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Volume 9 Issue 1

August 2007

Special Issue on Poverty and Welfare

Introduction by the Editors of the Special Issue: On Poverty, Work and Welfare |Haya Stier and Aliza Levin

On Poverty and Welfare:

Structural Disruptions of Women's Work History: The Narrowing down of Working Poor's Opportunites Structures | Sarit Sambol and Orly Benjamin

As part of the growing recognition of the “working poor” category, scholars are examining the institutional context in which contingent workers’ rights are systematically violated. But the gendered nature of this category is still hardly noticed. This article contributes to its understanding by proposing a theoretical framework combining women’s experiences in the ever-proliferating non- standard employment with a work history perspective. This perspective was developed during the 1980s for a discussion of the price paid by English women returning to the labor market after several years of full-time mothering. Our focus is on the change in the shaping of opportunity structures, which exposes women to bad jobs once returning to the labor market after losing a job or family-related disruptions. Interviews with 12 participants in an economic empowerment workshop yielded the women’s work histories, distinguishing structural disruptions, gendered disruptions, and disruptions encompassing both types. The structural context of non-standard forms of employment increased long-term costs to women following disruptions in their labor market participation; that is, state reduction of expenditure through a shift to outsourcing and non-standard employment in operating its social services is a direct offense against women’s right to be free of poverty.

Towards a Evidence-Based Policy: A Systematic Review of Programs Dealing with Unemployment

Mimi Ajzenstadt, John Gal and Alon Shapiro

This article demonstrates the use of meta-analysis or systematic review as a means of developing social policy towards the unemployed in Israel, a methodology so far very rarely applied in social science research in Israel. A review of the literature is followed by a systematic review of 20 evaluation studies of activation programs undertaken in Israel and published between 1990 and 2005. Vocational training and job-search workshops proved effective ethods of activation, albeit with variation according to the target population. The findings underscore the advantages and limitations of systematic reviews in the social sciences and the need for well planned evaluation studies.

Perception of Local Government Leaders in Israel: Sources of Poverty and Ways to Alleviate it

Lihi Lahat, Gila Menahem and Joseph Katan

How policy makers perceive and define social problems may have implications for public policy on solving them. In Israel, to date local government leaders’ attitudes to poverty, its origins, and possible ways to alleviate it have not been examined. This paper suggests a conceptual model linking the local leaders’ background variables, characteristics of their locality, value orientation, and perceptions of the causes of poverty with their support for different options for combating the problem. Data analysis is based on 105 questionnaires dministered in 2002. Most local leaders subscribed to structural causes of poverty and were less inclined to support explanations based on individual causes. The findings indicate the centrality of value perceptions and the causal story in explaining the preference for specific policy options of local leaders in Israel.

Articles:

Gated Communities in Israel: A New Phase of Spatial Segregation

Gillad Rosen and Eran Razin

Gated communities are a new form of residential development that can potentially reshape urban landscapes and influence Israeli society. We argue that the emergence of gated communities represents a new phase of socio-spatial segregation, primarily based on class rather than on ideology, ethnicity or safety considerations. Also, public perceptions and realities are separated by a substantial gap, reflected in the absence of public policy on the fast evolving phenomenon. In 2005 at least 26 projects with 6000 residential units met the narrowest definition of a gated community. In contrast to the ethno-security emphasis in the coverage of the case of Andromeda Hill in Jaffa, analysis of ten cases representing four types of gated communities indicates that class-based segregation is the attribute shared by all. The phenomenon is characterized by initiative of the private sector and by lack of public intervention, with third sector organizations serving as the sole balancing agent in the processes of planning and development.

Multiculturalism, Nationalism and Urban Politics: The Case of Ashdod

Erez Tzfadia and Haim Yacobi

In the recent years the multicultural alternative has been portrayed as a normative model in Ashdod. Apparently, the city’s physical and demographical structures, which are the result of Israel’s development policies, serve the multicultural option. The article critically scrutinizes the question of Ashdod as multicultural city. By employing and relating theories on multiculturalism and urban politics, the article pursues the constructing of Ashdod as part of the Israeli state–and nation–building project, the overlap between ethnicity, class and place of residency, the relations between the communities living in the city and the local institutional frameworks. The research challenges the assumption that Ashdod represents a model of urban multiculturalism, even though the city’s authorities recognize and cherish its communal life.

Body, Sexuality and Family among Israeli Reserve Combat Troops

Liora Sion and Eyal Ben-Ari

Military reserve service in Israel involves constituting, imagining and handling conceptions of “proper” masculinity. Using data derived from fieldwork with a variety of army reserve units, the article analyzes how humor and joking among middle-class Jewish men on reserve service are used in respect of four issues. The first is the complex relation between gender and age. Previous research on age has examined how individuals experience the passage of time, but very little has been written on how men of diverse ages communicate on matters of masculinity. Men’s preoccupation with how their bodies are growing older (gaining weight; level of physical or sexual power) is intensified on reserve duty here by the ongoing comparison between older and younger soldiers. The second issue is periodic reaffirmation of masculinity along the life-course. Analysis shows how each passing spell may represent a kind of return to individuals’ 19-or 20-year-old selves. Yet the actual gap between present and past impedes this reaffirmation.

In Memory of Baruch Kimmerling:

Baruch Kimmerling: Marginal in the Center | Yehuda Shenhav

Book Reviews:

Zeev Rosenhek

On: Populism and Hegemony in Israel \ Dani Filc

Nissim Leon

On: Remaking Israeli Judaism: The Challenge of Shas \ David Lehmann and Batia Siebzehner

Yehuda Goodman

On: Reserved Seats: Gender Ethnicity and religion in Contemporary Israel \ Tamar Elor

Gal Levy

On: Is Israel One? − Religion, Nationalism, and Multiculturalism Confounded \ Eliezer Ben-Rafael and Yochanan Peres

Noa Lavie

On: The Globalization of Israel - McWorld in Tel Aviv, Jihad in Jerusalem \ Uri Ram


Giora Rahav

On: Criminal Career and Serial Criminality \ Arnon Edelstein

Aviva Halamish

On: Called Away From Our School-Desks: The Yishuv in the Shadow of Holocaust and in Anticipation of Statehood in Children's Literature of Eretz Israel, 1939-1948 \ Yael Darr

Diana Luzzatto

On: A Full Belly: Rethinking Food and Society in Israel \ Aviad Kleinberg (ed.)

Ofra Tene

On: Culinary Bridges versus Culinary Barriers: Social and Political Aspects of Palestinian Cookery in Israel \ Liora Gvion

‪Eran Shor‬

On: Playing With Identities: Arab Soccer in a Jewish State \ Tamir Sorek

Daphna Golan

On: Toward Educational Revolution? Van Leer Conference on Dovrat's Report \ Dan Inbar (ed.)

Niza Yanay

On: Reading Iran in Israel: The Self and the Other, Religion and Modernity \ Haggai Ram

Sarah Hinsky and Shay Lavie

On: The Disenchantment of the Orient: A History of Oriental Expertise in Israel \ Gil Eyal

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