SUNY series in Israeli Studies

This book scrutinizes the interrelationships between Jewish spatial organization and social structure and change in Palestine/Israel. Kellerman analyzes the development of nationwide and regional settlements, and reasons for spatial and territorial choices, such as cooperative villages. He uncovers the extreme differences between the old and the new in Jewish settlement patterns, and discusses the implications for cultural development, economic functions, urban spirit, and international status in evolving Israeli society.

This is a clearly conceived, meticulously executed, and lucidly written study of the Herut Party, and it will stand for many years as the definitive study of its subject. Its major strength is the account of the turning points in the evolution of the Revisionist Party's character under Jabotinsky's leadership, and later of Herut Party under Begin's leadership, through interaction with the Polish and Israeli societies respectively. The author addresses the pertinent influences and organizations that interacted with the Revisionists and Herut and provides a clear sense of the parameters within which these parties evolved. In short, even though Herut is viewed by many, including the author, as an atypical party that adheres to myths and as a Manichean worldview, Shapiro makes sense of it roots, character, and evolution in sociological terms.

This book deals with the experience and action of Jewish women in the new Jewish settlement in Palestine (the Yishuv) during the period of Zionist immigration to Palestine, from the last two decades of the nineteenth century until 1948. The wide range of topics concern the experience of East European immigrant women as well as that of traditional Yemenite women, the creative and radical action of the socialist pioneers of the labor movement as well as the liberal feminism of the middle-class women. Though based on scholarly research, this book brings forth women's voices through their private and public writing.

The standard histories of Israeli literature limit the canon, virtually ignoring those who came to Israel from Jewish communities in the Middle East. By focusing on the work of Iraqi-born authors, this book offers a fundamental rethinking of the canon and of Israeli literary history.

The story of these writers challenges common conceptions of exile and Zionist redemption. At the heart of this book lies the paradox that the dream of ingathering the exiles has made exiles of the ingathered. Upon arriving in Israel, these writers had to decide whether to continue writing in their native language, Arabic, or begin in a new language, Hebrew. The author reveals how Israeli works written in Arabic depict different memories of Iraq from those written in Hebrew. In addition, her analysis of the early novels of Hebrew writers set against the experience of "transit camps" (ma'abarot) argues for a re-evaluation of the significance of this neglected literary subgenre.

A study of Palestinian state formation in comparison to Zionist experiences.

Countdown to Statehood, based on Arabic, English, and Hebrew language sources, analyzes the form that the Palestinian state is likely to take. The book looks at past institution-building patterns in the West Bank and Gaza, the relationship between the PLO and the local Palestinians, and the nature of the conflict with Israel from 1967 through the first year of the Palestinian Authority under Arafat's leadership.

A major reference point in this analysis is the Zionist experience of state-building in Israel's own pre-independence era. Not only did the Zionist experience serve as a model of a successful protagonist that Palestinians wished to emulate, but both also began as diaspora-based. These similarities and, even more so, the dissimilarities between these two struggles for national determination allow the reader to assess the potential likenesses and disparities of the future Palestinian state compared to its Israeli counterpart. The concluding chapter analyzes the findings in the broader context of third-world state-building by arguing, contrary to the common wisdom that "war makes the state," that more peaceful routes to statehood lead to better states in the post-independence era.

This book provides a unique mosaic of the most recent processes and phenomena which explains Israel factually as well as theoretically. It offers a new conceptual framework for analysing the relationships between state and society, contrasting social boundaries with social frontiers. It also discusses the problems that arise when Zionist ideology confronts reality in contemporary Israel.

This book explains why the best way to understand the Jewish historical experience is to look at Jewish people, not just as a religious or ethnic group or a nation or "people," but, as bearers of civilization. This approach helps to explain the greatest riddle of Jewish civilization, namely, its continuity despite destruction, exile, and loss of political independence.

In the first part of the book, Eisenstadt compares Jewish life and religious orientations and practices with Hellenistic and Roman civilizations, as well as with Christian and Islamic civilizations. In the second part of the book, he analyzes the modern period with its different patterns of incorporation of Jewish communities into European and American societies; national movements that developed among Jews toward the end of the nineteenth century, especially the Zionist movement; and specific characteristics of Israeli society.

The major question Eisenstadt poses is to what extent the characteristics of the Jewish experience are distinctive, in comparison to other ethnic and religious minorities incorporated into modern nation-states, or other revolutionary ideological settler societies. He demonstrates through his case studies the continuous creativity of Jewish civilization.

Challenges the social-science image of Israel as a historical peculiarity by situating Israel's history in comparative context; by building bridges between Israel and other Middle Eastern states; and by using the Israeli case to reconsider existing social science theories and correct common misperceptions about the comparative method.

Because Israel is unique in many dimensions, many social scientists consider it a historical peculiarity. Neither East nor West, developed nor undeveloped, capitalist nor socialist, Third World nor First World, Israel has little in common with other countries and their historical experiences. This book of original essays challenges the image of Israeli uniqueness and the status of the Israeli case and at the same time corrects some common misperceptions about the comparative method in general and case selection in particular. At the same time, it compares Israeli and Arab experiences and addresses critical issues in Middle Eastern studies.

To challenge the image of Israeli uniqueness, the authors situate Israel's history in comparative context; employ macrohistorical concepts both to reexamine the Israeli case and to build bridges between Israel and other historical experiences; and use the Israeli case to reconsider existing social science theories. [Articles by Michael Barnett, Yehezkal Dror, Rebecca Kook, Ian Lustick, Joel Migdal, Gershon Shafir, Gabriel Sheffer, Shibley Telhami, and Mark Tessler and Ina Warriner] Israel in Comparative Perspective demonstrates how our understanding of the region can be enriched by using models and theories developed in other regions to reexamine Israeli history.

