMSM, and 308 (17.3%) had only/mostly sexual encounters with AMSM.

Conclusions
The knowledge of AMSM regarding HIV transmission and their attitudes towards condom use were less favourable than those of JMSM, and they performed more UAI. AMSM may benefit from targeted interventions, including reconciling their same-sex attraction in positive terms. Same-sex attraction and gay identity may provide common ground to strengthen Arab–Jew communication in Israel.

 

 

New Article: Daskal, Cultural Challengers in the Regulatory Arena

Daskal, Efrat. “‘My Voice Needs to be Heard’: Cultural Challengers in the Regulatory Arena.” International Journal of Communication 10 (2016): 786-804.

 

URL: http://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/4529

 

Abstract

This article proposes the concept of cultural challengers, viewers whose dissatisfaction with popular culture prompts them to initiate a dialogue with media organizations. The article explores the textual dimensions that may cause such discontent and identifies three tracks for conducting the dialogue: civic, economic, and regulatory. The regulatory track is explored through three methodologies: a quantitative content analysis of 817 complaints filed to the Israeli regulatory authority (SATR) between 2005 and 2010, and of the SATR’s responses to them; participatory observation within the SATR; and an online survey of 58 viewers who had filed a complaint with the SATR. The article highlights the differing stances of the regulator and the cultural challengers and analyzes the social and cultural implications of the dialogue.

 

 

 

ToC: Hebrew Studies 56 (2015)

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

 

Innovative Designation of Diminution in the Writings of Abraham Shlonsky

pp. 231-243

Bat-Zion Yemini

Memory and History in Israeli Post-Apocalyptic Theater

pp. 245-263

Zahava Caspi

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

pp. 265-294

Dorit Lemberger

Hebrew Neologisms in the Writings of Anton Shammas

pp. 295-314

Adel Shakour, Abdallah Tarabeih

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

pp. 315-331

Smadar Shiffman

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

pp. 333-356

Amalia Ziv

New Testament Jesus in Modern Jewish Literature: A Symposium

pp. 357-358

Zev Garber

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

pp. 359-365

Neta Stahl

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

pp. 367-376

Melissa Weininger

Overtones of Isaac and Jesus in Modern Hebrew Narrative

pp. 377-384

Aryeh Wineman

The Jewish Jesus: Conversation, Not Conversion

pp. 385-392

Zev Garber

Reviews

 

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

pp. 433-436

Yael Halevi-Wise

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Periodicals

pp. 437-456

Books Received — 2015

pp. 457-460

New Article: Szobel, Prostitution, Power and Vulnerability in Early Twentieth-Century Hebrew Literature

Szobel, Ilana. “‘Lights in the Darkness’: Prostitution, Power and Vulnerability in Early Twentieth-Century Hebrew Literature.” Prooftexts 34.2 (2015): 170-206.

 

URL: https://muse.jhu.edu/journals/prooftexts/v034/34.2.szobel.html

 

Abstract

This article explores the juxtaposition of prostitution, masculinity, and nationalism in the works of Hebrew writers at the beginning of the twentieth century. By discussing the psycho-poetical elements that underlie David Vogel’s depiction of prostitution and the ideological elements in Gershon Shofman’s work, and by exposing their dialogue with Hayim Nahman Bialik, this project explores power, vulnerability, gender, sexuality, and nationalism in Hebrew literature of the first half of the twentieth century.

My study argues that the trope of the prostitute enables writers of early Hebrew literature to negotiate questions of strength and weakness in the Jewish world. Although Bialik’s option of sovereign masculinity became the norm for the Zionist discourse, Shofman, Vogel, Brenner, Reuveni and others expressed different perceptions of gender and power. Hence, in order to understand the intensity of the poetic, national, and gendered dilemmas and struggles of this generation, this study offers to listen not only to their concepts of revival, renewal and empowerment, but also to their expressions of weakness, frustration, loss, anger and aggression.

 

 

New Article: Shor, The Westermarck Hypothesis and the Israeli Kibbutzim

Shor, Eran. “The Westermarck Hypothesis and the Israeli Kibbutzim: Reconciling Contrasting Evidence.” Archives of Sexual Behavior (early view; online first).

