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"Ethnicity Israel"
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Ethnic Politics in Israel
This book offers an analysis on contemporary Israeli democracy, examining in particular society and politics from the perspectives of the different ethnic groups outside of the Ashkenazi mainstream.
The book explores the political expressions of the secondary groups in Israel (Mizrahim, Religious, Russians and Palestinian-Arab) and how these groups where treated by the Ashkinazim as a threat to its hegemony over the state. Looking at the instability created by the struggle of these marginal groups against the state, and the discrimination policy practiced by the Ashkenazi 'hegemonic ethnic state' regime against the other, non-Ashkenazi, groups, the book illustrates how this has contributed to the failure to establish an ‘Israeli people’.
Ethnic Politics in Israel will be of great interest to students and researchers in the fields of Middle East, Palestinian, Arab, Jewish and Israeli studies, political science, sociology and psychology.
As'ad Ghanem is senior lecturer at the school of political science at the University of Haifa. His theoretical work has explored the legal, institutional and political conditions in ethnic states, covering issues such as Palestinian political orientations, the establishment and political structure of the Palestinian Authority, and majority-minority politics in a comparative perspective.
1. Israel as Hegemonic Ethnic State and the Politics of Groups Identity 2. The Palestinian Minority in Israel: Resisting the 'Ethnocratic' System 3. Oriental Jews and the Ashkenazi System: Incorporation Vs. Separation Politics 4. The Jewish Religious Groups and the Politics of Identity in the 'Secular-Jewish' State 5. The Russian Immigrants: Imposing Multi-Culturalism in the Public Sphere in Israel 6. Groups Divisions, External Conflict and Political Instability in Israel since Oslo 7. Conclusion: The Future of Group Politics in Israel
eBook
Rethinking Luke 10: The Parable of the Good Samaritan Israelite
Scholars most often interpret the parable of the good Samaritan (Luke 10:25–37), one of the best-known passages in the New Testament, in the context of inter-group hostility between Jews and Samaritans. Drawing on recent work on Samaritans in Jewish studies and Samaritan studies, I argue that there is little reason to continue framing the parable in terms of polarized Samaritan ethnic or religious alterity. Ancient texts contemporaneous with Luke-Acts often include Samaritans within Israel without marginalization or classification as absolute non-Jewish “Others.” The emphasis on absolute difference emerges, rather, from a scholarly habit of both racialized and polemicized readings of the text. In contrast, I suggest an alternative reading: the Samaritan is better read, along with priests and Levites, as a limit concept to regulate the proper behavior of those included within a programmatic restored “Israel.”
Journal Article
Toward an Anthropology of Nation Building and Unbuilding in Israel
Toward an Anthropology of Nation Building and Unbuilding in Israelpresents twenty-two original essays offering a critical survey of the anthropology of Israel inspired by Alex Weingrod, emeritus professor and pioneering scholar of Israeli anthropology. In the late 1950s Weingrod's groundbreaking ethnographic research of Israel's underpopulated south complicated the dominant social science discourse and government policy of the day by focusing on the ironies inherent in the project of Israeli nation building and on the process of migration prompted by social change.
Drawing from Weingrod's perspective, this collection considers the gaps, ruptures, and juxtapositions in Israeli society and the cultural categories undergirding and subverting these divisions. Organized into four parts, the volume examines our understanding of Israel as a place of difference, the disruptions and integrations of diaspora, the various permutations of Judaism, and the role of symbol in the national landscape and in Middle Eastern studies considered from a comparative perspective. These essays illuminate the key issues pervading, motivating, and frustrating Israel's complex ethnoscape.
eBook
The Use of the Term \Galileans\ in the Writings of Flavius Josephus Revisited
Among the central players of Josephus's autobiography are those he refers to as \"the Galileans.\" Patronized by their one-time general as a restive and emotional mob ready to ignite at the slightest indignation, \"the Galileans\" are of vital importance to Josephus's imagined success as general of the Jewish forces in Galilee. Josephus's condescension toward \"the Galileans,\" strange as it is, is compounded by the fact that he regularly contrasts them with the inhabitants of Galilee's major cities, principally Sepphoris, Tiberias, and Gabara. This essay revisits the curious presentation of \"the Galileans\" in Josephus's writings, picking up an inchoate suggestion of Shaye Cohen of a Galilean ethnos. I argue that Josephus does indeed view \"the Galileans\" as an ethnos of their own, distinguishable from the Jews of Galilee, who mainly reside in the region's urban centers. That is, the term \"Galileans\" in Josephus's works functions first as a marker of ethnic belonging and so is not equivalent to \"an inhabitant of Galilee\" tout court. Josephus's presentation of \"the Galileans,\" moreover, is colored by an ethnic prejudice that essentializes a few traits and makes them foils for the virtues of Josephus and the Jews. The introduction to \"the Galileans\" in his Jewish War (J.W. 3.42), which portrays them as \"pugnacious from infancy,\" converges with their characterization in Life, written some two decades later. I briefly consider the historical implications that follow from this reevaluation of \"the Galileans\" in Josephus.