Wildfire is a wide-ranging, inter-disciplinary study of the "other side" of Israeli public life. Because the governmental service systems work poorly, and political protest has proved to be largely ineffective, the Israeli public has begun to take matters into their own hands, in effect creating numerous "alternative" service systems in almost all spheres of life.

Lehman-Wilzig describes this phenomenon and analyzes the impact of the most important alternative systems: illegal settlement activity, a huge underground economy, pirate cable TV stations, "gray" education, Black medicine, anti-religious as well as anti-secular activity, and a growing demand for electoral reform and constitutionalization of the Israeli polity.

Examines how Israel was caught by surprise in the opening stages of the 1973 Yom Kippur War.

Based on many formerly undisclosed intelligence and military documents, the secret protocols of discussions on the eve of the war, and interviews with relevant figures, The Watchman Fell Asleep is a compelling account of Israel's intelligence failure before the 1973 Arab attack known as the Yom Kippur War. The Hebrew version of this book was awarded the Tshetshik Prize for Strategic Studies on Israel's Security in 2001, and the Israeli Political Science Association's Best Book Award in 2002. Available here in English for the first time, Uri Bar-Joseph has crafted an authoritative explanation of the most traumatic event in Israel's stormy history and one of the biggest strategic military surprises of the twentieth century.

The author examines the varieties of religious and secular salvation that have recently appeared in Israel as evidence for Israelis' willingness to embrace private salvation in the face of immense cultural upheavals. Drawing on interviews, field observations, clinical data, and media reports collected over ten years, he surveys four roads to private salvation: the return to Judaism, new religions (sects or cults), psychotherapy movements such as est, and occultism. These dramatic forms of conversion are unique to Israeli society within the last decade, and Beit-Hallahmi provides a social history and social psychology of this transformation.

The first comprehensive analysis of the effect the prolonged Arab-Israeli conflict has had on state and society in Israel.

This is the first comprehensive research study to analyze and explain the influence the prolonged Arab-Israeli conflict has had on Israel. It focuses on the manner in which all of the Israeli-Arab wars since 1949, including the Intifada and the Gulf War, have affected state and society in Israel. In addition, it examines the influences of other, more limited Israeli military operations. These subjects are investigated within a broad theoretical framework based on a critical analysis of the literature. The author suggests an analytic qualitative model for understanding wars and internal political order and makes significant corrections to paradigms that deal with political order and wars, from the Marxist paradigm to the liberal paradigm.

Investigates the cultural and social constructions of issues related to war, the armed forces, and national security in Israel.

The Military and Militarism in Israeli Society systematically examines the cultural and social construction of 'things military' within Israel. Contributors from comparative literature, film studies, sociology, anthropology, geography, history, and cultural studies explore the arenas in which the centrality of military matters are produced and reproduced by the state and by other public bodies. Analysis is presented using three perspectives: the production and reproduction of collective representations; the dynamics of gender, voice, and resistance; and the construction of individual life-worlds.

Some seventy-five years after the boundaries of the British Mandate for Palestine were set, the State of Israel still lacks a defined territory and agreed-upon boundaries, except for its boundary with Egypt. This book examines this unusual situation, concentrating especially on the perceptions of territory and boundaries within the Zionist movement.

Galnoor discusses the period from the first territorial decision in 1919 up to the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, placing special emphasis on the relatively unknown Zionist, Palestinian, and Arab positions regarding territorial partition in 1937. And he argues that although dramatic changes have occurred in the international and regional arena, the partners to the conflict, the security considerations, and the international dilemmas, the 1937 decision contained the parameters of the choices that have confronted Arab and Israeli leaders ever since. His findings are of direct relevance to the ongoing Arab-Israeli peace negotiations, which once again revolve around the trade-off between national goals and territorial aspirations.

Leading American and Israeli social scientists discuss the precedent-setting events of Israel's 1996 elections.

Leading social scientists from Israeli and American universities, using different methods and representing diverse intellectual traditions, address the precedent-setting events of Israel's 1996 elections. The contributors discuss the meaning of collective identity, the role of religion and nationalism in modern Israel, the political behavior of Israeli Arabs, the secrets of success of the immigrant party. Also discussed are issues such as the impact of the direct election law on party organization, primaries and coalition-formation calculations, the repeated electoral failure of Shimon Peres, and the role of the media in the election campaign.

The 1996 elections in Israel represented a "first" in Israeli politics in many ways. For the first time Israelis directly elected their prime minister and, in simultaneous but separate elections, they elected their 120-member Knesset (parliament). Also, it was the first time that elections were held after the mutual recognition of Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization following the Oslo accords and it was the first election held after the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rubin.

The political parties made widespread use of primaries in 1996, and hundreds of thousands of new immigrants from the former Soviet Union cast their first ballots. The large support for a party supported by former-Soviet immigrants highlighted the emergence of sectarian interests. This was also expressed in the surge for the two Arab parties from five seats in 1992 to nine seats in 1996, and for the three Jewish religious parties whose combined representation grew from 16 to 23 seats.

Based on Shimon Peres's private papers, investigates the role of professionals—attorneys, strategic experts, and economists—in Israel's national unity government of 1984-1986 and assesses their impact on government policy.

This book, based on Shimon Peres's private papers, tells the unusual story of the Peres government of 1984-1986 in Israel. It is the story of an unpopular politician, demonized by his political enemies, who operates under great time restraints to manage a pluralistic democracy losing ground to enchanted masses in public squares.

Lacking support from his own national unity government, Peres reverted to his old-time alliance with Israel's technocrats in his combat against populism. Michael Keren analyzes the role of legal professionals, strategic experts, and economists in the three main events of the Peres era: the scandal over the killing of two Arab terrorists by the General Security Service; the efforts to renew the peace process in the Middle East after the Lebanon war; and the economic stabilization program of 1985. This analysis illumines Israel's hitherto unexplored technocratic stratum and its ongoing struggle over Israel's nature as an advanced industrial state. This stratum, the author contends, has been the moving force behind the construction of the nuclear reactor in Dimona in the 1960s, the combat against populism in the 1980s, and the Israeli-Palestinian peace process of today.