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10508-015-0558-5

 

Abstract

The case of the communal education system in the Israeli kibbutzim is often considered to provide conclusive support for Westermarck’s (1891) assertion regarding the existence of evolutionary inbreeding avoidance mechanisms in humans. However, recent studies that have gone back to the kibbutzim seem to provide contrasting evidence and reopen the discussion regarding the case of the kibbutzim and inbreeding avoidance more generally (Lieberman & Lobel 2012; Shor & Simchai, 2009). In this article, I reassess the case of the kibbutzim, reevaluating the findings and conclusions of these recent research endeavors. I argue that the differences between recent research reports largely result from conceptual and methodological differences and that, in fact, these studies provide insights that are more similar than first meets the eye. I also suggest that we must reexamine the common assumption that the kibbutzim serve as an ideal natural experiment for examining the sources of incest avoidance and the incest taboo. Finally, I discuss the implications of these studies to the longstanding debate over the Westermarck hypothesis and call for a synthetic theoretical framework that produces more precise predictions and more rigorous empirical research designs.

New Article: Halabi, Druze Women in Israel

Halabi, Rabah. “The Faith, the Honor of Women, the Land: The Druze Women in Israel.” Journal of Asian and African Studies 50.4 (2015): 427-44.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0021909614533094

 

Abstract

This study investigates the status of the Druze women in Israel, focusing on the effects of the frequent interactions between the Druze and the more permissive Jewish-Western society. The main question posed is why Druze women accept the double standards of freedom, especially on sexual morality, that expect them to be chaste but allow sexual freedom to men. I argue that this is a patriarchal deal, in which women trade their sexual freedom in exchange for access to higher education, and to the prestigious status of moral guardians from western temptations. The paper is based on narrative analysis of in-depth interviews conducted with 50 Druze students, half of them male and half female, enrolled in Israeli universities.

New Article: Hollander, Zionism, Masculinity, and Sexuality in Reuveni’s ‘Ad Yerushalayim

Hollander, Philip. “Rereading ‘Decadent’ Palestinian Hebrew Literature: The Intersection of Zionism, Masculinity, and Sexuality in Aharon Reuveni’s ‘Ad Yerushalayim.” AJS Review 39.1 (2015): 3-26.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0364009414000622

 

Abstract

This article asserts that politics motivated Aharon Reuveni to employ representations of psychic fragmentation and dysfunctional social institutions to portray Palestinian Jewish life in his novelistic trilogy ‘Ad Yerushalayim. These purportedly decadent representations helped him foreground individual and collective flaws he saw limiting the early twentieth-century Palestinian Jewish community’s development and promote norms he saw as conducive to growth. Thus, as examination of the trilogy’s central male figures demonstrates, Reuveni advances a Zionist masculinity grounded in introspectiveness and ongoing commitment to the achievement of communally shared goals. To further support this Zionist masculine form, the trilogy categorizes men who pursue homosocial ties with others who don’t maintain this masculinity as homosexuals. Thus gender and sexuality are used to coerce male readers into adopting specific behavioral norms. This attention to gender and sexuality’s role in early twentieth-century Palestinian Hebrew fiction offers a way to grasp its long-overlooked political character.

 

New Article: Peled, Female Sexual Subjectivity in Victoria by Sami Michael

Peled, Shimrit. “Construction of Female Sexual Subjectivity in Victoria by Sami Michael in Comparison to other Hebrew and Israeli Writers.” Jerusalem Studies in Hebrew Literature 27 (2014): 233ff (in Hebrew).

 

Abstract

Sexual violence towards women in the Jewish community in Baghdad is central in Sami Michael’s novel, Victoria. Can these violent erotic scenes be interpreted as destabilizing patriarchal mechanisms in Israeli culture? The article discusses this question taking into consideration the debates about pornography in feminist theory and exploring other representations of violence against women in Hebrew and Israeli Literature. Feminists’ views of pornography are divided. From a radical feminist point of view, the production of the subordinate feminine subject in pornography is effective and ultimate. Other feminists claim that pornography can theoretically subvert the mechanism of oppression and its efficacy in exploitation of the female subject because it is by nature repetitious.

Trying to evaluate the impact of the violent erotic scenes in Victoria, this article examines preceding representations of violence against women in Hebrew and Israeli Literature. Portrayal of physical and emotional pain after rape or female desire that does not end in disaster seldom appeared in Hebrew and Israeli literature before Victoria. Although the novel is compliant with the Zionist narrative, Michael fashions a rich and particular female existence in Victoria, centered on feminine sexual subjectivity. I suggest that Michael’s representations of violence against women, and female desire that is nevertheless left intact were accepted by Israeli readers because of the displacement identity in time, space and ethnicity to Jewish Baghdad.

This displacement, which leaves current Israeli culture untouched and therefore does not threaten the reader, allows sexual female consciousness, and sane female sexual subjectivity to enter. However, it is also possible that the feminine confession is forced, that it constructs a femininity, which, though experiencing pain, humiliation, suppuration and abuse, collaborates with the patriarchal mechanism in confessing pleasures that repeat and extend pornographic discourse, making possible the continuation of mechanisms of suppression.

