This fourth volume of Political Anthropology is the first in the series to be devoted entirely to a single country. Israel is currently undergoing a critical stage of transition in its development. The election of the first Likud government in 1977 ended fifty years of Labor dominance of the political system. It in-troduced new personalities, policies, symbols, and myths as it attempted to establish the legitimacy of the new regime. The 1981 election, which maintained the Likud rule, was the closest and one of the most violent in Israeli history; and one in which political and ethnic tensions reached an unprecedented peak. The election in 1984 will determine considerably more than just which part will rule the country. The very character of the nation is at stake. In this volume the most timely and pressing problems confronting Israeli society are analyzed by leading Israeli and American experts, utilizing the unique interdisciplinary focus of political anthropology. Aronoff analyzes the resurgence of political polarization after almost two decades of relative politi-cal quietude. Lewis astutely explains the role of ethnicity in Israeli politics and how it relates to foreign policy of the Likud government. Shokeid critically analyzes a case study exemplifying collective redefinition of status. Weissbrod sees the war in Lebanon as particularly noteworthy, because it was the first time that a significant part of the Israeli public questioned the justice of an Israeli war, especially during the initial victorious stages. Weisburd and Vinitzky demonstrate that the settlers of Gush Emunim have developed a "rational" ideological legitimization for their vigilante activities against the Arabs in the territories. Dominguez analyzes the meanings of "left" and "right" as multivocal and multifunctional terms in Israeli politics. This volume is the one book that will give you insight into and understanding of the most pressing problems facing Israeli society.

Critical Essays on Israeli Social Issues and Scholarship is part of a series of review volumes sponsored by the Association for Israel Studies and published by SUNY Press that provides a framework for discussion of research and scholarship on all aspects of Israeli society. This book brings together review essays commenting on issues in Israeli culture, literature, politics, scholarship, and society. The authors identify a series of recently published books and provide critical commentary. In their examination, they go beyond the works themselves to comment on the state of scholarship and social conditions. Topics covered include Israeli writers’ reactions to the Holocaust, critical analyses of the popular Israeli poet and novelist Amnon Shamosh, the linguistic relations between Yiddish and Modern Hebrew, ethnic relations, the emerging “mainstream” of Israeli culture, politics, Israeli historical revisionism, and social, psychological, and political aspects of the continuing Israel-Palestine conflict.

The years of Menachem Begin's leadership were among the most turbulent in Israeli history. Domestically, the preeminence of the Labor Alignment was successfully challenged, the Likud government failed to reduce Israel's high inflation rate, military and security expenditures reached new highs, and the politicization of economic policy increased. Internationally, although Israel's policy toward the occupied territories and its regional strategy were the focus of domestic and international debate, Begin's policies--departures from earlier norms--did successfully define Israel's foreign policy agenda, and his outlook is likely to continue to influence policy considerations. The contributors to this volume explore how Israel changed under Begin, the source of those changes, and how Israel is likely to evolve in a post-Begin era.

What can anthropology and political science learn from each other? The authors argue that collaboration, particularly in the area of concepts and methodologies, is tremendously beneficial for both disciplines, though they also deal with some troubling aspects of the relationship. Focusing on the influence of anthropology on political science, the book examines the basic assumptions the practitioners of each discipline make about the nature of social and political reality, compares some of the key concepts each field employs, and provides an extensive review of the basic methods of research that "bridge" both disciplines: ethnography and case study. Through ethnography (participant observation), reliance on extended case studies, and the use of "anthropological" concepts and sensibilities, a greater understanding of some of the most challenging issues of the day can be gained. For example, political anthropology challenges the illusion of the "autonomy of the political" assumed by political science to characterize so-called modern societies. Several chapters include a cross-disciplinary analysis of key concepts and issues: political culture, political ritual, the politics of collective identity, democratization in divided societies, conflict resolution, civil society, and the politics of post-Communist transformations.

This series of the Israeli Sociological Society, whose object is to identify and clarify the major themes that occupy social research in Israel today, gathers together the best of Israeli social science investigation that was previously scattered in a large variety of international journals. Each book in the series is introduced by integrative essays. Each volume focuses on a particular topic; the first volume seeks out the dynamics of conflict and integration in a new society; the second volume is concerned with the sociology of a unique Israeli social institution—the kibbutz. The third volume presents sociological perspectives on political life and culture in Israel. Articles by leading scholars deal with: historical development; political culture and ideology; political institutions and behavior; the social basis of politics; and social change. Volume III also includes a select bibliography. Contributors to Volume III (tentative): Karl W. Deutsch, Yonathan Shapiro, Dan Horowitz, Moshe Lissak, Daniel Elazar, Asher Arian, Charles Liebman, Erik Cohen, Yoram Peri, Ephraim Yaar, S. Smooha.

During the last two decades, the number of anthropological studies on the Middle East has increased exponentially. This partially annotated bibliography offers a comprehensive survey of studies written in English, French and German, and covers the period from 1965 to 1987.

During the last two decades, the number of anthropologists conducting research in the Middle East has increased considerably. Together they have produced an abundance of valuable studies, often based on prolonged periods of ethnographic fieldwork. This bibliography offers a comprehensive survey of their results published between 1965 and 1987. It refers to studies published in English, French and German. Geographically, the bibliography covers the area from Mauritania in the West to Afghanistan in the East, and from Turkey in the North to the Arab Peninsula and Northern Sudan in the South. The majority of studies inserted has been written by anthropologists. Besides, a considerable number of studies related to anthropology, but published by non-anthropologists, has been integrated as well. The majority of the monographs and volumes has been annotated.

This finely etched, on-site work examines the relationships between the changing political system and political culture in Israel, with particular focus on the decade of the 1980s. Written by a scholar equally at home in the United States and in Israel, and intellectually equally at home in political science and anthropology, Israeli Visions and Divisions is a fundamental contribution to a literature long on passion and short on reason, which perhaps is an academic reflection of social life in this deeply troubled land.Aronoff starts from the belief that the basic conflicting and even contradictory interpretations over what should be the exact character of Israel as a Jewish state continues to be the source of the most serious division among Jews within contemporary Israel. As a consequence, consensus politics yields to coalition politics; and prospects for a future consensus are dim. Conflict among Jewish political and religious groups, and between Jews and Arabs, is aggravated by the uses of Zionist symbolism in a fragmented political culture.This is a serious critique made from a sympathetic quarter. Aronoff suggests that the Israeli political system is undergoing a crisis of political legitimacy, exemplified by the rise of extraparliamentary movements. The parliamentary system accentuates' these divisions by making every minor tradition and vision part of the legislative and executive processes.Israeli Visions and Divisions is not a pessimistic reading. The author is convinced that the way is open for a move away from particularism and tribalism, and toward a new universalism and humanism. The old policies have proven bankrupt, and th,e old ideologies have lost their salience. The book is rich in detail and profound in outlook. It will be greeted by those interested in new policies as well as by students of the Middle East who hope to piece together what has gone awry in the land of milk and honey.

The one intelligent overview of Israeli politics that addresses the paradox at the heart of Israeli statehood: How can Israel be both a Jewish state and a democratic state?