This book examines the structure of Israeli interest groups, their strategies, their effectiveness, and their relations with state organizations and political parties. It addresses such important questions as the following. What are the links between political parties and interest groups? What are the attitudes of senior state officials toward interest groups? Why do interest groups influence public policy and to what extent? Are some groups more influential than others? Is Israel moving toward a post-materialist era?

Land of Paradoxes reflects the realities of contemporary Israeli politics. Using a framework of universal interest-group configurations, the book shows how Israel deviates from these patterns and places it in a historical and comparative perspective.

Introduces the cutting edge issues and current scholarship in the interdisciplinary field of Israel Studies.

This sixth volume in the Books on Israel series is an interdisciplinary compilation that encompasses contributions from both the social sciences and the humanities, and reflects the exciting integration of approaches that are on the cutting edge of Israel Studies. The contributors go beyond the review of recent books on Israel to offer original examinations of the state of scholarship about Israel within the various disciplines of anthropology, economics, history, literature, political science, and sociology. Recent trends in contemporary Israeli society, politics, economics, and culture are also explored.

This book analyzes how the political system influences domestic policy implementation in Israel. It shows how coalition politics, party dominated ministries, an independent and fragmented Jewish Agency, diaspora Jewish communities, powerful mayors, and ethnic considerations influenced the implementation of Begin's Project Renewal, a hybrid of the American War on Poverty, Urban Renewal, and Model Cities. It also reveals how Project Renewal initiated change in Israel's political institutions and public policy system.

Covers Israel's policy toward Islamic institutions within its borders, 1948-2000.

Using declassified documents from Israeli archives, Alisa Rubin Peled explores the development, implementation, and reform of the state's Islamic policy from 1948 to 2000. She addresses how Muslim communal institutions developed and whether Israel formulated a distinct "Islamic policy" toward shari'a courts, waqf (charitable endowments), holy places, and religious education. Her analysis reveals the contradictions and nuances of a policy driven by a wide range of motives and implemented by a diverse group of government authorities, illustrating how Israeli policies produced a co-opted religious establishment lacking popular support and paved the way for a daring challenge by a grassroots Islamist Movement since the 1980s. As part of a wider debate on early Israeli history, she challenges the idea that Israeli policy was part of a greater monolithic policy toward the Arab minority.

Weingrod presents an anthropological study of the development of a new Jewish saint, or zaddikin Israel and of the annual pilgrimage to his enshrined grave by thousands of North African Jews. It is the fascinating story of how Rabbi Chayim Chouri, an aged Tunisian rabbi, became famed as the "Saint of Beersheba," after his death in the 1950s. The author focuses upon the meaning of this event in the lives of the participants, and interprets the relevance of mystical-religious traditions to present-day Israeli society, politics, and culture. It includes a photographic essay that brilliantly evokes the joyful events that occur during the ritual and festivity of the pilgrimage.

Essays on the formation of Israeli state and society during the twentieth century.

Through the Lens of Israel illuminates Israeli history through the use of the author's unique state-in-society approach, and, at the same time, refines, develops, and expands that approach. The book provides a window for the formation of Israeli state and society during the twentieth century, while using the Israeli experience to ask how social scientists can better investigate and understand other societies as well. Three central themes of Israeli history are at the core of the analysis-state formation, society formation, and the mutually constitutive roles of state and society. By analyzing how Israel's state and society continually reconstruct one another, Migdal addresses larger questions with resonance far beyond Israel: How do particular societies and states end up with their distinctive character? How are the rules that shape everyday behavior determined? Who gains from these rules and who loses? And how and when do these rules and patterns of privilege change?

This book identifies and examines those parallels between ancient and modern Israel that help to clarify the conflicts apparent in modern Israel. It discusses such contemporary issues as the Arab uprising and the Israeli government's ambivalence in dealing with it; the government's inability to come to a permanent solution concerning the territories occupied in 1967; and the lack of a clear-cut consensus in the 1988 elections.

By comparing these and other modern issues to those of ancient Israel, Sharkansky shows that Israel's deeply-rooted problems as a nation are likely to continue, occasionally punctuated by violent outbursts.

Critical Essays on Israeli Society, Politics, and Culture is the second volume in a series devoted to imaginative and critical consideration of recent books on Israel. It is a forum allowing some of the most insightful students of Israeli affairs, both in Israel and in the United States, to examine trends in Israeli literature and in scholarship pertaining to all aspects of Israeli life. Each contributor approaches Israel from a different angle, offering anthropological, religious, political, literary, and historical perspectives.

Topics attracting particular attention in this volume include the psychological reactions of Israelis who emigrate from their country and the portrayal of the emigrant in Israeli literature; human rights; the role and content of the Jewish fundamentalist movement in Israel; changing relations to the Palestinian leadership in the occupied terrorists; the emerging issue of Israel as a binational society; psychoanalytic and political motifs in contemporary Israeli fiction; and the controversial findings of Israel's newest wave of "revisionist" historians.

Based on research from an array of American, Arab, British, French, German, and Israeli sources, this book provides a nuclear history of the world's most explosive region. Most significantly, it gives an exposition of Israel's acquisition and political use, or nonuse, of nuclear weapons as a central factor of its foreign policy in the 1960-1991 period. In stressing the factor of nuclear weapons, the author highlights an often-neglected aspect of Israeli security policy.

This is the first interpretation of the historical development of nuclear doctrine in the Middle East that assesses the strategic implications of opacity-Israel's use of suggestion, rather than open acknowledgment, that it possesses nuclear weapons. Aronson discusses the strategic thinking of Israel, the Arab countries, the U.S., the former Soviet Union, and other countries and connects Israeli strategies for war, peace, territories, and the political economy with the use of nuclear deterrence.

