Search

This paper examines moral dilemmas faced by family caregivers of older adults who employ live-in migrant care workers. Being both a family caregiver as well as an employer of a live-in migrant care worker often puts family members at a crossroad, where moral decisions must be made. Lacking a formal role, family members do not have a professional code of ethics or other clear rules that can guide their actions, and their choices are rooted in cultural, community, familial, and personal values. This paper discusses moral dilemmas that result from family caregivers' dual commitment, to the wellbeing of their older sick relative who is the recipient of care, and to the wellbeing of the live-in care worker whom they employ. The paper uses relational ethics as a theoretical framework to discuss three cases that involve complex moral decision making in real life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines discriminatory attitudes of Israeli Jews towards non-Jewish immigrants admitted into Israel under the Law of Return. We looked at three spheres of discrimination: admission, political rights, and welfare rights and focused on the role of realistic socioeconomic and symbolic threats in the emergence of discriminatory attitudes. We used a mixed-methods approach that allowed to test our hypotheses among a representative sample (survey) and examine the logics underlying the respondents' justifications for endorsing discrimination (focus groups/in-depth interviews). The findings show that discrimination endorsement is strongest in the case of admission and political rights where Israeli Jews seek to prevent the presence of outgroups and deny them the right to become part of the society. By contrast, discrimination with respect to welfare rights is less pronounced – possibly because it is not viewed as awarding membership in society, but rather providing individuals their basic needs based on universalistic or democratic values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Notwithstanding the introduction of education multilingual policies worldwide, testing and assessment procedures still rely almost exclusively on the monolingual construct. This paper describes a study, part of a larger project fostering a new multilingual education policy in Israeli schools, exploring bi/multilingual assessment. It included two types of second language learners—immigrants from the Former Soviet Union, who learn all their school subjects in Hebrew, and Arab students, whose school language of instruction is Arabic but who learn some subjects in Hebrew. The experimental groups received a bilingual version of a test (Hebrew-Russian; Hebrew Arabic) and the control groups a Hebrew-only version. In the Russian-speaking experimental group, students received significantly higher scores than in the control group, while no significant differences surfaced between the groups among the Arabic-speaking students. Yet, attitudes toward bilingual assessment, evaluated via questionnaires, think aloud protocols and focus groups, were highly positive in both groups, addressing the availability of L1 in the test as contributing greatly to a more relaxed and positive approach. Multilingual tools emerged as a fairer method of assessing knowledge for second-language learners, who cannot fully demonstrate their academic knowledge in L2, and their use is recommended as part of the new multilingual policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Israel's highly restrictive citizenship policy constitutes the clearest indicator of its dominant ethnic model of citizenship. However, this policy has faced new challenges since the early 1990s, following the mass migration of non-Jewish immigrants. This paper examines and characterizes changes in immigrants' entitlement to Israeli citizenship since the 1990s. It indicates that while Israel's traditional citizenship policy has not undergone any significant change, two trends are evident: a much more restrictive policy towards Arab immigrants; and a somewhat more inclusive policy concerning other immigrants. To explain how these conflicting trends have coexisted, this study identifies three major characteristics of the Israeli policy: widespread use of the 'divide and rule' technique; managing policy through bureaucratic decisions; and the growing assimilation of liberal and republican principles into Israel's citizenship policy, although without undermining—on the contrary, even reinforcing—the dominant ethnic model of citizenship. These findings indicate that although the dominant ethnic citizenship model in Israel remains stable, and can successfully tackle significant obstacles, limited opportunities exist for greater inclusion of specific non-Jewish populations within the Israeli polity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper addresses the multifaceted quality of ethnicity in the Jewish population of Israel by probing into the ethnic categories and their subjective meaning. The analyses utilise data collected during 2015–2016 on a representative sample of Israelis age 15 and older, as part of the seventh and eighth rounds of the European Social Survey (ESS). Hypotheses are developed concerning the relationship between demographically based ethnic origin and national identity, as well as the effect of ethnically mixed marriages on ethnic and national identities. The analyses reveal a strong preference among Jews in Israel to portray their ancestry in inclusive national categories – Israeli and Jewish – rather than more particularistic, ethno-cultural, categories (e.g. Mizrahim, Moroccan, Ashkenazim, Polish, etc). Yet, whether Israeli or Jewish receives primacy differs by migration generation, socioeconomic standing, religion, and political dispositions. While the findings clearly add to our understanding of Israeli society, they are also telling with regard to immigrant societies more generally. First, they reveal a multi-layered structure of ethnic identification. Second, they suggest that ethnic identities are quite resistant to change. Third, ethnically mixed marriages appear to erode ethnic identities and are likely to replace them with national identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the complex identity of Kessoch immigrants in Israel. One group of Kessoch is regarded as ‘young’ and the other as ‘old’. These are two ‘invisible’ groups, which cope in their own way with their social and cultural marginality. They are delegitimized