Contemporary Israeli Society: Identities and Dilemmas

BRANDEIS UNIVERSITY

Department of Anthropology

Anthropology 135A

Contemporary Israeli Society: Identities and Dilemmas

Fall 2016

room:

Monday and Wednesday: 3:30 PM–4:50 PM

Liron Shani

Office Hours: Wednesday: 11:00-12:30, Office 320, Schusterman Center

Course Description:

Israel stands at the center of global attention, and, in recent months, also at the center of American anthropological discussions. But what characterizes Israeli culture? What are the dilemmas and challenges Israeli society faces? And how can ethnography be undertaken in such a complex and sensitive place? These are some of the questions this seminar will try to address.

By reading a wide range of contemporary ethnographies, this seminar will introduce students to the anthropology of Israel. The seminar will focus on concepts such as politics, gender, nationalism, ethnicity, religion, environment, globalization, and popular culture, and will also examine marginalized and frequently overlooked social groups. Students will develop a complex and multi-layered understanding of a diverse society, read a wide range of anthropological work on Israel, and will write a final paper on one of the topics or sites this seminar will cover.A few short films and film excerpts will be viewed in class.

Course requirements and evaluation:

1. Attendance and Participation (20%)

Students are expected to attend all classes, complete the reading assignments before class, and come to class prepared to participate in discussions. All readings are posted on LATTE.Readings will amount to approximately 75-150 pages per week. More than two unexcused absences will result in a reduction of your participation grade. Please bring copies of readings (print or electronic) to class.

2. Reading Responses (15%)

Each student is required to submit at least 10 reading responses 100-150 words long on reading materials.Please email It before class session by 12 PM. Alternatively, you may choose to email one longer set of reading responses that cover both Monday and Wednesday’s readings by Monday morning. In your reading responses, you may outline the key points of the readings, highlight what was interesting/confusing/significant to you, raise questions, and relate your thoughts to other readings or contemporary events. Late posts will not be accepted. These will be graded pass/fail. Each student must get at least 10 passing responses to get the full score.

3. Class discussion (15%)

In each class will have at least one discussion Leader, whose representative evaluation of positions represented in the readings for their chosen day will lead) with me(the discussion of reading materials of the same day, and will link the reading materials to the broader context of the seminar.In the first week of class, the students will sign up for the day they will be help me lead the discussion.The students who should guide the discussion will send me email with an outline of their ideas discussed Class at least one full day before the class.

4. Final Paper (50% - 10%, 10%, 30%)

There will be one final paper (7 double spaced pages). A hand out of guidelines and expectation for this exercise will be distributed. Each paper you turn in must have a bibliography. You may use the format you see in this syllabus to cite your sources. If you are in doubt about citation methods, please see me.

Timetable for submission of the final paper:

• A paper proposal (describing the paper’s general topic and proposed sources of data) will be due on Wednesday, Nov. 2th (10%).
• A thesis, preliminary outline and bibliography will be due on or before Wednesday, Nov 28th (10%).
• The final paper will be due on Monday, Dec. 14th (30%).

Evaluation for Graduate Students

Your final paper should be about 15 double-spaced pages (50%)

Late Policy: All written work must be turned in on due dates indicated. If you anticipate problems turning in the assignment on time, please contact me up to 24 hours prior to the due date.

Expected workload: Success in this four-credit course is based on the expectation that students will spend a minimum of 9 hours of study time per week in preparation for class (readings, papers, research, weekly reading responses, class preparation, studying, etc.).

Academic integrity: Students are required to follow the University’s academic integrity policies in all of their academic work. For more information, please consult Brandeis University Rights and Responsibilities and the instructor. Allegations of academic dishonesty will be forwarded to the Director of Academic Integrity. Sanctions for academic dishonesty can include failing grades and/or suspension from the university. Citation and research assistance can be found at LTS - Library guides.

Disabilities: If you are a student with a documented disability on record at Brandeis University and wish to have a reasonable accommodation made for you in this class, please see me immediately.

Class conduct: You may not use hand-held electronic devices in class. Cell phones should be silenced before entering class. I trust that you will restrict usage of laptop computers and tablets to classroom purposes (e.g. taking notes, consulting class readings). Any non-classroom use of electronic devices will result in a significant deduction from your participation grade. Your participation is expected to be thoughtful and respectful of others. Please allow other participants to articulate themselves fully.