The author approaches the development of Israeli doctrines on nuclear weapons and defense in general within a large matrix that includes the United States; Israeli perceptions of Arab history, culture, and psychology; and Israeli perceptions of Israel's own history, culture, and psychology. He also deals with Arab perceptions of Israel's nuclear program and with Arab and Iranian incentives to go nuclear. In addition, he discusses at length the importance of nuclear factors in the conduct of the Persian Gulf War and examines the implications of the decline of the former Soviet Union for arms control and peace in the Middle East.

Education, Empowerment, and Control is about the education of the Palestinian Arab minority in Israel from the establishment of the state of Israel to the present. Using a comparative approach, the study throughout juxtaposes Arab and Hebrew educational systems in terms of administration, resources, curricula contents, and returns. Developments in education are analyzed in conjunction with wide demographic, economic, and sociopolitical changes.

Al-Haj explores the expectations of the Palestinian community on the one hand and dominant groups on the other, showing that whereas Palestinians have seen education as a source of empowerment, government groups have seen it as a mechanism of social control. The book also sheds light on the wider issue of education and social change among developing minorities in the postcolonial era. Al-Haj examines modernization, underdevelopment, and control in order to delineate the role education plays among a national minority that is marginalized at the group level and denied access to the national opportunity structure.

This book represents the first systematic effort to analyze the role of local communities and regions in Israel's national politics. Traditionally portrayed as either elitist and highly centralized, or as pluralistic with very active interest groups, Israeli politics have seldom accounted for local and regional forces.

The authors demonstrate the growing importance of these communities in the politics of the country. Their analyses are based on the concept of "spatial sector," and eight sectors are covered: The West Bank and Gaza Strip Arabs, Israeli Arabs, development towns, renewal neighborhoods, religious neighborhoods, Gush Emunim settlements, kibbutzim and moshavim, and Jerusalem.

A critical examination of the decisions of the Supreme Court of Israel in cases relating to the Occupied Territories.

The Occupation of Justice presents the first comprehensive discussion of the Supreme Court of Israel's decisions on petitions challenging policies and actions of the authorities in the West Bank and Gaza since their occupation during the 1967 Six-Day War. Kretzmer addresses issues including: the basis for the Court's jurisdiction; application and interpretation of the international law of belligerent occupation; the legality of civilian settlements and highway construction; and security measures such as curfews, deportations and housing demolitions. While pertaining to a specific political and legal context, this case study has broader implications regarding how courts in democratic countries act in times of conflict and crisis. It shows that at such times domestic courts tend to close ranks with the executive branch against those elements that are perceived as external threats to society.

Considers the impact of the 1999 Israeli elections.

This volume highlights Israel's 1999 elections, in which the prime-ministerial race between incumbent Benjamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak ended with Barak winning by the biggest landslide ever in Israel. Although some observers interpreted these results as a fundamental shift in public opinion, there is little evidence to support this. The book shows how old patterns funneled into a new system of voting produced the 1999 results, where a weak candidate (Barak) bested a wounded prime minister (Netanyahu) abandoned by most of his political allies. Leading social scientists from Israeli and American universities, using a variety of approaches and coming from diverse intellectual traditions, address topics including the emergence of political blocs, strategic voting, and split ticket voting. In addition to major party performance, special interest parties-who did better than ever in 1999-are also discussed, such as the haredi, ultra-orthodox, non-Zionist Shas, the anti-haredi secular Shinui, two parties appealing to former Soviet émigrés and Arab parties.

This is a developmental study of men in mandatory military service based on indepth interviews of young soldiers who had recently completed their service in Israel. The book deals with the central issues of transition to adulthood and the psychological effects of military service in the context of the previous research and theory concerning these subjects.

Explores the turbulent changes in Israel party politics since the mid-1960s.

The tumultuous and rapid political change experienced by Israel since 1965 has been reflected in the history of its party system. In this book, Jonathan Mendilow examines the party and party system transformations through the lens of the electoral campaigns that defined and reflected them. He shows that the relative stability of the dominant party system bequeathed from the pre-independence era was shattered in the 1960s, and replaced by cluster parties that vied for power in the ideological center, only to decline and be replaced in turn in the 1980s and early 1990s by ideological party blocs locked in centrifugal competition. With the separate direct election of the prime minister since the mid-1990s, there has been yet a third profound realignment in party structures, ideologies, and modes of campaigning, according to Mendilow.

Examines radical and messianic movements in Israel seeking to rebuild the Third Temple in Jerusalem.

The Temple Mount, located in Jerusalem, is the most sacred site in Judaism and the third-most sacred site in Islam, after Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia. The sacred nature of the site for both religions has made it one of the focal points of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Jewish Fundamentalism and the Temple Mount is an original and provocative study of the theological roots and historical circumstances that have given rise to the movement of the Temple Builders. Motti Inbari points to the Six Day War in 1967 as the watershed event: the Israeli victory in the war resurrected and intensified Temple-oriented messianic beliefs. Initially confined to relatively limited circles, more recent "land for peace" negotiations between Israel and its Arab neighbors have created theological shock waves, enabling some of the ideas of Temple Mount activists to gain wider public acceptance. Inbari also examines cooperation between Third Temple groups in Israel and fundamentalist Christian circles in the United States, and explains how such cooperation is possible and in what ways it is manifested.

Hasson explores the development of eight urban protest organizations in Israel, revealing how social deprivation is transformed into organized patterns of activity. To investigate how and why urban movements evolve, he depicts the housing and social conditions in which members of Jerusalem's second generation found themselves. He follows their trajectories: analyzes the process of organization building and the formation of urban social movements; the conflict between charismatic, protest powers and the state; the routinization of charisma. He also traces the critical response of the state to these processes.

