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Purpose The purpose of this study is to learn how minority peace educators grapple with dilemmas related to their involvement in peace programs. Design/methodology/approach A total of 15 male teachers, members of the minority Bedouin community in Israel, all peace educators, provided their reactions to three dilemmas, addressing various facets of the strained relations of their community with the Jewish-Israeli majority, as influenced by the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Findings The responses to these dilemmas suggest that when it comes to questions of the identity of these teachers as members of a marginalized community, their responses considerably diverge. This is not the case when it comes to their identity as peace educators. Originality/value This suggests that if the aim is to bring peace educators, members of minority groups in conflict zones, to harness their potential to bring about positive change, their peace activist identities must be strengthened.

It has been suggested that mindfulness training can provide teachers with coping mechanisms and influence their perceptions of self and others. However, how does mindfulness help teachers cope in a stressful security situation both as Israeli citizens who live in a war zone and as teachers who are responsible for their students&rsquo, lives? Fifteen female teachers, who lived and worked in the western Negev and who had completed two-years of mindfulness training, were interviewed. Interviewees reported that their coping skills had been heightened as result of being able to put aside intrusive thoughts and feelings that used to paralyze them and to focus on active coping, centered on what they needed to do promptly. Most also noted a more accepting attitude of themselves, without self-criticism or blame for what they should have or should not have done when facing the stressful situation. In relation to their students, they were more accepting of the behaviors and emotions expressed by their students and reported being more compassionate. The results will be discussed through the prism proposed by Lazarus and Folkman (1991). Educational implications of the outcomes of mindfulness training for those living in areas under the shadow of war will be suggested.

Media contents and their suitability for consumption by the young are a source of ongoing concern. The current investigation has assessed how movies later nominated for or awarded the best ...

Love and romance in later life as a field of investigation has gained a notable place among academic circles in recent years, with attention mainly directed to the portrayal of older charac...

Human rights is a topic of high importance in Western societies, and discrimination has been noted as a determining force in their violations. Films depicting human rights issues have been discussed as instrumental in bringing these matters to the attention of the general public and students. Their exposure is dependent largely on their age-classifications by movie advisory boards which determine who can watch them. Two studies were conducted to assess how films depicting human rights issues and held exemplary by the Political Film Society (PFS) are evaluated by movie advisory boards, providing justifications for their age-classifications. Study 1 found that the boards in the US and the UK identify these movies as suitable mainly for adults, while in Australia, in most cases, moviegoers are to decide their appropriateness. Each board stresses different contents as their main concerns, yet none mention discrimination. Study 2, assessing Netherland's NICAM evaluations, revealed that these movies are considered suitable mainly for adults, primarily because they are heavy with violence and fear arousing contents, with only some noted to include discriminatory contents. Thus, in these liberal-democratic societies, human rights movies considered of high value, in most cases are removed from the educational arena.

Benigni's Life is Beautiful gained a controversial reputation, yet managed to locate itself as one of the main pillars of Holocaust cinema of the recent decades. Prior studies had addressed the movie's reception among academics, professional movie critics, and to lesser extent, university students. Here, the perspectives of North American non-professional online movie reviewers were assessed, as this group gains an increasing role in shaping the ways consumers of goods, including cultural goods, relate to various products. These reviewers were found to be very favorite of the movie, and especially emphasized its' emotional appeal and capability to bring viewers to experience deep reflective processes, and point these characteristics to be the most crucial elements of the movie which should bring potential consumers to watch it. Future studies are needed to find how non-professional online movie reviewers of other nationalities react to the movie, as well to other Italian films reaching the global audience.

Many multicultural education classes include popular movies in their study material. Here were examined the age-classifications and their justifications for movies recommended by the American organization Teachers Against Prejudice (TAP) to be shown during high school multicultural classes, as assigned by the American, British, Australian movie advisory boards. Findings indicate that some of the movies chosen by TAP are deemed suitable only for adult moviegoers, most notably by the American and the British boards, and that these movies are loaded with profanity and violence.