Week One: Introduction to Israeli society I

8/29 - Introductionto the course

8/31 - Introduction of Israeli society I - The Israeli Paradox:

Markowitz and NirAvieli. 2015.The Israeli Paradox, EthnologieFrançaise, 2 (45).

Feldman, Jackie. 2013. " How Christian Pilgrims Made Me Israeli."Ethnographic Encounters in Israel: Poetics and Ethics of Fieldwork: 23.

Week Two: Introduction of Israeli society II

9/5 - No class - Labor Day

9/7

Feldman, Jackie.2007. "Between YadVashem and Mt. Herzl: Changing inscriptions of sacrifice on Jerusalem's" Mountain of Memory". "Anthropological Quarterly80.4: 1147-1174.

Lomsky‐Feder, Edna .2004. The memorial ceremony in Israeli schools: between the State and civil society. British Journal of Sociology & Education 25(3):291-305

Ben-Ze’ev, Efrat. 2012. "Mental maps and spatial perceptions: The fragmentation of Israel-Palestine."Mapping Cultures. Palgrave Macmillan UK. 237-259.

Golden, Deborah.2001. "Now, like real Israelis, let's stand up and sing”: teaching the national language to Russian newcomers in Israel."Anthropology & education quarterly32.1: 52-79.

Week Three - From melting pot to mosaic? - An introduction to the political and social disputes

9/12

Yuchtman-Yaar, Ephraim.2005. "Continuity and change in Israeli society: The test of the melting pot."Israel Studies10.2: 91-128.

Mizrachi, Nissim, and Hanna Herzog.2012. "Participatory destigmatization strategies among Palestinian citizens, Ethiopian Jews and Mizrahi Jews in Israel."Ethnic and Racial Studies35.3: 418-435.

9/14

Aronoff, Myron J.2012. The Politics of Collective Identity: Contested Israeli Nationalisms. In Aronoff, Myron J., and Jan Kubik.Anthropology and political science: a convergent approach. Vol. 3. Berghahn Books.

Salamon, Hagar. 2001. "Political bumper stickers in contemporary Israel: Folklore as an emotional battleground." Journal of American Folklore 114.453: 277-308.

Week Four: political and social disputes - Mizrahi-Ashkenazi

9/19 - Identity and Politics

Behar, Almog. 2005. Ana min al yahoud - I'm one of the Jews–a short story.

Hebrew version -

Motzafi-Haller, Pnina. 2001. Scholarship, identity, and power: Mizrahi women in Israel. Signs:697-734.

Sasson‐Levy, Orna. 2013. A Different Kind of Whiteness: Marking and Unmarking of Social Boundaries in the Construction of Hegemonic Ethnicity. Vol. 28, pp. 27-50.

9/21Space and Ethnicity

Eyal Ben-Ari and YoramBilu.1997. “Saints' Sanctuaries in Israeli Development Towns: on a Mechanism of Urban Transformation”, in: Eyal Ben-Ari and YoramBilu (eds.), Grasping Land: Space and Place in Contemporary Israeli Discourse and Experience (Albany: State University of New York Press, 61-83

Aharon-Gutman, Meirav. 2014. The iron cage of ethnicity: Ethnic urban enclaves and the challenge of urban design. Urban Design International 19(2):144-158.

Week Five - political and social disputes -Israeli-Palestinian I

9/26 Palestinian citizens of Israel:

Qashu, Sayed.2004. Dancing Arabs. Grove Press.

Abufarha, N. 2008. Land of symbols: Cactus, poppies, orange and olive trees in Palestine. Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power, 15(3), 343-368.

Leoncini, Sabina. 2005. "Post-Zionism and Israel's' New Anthropologists': Interview with Professor Dan Rabinowitz and Professor Khaled Furani." Journal of Holy Land and Palestine Studies 14.: 83-104.

9/28 In the West Bank:

Bishara, A. 2015. Driving while Palestinian in Israel and the West Bank: The politics of disorientation and the routes of a subaltern knowledge. American Ethnologist, 42(1) 33-54.

Michael Feige. 2001. Jewish settlement of Hebron: The place and the other.GeoJournal,53(3), 323-333.