Provides new interpretations and research findings, from a wide spectrum of viewpoints, on Israel's formative first decade of independence.

Israel presents a panoramic display of fresh interpretations and new research findings related to Israel's first decade of independence. Those years of rapid change are widely regarded as a formative period in the development of the state and the society. As new archival materials have become available for scrutiny, a new generation of historians and social scientists has begun to re-examine old issues and to raise new questions. In this context of academic ferment, scholars in diverse disciplines, of different generations and of opposing ideological orientations, have collaborated in this book in examining the period anew. Thirty-two authoritative essays offer new understandings from the diverse perspectives of history, political science, sociology, literary criticism, geography, anthropology, and law. The intention is to provide a wide-ranging reconsideration of post-independence Israel that will serve as a benchmark for future study and research.

A historical, sociological, and economic analysis of urban worker cooperatives in contemporary Israel.

Although less famous than Israel's cooperative agricultural settlements, the kibbutzim and moshavim, Israeli urban worker cooperatives have an equally long and rich history. Well over a thousand such organizations have been established in what is now Israel since early in this century. This book provides a historical, social, and economic analysis of contemporary urban worker cooperatives, focusing on processes affecting their formation and dissolution, their use of nonmember labor, and the evolution of their democratic decision-making practices over time.

Raymond Russell examines these cooperatives for the light they can shed on worker ownerships and worker cooperatives in general, and on Israeli society in particular. Applying a range of sociological and economic theories to examine the dynamics of these organizations over time, he finds that both their formation and their later development have been strongly influenced by the uniquely utopian social and economic conditions that prevailed in Jewish Palestine in the first half of the twentieth century.

An interdisciplinary study discussing the impact of the national crisis in Mandatory Palestine on relations between Jewish and Arab workers and their respective labor movements.

Constructing Boundaries examines the competition, interaction, and impact among Jewish and Arab workers in the labor market of Mandatory Palestine. It is both a labor market study, based on the Split Labor Market Theory, and a case study of the labor market of Haifa, the center of economic development in Mandatory Palestine. Bernstein demonstrates the impact of the pervasive national conflict on the relations between the workers of the two nationalities and between their labor movements. She analyzes the attempts of Jewish workers to construct boundaries between themselves and the Arab workers, and also highlights cases of cooperation between Jewish and Arab workers and of joint class struggle.

Introduces the cutting edge issues and current scholarship in the interdisciplinary field of Israel Studies.

Representing a wide array of disciplines: economics, history, literature, political science, anthropology, and sociology, this book offers original examinations of the state of scholarship about Israel, as well as insightful assessments of contemporary Israeli society, politics, economy, and culture. The contributors review and analyze more than sixty recent publications, half of them in Hebrew or Arabic, showcasing important literature not readily accessible to European and North American readers. Continuing the tradition established by the preceding volumes, Review Essays in Israel Studies offers a rich and varied treatment of new scholarship and enhances our understanding of Israel studies today.

Uses a social-psychoanalytic model to argue that collective identity shapes foreign policy changes.

The International Self explores an age-old question in international affairs, one that has been particularly pressing in the context of the contemporary Middle East: what leads long-standing adversaries to seek peace? Mira M. Sucharov employs a socio-psychoanalytic model to argue that collective identity ultimately shapes foreign policy and policy change. Specifically, she shows that all states possess a distinctive role-identity that tends to shape behavior in the international realm. When policy deviates too greatly from the established role-identity, the population experiences cognitive dissonance and expresses this through counternarratives-an unconscious representation of what the polity collectively fears in itself-propelling political elites to realign the state's policy with its identity. Focusing on Israel's decision to embark on negotiations leading to the 1993 agreement with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Sucharov sees this policy reversal as a reaction to the unease generated by two events in the 1980s-the war in Lebanon and the first Palestinian Intifada-that contradicted Israelis' perceptions of their state as a "defensive warrior." Her argument bridges the fields of conflict resolution, Middle East studies, and international relations.

Examines the backpacking trip usually taken by Israeli youth following military service.

In the period after their military service, Jewish Israeli youth customarily embark on a unique touristic practice: the backpacking trip. Combining sociological, anthropological, and psychological research-based on innovative fieldwork conducted with Israeli backpackers in Israel and abroad-this book depicts the complex relationship between the traveling youth and their society of origin. Via a perspective the editors term "outside-in," we learn how social and cultural tensions and tenets, identities, fantasies, and preoccupations are acted out within a symbolic, touristic space by scores of Israeli youth.

This book examines religion in Israeli society: what it is and how it functions. Here is a clear picture of how Judaism provides a matrix of continuity for Israeli society notwithstanding a wide diversity of beliefs and practices.

Offers the first systematic and comprehensive overview of sociological thought in Israel, and pleads for a new agenda that would shift the focus from nation building to democratic and egalitarian citizenship formation.

This study explores the changing agenda of Israeli sociology by linking content with context and by offering a historically informed critique of sociology as a theory and as a social institution. It examines, on the one hand, the general theoretical perspectives brought to bear upon sociological studies of Israel and, on the other, the particular social and ideological persuasions with which these studies are imbued.

Ram shows how the agenda of Israeli sociology has changed in correlation with major political transformations in Israel: the long-term hegemony of the Labor Movement up to the 1967 war; the crisis of the labor regime following the 1973 war; and the ascendance of the right wing to governmental power in 1977. Three stages in Israeli sociology, corresponding to these political transformations, are identified: the domination of a functionalist school from the 1950s to the 1970s; a crisis in the mid-1970s; and the profusion of alternative and competing perspectives since the late 1970s. Ram concludes with a plea for a new sociological agenda that would shift the focus from nation building to democratic and egalitarian citizenship formation.

