New Article: Arar & Oplatka, Making Sense of Social Justice in Education

Arar, Khalid Husny, and Izhar Oplatka. “Making Sense of Social Justice in Education: Jewish and Arab Leaders’ Perspectives in Israel.” Management in Education (early view; online first).

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0892020616631409

 
Abstract

The research aimed to understand the way in which high school principals’ perceptions of social justice (SJ) are implemented in their daily educational work. A qualitative study employed in-depth semi-structured interviews to collect the narratives of two high school principals in Israel – one Arab-Muslim and one Jewish. The interview transcripts underwent comparative holistic analysis to identify their perceptions and daily practice of SJ in their schools. Findings indicated that the principals’ perceptions of SJ were coloured by their national and cultural context, yet they needed strong conviction to integrate these perceptions in their schools, and their efforts to do so were often beset by resistance.

 

 

New Article: Cohen, Competing Conceptions of Civic Education

Cohen, Aviv. “Navigating Competing Conceptions of Civic Education: Lessons from Three Israeli Civics Classrooms.” Oxford Review of Education (early view, online first).
 
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03054985.2016.1194262
 
Abstract

The concentration of this study was the documentation and analysis of ways in which competing conceptions of citizenship play out in actual classroom settings. Examining three cases in the context of the Israeli education system, its findings show that civics teachers’ views and beliefs influenced ways in which they interpreted the curriculum standards and reacted to schools policies and atmosphere, even in cases where these views contradicted. Nevertheless, when confronted with competing conceptions of citizenship as presented by their students, the teachers were less willing to open true democratic conversations, resulting in lessons that did not necessarily create a true democratic atmosphere.

 

 

 

New Article: Klein & Shimoni-Hershkoviz, Privatization and Competition in the Education System

Klein, Joseph, and Lizi Shimoni-Hershkoviz. “The Contribution of Privatization and Competition in the Education System to the Development of an Informal Management Culture in Schools. A Case Study in Israel.” International Journal of Educational Management 30.4 (2016).

 

URL: http://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/abs/10.1108/IJEM-08-2014-0113

 

Abstract

Regulation and privatization of education systems has led to a “league standing” mentality regarding school achievements. The present study examines how school principals deal with the pressures of competition and achievements while aspiring to imbue pupils with values and a broad education. 12 high school principals were interviewed about external demands imposed on them, their educational policy and modes of operation. Publicly, school supervisors advocate a balance between core studies and education for values and enrichment. Informally they pressure principals to allocate maximal resources to preparing for high risk tests at the expense of other educational activities. School administrators and teachers, while dissatisfied with this approach, maintain a covert informal culture that concentrates mainly on external test achievements, which contrasts to their public value-rich educational vision, and undertake actions that raise educational, management and ethical questions. Placing the schools’ informal culture on the research agenda will increase institutional transparency and may contribute to a greater correspondence between school visions advocating knowledge and values, and the policy actually implemented. Raising this subject for discussion may contribute to a demand for more transparency in how schools allocate their resources. It may also help to increase the correspondence between the values and vision promulgated by schools and the educational policy they actually implement.

 

 

 

New Article: John & Dvir-Gvirsman, Facebook Unfriending by Israelis During the 2014 Gaza Conflict

John, Nicholas A., and Shira Dvir-Gvirsman. “‘I Don’t Like You Any More’: Facebook Unfriending by Israelis During the Israel–Gaza Conflict of 2014.” Journal of Communication 65.6 (2015): 953-74.

 

URL: https://dx.doi.org/10.1111/jcom.12188

 

Abstract

This article explores Facebook unfriending during the Israel–Gaza conflict of 2014. We suggest that politically motivated unfriending is a new kind of political gesture. We present an analysis of a survey of 1,013 Jewish Israeli Facebook users. A total of 16% of users unfriended or unfollowed a Facebook friend during the fighting. Unfriending was more prevalent among more ideologically extreme and more politically active Facebook users. Weak ties were most likely to be broken, and respondents mostly unfriended people because they took offense at what they had posted or disagreed with it. Although social network sites may expose people to diverse opinions, precisely by virtue of the many weak ties users have on them, our findings show these ties to be susceptible to dissolution.