Week Six: -Israeli-Palestinian II - Space, nature and resistance:

10/3 – No class

10/5

McKee, Emily. 2015. "Trash Talk: Interpreting Morality and Disorder in Negev/Naqab Landscapes."Current anthropology: A world journal of the sciences of man5: 733-752.

Braverman, Irus. 2008. "“The Tree Is the Enemy Soldier”: A Sociolegal Making of War Landscapes in the Occupied West Bank."Law & Society Review42: 449-482.

Rabinowitz, Dan. 1992. "An Acre is an acre is an acre? Differentiated attitudes to social space and territory on the Jewish-Arab urban frontier in Israel." Urban Anthropology and Studies of Cultural Systems and World Economic Development: 67-89.

Peteet, Julie. 1996. "The writing on the walls: The graffiti of the Intifada."Cultural Anthropology11.2 1996: 139-159.

Week Seven: Judaism, religion and the state

10/10

Kravel-Tovi, Michal and YoramBilu. 2008. The work of the present: Constructing messianic temporality in the wake of failed prophecy among Chabad Hasidim. American Ethnologist 35(1):64-80.

El-Or, Tamar. 2002. Next year I will know more: literacy and identity among young Orthodox women in Israel: Wayne State University Press. Pages: 263-289.

Leon, Nissim. "The secular origins of Mizrahi traditionalism."Israel Studies13.3 (2008): 22-42.

Engelberg, Ari. 2015. Modern Orthodoxy inPost-Secular Times: Jewish identities on the boundaries of religious Zionism. Journal of Modern Jewish Studies 14(1):126-139.

What different styles of head coverings say about Israeli Jewish men -

10/12 - No class

Week Eight: Nationalism and Materiality in Culture

10/17 - Nationalism,Globalization and power through food:

Avieli, Nir. 2013. "Grilled Nationalism: Power, Masculinity and Space in Israeli Barbeques." Food, Culture & Society 16.2: 301-320.

Grosglik, Rafi, and Uri Ram. 2013. "Authentic, Speedy and Hybrid: Representations of Chinese Food and Cultural Globalization in Israel."Food, Culture & Society16.2: 223-243.

10/19- Materiality and Popular Culture:

MottiRegev and Edwin Seroussi. 2004. Popular Music and National Culture in Israel. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1-14.

El-Or, Tamar.2012. "The soul of the biblical sandal: On anthropology and style. American Anthropologist114.3: 433-445.

Week Nine - Startup Nation? Class, economy and resistance

10/24 - No class

10/26

Kaplan, Dana, and Rachel Werczberger. 2015. "Jewish New Age and the Middle Class: Jewish Identity Politics in Israel under Neoliberalism."Sociology.

Weiss, Hadas. 2014. "Homeownership in Israel: The Social Costs of Middle‐Class Debt." Cultural Anthropology 29.1: 128-149.

Tawil, Yoël.2015."Acknowledging Weakness, Negotiating Invincibility: On the Creative Performance and Interpretation of Creativity in Israel”. Ethnologiefrançaise45.2: 223-233.

Rabinowitz, Dan. 2014. "Resistance and the City." History and Anthropology 25.4: 472-487.

Week Ten- Body and Gender:

10/31

Ivry, Tsipy. 2009. Embodying culture: pregnancy in Japan and Israel: Rutgers University Press. Pages: 37-76

Weiss, Meira. "War bodies, hedonist bodies: dialectics of the collective and the individual in Israeli society."American Ethnologist24.4 (1997): 813-832.

11/2

First submission - paper proposal for final paper

Stadler, Nurit. 2015. "Appropriating Jerusalem through Sacred Places: Disputed Land and Female Rituals at the Tombs of Mary and Rachel."Anthropological Quarterly88.3: 725-758.

Sa'ar, Amalia. 2006. Feminine Strength: Reflections on Power and Gender in Israeli-Palestinian Culture. Anthropological Quarterly 79(3):397-430.

Week Eleven – “The situation” I - Military, Terror and Everyday Life

11/7

David Grossman,2010. To the End of the Land, (New York: Alfred A. Knopf), pp. 10-20.

Grossman, David (Aug 19, 2006): Uri, my dear son. The Guardian.