Films depicting individuals dealing with mental health have not been discussed from the viewpoint of movie advisory boards, the entities informing moviegoers of potential inappropriate contents included in films. Movies considered best by the Center for Mental Health Services were investigated for age-classifications and their justifications. All of the boards investigated, chosen as they provide some sort of justification for the age-decisions, cited profanity as their main concern. In the US, the UK, Ireland, Hong Kong and Singapore, these movies are mainly considered suitable for adult moviegoers, while the Australian and Dutch boards are far more lenient.

Four female Holocaust survivors were interviewed in order to investigate how they coped prior to the Holocaust, during the Holocaust years, following the end of World War II, and during integration within emerging Jewish society prior to the establishment of the State of Israel. Antonovsky’s (1987) concept of sense of coherence (SOC) and thematic analysis were employed. The analysis suggests that their ability to navigate these life-changing circumstances as young women was the result of the elasticity of the SOC components and the meanings ascribed to them, depending on the situations encountered.

Teachers play a pivotal role in the educational discourse around collective narratives, and especially the other's narrative. The study assumed that members of groups entangled in a conflict approach the different modules of the other's narrative distinctively. Jewish and Palestinian teachers, Israeli citizens, answered questionnaires dealing with the narrative of the other, readiness for interethnic contact, negative between-group emotions and preferences for resolutions of the Israeli-Palestinian (I-P) conflict. Positive weighing of the other's narrative among Jewish teachers correlated with high levels of readiness for interethnic contact and low levels of negative between-group emotions, across the various modules of the Palestinian narrative. Preferences for a peaceful resolution of the I-P conflict and rejection of a violent one were noted in two of the modules. Among Palestinian teachers, positive weighing of the other's collective narrative was exclusively noted for the Israeli narrative of the Holocaust, and this stance negatively related to negative between-group emotions and preference for a violent solution of the I-P conflict, and positively related to readiness for interethnic contact and preference of a peaceful resolution of the conflict. Practical implications of these findings for peace education are discussed.

This paper addresses the interaction of three equivalent issues: education, cultural trauma and the Internet. Theory suggests that the educational system plays an important role in the transmission and maintenance of the memory of a group's defining cultural trauma. However little is empirically known of the ways education influences the attitudes of younger members of a collective who struggle with the memory of the trauma. This study investigated the willingness of Jewish-Israeli high school students who relate to this trauma only through the educational system to engage in online commemoration of the trauma. Findings indicate a complex picture of how high school educational socialization is related to online commemoration of the group's cultural trauma, and suggest several future lines of research.

Scholarly attention has been directed to the spread and scope of online Q&A services, including the level of activity, types and messages and the social roles the members of these sites occupy. A content analysis was conducted of the answers supplied in response to questions aimed at identifying the reasons for Holocaust denial in Yahoo! Answers. The replies denoted the existence of two main opposing online socio-cultural roles adopted by these participants: online gatekeepers of history and online gatekeepers of pseudo-history. The activity levels of those filling these roles and the community’s approval of their answers were also assessed. Future avenues of research regarding these two roles are suggested.

This article presents processes of coping and posttraumatic growth (PTG) as elicited both from an open-ended questionnaire administrated to 52 Jewish Israeli mothers as well as in-depth interviews conducted with 16 of them, following exposure to either long-term or a short period of threat in the form of rocket attacks on their homes. This comparison revealed that all mothers described the same coping mechanisms and perceived themselves as coping well with the threat of terror. However, with regard to PTG, only those who were exposed to rocket attacks for a long duration disclosed a manifest potential for PTG both in relation to self and in relation to others. Concurrently, because of the parental decision to live in an area exposed to missile attacks, the mothers expressed guilt feelings toward their children, fearing for their mental well-being. The differences between the two groups of mothers and possible applications for mental health professionals working with such populations are discussed.

