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The article assesses the work experiences of Palestinian women citizens of Israel (PWCI) who work in agriculture. Nearly a quarter of a century has gone by since the publication of Ibtisam Ibrahim's article, “The Cucumber Pickers”, in the Hebrew-language periodical Noga (1993) that shed light on the topic for the first time. Since then, numerous studies have addressed the employment status of PWCI, their low rate of employment, the conundrum of their absence from the Israeli work force, and the external and internal obstacles that replicate their low employment rate. Integration of educated women in the employment market was examined as well. The results confirmed that the voices and work experiences of women employed in agriculture largely remain silenced. Data were gathered in Arabic-language, semi-structured, in-depth interviews with women performing agricultural work through contractors. The interviews show that the agricultural sphere is a legal anomaly in which the formal labor laws of the State of Israel are not fully enforced. Furthermore, patriarchy apparently filters down to the work force, weaving an intricate pattern of connections and commitments and intensifying women's dependence on their families and society and their marginality therein. The study sheds light on the multiple nature of this marginality (gender, class, and nationality), as well as the women's stagnation in employment and social status over the past two decades.

Divorce, separation, and widowhood produce great psychological stress for Palestinian women in Israel. Very often family support is a set of demands seeking to regulate and reshape their conduct. This article is based on a study conducted between 2007 and 2011 with twenty-four divorced, separated, and widowed Palestinian single mothers in Israel. In contrast to claims in most existing scholarship, all of the women turned to nonfamilial sources of support to deal with family and community regulation, restrictions, and stigmatization and to acquire resources. Level of surveillance and regulation was most highly associated with socioeconomic class. The poorer the women, the fewer their choices and the less freedom they had to determine their lives and their children’s lives. The women interviewed disproportionately reported turning to outsiders, such as psychologists, spiritualists, and feminist activists, for “expressive” support.

Internal migration tendencies among Palestinian in Israel are limited by both internal and external barriers. Recently, however, it appears that many Palestinian families have migrated from the north of Israel southward to Beersheba in search of work. This article is based on qualitative research I conducted among Palestinian women in Israel who moved south because of economic and occupational hardship. These women find themselves tending to their households while living far from their families of origin and those of their husbands, confronting and adjusting to their new environment and coping with life in a “city of difference” in Jewish space and among the Arab-Bedouin population at work. Internal migration affects many areas of life, extending beyond the personal and family sphere to challenge the politics of expanse in Israel, which is grounded in segregative and exclusionary principles and blurs accepted lines in the Israeli educational system. This situation generates space for new dialogue, or alternatively delineates lines of separation and structures new urban and cultural segmentation processes. The article sheds light on the complexity of the nationalist-ethnic triangle that takes shape in cities and clarifies the women’s experiences as they cross spatial and national borders—an unusual experience in Israeli life.

In the last three decades, Palestinian society within Israel has been undergoing changes in different spheres, with trends of change and preservation evolving simultaneously. Changes in the familial sphere include a rise in the divorce rate and, accordingly, in the number of single-parent families. Despite the increase in the number of single-parent family units headed by women, this pattern has barely gained legitimacy. As single mothers, divorced Palestinian women are subjected to considerable criticism and supervision on the part of their families. In this article I examine the reasons why Israeli-Palestinian women seek divorce, arguing that they reflect co-existing trends. While some reasons can be defined as traditional, others illustrate a process of change related to the adoption of values and images deriving from the Western romantic love ethos. The article is based on data gathered in semi-structured, in-depth interviews conducted and analyzed with a commitment to the principles of feminist research.

Family lives in Palestinian-Arab society in Israel have undergone considerable changes in recent decades. These changes have made it difficult to understand what is meant by family in everyday life. The aim of the present study is to examine the differences in the perception of the family and the image of “a proper family” through drawings created by Palestinian-Arab women and men in Israel (n=106). This can be analyzed as a prism of discussion regarding how people identify what is expected of families. It also raises the question of “family boundaries” in contemporary Palestinian-Arab society in Israel and what is recognized as family relationships. The drawings’ analysis included a set of questions regarding both the content—the theme of the drawing, main situations, characters, and symbols—and the forms, composition, and colors used. Reading the drawings visually illuminated various perceptions of a family as expressed by the participants. This visual content analysis enhances sociological comprehension about the desirable family life in light of gender relationships, family size, and domestic everyday practices which negotiate the global and the local.

Divorce, separation, and widowhood produce great psychological stress for Palestinian women in Israel. Very often family support is a set of demands seeking to regulate and reshape their conduct. This article is based on a study conducted between 2007 and 2011 with twenty-four divorced, separated, and widowed Palestinian single mothers in Israel. In contrast to claims in most existing scholarship, all of the women turned to nonfamilial sources of support to deal with family and community regulation, restrictions, and stigmatization and to acquire resources. Level of surveillance and regulation was most highly associated with socioeconomic class. The poorer the women, the fewer their choices and the less freedom they had to determine their lives and their children’s lives. The women interviewed disproportionately reported turning to outsiders, such as psychologists, spiritualists, and feminist activists, for “expressive” support.