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This paper discusses one of the most important holy revelations that inspired the legal system of most civilized states. The Decalogue or Ten Commandments represents the foundation of the covenant relationship and the moral standards established by the sovereign God as a legal basis for the continuous relation with his people, Israel. In the first part of this paper we will point to the historical context in which the giving of the law on Mount Sinai took place, and will thus show that the covenant made with Moses was a continuance of the covenant lasting from Noah to Abraham. That being said, in this mosaic covenant, God keeps his 400 year old promise and gives laws and instructions intended to reveal his holy nature, while also establishing a moral, social and spiritual order for the Hebrew community. In the second part of this paper we will debate on the significance, purpose, structure and classification of the Mosaic law, thus attempting to define the concept of moral law. The Ten Commandments will be looked upon from three perspectives: the laws referring to a correct relationship with God, the laws related to work, and the laws related to society. The last part of our paper will focus on understanding and applying the Ten Commandments according to the new covenant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the field of critical research, there is significant interest about the extent and forms of the researcher's proactive engagement with marginalized and excluded communities being researched. However, it is not always clear what makes this involvement part of the research, or how much it serves as a moral position located in the process of building relationships with the community being researched. Based on a retrospective and reflexive observation of extended ethnographic fieldwork, between 2005 and 2016, with Israel's Mountain Jewish Community, this paper presents an analysis of Research from an Active-Involved Critical Stance (RAICS). In the conceptual-theoretical dimension, this position is anchored in the theory of intersubjective relationships, critical ethnography, and community-based participatory research. With respect to the structural aspect, RAICS will be explicated through the various positions taken up by the researcher within the field, and across three stages in the development of the relationship with the community during the study, namely: the store-windows; behind the scenes; and onstage. Eight principles of RAICS will be presented. Finally, RAICS will be discussed in the context of developments in the critical research field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper outlines a rationale and a methodology for an art-based community-visioning model to facilitate visioning of the community's future by young people from marginalized communities. The model presented was implemented among young people from the Mountain Jewish Community in Israel. It was found that the use of personal drawings made it possible to simultaneously identify and communicate personal narratives, and thereby develop a shared community vision. The theoretical and practical implications of the model are discussed, as well as its applied potential for community organization processes with young people from marginalized communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spanish has a considerable presence in the socio-cultural mosaic of Israel, a country made up of ethnolinguistic communities from different parts of the world. However, language policy has not always integrated the study of languages as a source of interculturality. This paper summarizes the results of the first stage of a broader investigation into the linguistic practices and strategies developed by Spanish-speaking families to acquire and preserve the migrant language, as a way of transmitting the heritage, identity and culture of the country of origin in the face of the influence of the majority language, Hebrew. To this end, individual interviews were conducted to record specific data on the Spanish-speaking community and, particularly, the presence of Spanish as a vehicular language through the identification of sociocultural references among families who arrived under the Law of Return and include members who are 15 years of age or younger. The surveys reflect that the interest and affective need to preserve the language are main motivators in these Spanish-speaking families. These conclusions served as a basis for in the afore-mentioned group were considered relevant conclusions within the broad objectives of the larger project, which seeks to create a program of intergenerational activities to develop respectful bilingualism and strengthen the community of practice as a space to build the mutant puzzle between the inherited and acquired identity of children and youth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Bais Yaakov school network represents an unusual phenomenon: a school system with strong transnational tendencies. Founded in 1917 in Poland, it developed rapidly there in the interwar period; in the 1930s, it also struck roots first in Mandate Palestine and then in North America. The Bais Yaakov network of schools, which flourishes today, tells a story of sustainability over time and space. This paper presents historical analysis and social network analysis (SNA) of the early years of the Bais Yaakov network, analyzing Hebrew press newspaper articles published between 1930 and 1948 to demonstrate how a number of key leaders in the schools' administration played a crucial role in developing the network. This network involved not only the schools themselves, but also religious advocacy and government relations. Key actors leveraged their brokering power with these larger organizations in order to expand the network in Poland and the Land of Israel. The organizational affiliations of key actors thus shed light on the place of Bais Yaakov within a larger network of community organizations: in both locations, these leaders usually held a double role as educators as well as important community figures within the broader Orthodox Jewish context. These findings suggest that the sustainability of transnational networks depends on strong leaders who are involved within the network to promote its specific global identity but who are also active and powerful in the local peripheries, amplifying network visibility within local and broader communities and maintaining beneficial connections with local governmental authorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cultural heritage (CH) values are important for understanding the significance of heritage assets. For that reason, the presentation of CH should go beyond providing factual information. It should reflect relevant values that are held by the curators, the heritage experts and the communities of non-expert citizen