 

 

 

New Article: Grosglik, Cultural Meanings of Organic Food Consumption in Israel

Grosglik, Rafi. “Citizen-Consumer Revisited: The Cultural Meanings of Organic Food Consumption in Israel.” Journal of Consumer Culture (early view; online first).

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1469540515623609

 

Abstract

Organic food consumption is associated with “citizen-consumer” practice, which is an act of promoting different aspects of social and ecological responsibility and the integration of ethical considerations in daily practices such as eating. This article analyzes aspects of organic food consumption in Israel and the symbolic meanings given to it by its consumers. The study shows how practices attributed to ethical eating culture are used in identity construction, social status manifestation, and as a means to demonstrate openness to global cultural trends. Organic food consumption is carried out as part of a symbolic use of ethical values and its adaptation to the local Israeli cultural context. In addition, organic food consumption patterns are revealed as fitting the cultural logic of globalization, which spread in the last decades in Israel. Analysis of the socio-cultural aspects related to organic food consumption points to the polysemy embodied in the term citizen-consumer and shows how the actual implementation of this term in Israel is based on the assimilation of cosmopolitan meanings.

 

 

 

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

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

 

 

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

 
Table of contents

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

 

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

 

 

 

New Article: Paul-Binyamin & Gindi, Autonomy and Religious Education

Paul-Binyamin, Ilana, and Shahar Gindi. “Autonomy and Religious Education: Lessons from a Six-Year Evaluation of an Educational Reform in an Israeli School Network.” British Journal of Religious Education (early view; online first).

 
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01416200.2015.1025698
 
Abstract

This study investigated the tension that exists between promoting an educational agenda and practising an educational approach which emphasises autonomy within the framework of religious education. Our main thesis is that every educational deed contains a dialectical tension between endorsing an educational agenda and the promotion of autonomy. Moreover, this tension is not restricted to religious education. The intensity of such a conflict varies in accordance with the flexibility (or inflexibility) of the dogma, the conceptual cohesion of the educational agenda and the perceived importance of granting autonomy to students. The more cohesive and inflexible the educational agenda is, the greater the danger that autonomy will be discarded. The present research examined an educational reform implemented in the National-Religious School Network in Israel, which included the promotion of autonomy among principals, teachers and students. Conducted over a six-year period (2006–2012), the research employed both qualitative and quantitative methodologies and involved various stakeholders in the school network. The multifaceted picture that emerged of the relationship between educational autonomy and religious agenda is presented.

 

 

 

New Article: Fischer, Religion and Education in Israel

Fischer, Shlomo. “The Crises of Liberal Citizenship: Religion and Education in Israel.” In Religious Education and the Challenge of Pluralism (ed. Adam B. Seligman; Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2014): 119-49.

 

 

Excerpt

The religious Zionist community is starting to understand the place of civics and citizenship within the new Israeli public discourse, and it wishes to be part of that discourse. It understand, too, that it can make its own unique communitarian or republican contribution to that discourse, but it understands two further things as well: it understands that if it entirely disregards the liberal citizenship discourse of individual human and civil rights, of tolerance and of pluralism, it will lose its ability to communicate with the larger Israeli public. Much to its chagrin, it has all ready experienced such a break in communication during the Disengagement from Gaza in 2005. It discovered then that it had no allies in the Israeli public sphere to help it prevent the evacuation of seventeen settlements in the Gaza strip. It wishes very much to reestablish lines of communication in order to prevent a reoccurrence of that event. Secondly, it understands that it cannot seriously offer a citizenship discourse for the entire community if it offers no modicum of inclusion, of membership, and of tolerance to the non-Jewish minorities of the country. Alongside its communitarian and republican orientation, and alongside its integral nationalist demands that Israel remain a Jewish country, it must find room for the other non-Jews, even the Palestinians. Hence, it seeks from within the Jewish tradition resources of tolerance and inclusion. Only time will tell whether it actually achieves a new synthesis of nationalism and democracy, and of republicanism and inclusiveness.