 

 

פלד, שמרית. “הבניית סובייקטיביות מינית נשים ב’ויקטוריה’ לסמי מיכאל בראי פרוזה עברית וישראלית”. מחקרי ירושלים בספרות עברית כז (2014): 233 ואילך.

New Article: Weinstock et al, Societal Change and Values in Arab Communities in Israel

Weinstock, Michael, Maysam Ganayiem, Rana Igbaryia, Adriana M. Manago, Patricia M. Greenfield. “Societal Change and Values in Arab Communities in Israel. Intergenerational and Rural–Urban Comparisons.” Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology 46.1 (2015): 19-38.

 

URL: http://jcc.sagepub.com/content/46/1/19

 

Abstract

This study tested and extended Greenfield’s theory of social change and human development to adolescent development in Arab communities in Israel undergoing rapid social change. The theory views sociodemographic changes—such as contact with an ethnically diverse urban setting and spread of technology—as driving changes in cultural values. In one research design, we compared three generations, high school girls, their mothers, and their grandmothers, in their responses to value-assessment scenarios. In a second research design, we compared girls going to high school in an ethnically diverse city with girls going to school in a village. As predicted by the theory, a t test and ANOVA revealed that both urban life and membership in the youngest generation were significantly related to more individualistic and gender-egalitarian values. Regression analysis and a bootstrapping mediation analysis showed that the mechanism of change in both cases was possession of mobile technologies.

 

New Article: Englander, The Image of the Male Body in Lithuanian Ultra-Orthodox Thought in Israel and Corresponding Strategies for Forging an A-feminine Public Sphere

Englander, Yakir. “The Image of the Male Body in Lithuanian Ultra-Orthodox Thought in Israel and Corresponding Strategies for Forging an A-feminine Public Sphere.” Journal of Contemporary Religion 29.3 (2014): 457-70.

 

URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13537903.2014.945729

 

 

Abstract

This article deals with the increasingly severe attitude in Jewish Ultra-Orthodox society in the State of Israel regarding the relationship between the sexes. I seek to trace the philosophical roots of this attitude, as a product of existential thinking within the male contingent of the Ultra-Orthodox (Lithuanian) world itself, and I propose that the growing separation between the sexes is a direct result of rabbinic efforts to re-structure this world from within. The image of the Ultra-Orthodox public sphere is considered to be an exact reflection of the male individual and the way of life that is required of him. Ultra-Orthodox thought requires men to stop the flow of life, causing a ‘disconnect’ between the reflective self and the world in which the self exists as an object without reflexivity. According to Ultra-Orthodox thought, inability and failure to live all of life as reflective are linked to the human person as an ‘embodied being’. I explain the Ultra-Orthodox solution to the ‘problem of the body’ and how it influences the structure of the yeshiva as a ‘safe haven’. This mode of dealing with the body entails the exclusion of femininity from male life in the yeshiva context and is also increasingly reflected in the public domain. In recent years, Ultra-Orthodox rabbis have designed the public sphere using the model of the yeshiva as a space that is a-feminine. This is supported by readings from new Ultra-Orthodox Musar writings, directed to men, which deal with women’s sexuality and create a new definition of modesty.

New Article: Harris, The Flourishing of Hebrew Modernism

Harris, Rachel S. “Cosmopolitan, Diasporic and Transnational: The Flourishing of Hebrew Modernism.” Modernism / Modernity 21.1 (2014): 361-68.

 

URL: http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/modernism-modernity/v021/21.1.harris.html

 

Abstract

Review article of:

• Literary Passports: The Making of Modernist Hebrew Fiction in Europe. Shachar M. Pinsker. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2010. Pp. xiv + . $60.00 (cloth).
• Diasporic Modernisms: Hebrew & Yiddish Literature in the Twentieth Century. Allison Schachter. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012. Pp. x + . $35.00 (cloth).
• Reconfiguring Surrealism in Modern Hebrew Literature: Menashe Levin, Yitzhak Oren and Yitzhak Orpaz. Giulia Miller. London: Vallentine Mitchell Publishers, 2013. Pp. $84.95 (cloth).