stakeholders. Associating values with the information content in a CH communication product is a challenging task. Digital technologies require special attention to communicate values along with heritage information to achieve meaningful and impactful communication. In this paper, we focus on a socio-technological framework for the integration of values into the information content provided to visitors. We have designed, applied and evaluated an eight-stage process for the inclusion of CH values in the information content and their communication to museum visitors. It has been applied at the Hecht Museum, located at the University of Haifa, Israel, where museum artefacts are currently presented to the visitors with informational panels that have been designed without any attention to values. Two digital applications, built by applying the eight-stage process, were developed. One was designed to cover the information and heritage values already available within the museum descriptions. The other was developed by following the suggested process, which accounts for values that were collected through a review of the literature, interviews with experts and interactions with non-experts. The two applications were tested, iterated and evaluated to assess the impact of value inclusion. Results show that both visitors and experts appreciated the value-enhanced communication. The evaluation of user feedback has further substantiated the creation of content that is inclusive of CH values, for the communication of museum artefacts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current study is based on an in-depth thematic analysis of 20 interviews with German and Israeli adult survivors of child sexual abuse (CSA) by religious authority figures (RAF). This paper aims to explore survivors' experiences within the Jewish ultra-Orthodox and Christian communities, as well as to draw comparisons between the abusive structures and disclosure in these two contexts. The results point to the complexity of CSA by RAF, which is embedded in the survivors' perceptions of themselves as emotionally and cognitively captured by the perpetrators who are a symbol of a parent or God and faith. The participants expressed great concern regarding disclosing the abuse against the backdrop of familial, cultural, and community inhibitors, such as fear of social stigmatization, inability to recognize the abuse, and the taboo of sexuality discourse. The survivors' traumatic experiences were intensified in light of negative social responses to disclosure and encounters with insensitive officials. A comparison of the cultures revealed differences regarding the nature of community life and educational institutions, which may have shaped the disclosure and recognition of the abuse. The study highlights the importance of comparative follow-up studies related to this phenomenon in order to examine its universal and unique cultural contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: To assess the effect of Community Water Fluoridation (CWF) in the prevalence of dental caries and dental fluorosis in 12-year-old children living in Israel. Considering that CWF is important in the prevention of dental caries. Between 2002 and 2014, the water in communities of at least 5,000 individuals was fluoridated. In 2014, CWF in Israel stopped. Method and materials: Data on 12-year-old children from all areas in Israel from the national cross-sectional epidemiological survey conducted in 2011 to 2012 were stratified by city water fluoridation and by city and school socioeconomic status. Two dependent variables were defined: (1) DMFT index of caries experience in the permanent dentition; (2) dental fluorosis in central incisors using the Thylstrup-Fejerskov classification of fluorosis. Results: Data from 2,181 12-year-olds were analyzed. The average DMFT was 1.17 ± 1.72, and 49% were caries-free. Based on DMFT, the caries experience was significantly higher in nonfluoridated cities (1.38 vs 0.98 in fluoridated cities) and there were more caries-free children in fluoridated cities (56.4% vs 40.6% in nonfluoridated). DMFT was higher in cities with lower socioeconomic status than high socioeconomic status (1.29 vs 1.05, respectively, P < .001) and there were fewer caries-free children in low socioeconomic status cities (44.5% vs 53.0% in high socioeconomic status cities, P < .0001). Almost all the 10.3% of children with signs of fluorosis (scoring at least 1 in the Thylstrup-Fejerskov index), had questionable to mild fluorosis (9.3%). Conclusions: CWF is a cheap, simple method of dental health protection that reaches all socioeconomic levels, and cessation of water fluoridation reduced the health of Israel's children. Clinical significance: Water fluoridation provides substantial caries prevention, by reaching a substantial number of people. The relevance of this work is for policymakers to consider CWF as clinically proven method for reducing health inequalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the case of the Karaite sect in modern-day Israel as an instance where an insular and marginalized religious community reshaped official law through its members' religious performances. Despite their failing political and legal campaigns to change Israeli family law to accommodate their distinct Judaism, the religiously committed Karaite community brought about official legal change. They did so by mimicking official law, embedding it into their sacred order, and living their original jurisprudence daily. Drawing on primary historical sources, this study reenacts the ways by which official state law and local religious law reciprocally change each other under a plural normative setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An individual may self-identify as Jewish based on ethnicity, culture, family background, peoplehood, nationality, race, community, ethical and moral life, intellectual curiosity, pursuit of justice, history, caring about Israel, or religion. The Pew Research Center's 2013 report "A Portrait of Jewish Americans" does not take the respondent's self-identification as Jewish American at face value. Most respondents who self-identify as Jewish for non-religious reasons are relabeled in the report as "not Jewish," and are excluded from most tables and discussions in the report. We examine the responses from all respondents to questions on religious attitudes and non-religious attitudes. We specifically compare the distributions of responses for those labeled as "Jewish" and those labeled as "not Jewish." There is not much difference in distributions between these two levels for non-religious questions. Half the respondents claim a denomination of Orthodox, Conservative, or Reform. For questions on religious attitudes, we see differences in response distributions among those three denominations; the other half of the respondents (from less populous denominations or