 

 

ToC: Jewish Film & Media 3.1 (2015); special issue: Israeli film & television

Jewish Film & Media, 3.1, Spring 2015

 

Israeli Film and Television
pp. 1-2
Yaron Peleg

Articles

Secularity and Its Discontents: Religiosity in Contemporary Israeli Culture
pp. 3-24
Yaron Peleg

“Lifting the Veil”: Judaic-Themed Israeli Cinema and Spiritual Aesthetics
pp. 25-47
Dan Chyutin

Jewish Revenge: Haredi Action in the Zionist Sphere
pp. 48-76
Yael Friedman, Yohai Hakak

Televised Agendas: How Global Funders Make Israeli TV More “Jewish”
pp. 77-103
Galeet Dardashti

POPU

Reviews

On Hasamba 3G: Newer Kinds of Jews
pp. 104-112
Tali Artman Partock

On Shtisel (or the Haredi as Bourgeois)
pp. 113-117
Yaron Peleg

 

New Article: Sharabi, Social Changes and Their Impact on Work Outcomes

Sharabi, Moshe. “Social Changes in Israeli Society and Their Impact on the Importance of Work Outcomes.” Social Change 45.1 (2015): 81-94.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0049085714561842

 

Abstract

Over the last 30 years, Israeli society has undergone dramatic social, political and economic changes, and this study examines changes in the importance of the valued work outcomes between 1981 and 2006. Results are reported for cross-sectional studies conducted in 1981 (n = 973) and 2006 (n = 909), which were drawn from representative samples of the Israeli workforce. The samples allow us to examine the cohort effect/generational differences and the ageing effect. The findings reveal substantial differences in work outcome importance over the course of time. Between 1981 and 2006, there was a decrease in the importance of the intrinsic outcome of interest and the social outcome of serving society while the importance of the extrinsic outcomes of income, status and prestige increased. This trend reflects the transformation from a collectivist and altruistic society to an individualist and materialistic society, and can be explained by the generational/cohort effect and ageing effect. The changes in work outcomes over the course of time are explained by political, social and economic factors.

New Article: Awayed-Bishara, Cultural Content of Materials Used for Teaching English to High School Speakers of Arabic

Awayed-Bishara, Muzna. “Analyzing the Cultural Content of Materials Used for Teaching English to High School Speakers of Arabic in Israel.” Discourse & Society (early view; online first).

 
 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0957926515581154

 

Abstract

This article analyzes English textbooks used in Israel to examine whether their cultural content is appropriate for the Palestinian Arab learner. This topic is significant, as the English curriculum in Israel is uniform in all sectors. The article presents a critical discourse analysis of six English textbooks used in Israeli high schools to examine the recurrence of seven discursive devices that might possibly serve as a means for shaping or (re)producing ideological values: (1) culturally distinctive names, (2) pronouns, (3) the passive/active voice when relating to the Other, (4) explicit statements defining the target audience, (5) narratives involving faraway cultures that perpetuate Western stereotypes and exclude the Other, (6) a demand for culturally specific prior knowledge, and (7) discourse constructing identities and collective memories. These devices serve to foster English learners imbued with Western oriented Jewish-Zionist ideology, while reproducing and perpetuating hegemonic ideology. Thus, English textbooks in Israel marginalize the Palestinian Arab minority, its culture and common traditions, thereby engendering a learning environment that creates a negative learning experience for students of this sector.

 
 
 

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.

Reviews: Weiss, Conscientious Objectors in Israel

Weiss, Erica. Conscientious Objectors in Israel. Citizenship, Sacrifice, Trials of Fealty. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014.