Ochs, Juliana. 2011. Security and suspicion: An ethnography of everyday life in Israel: University of Pennsylvania Press. Chapter 4.

Hirsch, Dafna. 2011. "Hummus is best when it is fresh and made by Arabs”: The gourmetization of hummus in Israel and the return of the repressed Arab. American Ethnologist 38.4: 617-630.

11/9

Stadler, Nurit, EinatMesterman, and Eyal Ben-Ari. 2005. "Terror, aid and organization: The Haredi disaster victim identification teams (ZAKA) in Israel."Anthropological Quarterly78.3: 619-651.

Friedman-Peleg, Keren, and YoramBilu. 2011. From PTSD to “National Trauma”: The Case of the Israel Trauma Center for Victims of Terror and War. Transcultural Psychiatry 48(4):416-436.

Week Twelve - The situation” II - Resistance and its price

11/14

Weiss, Erica. 2015. "Beyond Mystification: Hegemony, Resistance, and Ethical Responsibility in Israel."Anthropological Quarterly88.2: 417-443.

Braverman, Irus. 2012. "Checkpoint Watch Bureaucracy and Resistance at the Israeli/Palestinian Border."Social & Legal Studies21.3: 297-320.

Dorchin, Uri. 2015. "Flowing Beyond Sectarian Ethno-politics: Ethnography of Jewish and Arab Rap in Israel."Ethnopolitics: 1-16.

Allen, Lori A. 2009. "Martyr bodies in the media: Human rights, aesthetics, and the politics of immediation in the Palestinian intifada."American Ethnologist36.1: 161-180.

11/16 - No class

Week Thirteen - The conflict and its impact on society and culture

11/21

Stein, Rebecca L. 2012. "StateTube: Anthropological reflections on social media and the Israeli State."Anthropological Quarterly85.3: 893-916.

Leon, Nissim. 2015. "Rabbi'Ovadia Yosef, the Shas Party, and the Arab-Israeli Peace Process." The Middle East Journal 69.3: 379-395.

Willen, Sarah S. 2010. "Darfur through a shoah lens: Sudanese asylum seekers, unruly biopolitical dramas, and the politics of humanitarian compassion in Israel."A reader in medical anthropology: theoretical trajectories, emergent realities.

Dominguez, Virginia R. 2013. "Falling in Love with a Criminal?". In Fran Markowitz (ed), Ethnographic Encounters in Israel: Poetics and Ethics of Fieldwork: 201-220.

11/23–

No class- Thanksgiving holiday

Week Fourteen

11/28 - US-Israel relations

Second submission - - preliminary outline and bibliography for final paper

Kelner, Shaul.2012. Tours that bind: Diaspora, pilgrimage, and Israeli birthright tourism. NYU Press: Preface, Chapter 8.

Sasson, Theodore.2011. "A Jewish and Democratic State? How American Jews Discuss Israel’s Identity Dilemma. In Harvey, E., Steven M. Cohen, and Ezra Kopelowitz, eds.Dynamic Belonging: Contemporary Jewish Collective Identities. Berghahn Books: 190-.

Ethnography, anthropology and the boycott

11/30 - Hope and Ethnography in hazardous areas

Dalsheim, Joyce. 2013. "Anachronism and morality: Israeli settlement, Palestinian nationalism, and human liberation."Theory, Culture & Society30.3: 29-60.

Markowitz, Fran. 2013. “Introduction - Edgy Ethnography in a Little Big Place” in Fran Markowitz (ed), Ethnographic Encounters in Israel: Poetics and Ethics of Fieldwork. Indiana University Press: 1-19.

Week Fifteen

12/5The anthropology in Israel:

Abuhav, Orit.2015. In the Company of Others: The Development of Anthropology in Israel. Wayne State University Press, Chapter One.

Dominguez, Virginia R. 2016. "Preface: On Anthropology in Israel."American Anthropologist118.1: 142-144.

Abu El-Haj, Nadia and Susan Slyomovics. 2016. An Open Letter to the American Anthropologist and Responses. Anthropology News. -

Anthropologists for Dialogue on Israel & Palestine

Anthropologists for the Boycott of Israeli Academic Institutions

12/7Course completion and conclusion

12/14Submissionof the final paper