with no denomination) are almost indistinguishable. For questions on non-religious attitudes, none of the denominations are distinguishable from each other or from respondents who do not claim a denomination. We suggest that an additional measure of contemporary Jewish identity, for example a consistently defined measure of Jewish engagement, be included in all studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Israel comprises diverse groups (mostly Jewish), between whom the differences are sometimes greater than the similarities. This frequently leads to social exclusion and discrimination that damages the very basic sense of human security. Scholars agree that cultural misrecognition or exclusion has a deeply negative impact on a person's mental well-being and sense of security. In this paper, we show how the case of the Ethiopian community in Israel reinforces the understanding that a cultural group's experiences of exclusion and non-belonging undermine its members' sense of personal security and has detrimental effects on their well-being. Groups however can sometimes change the course of development. We show that 40 years after the first wave of immigration (Operation Moshe), the Ethiopian community in Israel has chosen a track of change, in which it slowly moves from exclusion to leadership. This idea calls for further study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The lack of early education services for the children of asylum-seekers is a significant problem worldwide. • The study focused on community daycares in Israel, known as the 'Babysitters'. • It examined an intercultural early education consultation program for undocumented caregivers working in Babysitters. • The program was designed to enhance caregivers' knowledge, sense of belonging and caring skills. • Alliances between counselors and caregivers were important and enhanced caregivers' sense of meaning and belonging. The lack of early childhood education services for the children of asylum-seekers is a significant problem in many countries. The urgent need for childcare and the lack of national solutions often lead to temporary and unregulated childcare services. This paper examines the case of community daycares, known as the 'Babysitters,' for undocumented children of African asylum-seeking families in Israel. These centers are generally staffed by undocumented community members. The study examined the C-SMART program, an intercultural consultation program provided by counselors to enhance community caregivers' developmental knowledge and caring skills for infants and young children. The qualitative study, guided by a grounded theory methodology, examined the caregivers' experiences and perceptions of learning within the C-SMART program. Fifteen undocumented African migrant and asylum-seeking caregivers shared their experiences in semi-structured interviews. Caregivers indicated that the consultation process included cultural tensions alongside moments of connection when shared cultural meanings were created. When the counselors demonstrated a humble, curious, and enabling attitude, the caregivers had significant learning moments and felt a sense of meaning and belonging that enhanced their caring skills. These results have substantial implications for the development of intercultural services for the caregivers of children from refugee or asylum-seeking families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Minority groups have been disproportionately vulnerable to COVID-19's effects. Whereas, social workers have been instrumental in countering those effects, their roles have been understudied, particularly during the 'new normal' that followed the outbreak. This gap is addressed by drawing on interviews with 28 social workers in the Jewish ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) society in Israel, held after the outbreak and during the 'new normal'. Three main roles are identified: first responders, during the outbreak; a voice for community needs, in the 'new normal'; and policy translators – throughout. The findings contribute a temporal aspect to the literature by highlighting social workers' dynamic roles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ultra-Orthodox society in Israel is characterized by a higher birth rate than Israeli Jewish society. This study investigated the association of reproductive experiences among different sects of 254 ultra-Orthodox women with symptoms of postpartum depression (PPD) and general depression, controlling for demographic features. PPD symptoms were found among 22% of the participants, with Sephardic women with higher rates of symptoms (34%) than women from the Lithuanian sect (16%) and Hasidic women (14%), and those who were formerly secular also had higher rates of PPD (33%) compared to 19% among those born ultra-Orthodox. Implications for health care practitioners are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study adopts the historical approach with a view to tracking the history, causes and important characteristics of the concept of good governance and its interrelationship with sustainable development in the Palestinian context. The study reveals that Palestinian society is considered an exception and in a great need for good governance as a result of Israel's occupation, administrative and financial corruption inherited among staff, and the Palestinians' dependence on foreign aid. It also reveals significant Palestinian efforts in the area of good governance, manifested in the signing of the convention against corruption, the establishment of the anti‐corruption commission and the office of financial and administrative oversight. The results also showed that the adoption of good governance at the Palestinian level will contribute to improving the quality of life and improved relations with donor countries, improved investment environment and access to international aid and empowering marginalized groups to access their rights, and preparing Palestinians for a more realistic development role in the future community and institutional awareness and willingness to change, based on the information available at the appropriate time and place and complementary participatory relationships between different sectors, institutions and society, and everyone's participation in decision‐making law‐making, policymaking, resource protection, strategic decision‐making and social peace. Accordingly, the study recommends that good governance should be applied as a Palestinian priority and that researchers should provide good governance indicators appropriate to Palestinian realities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Between 1948 and 1956, 36,302 Jews migrated from Turkey to Israel, forming the largest Turkish diaspora hub at that time. Drawing on the nine newspapers published by Turkish Jews in Israel in their vernacular, Ladino (Judeo‐Spanish), this article