within both Israeli society and the religious establishment. Among the older Kessoch, the authors differentiated between those who have found new meaning for their life in Israel, while attempting to preserve significant ‘scraps of identity’, and those who are disconnected from their present-day life materials and find little meaning in them. In contrast, the younger Kessoch, 1.5-generation immigrants, express varied behaviour patterns of daily resistance to the host society. Their personalities and leadership patterns also indicate selective adoption of significant bits of reality that suit them. Their intelligent use of ‘scraps of identity’ serves their social integration processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines changes that have occurred in Israel's citizenship policy towards family immigrants since the early 1990s, when it became a country of immigration. Its findings indicate that Israel now has a much more restrictive policy towards Palestinian family immigrants, and a somewhat more inclusive policy concerning the naturalization of various other groups of family immigrants. In a broader perspective, while there is evidence that the influence of the liberal perception of citizenship on policy-making processes has increased in some respects, this process has occurred within an overall ethnic, even ethnicizing, context. Accordingly, the inclusive trend toward non-Olim, non-Palestinian family immigrants may stem not only from a process of liberalization within Israeli society. Rather, it may also serve ethnic motivations by absorbing immigrants who are likely to eventually join the Jewish, or at least non-Arab, sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper critically examines the representation of two major minorities in Israel, Arab citizens of Israel and Jewish immigrants, by focusing on the widely popular genre of reality shows. We demonstrate that this genre contains sophisticated mechanisms of differentiation and selection that inevitably exclude and stigmatise minority participants. To demonstrate this thesis the paper takes a close look at two Israeli reality shows that were conceived to have a public value—Wanted: A Leader and The Ambassador. The examination of these shows reveals how Israeliness—presented as the space of equal opportunity—contains discriminatory mechanisms based on national and ethnic affiliations. Thus, the study illustrates that national identity could be utilised as a meta-narrative of universality and inclusiveness, but actually refers to a particular type of identity that is ethnically restricted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A wealth-building, egalitarian argument is persistently used to justify homeownership policies. This paper examines this argument in light of the Israeli housing market experience during the 1990s. Under the pressure of mass immigration from the former USSR, the governmental mortgage scheme evolved to misleadingly appears as a voucher system. This system reconciled two conflicting paradigms: (1) the commitment of Israel to serve as a safe haven for all Jewish people, (2) the rising belief in the merits of economic liberalization. This system proved to be effective in creating a construction boom, and in achieving high homeownership rate among immigrants. Yet, analyses presented in the paper suggest that it led to rapidly increasing prices, chaos and distortion in the housing market, and incurred high costs for small, disadvantaged groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines religious conversion to Judaism among young 'Russian' immigrant girls in Israel. Looking into the process of conversion in religious boarding schools for girls only (Ulpana) and in the broader context of the Israeli nation-state, we examine the strategies the educators contrive in inculcating religiosity among the girls, how they legitimise and facilitate their self-transformation, and mobilise them to desire a religious subjectivity. At the same time, we study the experiences of the Russian girls in the Ulpana, and the meanings they assign to their conversion as depicted in the personal stories they narrated to us. The paper reveals how the Ulpana operates as a major nationalisation agent that cultivates a path for the girls to belong to the national religious camp, thus assuring their affiliation to Israeli-Jewish society at large. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the relationship between inter-ethnic power relations and public housing policy for immigrants in Israel since 1948. Based on a comparative analysis of Israeli policy of housing Mizrahi immigrants in the 1950s and Russian immigrants in the 1990s, the paper argues that despite the perceived decline in the state's capacity, the implication of public housing policy has remained unchanged since the 1950s. By moving Jewish immigrants into development towns in sparsely populated and overwhelmingly Palestinian regions of the country, Israeli policy has served to Judaize these regions and to reinforce ethnic stratification among the country's Jewish population. In this manner, Israeli public housing policy was neither consistent with conceptions of post-Second World War public housing policies in welfare states nor with the recent impact of globalization and the free-market dynamics on public housing policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper looks at ways in which notions of membership and of just allocation were articulated in the everyday practices of a voluntary organization set up in the early 1990s to distribute clothing and household goods to newcomers from the (former) Soviet Union in Israel. Based on an ethnographic account of the distribution centre, this paper describes its underpinning ideology and demonstrates the implications of this ideology for the rules governing the allocation of goods. The paper analyzes three inter-related axes around which notions of rules of just allocation were equivocally interpreted and implemented. The first of these axes related to the discourse of justice deemed most appropriate to the newcomers; the second to the status of the newcomers; and the third to the creation of social categories—primarily defined in ethnic terms—and the hierarchical relationships between them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the process of linguistic assimilation among post-1990 immigrants arriving in Israel under the Law of Return. We analyse levels of Hebrew proficiency