Journal Article
Ethno-national Identity and the New Age World View in Israel
This article focuses on the concept of identity by juxtaposing New Age philosophy and nationalism in the Israeli context. Based on my qualitative research, I deconstruct the Israeli New Age discourse on ethno-national identity and expose two approaches within this discourse. The more common one is the belief held by most Israelis, according to which ethno-national identity is a fundamental component of one's self. A second and much less prevalent view resembles New Age ideology outside Israel and conceives of ethno-national identities as a false social concept that separate people rather than unite them. My findings highlight the limits of New Age ideology as an alternative to the hegemonic culture in Israel. The difficulty that Israeli New Agers find in divorcing hegemonic conceptualizations demonstrates the centrality and power of ethno-national identity in Israel.
Journal Article
The Emergence of Israel and Theories of Ethnogenesis
One of the hottest debates in biblical archaeology today concerns Israel's first appearance on the historical scene as a group. Before developing the question of Israel's emergence in Canaan, this chapter focuses on the archaeology of ethnicity. It identifies ethnic traits during Iron Age II, a period in which practically all archaeologists agree that there were Israelites, and also identifies the historical context in which those traits could have become ethnically meaningful. All those traits could have resulted from interaction of the highland settlers with the highly hierarchical (Egyptian‐ruled) Canaanite society in the closing years of the Late Bronze Age, namely, the Canaanite society and the Egypto‐Canaanite political system. A factor that makes it difficult to attribute Israel's ethnogenesis only to the interaction with the Philistines in the eleventh century is the mention of Israel already in the late thirteenth century BCE in the Merenptah Stele.
Book Chapter
SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY IN ETHNIC TERMS: THE CASE OF POLITICAL ETHNICITY IN ISRAEL
The paper deals with the question of whether there exist expressions of political ethnicity in Israel, and if so, what is their significance. Patterns of voting and so-called \"ethnic parties\" are examined as to what extent they are a proof of the crystalization of ethnic identity. The basic presumption is that ethnic political identity is not acquired by merely belonging to a group of origin, but emerges, crystallizes and receives its meaning in the process of negotiations in the political arena. The main conclusion derived from the historical analysis of the political arena is that patterns of behavior that are called \"ethnical\" are influenced by two negative processes that take place simultaneously in the Israeli society. On the one hand, in the name of \"Mizug Galuyot\" (the Melting Pot) ideology, there is a rejection of organization based on ethnic identity and of any ideology that stresses the uniqueness of the group of origin. On the other hand, the ethnic base is used as a manipulative political resource by every one of the parties. The outcome is that, as a result of the stigmatization of their independent political activities, the orientals have rejected any ethnic ideology. Patterns of political behavior of orientals are defined by others as ethnic, but are in fact not so in their content and meaning, nor are thev seen as such by the actors.
Journal Article
Latino Migrants in the Jewish State
In the 1990s, thousands of non-Jewish Latinos arrived in Israel as
undocumented immigrants. Based on his fieldwork in South America and Israel, Barak
Kalir follows these workers from their decision to migrate to their experiences
finding work, establishing social clubs and evangelical Christian churches, and
putting down roots in Israeli society. While the State of Israel rejected the
presence of non-Jewish migrants, many citizens accepted them. Latinos grew to favor
cultural assimilation to Israeli society. In 2005, after a large-scale deportation
campaign that drew criticism from many quarters, Israel made the historic decision
to legalize the status of some undocumented migrant families on the basis of their
cultural assimilation and identification with the State. By doing so, the author
maintains, Israel recognized the importance of practical belonging for understanding
citizenship and national identity.
eBook