sheds light on the complex nature of the migrants' transnational affinity to the Turkish Republic and on how it coexisted with their Jewish nationalism. In addition to situating this development within the broader context of post‐WWII Turkish transnationalism, we also delineate their unique historic status as ethnic Jewish communities or millet. Examining the post‐Ottoman era, we show how they leveraged their political, commercial and leisure‐related ties with Turkey—deemed more developed in those terms than Israel—to empower themselves as an ethnic community and to facilitate their integration into the Jewish state. In so doing, this study bridges some of the gaps in the analyses of Muslim and non‐Muslim migrations, and it suggests that we rethink the languages used to explore Turkish transnationalism as well as its geographical borders and underlying characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The methods that communities exploit to cope with national hegemonies that dispossess and exclude them have attracted the interest of migration scholars who emphasize the development of transnational strategies as community-building vehicles. Some scholars focus on migrant communities, whereas other studies analyze the "stayers"—those who remain in the countries of origin—in their analyses of the impacts of transnational trends on these groups. Yet how such transnational dynamics influence the "stayers" among ethnonational communities whose members rapidly "repatriate" en masse to their perceived nation-state, such as the migration of Middle Eastern Jews to Israel in the era of regional decolonization and nationalization, remain understudied. This article focuses on the community of "stayers" among Turkish Jews, whose leaders sought methods to cope with the effects of rising nationalism on their community structure and the intensity of an emigration crisis that engulfed them due to the vacuum they faced after losing 40 percent of their members in 1948–1949 to Israel. We analyze Şalom, the most important newspaper that Turkish Jewry continued to publish well after 1948. To escape marginalization and to re-establish their base in Turkey, one of Şalom's main strategies, we find, is conveying to its readership in Turkey the advantage of connecting and twinning the two national centers that had become the focal points of most of the community by 1950—the Turkish Republic and the State of Israel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Higher education increases equality, social mobility, and employment opportunities. However, the transition into this demanding environment is not always easy, especially for students from minority populations. In Israel, higher education is especially difficult for students from the Arab community, and even more so for those with learning difficulties. While most academic institutions in Israel offer learning assistance through dedicated support centers, students from Arab society often avoid seeking such help, due to stigmas and additional social barriers. This study examines the integration into academia of Arab students following the help of a support center within three academic colleges that aim to make higher education more accessible to the Arab community. The aim of the research is to examine and to evaluate the intervention model that is used in Israel as a lever for the integration of students from Arab society into the Israeli academia on the basis of several aspects such as focusing on the transition into academia, sociocultural adaptation, and learning support. A mixed method two-step study was conducted that involved the collection and analysis of both quantitative and qualitative data. A triangulation and integration between quantitative and qualitative data was done in the analysis of the data. The findings show that Arab students who received assistance from the college support center integrated easily into academia. This study presents the importance of providing emotional and pedagogical support for students from the Arab sector in Israel, to increase their academic integration and success for their own benefit and for the benefit of society as a whole. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Local communities have been identified as crucial actors in the diffusion of renewable energy, considered one of the most important eco-innovations of our time. Anecdotal evidence has indicated that local communities tend to play different roles in promoting eco-innovation, particularly renewable energy. However, what this heterogeneity looks like has not yet been quantitatively examined. Our study addresses this gap by systematically exploring the involvement of communities in the promotion of eco-innovation at the local level. We focus on their participation in renewable energy partnerships with the private sector in rural areas in Israel's southern periphery. Our study indicates that local communities play diverse roles in promoting renewable energy through varying involvement in finance, ownership, knowledge contribution, employment, energy consumption, and, most common according to our findings, the leasing of natural resources. The study further tracks the factors that shape this diverse involvement, including the community's land size, population size, socio-economic ranking, and experience. Finally, the study unpacks the levels of risks and gains that local communities face when promoting renewable energy through their partnerships with the private sector. By confronting theory with quantitative research, this study sheds light on the diverse roles local communities play in the diffusion of eco-innovation, a prerequisite for renewable energy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are many studies that deal with the role of media and the motives for their creation. The present article explores the background behind the development of Ultra-Orthodox journalism. It examines the establishment of Ultra-Orthodox daily newspapers in Israel at the end of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first by analyzing semistructured texts and ideas. The historical background and the way this journalism developed in general and specifically during those years reflect a strong social and censorial orientation. This study concludes that these newspapers can be seen as social definers that help preserve a community through censorship aimed at the general and other Ultra-Orthodox media. It helps communities and individuals self-define and can delineate an additional role for mass media as a social definer. The contention herein is that the establishment of Ultra-Orthodox newspapers in Israel serves as a mode for social definition; a definition that is arrived at by being part of the circle of the newspaper's readers, and the newspaper, in turn, defines itself by its censor board. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We wished to understand the contribution of personal, family, and community factors to the risky behaviors (RBs) of religious Jewish teens in Israel, and whether sense of community belonging mediated the religious estrangement/RB association. A convenience sample comprised 645 adolescents aged 14–19 (420 female/225 male) from Israel's national‐religious sector was used in this study. Sociodemographic characteristics, self‐esteem, future orientation, degree of religious estrangement, perceived parental acceptance, and sense of community belonging were reported. Being a male, older, and living in a rural community were associated with more RBs, as were higher religious estrangement and less acceptance from the mother. Sense of community was found to partially mediate the religious estrangement/RB association. We extended Blos's conceptualization of adolescence as a second separation‐individuation from the parents to include a parallel process of separation‐individuation from the community. The results may help in designing interventions for adolescents in religious communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

(1) Background: This study aimed to examine the effect of assimilating coaching tools among educational staff on the cultivation of (emotional, behavioral, and cognitive) self-regulation skills among Palestinian Arab middle school students in Israel. Little attention has been paid to the relationship between coaching-based teaching and students' self-regulation among middle school students, let alone students from segregated and disadvantaged communities worldwide. (2) Methods: A quasi-experimental study was designed to test the hypothesis that there are differences in self-regulation between students who participate in coaching-based teaching and those who do not. Six hundred Palestinian Arab middle school students participated in this study and were randomly assigned to two groups: an experimental group (n = 300) and a control group (n = 300). All participants completed a pre- and post-test instrument that included the Adolescent Self-Regulatory Inventory (ASRI), and repeated-measures ANOVAs were used to analyze the data. Repeated-measures analysis of variance was employed to examine the effect of coaching on the students' level of self-regulation. To examine the sources of the differences, Tukey's post hoc tests were used. (3) Results: A statistically significant correlation between coaching-based education and students' ability to take responsibility and ownership for their own learning was revealed. The results showed that the mean of the self-regulation variable before the intervention in the experimental group was significantly lower than that after the intervention (t = −13.70, p < 0.001) and that the mean of the experimental group after the intervention was significantly higher than that of the control group after the intervention (t = 29.62, p < 0.001). Furthermore, there were significant effects on self-regulation at the time of measurement (before and after the intervention) (F (1, 299) = 49.87, p < 0.001) and for the participant group (F (1, 299) = 497.13, p < 0.001). In addition, no significant difference was found in the self-regulation mean score for the control group before and after the intervention (t = 0.55, p > 0.05). These results demonstrate that coaching had a positive effect on the participants' level of self-regulation. Recommendations: We recommend that coaching-based pedagogy be incorporated into the education system, in general, and in education systems that serve the needs of marginalized and disadvantaged communities, in particular. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This qualitative analysis examines the emergence of a revolutionary and novel feminist movement within Israel's ultra-conservative Haredi community. Based on interviews with leading Haredi feminist activists, four affective narratives of political becoming are identified: First, struggles for survival driven by economic need, socio-cultural pressures, and an existential threat to women's wellbeing. The second depicts disruption and becoming—broken cultural scripts and a need to reassign accountability and reimagine futures. Third, an awakening of voice despite cultural and political mechanisms of silencing and erasure at communal and national levels. Fourth, an emergence of political subjectivity and critical consciousness, coalescing various standpoints into collective identity and shared action. Read together, these narratives clarify the movement's birth and potential. Shaped by individual experiences of discrepancy and dissonance produced by the intersection of multiple broad forces—economic, political, cultural, and social, Haredi feminism endorses the reimagination of individual lives, communal structures, and Israeli society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Har HaMenuhot, the cemetery in western Jerusalem, was founded in 1949, but its first two decades were rife with disagreement and neglect. In the decades that preceded the founding of the state, burial societies that were affiliated with different communities had acted with no supervision on the Mount of Olives. Hostilities in the 1940s and the War of Independence meant a search for new burial sites in safer locations. With the birth of the state, a permanent site was found in Givat Shaul, and the government hoped to impose order and oversight over burial through its local executive arm, the community council. However, conflicts between religious agents and the nascent state's executive bodies led to a vacuum in the management of Har HaMenuhot. Ultimately, and against the wishes of the state, the cemetery saw a return to pre-state conditions, with a variety of burial societies active on the mount. The young country's struggle to define the place of its religious institutions in its governing framework ultimately strengthened today's burial societies, whose abundant activities are a result of an earlier reluctance to come to a resolution on the national level within the framework of the status quo. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Hilltop youth" is the name for young religious Jewish people in Israel who, separated from their families, are living in illegal outposts on hilltops throughout Judea and Samaria. The group's unique religious, sociological, and ideological characteristics differentiate them from other religious communities previously studied in relation to digital culture. In this study, we offer a new angle that provides insight into the hilltop youth's religious–ideological perception while focusing on their attitude toward new media, smartphones, and social networks, in particular, an attitude that is part of their self-definition as a separatist community. The findings present and discuss the different layers represented within the hilltop youth's media resistance and how this media-negating ideological position shapes the group's perception as a religious community that is a counterculture to religious and social sectors in Israel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interpretations of Philippians have commonly suggested that the letter seeks to demonstrate the worthlessness of Paul's own (former) Jewish identity, and thus that the Philippians should not be led astray by those who would persuade them to adopt the Jewish Law. Accordingly, it is assumed that Paul understands Judaism to have been superseded by Christianity and, moreover, that Christian identity has superseded all other identities that persons may have possessed upon entrance into the Christ community. In contrast to this long-standing interpretive tradition, this article contends that, for Paul, the ethnic distinction between Jew and gentile within the greater Christ community remains intact, along with a continued role for the Torah for both subgroups. Rather than advancing a supersessionist agenda, Paul fundamentally seeks in this letter to strengthen the Philippians' identity as members of the nations who have, alongside those in Israel, become members of God's holy, multiethnic people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Symptoms related to avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder (ARFID) are not well defined in the general population. The aim of this study was to determine whether differences exist in the presentation of ARFID-related eating disturbances between healthy, religious and secular Jewish children in Israel. Sixty-four families participated in this study. Parents completed standardized questionnaires to assess ARFID behaviors of children, parental feeding problems and overall functioning, anxiety and sensory-aversion. No significant between-group differences were found for almost all assessments. However, sensory-related pleasure and sensory-seeking behavior was greater in secular children. Overall, religious and non-religious Israeli children do not differ in parental-reported ARFID-related feeding and eating behaviors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the roles of municipalities in Israel's national, state-led urban regeneration program, contributing to the scholarship on the varied agendas of municipal entrepreneurialism. The Israeli urban regeneration program promotes the densification of private residential properties by incentivizing property deals between homeowners and developers. It has been criticized for attracting predatory practices and spurring conflicts between state, market, and community stakeholders. New intermediary bodies—Municipal Regeneration Agencies—were established as an effective policy response to both criticisms. We rely on 36 interviews and extensive document analysis to examine the roles and agendas of Municipal Regeneration Agencies, vis-à-vis the equity concerns associated with state-led urban regeneration. Municipal Regeneration Agencies support homeowners, increase regulation over private deal-making, and in two cases, direct entrepreneurial development of urban regeneration projects. We argue that these roles represent a model of equitable entrepreneurialism that attempts to reconcile the neoliberal logic of urban regeneration with a municipal commitment to social equity. This model allows municipalities to reassert their position in Israel's centralized housing and planning policy but faces limitations due to municipalities' varying capacities and continued reliance on market relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article offers an in-depth ethnographic and historical description of how an ethnic-religious revival movement has had an impact on religious life. The article will focus on the story of one of Israeli's foremost religious revival movements—the Mizrahi-Haredi teshuva movement. We will look at the encounter between the Mizrahi-Haredi teshuva movement activists and Mizrahi synagogue congregations, and at the outcomes of that encounter on religious infrastructures, and on the activists' religious agenda. The following questions will be addressed: How did the relationship between the activists and the synagogue congregations develop? What tensions arose and how did they turn a strict religious outlook into a soft religious approach? The article is based on many years of fieldwork in congregations exposed to the impact of the Mizrahi-Haredi teshuva movement in Israel. The fieldwork provided both a rich ethnographic inventory and an opportunity to describe a historical trend that illuminates the communal, authoritative, and gender models that originated with the encounter between the Mizrahi-Haredi teshuva movement activists and the local synagogue congregations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the complexity of religious practices and beliefs among a group of Zera Beta Israel (Falash Mura) members before, during, and a decade after their immigration process to Israel. This community, with roots in Judaism, converted to Christianity in the 19th century, complicating their request to immigrate to Israel along with Beta Israel members (Ethiopian Jews who had not converted to Christianity). Following an average 15-year wait in Ethiopian transit camps, they spent about two years in Israeli absorption centres and underwent conversion to rabbinic Judaism. This study aims to elucidate notions of religious, cultural, and oppositional transnationalism through life experiences described by Zera Beta Israel community members. Drawing on transnational theory and an interpretative qualitative approach, it develops and analyses 25 in-depth, semi-structured interviews and conversations conducted with members of the Zera Beta Israel community in Ethiopia and Israel. The findings challenge conventional binary perceptions and conceptual categories, such as Jewish–Christian or religious–secular and demonstrate the fluidity and complexity—the hybridity—that exists in the contexts of religion and immigration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite growing interest in community-level science literacy, most studies focus on communities of interest who come together through particular science, environmental or health-related goals. We examine a pre-existing community—ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel—with a particular history and politics vis-à-vis science, technology, and medicine. First, we show how Haredi cosmologies and culture come together to critique science as an epistemology while engaging with science as a technology. Then, we demonstrate how community-based medical experts serve as both science-related knowledge mediators and gatekeepers. Whereas Haredi Jews are constantly critiqued for their low levels of individual secular and science education, these community-based webs of knowledge seemingly position Haredi individuals with knowledge that surpasses the average "secular" Israeli. This case study develops unique