The case of the Holocaust as a cultural trauma in the Jewish–Israeli context can serve as an example of how younger members of collectives use the Internet as a platform on which to commemorate a trauma. This study explored their willingness to establish an Internet site for the purpose of commemorating the Holocaust as well as the materials and messages to be included. The results suggest that the younger members of a collective who live in a cultural atmosphere colored by the memory of a cultural trauma view online commemoration as an appropriate base from which to keep its memory alive, that audio-visual materials more so than textual ones are the preferred modes of representation, and that online commemoration is intended to provide a kaleidoscopic view of the trauma by focusing on the personal stories of both those who survived and those who perished.

The paper presents findings obtained from interviews conducted with sixty Israeli grandchildren of Holocaust survivors, discussing their views regarding Israel and Europe as expressed by their intentions to live in Israel and acquire European citizenship. Analysis of the interviews revealed that the majority view Israel as the place in which they choose to live because of family and cultural bonds, as well as from the long-lasting impact of the Holocaust. Others felt less anchored and viewed the opportunity to immigrate to their forefathers’ European homelands more positively. Their reasons were based either on the unstable Israeli security situation, compounded by the anxieties elicited by the memory of the Holocaust, or as a result of perceiving Europe as a gateway to the globalized world and its financial gains. The emerging image of Europe for this third generation vacillates between two poles, each anchored in a different time and cultural frame. The first is the “Europe of the Holocaust”; image which emerged as a result of the events that took place on European soil during the period 1933–1945 together with current anti Semitism. The second is “Europe of the Globalized world”, that is, the Europe of the era beginning in the late 1980s, with its ever-expanding social, cultural and economic boundaries. Moreover, the willingness of the third generation to openly discuss the option of either staying or leaving Israel, represents a significant change in attitude from the first and second generation of Israeli Holocaust survivors. The change is seen, as part of a process of maturation of the Israeli identity which allows for multi voices to be heard on issues of belonging and citizenship.

While Holocaust related activities and educational programs around the world are growing in number, published reports on their impact are scarce, especially on the university level. The free responses of 94 Jewish‐Israeli university students who took the course “Psychology of the Holocaust” yielded eight themes. The results reflect a change of emphasis and movement from a mainly particularistic interpretation of the Holocaust to a more universalistic understanding of the Holocaust. This movement is explained by the occurrence of two reflective processes: situational and universal reflexivity of genocide and reflexivity regarding the personal and collective impact of genocide.

This study assessed how Jewish Israeli young adults perceive the impacts of the Holocaust on themselves, their family and Israel society. The written responses of 180 respondents, 90 of which were grandchildren of Holocaust survivors (GHSs) and 90 which are not grandchildren of survivors (NGHSs), connected the Holocaust with issues of security, education and culture, and the impact, or lack of it, on family and self. These responses also suggest that NGHS relate to the Holocaust only through sociocultural mechanisms and that GHSs are influenced by the same sociocultural mechanisms, yet are also divided by the perceived impact of intergenerational processes on their personal and family lives. The overall results of the study suggest that regardless of family connection to the Holocaust, in Israel there are sociocultural mechanisms at work that impact the perception of the Holocaust on the third generation of Holocaust survivors as a cultural trauma.

The perceptions of home, the significance attached to the home, and the reasons for the decision to continue living at home despite past and potentially future threats were investigated among Jewish Israeli mothers whose homes were exposed to long-term rocket attacks. Findings showed that the mothers expressed a firm attachment to their homes and to their physical and social surroundings and indicated that home attachment, in terms of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors connected to home, contributed to the strengthening of their sense of coherence due to the comprehension, management, and the meaning that they accorded the situation. These components of sense of coherence served as assets and coping resources that helped the women handle their stressful situations.