This book offers the first systematic and comprehensive overview of sociological thought in Israel, and by doing so offers a unique interpretation of the social and intellectual history of Israel.

Offers insights into the criminal justice system and the field of criminology in Israel.

Assessing the Israeli criminal justice knowledge base with implications for Israel and international scholarship, this book explores crime, legislation, law enforcement, courts, corrections, and the victim. The book discusses the development of criminal justice and criminology in a new society, adding to the understanding of crime and societal reaction. The authors examine the historical development of Israeli criminal justice, describe the state of current knowledge, and point to possible future directions.

Analyzes a recent report on a survey of the religious beliefs and behavior of Israeli Jews, and of the intense public debate that it produced.

In December 1993, the Louis Guttman Israel Institute of Applied Social Research released the results of the most comprehensive study ever undertaken of the religious beliefs and behavior of Israeli Jews. The study revealed that Israeli Jews were far more traditional in their religious beliefs and behavior than previously thought, resulting in an intense public debate within Israeli society.

This book summarizes the Guttman Report and describes how the media and Israeli intellectuals responded to it and imposed their own interpretations. It then analyzes the report in greater detail and puts in global perspective Israeli Jews' ritual behavior, religious beliefs, and attitudes toward religion in public life. The editors conclude that the religious traditionalism of Israeli Jews is unique among advanced industrial societies. They seek to explain this uniqueness in terms of the particular nature of Israeli society, focusing on Israel's security problems and suggesting the impact that a new security situation would have on Israeli Jews and how it would reshape the Israeli political map.

Questions the commonly accepted view that Israel's military policies were formed in direct response to Arab states' hostility and argues for a historical linkage between Israel's changing military posture and the development of an inequitable Israeli social structure.

Trial and Error offers a unique exploration of the link between Israel's military policies and its ethno-class relations of power that has theoretical implications elsewhere. The book denounces the commonly accepted view that Israel's military policies were crafted merely as a direct and inevitable response to neighboring Arab states' hostility. Instead, Yagil Levy shows that Israel's security interests were also determined by the social interests of a rising middle class comprised of Jews of European descent. Because of the protracted state of war, this class achieved dominant status over other groups. As a result, a strong link was created between increasing inegalitarianism in Israeli society and missed opportunities to adopt more moderate foreign policies at crucial crossroads up to the 1980s. Paradoxically, however, as war benefits elevated the consumerist lifestyle of the middle class, the burden of war became less appealing to it. Levy argues that this and other social constraints, along with limitations imposed by the international system, played a focal role in channeling Israel's policies toward the 1990s' peace process.

Traces the almost century-long struggle between Israel's largest healthcare provider, Kupat Holim, and successive Israeli governments.

Who makes public policy in vital services that are paid for by the government but provided by autonomous non-governmental agencies? This book explores this question through the prism of Israel's unique not-for-profit health system, drawing heavily on unpublished archival sources and interviews with key players. Starting with the system's roots in Israel's pre-state period, it traces the almost century-long struggle between the country's largest healthcare provider, Kupat Holim, and successive Israeli governments for control of the tools of policy making: allocation, regulation, and restructuring. It analyzes how Kupat Holim acquired and exercised a veto over healthcare policy, and then, how, under the pressure of changing social developments and party politics, its veto was eroded and finally lost in the health reform of the 1990s. Entering the current debates on health reform and government by proxy, the author questions whether the reform actually improved healthcare, as promised, or allowed the government to renege on its responsibilities.

Covers early Israeli education policy regarding immigrant populations.

This volume combines a translation of substantial portions of one of the most important documents in the early history of Israel-the government commission of inquiry concerning education in the immigrant camps, appointed in 1950-with analysis of the ensuing public debates and repercussions, and their meaning for Israeli society today. Using extensive historical research, Zameret traces the development of political and social processes in the early years of Israel's existence and points to their far-reaching and decisive implications for contemporary Israeli society, including the rise of Shas, the political party created by ultra-Orthodox Oriental Jews.

An exploration of the moral and intellectual conflict of Israeli citizens who have resisted military service, and of how they justify their choices of action.

Israel's security is maintained largely by civilians in uniform. The chronic state of war in Israel requires that every Israeli civilian serve in the Israel Defense Forces as a reservist until the age of 55. The focus of this book is the intellectual and moral challenges selective conscientious objection poses for resisters in Israel. It is the first psychological study of the Intifada refusniks.

The 1982–1985 Lebanon War was a dramatic turning point in the intensity, depth, forms, and magnitude of criticism against the army, and this war serves as the starting point for Ruth Linn's inquiry into moral criticism of Israeli soldiers in morally no-win situations during the Intifada. In each of these conflicts, about 170 reserve soldiers became selective conscientious objectors. In each conflict, however, numerous objecting soldiers also "refused to refuse," proclaiming that their right to voice their moral concern springs from their dedication to, and fulfillment of, the hardship of military obligation.

Linn uses the theories of Rawls, Walzer, Kohlberg, and Gilligan as a framework for understanding and interpreting interviews with objecting soldiers. By this means, she seeks to answer such questions as: How would various groups of objecting soldiers justify their specific choice of action? What are the psychological, moral, and non-moral characteristics of those individuals who decided to be, or refused to be, patriotic? And how did the Intifada, as a limited yet morally problematic military conflict, affect the moral thinking, emotions, and moral language of long term soldiers?

Applies clinical pyschology to explain the dynamics of the Middle East peace process.

By applying a clinical psychologist's insight into the Israeli-Arab conflict, Ofer Grosbard lays the foundation for a new theory and practice that espouses the use of clinical tools to promote relations between countries, religions, political parties, cultures, and different identities.

In their own words, the stories of the men and women who are the planners, architects, community organizers—the hidden builders—of the modern state of Israel.