 

Reviews

• Singeisen, David. “Review.” LSE Review of Books, August 2014.
• Shammas, Victor L. “Review.” Social Anthropology 22.4 (2014): 518-519.
• Stern, Nehemia. “Review.” American Ethnologist 42.1 (2015): 181-183.
• Aviram, Hadar. “Review.” Perspectives on Politics 13.2 (2015): 526-8.
• Linn, Ruth, and Renana Gal. “Review.” Israel Studies Review 30.1 (2015): 149-152.

 

 

New Article: Gavriel-Fried, Attitudes of Jewish Israeli Adults towards Gambling

Gavriel-Fried, Belle. “Attitudes of Jewish Israeli Adults towards Gambling.” International Gambling Studies (early view; online first).

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14459795.2015.1012178

 

Abstract

This study examines the Jewish Israeli public’s attitudes towards gambling, how they vary between various socio-demographic subgroups, and the association between gambling attitudes and gambling behaviour. In April 2014, 1000 Jewish Israeli adults (49.6% of them women) aged 18–67 (M = 40.28, SD = 14.07), responded to an online questionnaire that included the ATGS-8 (Attitudes Towards Gambling Scale), PGSI (Problem Gambling Severity Index) and gambling behaviour scales. The findings suggest that the Jewish Israeli public tends to have a negative attitude towards gambling – albeit less so among men and the secular population than among women and observant (Traditional, Religious or Orthodox) individuals, respectively. No significant differences were found between respondents with respect to age or levels of education. A positive association was found between attitudes and gambling behaviour, and differences were found between gambling severity categories, with low-risk gamblers exhibiting a more positive attitude towards gambling than non-problem gamblers. The findings of this study provide a snapshot of the attitudes of the Jewish Israeli public towards gambling, and may potentially provide a benchmark for further studies in Israel and elsewhere.

New Article: Shoham et al, Impulsive and Compulsive Buying Behaviors among Israeli and U.S. Consumers

Shoham, Aviv, Yossi Gavish, and Sigal Segev. “A Cross-Cultural Analysis of Impulsive and Compulsive Buying Behaviors among Israeli and U.S. Consumers: The Influence of Personal Traits and Cultural Values.” Journal of International Consumer Marketing 27.3 (2015): 187-206.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08961530.2014.1000507

 

Abstract

This study tests a model to investigate the extent to which drivers of compulsive and impulsive buying behaviors overlap. The model includes personal and cultural antecedents for traits of consumer impulsiveness and compulsiveness and impulsive and compulsive buying behaviors as outcomes. Survey results from 336 Israeli and 595 U.S. consumers indicate that the personality antecedents envy, low self-esteem, and fantasizing generally drive consumer traits of impulsiveness and compulsiveness, though some differences exist between consumers in the U.S. and Israel. However, cultural orientations were found to be insignificant in driving traits of impulsiveness or compulsiveness.

ToC: Tikkun 30.3 (2015)

Table of Contents for Tikkun 30.3 (2015):

 

Letters

• Readers Respond

  Tikkun (2015) 30(3): 3

Editorials

• RABBI MICHAEL LERNER

Repenting for What Israel Did to Gaza—Without Condoning the Wrongs Committed by Hamas

Tikkun (2015) 30(3): 5-7

• A Spiritual Practice of Forgiveness and Repentance: You Don’t Have to be Jewish to Benefit from the Spiritual Wisdom of Jewish High Holidays!

  Tikkun (2015) 30(3): 8-9

• War with Iran: The Disastrous Aim of Israel and the Republicans

  Tikkun (2015) 30(3): 10-12

Politics & Society

SAM ROSS-BROWN

• Net Neutrality and the Fight for Social Justice

  Tikkun (2015) 30(3): 13-14

• JESSICA BENJAMIN

Acknowledging the Other’s Suffering: A Psychoanalytic Approach to Trauma in Israel/Palestine

Tikkun (2015) 30(3): 15-16

• PETER GABEL

The Spiritual Dimension of Social Justice: Transforming the Legal Arena

Tikkun (2015) 30(3): 17-23

 