Considering the immense efforts invested in Holocaust education in Israel and around the world, there is very little published research which looks at the impact of this education on teenagers' modes of understanding. This qualitative study addressed two questions: When adolescents learn about the Holocaust, what are the themes they see as central to an understanding of it? And, do these issues remain stable during the learning period? Forty‐seven Jewish‐Israeli teenagers (33 girls, 14 boys) were asked to write about their thoughts, feelings and attitudes about the Holocaust, both before and after participation in a Holocaust seminar that included a trip to Poland. The most salient themes that they wrote about at both time periods were: learning about the Holocaust, the evaluative theme, emotions, the link between the Holocaust and Israel and the Holocaust as the most horrific world event. We found little stability of thematic frequency and some stability in thematic meaning. Our results also show that th...

��� This article examines the attitudes of a group of Jewish Israeli adolescents who participated in a Holocaust seminar that included an optional trip to related sites in Poland. The authors sought to determine whether youth who participate in such a seminar still consider Jewish Israeli identity important, which lessons of the Holocaust they value, and whether belonging to a survivor’s family makes a difference when considering these lessons. The results show that, regardless of participation in the trip and affiliation with Holocaust survivors, the youth hold a strong sense of Jewish Israeli national identity and tend to support Jewish and Zionist lessons more than universalistic ones, although a complex interplay exists between identity and those lessons. Adolescents whose family members included survivors connected a more “power-oriented” interpretation of the Holocaust to a strong sense of national identity; participants not related to survivors developed a more complex frame of reference that combined both power-oriented and humanistic lessons of the Holocaust. Researchers working inside and outside Israel have studied empirically the issues of Israeli identity and the “lessons of the Holocaust.” The topics, though separate, are closely linked, scholars have pointed out. To date, however, few efforts have been made to assess how and if belonging to a family of Holocaust survivors affects the lessons learned and the sense of national identity. In this article, we look at this threeway connection by beginning with a review of literature on Holocaust education within Israel and on lessons of the Holocaust. We then turn to the topic of national identity within Jewish Israeli society and a short review of the literature to date on the “third generation”—the grandchildren of the survivors—before presenting our research results.

BACKGROUND Psychosocial variables such as major stressful life events/daily stressful events have been associated with health care utilization. OBJECTIVE Our aim was to examine the effects of a guided disclosure protocol (GDP) of past traumas on symptoms and clinic visits among frequent clinic attenders. METHODS Forty-one frequent clinic attenders (> or =2 visits/3 months) took part. Patients were randomly assigned individually to either a casual content writing control group (n = 19) or a trauma content writing experimental GDP group (n = 22). GDP patients wrote about an upsetting event chronologically (day 1), verbally described their thoughts and feelings and described the event's impact on life (day 2), and finally wrote about their current perspective on and future coping with the event (day 3). Three months later, patients were reassessed blindly for symptoms and clinic visits, and an average of 15 months later they were assessed blindly for clinic visits again. RESULTS Compared with controls, GDP patients reported lower symptom levels at 3 months (2.3 versus 5.2), and made fewer clinic visits during the 3 (1.3 versus 3.0) and 15 month (5.1 versus 9.7) follow-ups. The percentage of GDP patients making > or =10 visits during the 15 month follow-up was smaller (10%) than among controls (33%). CONCLUSIONS The findings extend previous findings to frequent clinic users, using a new form of written disclosure aimed at shifting trauma from implicit to explicit memory. The GDP may be an inexpensive additional intervention in primary care for reducing symptoms and clinic visits among frequent clinic users.

Educators invest serious effort in bringing their students to adopt the notions of the 'good citizen'. Based on the growing impact of informal learning through social media, especially when asking for online help in civic education assignments, previous studies called for investigating the role of online platforms as arenas of informal civic education. This paper takes up this gauntlet, analyzing inputs of American members of the Yahoo! Answers online community in response to students' queries concerning the definition of the 'good citizen'. The results show a passive and conformist concept of the 'good citizen' that corresponds with previous studies' findings about this image in educational programs and among pre-service teachers, contrary to formal statements regarding the goal of civic education. The paper suggests that there is a feedback loop between offline and online platforms concerning the 'good citizen', which calls for the attention of educators and researches.

