Anonymous
Posted June 4, 2003
The authors have laid out a clear and penetrating critique of contemporary Israeli society and government using progressive theories, helpful tables, and a thick bibliography (even Gramsci). There aren't any maps, campaign posters or photos, however. It would be great for a class in modern Judaism or race, class & ethnicity--but equally helpful for non-academics interested in the origins and complexity of Israeli society (especially that of the margins). I bought it for its analysis of Zionism (ch. 5) and the role Judaism plays as the established state religion in legitimating violence and enforcing discrimination.
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Overview
This penetrating and timely study by two well-known scholars offers a theoretically informed account of the political sociology of Israel. The argument is set in its historical context as the authors trace Israel's development from the beginning of Zionist settlement in Palestine in the early 1880s to the Oslo accords in 1993, and finally to the recent Palestinian uprising. Against this background, they speculate on the idea of citizenship and what it means to be the citizen of a fragmented and ideologically divided society.
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Meet the Author
Gershon Shafir is Professor of Sociology at the University of California, San Diego. His publications include Land, Labor, and the Origins of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, 1882–1914 (1989, 1996) and Immigrants and Nationalists (1995). He is the editor of The Citizenship Debates (1998). Yoav Peled is lecturer in the Department of Political Science, Tel Aviv University. His book, Class and Ethnicity in the Pale: The Political Economy of Jewish Workers' Nationalism in Late Imperial Russia, was published in 1989 and he edited Ethnic Challenges to the Modern Nation-State (2000). Both authors have co-edited The New Israel: Peacemaking and Liberalization (2000).
Table of Contents
1. Introduction; Part I. Fragmented Citizenship in a Colonial Frontier Society: 2. The virtues of Ashkenazi pioneering; 3. Mizrachim and women: between quality and quantity; 4. The frontier within: Palestinians as second-class citizens; 5. The wages of legitimation: Zionist and non-Zionist Orthodox Jews; Part II. The Frontier Reopens: 6. New day on the frontier; 7. The frontier erupts: the Intitfadas; Part III. The Emergence of Civil Society: 8. Agents of political change; 9. Economic liberalization and peacemaking; 10. The 'Constitutional Revolution'; 11. Shrinking social rights; 12. Emergent citizenship groups? Immigrants from the FSU and Ethiopia and overseas foreign workers; 13. Conclusion.