VANDANA SHIVA

• Rethinking Agriculture: Protecting Biodiversity Amid Climate Chaos

  Tikkun (2015) 30(3): 24-26

Special Section: Nonviolence in Foreign Policy

• NONVIOLENCE IN FOREIGN POLICY

  Tikkun (2015) 30(3): 27

  MICHAEL N. NAGLER

• Nonviolence Writ Large

  Tikkun (2015) 30(3): 28

  STEPHEN ZUNES

• Alternatives to War from the Bottom Up

  Tikkun (2015) 30(3): 29-30

  MATT MEYER

• Revolutionary Nonviolence: Statecraft Lessons from the Global South

  Tikkun (2015) 30(3): 31-33

  HELENA NORBERG-HODGE

Strengthening Local Economies: The Path to Peace?

Tikkun (2015) 30(3): 34-38

Rethinking Religion

JOY LADIN

• The Genesis of Gender

  Tikkun (2015) 30(3): 39-43

  ANA LEVY-LYONS

• Lessons from the Shadow Side of Football: Building the Religious Counterculture

  Tikkun (2015) 30(3): 44-45

  JOSEPH LUMBARD

• Love for the Prophet Muhammad: A Key to Countering Islamism and Islamophobia

  Tikkun (2015) 30(3): 46-48

Culture

Books

RAMI SHAPIRO

• A Scientific View of God

  Tikkun (2015) 30(3): 49-51

  A God That Could Be Real: Spirituality, Science, and the Future of Our Planet, by Nancy Abrams, Beacon Press, 2015

  AL HUNTER

• What Can Replace Prison?

  Tikkun (2015) 30(3): 51-53

  MARTHA SONNENBERG

• Jacob Chose Hospice: A Critique of Invasive End-of-Life Care

  Tikkun (2015) 30(3): 54-55; doi:10.1215/08879982-3140224

PHILIP TERMAN

The Poetry of a Jewish Humanist

Tikkun (2015) 30(3): 56-58; doi:10.1215/08879982-3140236

Poetry

Chana Bloch

• Babel

  Tikkun (2015) 30(3): 58-58

• Do You See Me

  Tikkun (2015) 30(3): 72

Tikkun Recommends

• Nobody Home: Writing, Buddhism, and Living in Places / Human Nature & Jewish Thought / Jews and Genes: The Genetic Future in Contemporary Jewish Thought / Balancing on a Planet: The Future of Food and Agriculture / The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible / Capitalism: A Ghost Story/Restoring the Soul of the World: Our Living Bond with Nature’s Intelligence / Nobody Home: Writing, Buddhism, and Living in Places / Human Nature & Jewish Thought / Jews and Genes: The Genetic Future in Contemporary Jewish Thought / Balancing on a Planet: The Future of Food and Agriculture / The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible / Capitalism: A Ghost Story/Restoring the Soul of the World: Our Living Bond with Nature’s Intelligence / Nobody Home: Writing, Buddhism, and Living in Places / Human Nature & Jewish Thought / Jews and Genes: The Genetic Future in Contemporary Jewish Thought / Balancing on a Planet: The Future of Food and Agriculture / The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible / Capitalism: A Ghost Story/Restoring the Soul of the World: Our Living Bond with Nature’s Intelligence / Nobody Home: Writing, Buddhism, and Living in Places / Human Nature & Jewish Thought / Jews and Genes: The Genetic Future in Contemporary Jewish Thought / Balancing on a Planet: The Future of Food and Agriculture / The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible / Capitalism: A Ghost Story/Restoring the Soul of the World: Our Living Bond with Nature’s Intelligence

  Tikkun (2015) 30(3): 2

New Article: Sabar and Pagis, African Labor Migrants Returning from Israel

Sabar, Galia, and Michal Pagis. “Enhancing the Spirit of Entrepreneurship: African Labor Migrants Returning from Israel.” Migration Studies 3.2 (2015): 260-80.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/migration/mnu045