Excerpt

All three scholars demonstrate that Hebrew modernist fiction, no matter where it was being written, shared some common literary and cultural ideals. The writers “advocated the departure from a socially and historically grounded mimesis towards a portrayal of the ‘hidden’ realities of human existence, to engage with universal (and modernist) concerns such as sexuality, religiosity, existential angst and related themes.” Experimentation in Hebrew literature was not simply tied up with Zionism and the creation of a national homeland, but also reflected a broader and more complex history that valued the power of language to articulate a modern, cosmopolitan Jewish experience. By contextualizing Hebrew modernist writing within European, American and Native American cultural history, and tracing the development of modernism in Israel, wherein it was vastly neglected, all three works raise new questions about the role of place, thought and language in the life of the movement.

ToC: Israel Studies Review 28,2 (2013)

Guest Editors’ Introduction: Rethinking the Family in Israel

pp. vii-xii(6)
Authors: Fogiel-Bijaoui, Sylvie; Rutlinger-Reiner, Reina

Articles: The Transformation of Intimacies

Religious Zionist Singles and Late-Modern Youth Culture

pp. 1-17(17)
Author: Engelberg, Ari

Israeli-Palestinian Women and Their Reasons for Divorce: A Comparative Perspective

pp. 18-40(23)
Author: Meler, Tal

Midlife Women in Second Partnerships Choosing Living Apart Together: An Israeli Case Study

pp. 41-60(20)
Author: Or, Ofra

Articles: Families in Transition

‘The Art of the Deal’: Preferences in Spouse Selection among Parents in a Hasidic Community

pp. 61-82(22)
Author: Block, Sima Zalcberg

Crises in Orthodox Israeli Family Life Onstage

pp. 83-101(19)
Author: Rutlinger-Reiner, Reina

Aging, Family, and Preferences for Care among Older Jews and Arabs

pp. 102-121(20)
Author: Halperin, Dafna

Articles: The Boundaries of Family Life

Hybridization and Purification: The Experiences of Mizrachi Middle-Class Adolescents in Israel

pp. 122-139(18)
Author: Selinger, Guy Abutbul

Conceiving Judaism: The Challenges of Same-Sex Parenthood

pp. 140-156(17)
Author: Lustenberger, Sibylle

Israeli ‘Mixed Families’ with Members of Ethiopian Origin: Encounters in the Public Space

pp. 157-173(17)
Author: Benezer, Gadi

“I Earn, Therefore I Exist”: Impoverished Bedouin Mothers Who Become Entrepreneurs

pp. 174-191(18)
Author: Alhuzail, Nuzha Allassad

Migrant Care Workers in Israel: Between Family, Market, and State

pp. 192-209(18)
Author: Shamir, Hila

Articles: Legal Discourse, Private Life

The Spousal Covenant (Brit Hazugiut), or the Covenant with the Status Quo

pp. 210-227(18)
Author: Fogiel-Bijaoui, Sylvie

Articles: Articles: Legal Discourse, Private Life

The Legitimacy of Single Mothers in Israel Examined through Five Circles of Discourse

pp. 228-246(19)
Author: Herbst, Anat

The Anomaly of Custody in Israeli Family Law

pp. 247-263(17)
Author: Mazeh, Yoav

The Child’s Worst Interests: Socio-legal Taboos on Same-Sex Parenting and Their Impact on Children’s Well-Being

pp. 264-281(18)
Author: Triger, Zvi

Children’s Rights in Israeli Case Law: A Spiral Progression

pp. 282-299(18)
Author: Morag, Tamar

Succession Law in Israel: Individualism and the Family

pp. 300-313(14)
Author: Kreiczer-Levy, Shelly

Book Reviews

Book Reviews

pp. 314-324(11)

Reviews: Kanaaneh and Nusair, eds. Displaced at Home

Kanaaneh, Rhoda Ann and Isis Nusair, eds. Displaced at Home. Ethnicity and Gender among Palestinians in Israel. Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 2010.

Reviews

• Sa’ar, Amalia. “Review.” Review of Middle East Studies 45.1 (2011): 113-115.
• Bachal, Lauren, et al. “Review.” Contemporary Sociology 40.5 (2011): 639-40.
• Gluck, Sherna Berger. “New Directions in Palestinian Oral History.” Oral History Review 39.1 (2012): 100-111.
• Vivier, Elmé. “Review.” Journal of International Women’s Studies 13.3 (2012): 203-207.
• Arar, Khalid. “Review.” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 40.2 (2013): 227-30.

.

New Publication: Brownfield-Stein, A Fantasy of the State (Hebrew)

Brownfield-Stein, Chava. A Fantasy of the State. Photographs of Female Soldiers and the Eroticization of Civil Militarism in Israel. Fetish Series. Tel Aviv: Resling, 2012 (in Hebrew).

 

 

For further details on the book (in Hebrew), click here.