among four immigrant groups (Ethiopia, Former Soviet Union [FSU], Middle Eastern and North African countries [MENA]) and countries in Europe and America [EUAM]) and by language of origin (Amharic, Russian, Spanish, English and French). The analysis is based on a data-set collected by the Central Bureau of Statistics: the post-1990 Immigrant Survey. Controlling for all relevant factors, the data reveal substantial differences across origin groups: immigrants of MENA and EUAM countries have higher probabilities of reporting the highest level of command of the language than their FSU and Ethiopian counterparts. Speakers of Spanish and French attain higher levels of Hebrew proficiency than speakers of Russian, English and Amharic. Apparently, the very existence of a large and residentially concentrated ethnic or linguistic community (as is the case for Ethiopian and FSU immigrants) becomes a potential disincentive for improving their Hebrew skills. The fact that English is a lingua franca understood and prized in Israel explains the slow process of English speakers' language acquisition. The findings are discussed in light of existing theories of linguistic assimilation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Israel being a multicultural society with a variety of ethnic groups, the delivery of culturally competent services is a crucial issue in social work practice. This paper describes the outcomes of a training model for cultural competence applied with social work graduate students in Israel. The model, based on work with immigrants' narratives, increased the cultural self-awareness of the trainees. Presented are conceptual and technical aspects of the training model as well as outcomes of an evaluation study. Fifty-one trainees submitted a short account of their personal experiences following the training. The reports indicated expansion in the trainees' cultural self-awareness: awareness of their own and their families' immigration experiences as well as of other transitions in their lives. Training elements that made this outcome possible are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines the economic integration of immigrants from the Former Soviet Union into the Israeli labour market in terms of occupational and earnings mobility (i.e. decreasing occupational and earnings disparities) in comparison with several Israeli Jewish sub-populations. Using data from annual Income Surveys conducted by the Israel Bureau of Statistics between the years 1995 and 2006, we find little occupational and earnings mobility of Soviet immigrants throughout the period and substantial occupational and earnings disadvantages compared to all Jewish sub-populations (especially when compared to Jews of European/American origin). The findings are discussed in light of the assimilation model, suggesting that the social and economic circumstances associated with the arrival of Soviet immigrants in Israel have long-lasting, detrimental consequences for their economic assimilation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper analyses humorous stories circulating among Ethiopian immigrants now living in Israel. Typically told at community gatherings, these narratives articulate the drama of dislocation and the traumatic encounter with life in Israel, by focusing on the embarrassing clash of the quintessential 'traditional' Ethiopian, with a new land-scape, time-scape, and body-scape. Characterised by an easy spirit, the revelation of innocence met with forgiving and accepting laughter, these stories enable internalisation and mediation of common ambivalences and vulnerabilities, converting them into elements of pleasure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article deals with the ways in which Mizrahim—Jewish immigrants who came to the State of Israel after 1948—influenced the local Jewish sacred geography. Besides taking part in rituals in the older and more established holy places such as King David's Tomb on Mount Zion, Mizrahim tended to adopt and develop holy places where only hints of ancient Jewish sanctity were to be found. These places were used before 1948 mainly by the local Muslim population and were adopted now by Jews. This reality prevailed mainly in the social and geographical periphery of Israel, in regions and places where immigrants were usually settled by the Israeli establishment during the 1950s and 1960s. Mizrahim, in need of accessible and informal holy sites near their new settlements, brought now to the development of such places as the Tomb of Raban Gamliel in Yavne, the Tomb of Judah in Yahud, and the Tomb of Benjamin near Kfar-Saba. The emergence of this sacred space, in a state that had just come into being and into which there had been mass immigration of Mizrahim, displacing or replacing the indigenous population of Arabs, is at the heart of the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the core values of three minority groups in Israeli society: Israeli Arabs, immigrants from the Former Soviet Union (FSU) and immigrants from Ethiopia. Analysis of memoirs collected from members of these three groups reveals that language functions as a core value in all of them, but on different grounds. Israeli Arabs focus on language as representing their national identity and their objection to the hegemony of Hebrew; immigrants from the FSU emphasise language in terms of literacy and as paving the way to the treasures of their culture; and participants from the Ethiopian group focus on language as a means of communication, allowing them to maintain values they consider more central—family relations and respect for their elders. The discussion of the findings takes into account the uniqueness of the Israeli context and combines socio-cultural and linguistic perspectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Zoning was central to Modernist town planning. In Israel, it is impossible to understand the spatial culture without first understanding both the rationale of zoning and the life strategies of the immigrants who populated the towns. This paper outlines the relationship between planning theory and the practices of the inhabitants of Ashdod, Israel. Ethnographic examples are used to show how its inhabitants consume the physical and social spaces of this national modern city. The planners did not achieve their aim of designing a new society. Without directly rejecting the town plan, its new inhabitants took over its physical structure, and put