 

Abstract

Contemporary studies on return migration express a growing interest in the cultural and social dimensions of its economic development. In this article we aim to extend this interest by focusing on economic values returning migrants bring back with them to their countries of origin, captured in what we call the ‘entrepreneurial spirit’. The article is based on in-depth ethnographic fieldwork with Sub-Saharan African labor migrants both in Israel and after their return to their country of origin. Utilizing a Weberian perspective on the connection between values and economic action, we illustrate that even though African migrants work in menial jobs in Israel and very few acquire professional training, they come to utilize Israel as an informal space for the enhancement of a ‘spirit of entrepreneurship’. This spirit contains three valuative transformations: a transformation concerning time (including a valuing of the future over the present); a transformation concerning individual action (replacing the primacy of community with a focus on individual flourishing)-Sahara; and a transformation in social relations (extending trust beyond friends and family to economic partners). These transformations are in line with economic values underlying a capitalist economic system. The expression of these value orientations acts as an important factor through which African countries have become increasingly interlinked and influenced by neoliberal culture. Yet, as the testimonies of African labor migrants reveal, local social structures reside side by side with this imported spirit of entrepreneurship. This hybridity may lead to increased opportunities, but also to feelings of estrangement and frustration.

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: Weinblum, Religion in the Israeli Parliament

Weinblum, Sharon. “Religion in the Israeli Parliament: A Typology.” Religion, State and Society 42.2-3 (2014): 283-98.

 

URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09637494.2014.945727

 

Abstract

Because religion has been a constant source of social divisions and political conflicts, the role of Judaism in Israel is very often studied through the prism of a rigid religious–secular cleavage.Without denying the contentious character of religion in the political and social arenas, I suggest in this study that a closer look at the usages of religion in Israeli politics offers a more nuanced picture of the role of Judaism in Israel. In order to uphold this thesis, I identify the main usages of Judaism in the Israeli Parliament (the Knesset) and scrutinise the extent to which these different mobilisations overlap or crosscut the secular–religious cleavage. This analysis leads to a typology of three usages of religion: religion as a source of authority, religion as a marker of identity and nation, and religion as a source of values. On this basis, I demonstrate that the role of religion in Israel and especially in the Israeli Parliament cannot be reduced to the divide between religious and secular groups. If in its first usage, the religious–secular cleavage indeed predominates, the use of religion as an identity marker does not necessarily lead to a conflict with secular members, while in its final form, religion is mobilised as a resource by members of both groups.

New Book: Weiss, Conscientious Objectors in Israel

Weiss, Erica. Conscientious Objectors in Israel. Citizenship, Sacrifice, Trials of Fealty. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014.

 
URL: http://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/15212.html

 

In Conscientious Objectors in Israel, Erica Weiss examines the lives of Israelis who have refused to perform military service for reasons of conscience. Based on long-term fieldwork, this ethnography chronicles the personal experiences of two generations of Jewish conscientious objectors as they grapple with the pressure of justifying their actions to the Israeli state and society—often suffering severe social and legal consequences, including imprisonment.

While most scholarly work has considered the causes of animosity and violence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Conscientious Objectors in Israel examines how and under what circumstances one is able to refuse to commit acts of violence in the midst of that conflict. By exploring the social life of conscientious dissent, Weiss exposes the tension within liberal citizenship between the protection of individual rights and obligations of self-sacrifice. While conscience is a strong cultural claim, military refusal directly challenges Israeli state sovereignty. Weiss explores conscience as a political entity that sits precariously outside the jurisdictional bounds of state power. Through the lens of Israeli conscientious objection, Weiss looks at the nature of contemporary citizenship, examining how the expectations of sacrifice shape the politics of both consent and dissent. In doing so, she exposes the sacrificial logic of the modern nation-state and demonstrates how personal crises of conscience can play out on the geopolitical stage.

Erica Weiss teaches anthropology at Tel Aviv University.