analytical tools in the growing field of community-level science literacy, while pushing forward conversations about self-ascribed experts, knowledge gatekeeping, and the socio-political contexts of group critiques of science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mobile academics have traditionally been conceived as cosmopolitan subjects who favor cultural diversity and search for new professional opportunities abroad. Their return to the homeland could therefore be interpreted as a sign of parochialism, which narrows down their professional opportunities and limits their exposure to global resources. In this article, we compare returning and non-returning academics with respect to their parochial and/or cosmopolitan tendencies. Drawing on a sample of 223 Israeli Early-Career Researchers (ECRs), we examine their cosmopolitan—or otherwise parochial—propensities and assess the effect they have on their return decisions. We use statistical tests to analyze the effects of cultural orientation, attachment to the homeland-based national community, and patriotic feelings on their propensity to return. Our findings suggest that in comparison with their co-nationals who opted to remain abroad, returning ECRs exhibit higher levels of parochialism, reflected through inter alia stronger communal dispositions and patriotic attachment as well as geographically limited job search. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Biofouling on surfaces in contact with sea- or brackish water can severely impact the function of devices like reverse osmosis modules. Single species laboratory assays are frequently used to test new low fouling materials. The choice of bacterial strain is guided by the natural population present in the application of interest and decides on the predictive power of the results. In this work, the analysis of the bacterial community present in brackish water from Mashabei Sadeh, Israel was performed and Rheinheimera sp. was detected as a prominent microorganism. A Rheinheimera strain was selected to establish a short-term accumulation assay to probe initial bacterial attachment as well as biofilm growth to determine the biofilm-inhibiting properties of coatings. Both assays were applied to model coatings, and technically relevant polymers including laser-induced graphene. This strategy might be applied to other water sources to better predict the fouling propensity of new coatings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Community organizing is an effective approach to face social, economic, and racial injustice at the local level. However, since the 1970s, neoliberal policies, growing social divisions, and political disengagement have challenged community organizing. This study explores the use of critical adult education to address local organizing challenges with diverse and socially excluded communities in Israel. Building on a case of a local partnership to promote inclusive urban development, we analyzed data from interviews, focus groups, and participant observations conducted with activists and paid professionals. The findings suggest that critical education was instrumental in organizing across diversities through three processes: transposing knowledge, disrupting power hierarchies, and negotiating diversity. Critical education was perceived as empowering for activists at the individual‐family level and promote change at the local level. However, at the national policy level, limited changes were achieved. The advantages and limitations of critical education for local organizing are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Refugee community organizations (RCOs) typically engage with hostland governments, non-profit organizations, and international agencies. To do this, RCOs adopt norms and standards valued by hostland actors. Research assumes that this engagement should be one of the central functions of RCOs; it focuses on the ways in which these agencies influence RCOs including how to make this relationship more productive. Yet, these agencies do not have a meaningful influence in the case study examined here—Sudanese Darfurian RCOs in Israel. Tracing community organizing for over a decade, this article demonstrates that norms from the homeland have become increasingly influential. Simultaneously, there has been a tremendous amount of organizational stability. This article argues that adoption of management structures which are familiar and trusted from the homeland can enhance organizational credibility. This, in turn, facilitates relatively high levels of organizational longevity and satisfaction amongst constituents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated whether the content of different community-based intergenerational programs (IGPs) affects their perceived impact on older and younger participants. Data were collected through direct structured questionnaires administered to 84 older, and 96 younger participants, and were assessed using both quantitative and qualitative analyses. Different IGP types involved participants with differing background characteristics and were associated with different benefits and challenges. In art programs, older participants reported being more active and younger participants indicated more awareness of others, but also greater stress. Learning programs contributed to older persons' happiness, and younger persons' acquisition of new skills, but were also associated with divergent expectations between young and old, and a perception that young participants lacked commitment. Assistance programs attracted older participants with greater needs, and were associated with such benefits as alleviating older persons' loneliness, improving younger participants' satisfaction from helping, but also involved challenges pertaining to the relationship termination. Generally, older participants reported more benefits than younger persons. The results highlight the need to differentiate between IGP types, a distinction not addressed in previous studies. The combination of activity content and participant characteristics and needs may lead to different perceived program impacts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the past 30 years, social mix has been on the policy agenda of many countries as a tool for deconcentrating urban disadvantage and enhancing social inclusion. However, these projects often take diverse forms in different institutional and policy contexts. In this article, we compare two separate studies of current urban regeneration programs in Australia and Israel. The comparative analysis reveals major similarities and differences regarding the physical and social outcomes of social mix. Our findings suggest that although both projects did not declare to create socially mixed communities, the resulting resident makeup was mixed. Despite differences in the projects' physical designs, both resulted in two communities