Teachers play a pivotal role in the educational discourse around collective narratives, and especially the other's narrative. The study assumed that members of groups entangled in a conflict approach the different modules of the other's narrative distinctively. Jewish and Palestinian teachers, Israeli citizens, answered questionnaires dealing with the narrative of the other, readiness for interethnic contact, negative between-group emotions and preferences for resolutions of the Israeli-Palestinian (I-P) conflict. Positive weighing of the other's narrative among Jewish teachers correlated with high levels of readiness for interethnic contact and low levels of negative between-group emotions, across the various modules of the Palestinian narrative. Preferences for a peaceful resolution of the I-P conflict and rejection of a violent one were noted in two of the modules. Among Palestinian teachers, positive weighing of the other's collective narrative was exclusively noted for the Israeli narrative of the Holocaust, and this stance negatively related to negative between-group emotions and preference for a violent solution of the I-P conflict, and positively related to readiness for interethnic contact and preference of a peaceful resolution of the conflict. Practical implications of these findings for peace education are discussed.

Two assumptions which characterize the measurements of quality life (QOL) studies, are questioned by the present report: First, the assumption that QOL is the same thing for all subjects, is usually related to health problems and can easily be measured across subjects. Second, when this assumption is given up by introducing subjective base-rates in an intra-subject (before-after) design, researchers still tend to assume that no response shifts occur on the QOL scales, e.g., that these scales maintain the same meaning and values for subjects over time and interventions. In our study we found that QOL had different subjective interpretations [1--4]. While for some certain issues in their family-life determined their quality of life, for others these were issues at their workplace or of their health conditions. Second, when QOL was tested against a subjective base-line (for each individual according to their choices of domains), about eleven percent of the hypertensives and normotensives showed a clear response shift of scale-calibration over the period of one year. When the scores of these subjects were excluded, the significance of certain previously reported results changed. For example, the significant difference between normotensives and hypertensives concerning the change in their subjective evaluation of QOL over the year and their initial depression became more significant, while similar changes in their evaluation of sexual impairment and control at their work-place became insignificant. These results suggest that response shifts have to be traced and quantified, before one can claim any results (or lack of results) in 'before-after' designs, concerning subjective meaningful issues like quality of life.

Using the case of the Holocaust as a cultural trauma in the Jewish-Israeli context, some insights are suggested as to the ways younger members of collectives view cultural trauma as a symbolic boundary. The findings obtained from three groups of students, each expressing their views on a different facet of the Holocaust as a symbolic boundary, suggest that the major contributing factor that turns cultural trauma into a symbolic boundary is the way in which members of the collective categorize the modes through which others, within and outside the collective, relate to that cultural trauma.

The purpose of the study was to compare three groups of Israeli elderly that differ in social class and immigration status on measures of health and psycho-social well-being, and assess the factors which explain their self-rated health (SRH).Based on a random sample of Israeli Jewish elderly (70 +), data were collected from 1138 persons during 1994 by structured home interviews.Social class differences among Israeli veterans were mainly found with regard to psycho-social characteristics. They were less conspicuous in health measures. New immigrants, who had a higher level of education than the veterans, but ranked lower on economic status, reported lower levels of health and psycho-social well-being than the veterans. Self-rated health among the immigrants was mainly explained by objective measures of health, and economic status, while in the higher social class of veterans it was also explained by education and psycho-social variables such as self-esteem and social support.These findings indicate that in contradiction to the convergence hypothesis, social class and immigration status affect health and well-being also in old age. It is suggested that the immigration crisis and factors related to the standard of living and health services in the countries of origin, as well as the lower social and economic status of the immigrants in Israel, outweigh their relative advantage in age and education in influencing their health and well-being. The differences found among the three groups in the factors that explain self-rated health have implications for the use of economic status as a relevant indicator of social class when considering health status among the elderly, and for the interpretation of SRH, as a global measure of health, in different socio-cultural groups.