Israel State and Society

The Israeli political system reflects the country’s complex social mosaic and contested history. This class provides the foundation for a better understanding of Israel's political system and its institutions.

This session will offer a brief historical overview of Israel's place in the Middle East. It tries to highlight the main dynamics, which keep feeding the Jewish-Arab conflict.

The lecture addresses the appellation "Jewish and Democratic State" from a variety of perspectives and disciplines: historical, political, philosophical, and theological ones. A special focus is place on the way gender outplays in the country, given its Jewish nature.

Arab-Palestinian citizens constitute the largest national minority in Israel. Despite the formal and legal integration into the Israeli society of the Arab residents, security concerns and doubts regarding their loyalty to the new state, have shaped the complex relationships between the Arab minority, the Jewish majority, and the state, throughout the years. This class discusses the history of the Arab minority in Israel and its contemporary state

Israel is a society of immigrants. It was shaped by waves of Jewish immigration beginning in the late 19th century. At first, most if the immigrants arrived from Eastern and central Europe. After the founding of the state, however, waves of immigrants from the Middle East and North Africa have transformed Israel's social and cultural fabric. In the following decades, new waves of immigration from Ethiopia and the former Soviet Union have continued to add to the social complexity of Jewish society. This class will address the internal cleavages within the Jewish majority in Israel, their socio-economic consequences and the state’s attempts to bridge cultural differences, and close the occupational and educational gaps between the groups. We will specifically focus on how one of those groups - the immigrants from North Africa, have culturally coped with the marginalization they have experienced in Israel through Saints' Impresarios.

The military in Israel plays a crucial role in the country's politics, economy and society, due to its engagement in an ongoing armed conflict. Military service is universal for Jewish men and women. It is often the front door to the local labor market, allowing the upward mobility of some, and the exclusion of others. This lesson will examine the role of the IDF in shaping the Israeli society from two complementary perspectives: the role of the army in shaping gender identities; and its place in the production, reproduction and transformation of the social (ethnic and national) hierarchies.

This session will present Israel's economy and its transformation from statist centralized economy to a neo-liberal one organized around its leading high-tech industry. It will explore the social consequences of this process in terms of growing inequality and recent social protest.

This session will address the question of voting in a society so riddled with external and internal conflicts, and in a political system offering so many options,: "how does the Israeli voter decide?" It will provide both sociological and psychological models of electoral behavior, examining the roles of social cleavages and political communication in determining votes.

As a young society of immigrants and natives, the development of a relatively coherent and identifiable Israeli identity and culture seemed almost impossible. Yet, many Israelis and foreign commentators argue that such a distinct identity has indeed been created. In this lesson we will explore the swift evolution of an Israeli identity and culture. We will ask what are the origins of this identity and which groups are included (and which groups are marginalized) in its construction. We will consider the possibility that the Israeli culture revolves around cultural traumas associated both with the Holocaust and also, more deeply, with the Jewish predicament of persecution and exile. An analysis that sees Zionism as the solution for the existential fear that is associated with this collective trauma. We will also talk about trauma and its effects in contemporary politics.

Jerusalem is among the most contested cities in the world, characterized by an unremitting struggle for territorial control—neighborhood by neighborhood and even house-by-house. Juxtaposing the city history and its complex Geography, this class will tell the story of Jerusalem as a microcosms of the Israeli society and its place in the middle-east.