ESSAY REVIEW

This paper advances the analysis of multiculturalism by examining multiculturalism in a contextualized manner. To understand multiculturalism and assess its effects on the recognition of migrant children, researchers need to analyse multicultural practices in schools by taking into account the social mirrors resulting from different social and structural conditions, such as national ideologies and the ethos of reception. The analysis of multicultural policies in four different types of daycare centres enrolling migrant workers’ children in Israel—community, Catholic, municipal, and those supported by private associations—points to three types of contextualized multicultural models: contextualized misrecognition, contextualized recognition, and de‐contextualized recognition. By juxtaposing recognition or misrecognition appearing at the daycare level with legal and ideological social mirrors, multicultural patterns can acquire a different meaning. Municipal daycares with a few migrant children as well as daycares supported by private associations that adopt a ‘blind‐homogenizing’ approach reflect an absence of recognition that is contextualized in the larger society. Community daycares adopting a survival approach, Catholic daycares applying a ‘business as usual’ approach, and municipal daycares enrolling a large number of migrant children adopting a multicultural approach reflect different degrees of cultural and religious recognition. However, when analysed in the larger local or national context, this recognition results in a de‐contextualized recognition that suppresses the beneficial character of the multicultural education provided.     

Court-led educational reforms in political third rails: lessons from the litigation over ultra-religious Jewish schools in Israel

This paper offers a model for evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of judicial involvement in educational reforms. It uses the model to analyze two case studies of court-led educational reforms in the third rail of Israeli politics – the curricula and the admission policies of ultra-Othodox (Haredi) schools. These case studies are located at the knotty junction of human rights, religion, and politics in education policy, generating concern in many countries. The conclusions demonstrate that even when the courts are cautious, judicial involvement in third rail educational reforms may produce impacts that drive the cogwheels of policy-making in directions that are apt to undermine the interests of the petitioners. Therefore, the choice of courts as a forum for shaping education policy in political third rails should be prudently considered. The paper also demonstrates the need to evaluate litigation by means of a contextual, evidence-based analysis. It highlights that in certain cases, what may appear to be unjustified judicial activism or restraint is, in fact, a reasonable response, whose harmful ramifications may be attributed to the context of political third rails. Even the best judges are not immune to the well-known assertion that ‘hard cases make bad law.’     

犹太定居点问题浅析

犹太定居点问题是巴以冲突及中东和平进程中最为棘手的问题之一。该问题能否顺利解决,直接关系到中东地区的和平与安宁,关系到中东和平进程的推进。本文试从早期犹太定居点政策、犹太定居点的建设与扩张、犹太定居点的出路三个方面对该问题作一探讨。     

Producing soldier boy: sperm donation discourse and militarism in Israeli media culture

In this paper I examine the ways in which public discourse about the sperm donation industry in Israel, as appearing in mass media and advertising culture, bridges militarist, pro-natalist, and neoliberal ideologies. In constructing the sperm produced by combat soldiers as superior and in emphasizing the potential dangers of inferior sperm or the lack of enough sperm to meet demand, mainstream media and sperm banks adopt, utilize, and exploit a culture of fear that is linked to Israel’s perceived existential threat in order to serve their own commercial goals. At the same time, the tensions between national-collective and individual perceptions of gender and body occasionally rise to the surface, with media simultaneously embracing and questioning dominant cultural narratives concerning masculinity and militarism. Implications of the relations between media discourses of blood, sacrifice, and death, and those of sperm, reproduction, and cultural regeneration are discussed.     

Attitudes toward an enemy and personality in a war environment

The aim of the present study was to investigate the effects of war environment on political attitudes toward an enemy and on personality development. High school students from an Israeli town on the border of “Fatahland” and a town in central Israel were asked to fill out: A questionnaire on their political views toward the Israel-Arab conflict and the Repression-Sensitization (R-S) scale (Byrne et al., 1963). Results showed three factors in the students' political views: (a) Return of the Controversial Territories (Samaria, Judea, Gaza Strip, Golan Heights and Sinai); (bj Credibility of the Arabs in negotiation; (c) The policy of the previous government in its return of certain territories in Sinai.It was found that the students in the border town were less opposed to return the Controversial Territories than the students in the non-border town. Repressers in both towns gave more credibility to the Arabs in negotiation than did sensitizers. Girls agreed more with the policy of the previous government in its return of the territories in Sinai than boys. Results also showed that the students in the border area as well as boys in both towns were more repressive in their personality type than the students in the more peaceful area and girls of both towns respectively.     