This book documents the goals, lives, experiences, and practice of planners, architects, and community organizers who have contributed to the physical and social development of the modern state of Israel. In their own words, these "community builders" share their professional experiences of how they protect and rebuild cities and neighborhoods, how they overcome stereotypes and bureaucratic inertia, how they protect the natural environment and the public health as well. The stories illustrate the practical world of community change in which aesthetics and politics, ethnicity and tradition, commitment and inspiration, hard work and hope all play a part. Students of urban and community life in many countries will be able to draw elements and themes from these particular stories that resonate with their own concerns, experience, and future work.

Explores Arab-Jewish encounters and relations in Israel from both conflict resolution and educational perspectives.

This is the first study to introduce the subject of Arab-Jewish relations and encounters in Israel from both conflict resolution and educational perspectives. Through a critical examination of Arab and Jewish encounter programs in Israel, the book reviews conflict resolution and intergroup theories and processes which are utilized in dealing with ethnic conflicts and offers a detailed presentation of intervention models applied by various encounter programs to promote dialogue, education for peace, and democracy between Arabs and Jews in Israel.

The author investigates how encounter designs and processes can become part of a control system used by the dominant governmental majority's institutes to maintain the status quo and reinforce political taboos. Also discussed are the different conflict perceptions held by Arabs and Jews, the relationship between those perceptions, and both sides' expectations of the encounters. Abu-Nimer explores the impact of the political context (Intifada, Gulf War, and peace process) on the intervention design and process of those encounter groups, and contains a list of recommendations and guidelines to consider when designing and conducting encounters between ethnic groups. He reveals and explains why the Arab and Jewish encounter participants and leaders have different criteria of their encounter's success and failure. The study is also applicable to dialogue and coexistence programs and conflict resolution initiatives in other ethnically divided societies, such as South Africa, Northern Ireland, Bosnia, and Sri Lanka, where the minority and majority have struggled to find peaceful ways to coexist.

Explores the beliefs, attitudes, and values of ordinary Palestinians and Israeli Jews asking the question: Is it possible to reach a negotiated resolution to the Jerusalem question?

An in-depth examination of how Jerusalem is seen by both Palestinians and Israeli-Jews, this book is a landmark study of the potential for successfully negotiating the Jerusalem question. It sheds important light on the question "what is Jerusalem?" By showing that the current boundaries are not viewed by either side as sacrosanct, the authors prove that there is room for creative efforts to reach an agreement. Such room may help resolve what is undoubtedly the most difficult issue standing between Israelis and Palestinians.

Essays on the experience of lesbians in contemporary Israeli society.

This unique collection examines the experience of lesbians in Israel, providing insight into some of the institutions that have helped shape that experience. The book analyzes and interprets how culturally specific political, ideological, and social systems construct lesbian identities, experiences, and dilemmas, and it also explores how a specific society is seen, understood, and interpreted from a lesbian perspective. Written by scholars, professionals, and grassroots activists representing different sectors of the Israeli political spectrum, this book provides a broad perspective of the lesbian experience in Israel.

Explores the search for identity under changing conditions by examining the lives of kibbutz-born young people living in L.A.

Under what circumstances would kibbutz-born young people leave a society which symbolizes, more than anything else, the Zionist dream? Naama Sabar explores this question by examining the lives of a group of Israeli emigrants living in Los Angeles in the 1980s and early 1990s. Through extensive interviews in which these "kibbutzniks" share their life stories, she uncovers what pushed them to leave the kibbutz and what pulls them to remain in L.A. The underlying leitmotif is the search for identity under changing conditions.

Examines the difficulties of Palestinian-Arab political life in Israel.

2001 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title

As'ad Ghanem provides a comprehensive description of the political development of the Palestinian-Arab minority in Israel and also discusses their social, cultural, and economic experiences. Covering two main aspects of politics-the different manifestations of politics and the dilemmas created by these politics-he presents the predicament of the Palestinian-Arab minority in Israel, which derives from the ethnic character of the State of Israel and their isolation from other Palestinians, and proposes the Israeli-Palestinian bi-national state as a suitable resolution not only for this problem but also for the main Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

The first comparative study of two major Jewish labor movements.

Converging Alternatives provides the first comparative study of the national ideology of two rival Jewish socialist movements: the Bund party and the Zionist Labor movement in Eretz-Israel (Palestine). Yosef Gorny traces the concept of the Jewish nation from the foundation of the Bund and the first Zionist Congress in 1897 until the remains of the Bund decided to join the Jewish local and world institutions in 1985. The following events from those years are covered: the Soviet Revolution, the Balfour declaration, the founding of the Polish Republic, the British Mandate on Palestine, the rise of the Nazi party in Germany, the Jewish-Arab conflict, the Holocaust, and the gradual disappearance of the two movements from the historical stage. This innovative approach to the Bund and Zionist movements helps explain the connection between nationalism and multiculturalism in the Jewish modern tradition.

This book provides a thorough and detailed examination of Israeli institutions and how they function. It explains the decline in effectiveness of the government and the spread of cultural malaise in the Israel of the eighties. Horowitz and Lissak trace the integrative and disintegrative trends in Israel and show how a society that had laid the foundations for a cohesive Jewish nation-state became increasingly vulnerable to centrifugal forces.

The book not only reflects a broad and comprehensive approach, but also focuses on themes that cut across institutional structures, such as the weakening of social and political cohesion in an overburdened polity.

Original review essays that provide critical commentary on recently published books and films on Israeli society, culture, politics, and religion.

This book is part of a series of review volumes sponsored by the Association for Israel Studies that provides a framework for discussion of research and scholarship on all aspects of Israeli society. It brings together original review essays commenting on issues in Israeli society, culture, politics, religion, literature, and film. The authors' evaluations of recently published books go beyond critical commentary on the works themselves to include the state of scholarship and social conditions. Among the issues addressed are the conflict over water resources, the human dimensions of the Israeli-Palestinian dialogue, local governance, and the court system. The book provides reviews and commentary, not only on scholarly works but also on memoirs of military leaders at the time of the Yom Kippur war, Sephardi novels on the shock of immigration and on Israeli orthodox Judaism, and politically oriented cinema and literature of the 1980s and 1990s.