living side-by-side but not interacting meaningfully, and therefore not gaining from the possible benefits of social mix. We argue that international comparative studies of social mix policies in different contexts allow for a better understanding of the practicalities of social mix processes for policymakers and planners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Israbic is a language variety that is spoken by a majority of the Druze community in Israel and is characterised by a mixture of Israeli Hebrew and Palestinian Arabic. Longitudinal data of Palestinian Arabic/Israeli Hebrew code-switching from the Israeli Druze community collected in 2000, 2017 and 2018 indicate that Israbic went through a gradual process of language mixing. The process started with code-switching, was followed by a composite matrix language formation and ultimately resulted in a mixed language. Some linguists (see Backus, 2003 ; Bakker, 2003) claim that mixed languages cannot arise out of code-switching. Conversely, others (see Auer, 1999 ; Myers-Scotton, 2003) have proposed theoretical models to mixed languages as outcomes of code-switching, and some (see McConvell, 2008 ; McConvel and Meakins, 2005 ; Meakins, 2012 ; O'Shannessy, 2012) have provided empirical evidence under which mixed languages arise out of code-switching. This research sought to gather further empirical evidence showing that Israbic is another mixed language that arose out of code-switching. This study also wished to emphasise the uniqueness of Israbic, which is a mixture of closely related languages. Such mixtures are scarce in the literature (Auer, 2014). An examination of Israbic in relation to Auer's and Myers-Scotton's models and general definitions in the literature and comparisons of Israbic with other widely accepted mixed languages reveals that Israbic is an excellent example of a mixed language. However, such models and definitions are based on existing languages that have been subject to discussion in the literature. Of these languages, the majority arose from contact between languages from different language families, whereas this study is concerned with investigating a mixed language from the same language family. Thus, this raises the question as to whether such concepts have the same validity for closely related languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the most salient divisions between medieval Rabbanites and Qaraites was in the field of calendar. Qaraites and Rabbanites disagreed on how to determine which years to intercalate (i.e., to extend with the insertion of a thirteenth month) in order to keep up with the seasons. While the Rabbanites used a fixed nineteen-year cycle of intercalation, the Qaraites maintained that intercalation must be based on the state of ripeness of barley crops in Palestine. This created problems for Qaraite communities outside of the Land of Israel, many of whom found it impossible to receive information about the state of crops in Palestine in time to celebrate Passover. This article investigates how medieval Qaraite Diaspora communities made a decision to intercalate. Based on a wide range of sources many of which were not previously discussed, it studies the Diaspora communities’ approaches to empirical intercalation and provides an in-depth analysis of the Qaraites’ attitude toward and use of mathematical methods, such as the method of the vernal equinox and the Rabbanite nineteenyear cycle of intercalations. The article also reflects on the attitude of Palestinian Qaraite ideologists toward the calendar situation in the Diaspora and argues that the division between Qaraites as adherents of an empirical intercalation vs. Rabbanites as followers of a fixed calculated scheme was never clear-cut when considered in the context of the entire Qaraite Jewish community, and of lived practice rather than ideology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many cities around the world have been radically transformed by deindustrialisation, neoliberalism, and globalisation. While these processes have marked progress in various aspects of urban life, they have also generated inequality and social exclusion especially in already marginalised communities. The purpose of this article is threefold: to address community exclusion in a post-industrial city, to identify mechanisms and practices that propel it; and to move towards a preliminary conceptualisation of post-industrial urban marginalisation for social work. We build on data from a qualitative study in a post-industrial city in Israel that applied interviews (N = 30) and focus groups (N = 63), documents, walking tours and observations. The findings confirm the progressive deterioration of the communities under study and identify multiple institutional practices in three main mechanisms: service erosion, spatial deterioration, and political disempowerment. These mechanisms manifested urban policies reflected at the local level, while sustaining a dynamic that spiralled community marginalisation. Study implications suggest that social work practice and research in post-industrial cities should (a) be informed by the urban context affecting communities (b) critically re-examine services and programmes to identify their possible effect on urban mechanisms of exclusion (c) adopt a multidisciplinary approach to confront the varied aspects of urban community marginalisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article addressed the key psychological issues that arise in encounters between the world of analytical psychotherapy and the inner world of patients belonging to the ultraorthodox (Haredi) community in Israel. The ultraorthodox community is characterized by isolationism and withdrawal, whether as a means of protecting itself from the influence of unacceptable lifestyles or as an ideal that eschews mingling with secular or semi-secular communities. Thus, the community maintains itself apart from the mainstream Israeli public in terms of its religious beliefs and independent culture. Ultraorthodox leadership has been instrumental in building fences around the community in order to preserve its unique identity and clear-cut rules of conduct. The article reviews the internal conflicts that exist between the ultraorthodox belief system and the values of dynamic psychotherapy, the presence of the "analytic third"—God—in the therapeutic space occupied by the therapist and patient, and the fear of "knowledge" that exposes members of the community to existential questions over unquestioning acceptance of the community's social authority. Two case studies are presented that shed light on the incongruity that exists between sanctification by the ultraorthodox community of the halachic (Jewish law) authority of its rabbis and the psychoanalytical viewpoint that upholds self and subjectivity as prime goals in therapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]