into practice their own definitions of “labor”, “consumption” and “production”. In doing this, they challenged the concept of social order that the governing elite sought to impose on them as a universal, objective order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper explores the mutual relation between cultural citizenship and national homecoming. Using the case study of Russian-Jewish immigrants in Israel, it refines the theoretical debate over cultural citizenship by showing how homecoming migration shapes the homecomers' bargaining power over the local cultural tenets. In particular, the research examines the ways in which the 'Russian' immigrants negotiate the national ethos of homecoming that constitutes the Israeli civic, discursive field, while dismantling it into its root components: affinity to the place, collective memory, and the warrior ethos. Each of these components constitutes a sphere of action that embodies the tension between Israeliness and Jewishness, nationalism and citizenship, and the personal and the collective. Our main contention is that in the case of homecoming migration, the inextricable affinity between citizenship and nationalism shapes the homecomers' cultural citizenship: on the one hand, it secures their right to participate in the local cultural discourse and avails bargaining power, while on the other hand, it neutralizes the homecomers' subversive voice, and reduces their capacity to undermine the constitutive, national tenets. The analysis is based on immigration stories gathered via in-depth interviews that were conducted with 43 Jewish university students who immigrated to Israel from the former USSR in the beginning of the 1990s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with the potential and actual impacts of the 1990s immigrants from the Former Soviet Union (FSU) on the state of multiculturalism, peace orientation and civil society in Israel. It examines the attitudes of these immigrants toward the character of Israel and their location in its cultural fabric. At the same time, it explores their stand toward the indigenous Palestinian Arab citizens and the prospects of creating an all-encompassing civil culture. The analysis shows that immigrants are tending toward the expansion of pluralism and the secularisation of Israel, and a redefinition of the legitimate borders of Israeli society. However, this orientation is not based on a holistic perspective. It is, rather, aimed at serving the needs of the immigrants themselves and facilitating their integration into the existing ethno-national structure from an advantaged position. Therefore, they are expected to reinforce a system of exclusion that places the indigenous Arab population beyond the pale. In this sense, the FSU immigrants are leading toward a type of multiculturalism that may be termed 'ethnocratic multiculturalism'. This type differs from types of multiculturalism that have developed in Western democratic countries by being selective: it draws the borders of legitimacy according to an exclusive ethno-national basis, rather than on the basis of inclusive values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The immigrant family is the principal domain where cultural and linguistic heritage can be preserved and transferred to the younger generation. This paper explores how the macro-level sociolinguistic processes in Israel - the increasing ethnic power of Russian speakers during the 1990s and the ensuing higher status of the Russian language - have shaped intra-familial linguistic patterns among former Soviet Jewish immigrants. My analysis is based on participant observation and in-depth interviews conducted with members of three-generational immigrant families who arrived in Israel during the 1990s and in the earlier wave of the 1970s. The study shows that bilingualism of the last-wave immigrants often manifests as a linguistic hybrid known as HebRush - a lingo that is used both in public and private realms. Conversely, among veteran immigrants of the 1970s the dismissed Russian has made a comeback into private family usage after years of oblivion, reflecting its recent upsurge as the main `minority language' of Jewish Israel. The language choices of bilingual immigrants and the use of Russian between immigrant parents and children are shaped by their dominant sociolinguistic milieu, core cultural values, and the perceived status of this minority language in Israel. In conclusion, I offer some reflections on the interface between core cultural values, family roles and language maintenance among recent immigrants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on integrated analysis of Israeli statistics and social research (including a 2001 survey among 800 Russian Israelis), this article explores the birth of a transnational community of Russian Jews living in Israel and in other branches of the post-Soviet diaspora. The theoretical focus of the paper is the relationship between transnationalism and immigrant integration in the host country. It is shown that, due to its timing and composition, the Russian immigration of the 1990s was transnational at the outset. Transnational activities among Russian Israelis lie mainly in the socio-cultural realm and are intertwined with cultural separatism from the host society. During the 1990s, Russian-speakers, making 20 per cent of the Jewish population in Israel, have created a thriving subculture of their own. It is shown that reliance on co-ethnic networks plays a double role in the life of Israeli Russians. On the one hand, it empowers the weakest and the least integrated segments of the Russian community, attenuating their dependency on the host society. Yet, at the same time, it hampers economic success and social integration of many other immigrants, and reinforces cultural conflict between the newcomers and old-timers in Israel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a country of ingathered exiles, Israel has taken pride in its history of policies and structures designed to ease immigrant absorption. The recent waves of Ethiopian newcomers, however, have presented a range of unanticipated resettlement problems. This paper examines some of these issues, the attempts of the government to resolve them and the positive and negative outcomes of these resolutions. The underlying focus is the preservation of ethnic integrity during the reacculturation process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]