Critical Essays on Israeli Social Issues and Scholarship is part of a series of review volumes sponsored by the Association for Israel Studies and published by SUNY Press that provides a framework for discussion of research and scholarship on all aspects of Israeli society. This book brings together review essays commenting on issues in Israeli culture, literature, politics, scholarship, and society. The authors identify a series of recently published books and provide critical commentary. In their examination, they go beyond the works themselves to comment on the state of scholarship and social conditions. Topics covered include Israeli writers' reactions to the Holocaust, critical analyses of the popular Israeli poet and novelist Amnon Shamosh, the linguistic relations between Yiddish and Modern Hebrew, ethnic relations, the emerging "mainstream" of Israeli culture, politics, Israeli historical revisionism, and social, psychological, and political aspects of the continuing Israel-Palestine conflict.

New insights into the cementing of the American-Israeli relationship during the Nixon years.

Using a wealth of recently declassified American and Israeli documents, Nixon and Israel argues that ideational and psychological factors are an important complement to standard geopolitical explanations of American-Israeli relations during the Nixon years. Noam Kochavi looks at the emotional impact on senior American leadership of specific choices made by Israel outside the Middle East in the early 1970s, such as the acumen and sensitivity of Israel with regard to Nixon's fundamental concerns-"honorable extrication" from Vietnam and winning reelection. The book takes issue with the controversial argument that Israeli and American Jewish leaders joined forces to orchestrate a campaign designed to tilt American foreign policy in Israel's favor. To the contrary, the picture that emerges suggests that while Israel did adopt policies that altered Nixon's image of Israel, these policies were adopted not in concert with American Jews but despite American Jewish disapproval.

Examines the combat experience of Israel's ground forces in the Al-Aqsa Intifada in order to offer a set of innovative concepts for understanding irregular warfare.

The combat experience of Israel's ground forces in the second Palestinian uprising, the Al-Aqsa Intifada (2000–2006), is given full critical attention in this engaging study. Based on extensive interviews and observations, Rethinking Contemporary Warfare explores the ongoing debate about how the armed forces of industrial democracies wage contemporary military operations. Irregular warfare presents challenges, as routine activities can suddenly turn into violent action, forcing military forces to quickly adapt under the changing circumstances of the conflict. Such "new wars" are a messy reality consisting of high and low intensity conflict, the involvement of media and human rights movements, and the martial administration of civilian populations. Exploring the broad social and organizational features of these militaries, this volume sets forth new analytical tools to understand the peculiarities of irregular warfare in the post-Cold War era. These critical concepts include loose coupling between units, organizations that mediate between ground forces and civilian environments, and the militarization of civilian environments in urban warfare

Explores the life and career of one of the twentieth century's most colorful Zionist leaders.

The life, career, and legacy of Nahum Goldmann (1895–1982), one of the most colorful and important Zionist leaders of the twentieth century, are fully revealed in this illuminating collection of essays. American, Israeli, and European scholars speak to the many sides of Goldmann, including his upbringing, rise in the international public arena as a premier advocate for Jewish life and the Zionist enterprise, and his role as an elder statesman in the 1960s and 1970s. Often ahead of his time, Goldmann proved highly influential at several critical historical junctures-on the eve of the creation of the Jewish state, he played a key role articulating Israel's relationship with diaspora Jewry, postwar Germany, and the Arab world. This volume captures Goldmann in all his complexity, while making this important figure and his time accessible to researchers, students, and interested readers.

Explores how the entry of migrant workers into Israel raises questions beyond just those of the labor market.

In this account of a social experiment gone awry, Israel Drori exposes a little-known and recent phenomenon: the importation of foreign workers from Third World economies to Israel. Focusing on Romanian, Thai, and Filipina migrants brought to Israel for specified periods of employment, Drori examines the effect of migrants on Israeli society, particularly the issue of national identity. What began as a political corrective-avoiding the danger of hiring Palestinians to do work that Jewish Israelis would not-has developed into a social and economic problem the state does not know how to handle. In addition to examining the work experiences and social lives of these workers, Drori also situates the Israeli case within a global context, where many affluent nations have significant populations of marginalized, undocumented workers.

Analyzes initiatives aimed at reforming the electoral and government systems of Israel in comparison to other established democracies.

This book examines the success or failure of initiatives aimed at reforming regime structures in democracies, particularly their electoral and government systems. Through a comparative analysis of the several attempts at this type of reform in Israel over more than four decades, Gideon Rahat begins with the failed attempts at electoral reform in the 1970s and 1980s. He then analyzes Israel's successful attempt at promoting government system reform from 1988 to 1992. Finally, he compares the Israeli cases to cases of electoral reform in New Zealand, Japan, and Italy in the 1990s. While the book focuses on the Israeli cases, it places Israel within a comparative framework and makes an important contribution to the debate concerning the politics behind regime structure reform.

Examines the social and cultural integration of Russian-speaking Jews and Germans who immigrated to their respective historic homelands.

Coming Home provides an extraordinary glimpse into the social and cultural integration of a unique category of immigrants-the returning Diaspora. During the 1990s Russian-speaking Jews and Germans returned to their respective historic homelands. Nelly Elias explores the social and cultural adaptation of these two groups by focusing on the roles played by their native language-Russian-and the language used by the media of each country. Based on one hundred in-depth interviews conducted with immigrants now living in both Israel and Germany, Coming Home considers media use to be an inseparable part of an immigrant's adaptation strategy, simultaneously reflecting construction of a new social and cultural identity while also preserving their original cultural identities.