Necronationalism: managing race,death and the nation's skeletons

This paper examines the construction of the Simon Wiesenthal Center ‘Museum of Tolerance (Jerusalem)’ over Mamilla Cemetery, one of the largest Muslim burial grounds in the region. Tracing the politics of death as exercised through the excavation of the cemetery, I consider how access to settler colonial memory is managed and renewed through the purging of Indigenous corporeality. Inspired by Achille Mbembe's sobering account of necropower, this paper conceptualizes power as a system of domination inscribed through the colonial management of deceased racial subjects and asks how we might understand systems of settler colonial power arranged through dehumanization of the already dead. I contend that the capacity to govern life after death is still firmly rooted in the reach of colonial power, and that by attending to the excavation and erasure of Mamilla Cemetery's deceased Palestinian subjects, we see a particular configuration of sovereignty defined through a calculus of absence. Identifying this practice of settler colonial nation building as ‘necronationalism’, I consider how power over life after death becomes the very terrain through which a nation is imagined.     

Retired Israeli Social Workers:

A survey of retired professional Israeli social workers found gradual withdrawal from paid work and increased participation in social welfare volunteer work. Their satisfaction with retirement in general was related to their income and health status; their satisfaction with their retirement activities as a retired social worker was also related to their income and health, plus related to their work status. Further cross-cultural comparisons of retired professionals and other workers are urged.     

Forgiveness in Late Life

This study expands the understanding of forgiveness among a sample of older adults in Israel by exploring the contributory roles of meaning in life; stressful life events; and socio economic variables such as gender, age, and religiosity as well as time and agent of hurt. A convenience sample of 225 older adults in Israel responded to the Enright Forgiveness Inventory and the Reker Meaning in Life Scale. An additional questionnaire contained demographic and other background information, including a list of traumatic life events. The results of our study support our assumption that meaning in life correlates with forgiveness on all its dimensions. Furthermore, women tend to forgive more than men, and there is a tendency to forgive family members more readily than nonfamily members, and people who are still alive, as opposed to those who have passed away.     

Exile from national identity: memory exclusion as political

Historiography and national memory are not social institutions that formed spontaneously, democratically or pluralistically, but rational projects featuring power relationships, shaped by actors promoting political interests through it and legitimizing their preferential social status and political dominance. The research follows the Israeli Labor Movement's attempts to present the statehood project and the war for independence as achievements owed solely to the Hagana (an underground organization affiliated to the labor movement on the eve of statehood). Insistent efforts distanced from national memory any mention of two other underground movements, affiliated with the rival Revisionist Movement, that after statehood became political Party. The article indicates the memory-screening strategies applied, illuminating the ruling party's conscious attempts to make the public memory and public historiography controllable resources and to exclude political rivals from the national pantheon. Also described is the establishment's meticulousness supervision of national historiography, including history textbooks and commemorative literature. The paper tracks failed attempts by marginalized groups to enter the public memory, and their subsequent launch of an ‘alternative memory arena’ competing with the establishment's memory.     

From Enlightened Self‐interest to Welfare Coalitions: Overcoming Identity‐based Tensions in the Israeli Welfare State

A common argument in the social policy literature is that ethnic and identity‐based heterogeneity undermines the welfare state. In part, this happens because of difficulties in the generation of broad social solidarity in diverse societies: solidarity which is allegedly necessary for sustaining public support for the welfare state. This study explores this argument's logic in the context of welfare state politics in Israel. Israel would appear to be a near‐perfect example of how heterogeneity strains social solidarity and, in turn, undermines the welfare state. Quite differently from most studies, however, this work's emphasis is not on public attitudes or voting, but on the political interaction between economically disadvantaged identity‐based minorities – specifically Arabs on the one hand and religious Jews on the other – in the welfare field. It is argued that shared interests enable extensive co‐operation among political elites in the welfare field despite religiously‐ and nationally‐based antagonism.     

犹太人社团对联邦德国的民间索赔--以"要求赔偿联合会"为中心

为了代表犹太人受害者和犹太人组织与联邦德国进行赔偿谈判,世界各地的犹太人组织联合建立了"要求赔偿联合会".在瓦森纳尔谈判中,"要求赔偿联合会"通过与以色列协调谈判立场,成功地与联邦德国签署了<卢森堡条约>第一议定书和第二议定书,既为世界犹太人组织从联邦德国获得战争赔偿提供了法律保证,也为日后犹太人受害者向联邦德国寻求个人赔偿奠定了重要法律基础.     

The meaning of work among immigrants living in poverty in Israel: Replanting roots of belonging

The global financial crisis has increased the number of working immigrants living in poverty around the world. This article presents and analyses the interaction of work, immigration and poverty among working immigrants in Israel. Methodologically, this study has combined hermeneutic phenomenological and social constructivist approaches and in so doing has aimed to describe the realities of immigrants living and working in poverty. Presenting both men's and women's perspectives, we found that immigrants who work and live in poverty attribute crucial significance to work, which serves as a primary route of integration into the new culture as well as a means of coping with both the uprootedness caused by immigration and the difficulties of living in poverty. However, immigrants’ construction of work as the sole conduit for integration leaves them particularly vulnerable to discriminatory workplace practices.     

Individualism and Collectivism in Israeli Society: Comparing Religious and Secular High-School Students

Triandis' theoretical framework, concerningcultural patterns labeled individualism andcollectivism, is probed with regard to the religiousmarker in the Israeli Jewish society. Three methods areused to examine collectivism-individualismconstructs in 185 religious and 956 secular high schoolstudents: value items, interest in different domains ofhistory, and attitudes toward political issues. A common collective basis of mutual value consensus wasfound in the two groups; however, as predicted, therewere differences between secular and religious studentson the three kinds of items, since the religious scored higher than the secular students onitems emphasizing collectivist orientation. Thedifferences, however, do not fit the common theoreticalframework of collectivism-individualism, but rather tend to reflect the distinction between in-group anduniversal collectivism.     

Southward migration season: new Arab teachers from north move to southern Israel1

This study addresses intercultural differences among novice teachers (K-12) who graduated Arab academic teachers’ colleges and lived in northern and central Israel before moving south to teach in Israel’s Bedouin diaspora. The source material consists of stories they entered in a contest, describing the personal and professional aspects of their experiences. These stories are assumed to represent a type of information that reflects human awareness, highlighting the professional elements concerning all new teachers. Content analysis revealed the principal theme of the stories, namely the three stages of coping with the move from north to south: seeking and finding a job; starting work as a teacher and encountering the realities of a different place; and retrospection at the end of the first year. These three stages are assessed in the encounter with disparity over time from: a personal perspective – leaving one’s home and family, encounter with a different landscape and culture, isolation and feelings of both satisfaction and frustration on returning home; and a professional perspective – encounter with the educational environment and cultural-professional disparities. Assessment of the processes involved in teachers’ southward migration may facilitate teacher intake in the educational system.     

从犹太“岛民文化”透析巴以冲突

犹太人在近2000年饱受磨难的流散生涯中形成的“岛民心态”和“岛民文化”,长久以来影响着犹太人的安全观与生存观,导致以色列政府在阿以冲突问题上过于敏感和偏执,始终坚持强硬立场,使其一次次错失和平良机,并在中东乃至国际社会陷入孤立境地.“岛民心态”和“岛民文化”决定了中东和平进程的长期性、曲折性和复杂性.