Psychological well-being and ethnic identities of Jewish adolescents planning emigration from Russia and Ukraine to Israel: Changes during the post-perestroika period

This study examines psychological well-being and ethnic identities of Jewish adolescents planning emigration from Russia and Ukraine to Israel. Measurements were conducted in 1999 (n = 654) and in 2005 (n = 243). The adolescents were questioned about half a year before they left their homeland. In Russia, adolescents who planned emigration in 2005 had less emotional and behavioral problems and suffered less from loneliness than their peers in 1999. In Ukraine, no improvement was found in psychological well-being; moreover, the school competence of adolescents who planned emigration in 2005 was lower compared to their peers in 1999. Adolescents who planned emigration from Russia and Ukraine in 2005 reported a more positive attitude towards their homeland and stronger identification with the ethnic majority in their homeland than the adolescents who planned emigration in 1999. The emigrants’ attitude towards Israel did not change from 1999 to 2005. Their identification with Jews was weaker in 2005 as compared with 1999. In both cohorts, the adolescents’ attitude towards Israel was more positive than their attitude towards Russia or Ukraine, and their identification with Jews was stronger than that with Russians or Ukrainians. In 1999, Russian/Ukrainian and Jewish-Israeli facets of the emigrants’ ethnic identity were contradictory, while they were complementary in 2005.     

The work of mourning in the bilingual schools of Israel: ambivalent emotions and the risks of seeking mutual respect and understanding

This article presents an in-depth analysis of two commemoration events in a first-grade classroom of a bilingual school in Israel. The two events presented – the commemorations of the Holocaust Day and the Memorial Day – derive from a longitudinal ethnographic study of integrated bilingual schools in Israel. The analysis of these events shows teachers’ and students’ ambivalent emotions about the Other, as a result of pedagogical efforts to engage with the work of mourning in integrated classrooms, while attempting simultaneously to promote mutual respect and understanding. We further argue that ambivalent emotions in the context of integrated schooling bring to the surface serious concerns about symmetry and asymmetry; such concerns reveal elements of the emotional risks and benefits as a result of bringing children from conflicting groups closer. The implications for teaching and learning in integrated school settings of conflict-ridden societies are discussed.     

Gender and higher education in different national spaces: Female Palestinian students attending Israeli and Jordanian universities

This study examines the higher education experience among Palestinian Arab females in two national spaces and seeks to determine whether studying at an Arab institution of higher learning in a nearby Arab country can alleviate the emotional and economic difficulties that affect Palestinian women at Israeli universities. What can institutions of higher learning in Israel learn or derive from the proposed model to relieve the alienation and exclusion that their female Palestinian students experience? The study will compare two geographically distinct groups of women students. The first is a group of Palestinian women who attend university in Jordan, while the second consists of Palestinian women of Bedouin origin from southern Israel who study in the Jewish Israeli cultural space. The study seeks to shed light on the experience of Muslim students in Western and Muslim universities.     

Israel–Malaysia Relations and the Place of Football

Abstract

While seeking to establish their respective international positions following their foundation, Israel and Malaysia also interacted with each other. However, in light of the Israeli–Arab conflict, and mainly due to Malaysia’s domestic considerations and geo-political interests, the interactions remained limited and official relations were not established. This study relies on the notion that sport is potentially an important tool for engagement between states. It examines contemporaneous Israeli and Singapore press and brings together the various episodes and voices pertinent to the way Israel–Malaysia relations unfolded through football until the 1970s. The paper offers an historical perspective on the relations by focusing on a game that was highly popular in both countries. I argue that, while considering the various limitations that were involved, the Prime Minister of Malaysia and President of the Asian Football Confederation, Tunku Abdul Rahman, cautiously maintained the football channel with Israel open. Accordingly, in light of the significantly low-level of other means of contact, football functioned as a carefully managed yet meaningful line of communication by involving a prime minister, senior sports administrators, athletes, football fans, journalists, and sports readers. The essay thus contributes a case study to the emerging body of literature on football relations between states.     

On Being a Sports Historian in Israel

Abstract

The article discusses the way I came to be a sports historian in Israel and the status of the history of sports in the State of Israel over the years.