Suchergebnisse

The present study addresses the question "What is masculinity?" by exploring how male immigrants interpret local masculinity and the models of masculinity they portray while situating themselves in the male hierarchy of the new society. The study is based on "immigration stories" elicited by in‐depth interviews conducted with 43 university students who immigrated to Israel at the beginning of the 1990s from the former Soviet Union. The analysis of the stories reveals that the immigrants employ four major practices (avoidance, mockery, maneuvering, and provocation) that unfasten the takenfor‐granted link between masculinity and army service in the Israeli society, thereby resisting the hegemonic, military model of masculinity in Israel. The immigrants render meaning to their resistance of the indigenous model ("The Warrior") via the harnessing of cultural models that they carry with them from their native home—"The Russian Soldier" and "The Jewish Man"—without seeking to alter gender power relations as such. They discursively juggle between the three contesting and competing models of masculinity that together constitute a fluid and elusive "interpretative field" of masculinity. Via their interpretative work, the Russian male immigrants reconstitute their masculine identity, seeking to assert their distinctiveness and to receive social legitimation for their different conception of masculinity.

For immigrants entering a society characterized by a strong national ethos of homecoming, the interpretation of that ethos is essential to their making sense of their new lives and reconstructing their identity. Our case study explores how immigrants interpret the Israeli national ethos while struggling over their position in the old-new homeland. Analyzing personal narratives of Russian-Jewish university students in Israeli society, we discuss how their multivocal critiques of the "national-Zionist ethos" reflect and fuel the heated and dividing discourse over national identity in Israeli society of the 1990s. We explain how the homecomers read the national ethos, confront it, and participate in the local cultural discourse by their dual position as outsiders-insiders in the new society, together with their experiences as a diasporic minority group in the native land. We suggest that the interaction between two cultural systems-the Diasporic heritage of the Jewish Russian homecomers and the Zionist ethos-broadens and elaborates the Israeli national discourse. [national ethos, homecoming, immigration, personal narrative, Israeli society]

"Women Soldiers and Citizenship in Israel: Gendered Encounters with the State is an important and rigorous study exploring the varied and shifting meanings that Israeli women ascribe to their military service. By analysing life stories and testimonies of over 120 women the text examines: How do women's gendered ethno-class positions shape their experiences of military service? How does the gendering of military roles shape women's gender awareness and their perceptions of citizenship? And how do women's specific positions in the military shape their awareness of, and reaction to, the state's inherent violence? This study should appeal to scholars and students of sociology, political science, gender studies, military sociology, political anthropology, social policy, Israel studies, and Middle East studies"--

Front Matter -- Half Title Page -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Table of Contents -- Introduction -- Part I: Setting the Contex -- Wars as Catalysts of Political and Cultural Change -- Part II: Cultural Sites -- The Masada Mythical Narrative and the Israeli Army -- The Independence Day Military Parade: A Political History of a Patriotic Ritual -- War, Heroism, and Public Representations: The Case of a Museum of "Coexistence" in Jerusalem -- Part III: The Construction of Life-Worlds -- Army and War: Collective Narratives of Early Childhood in Contemporary Israel -- Masks and Soldiering: The Israeli Army and the Palestinian Uprising -- Militarism and the Construction of the Life-World of Israeli Males: The Case of the Reserves System -- Part IV: Gender, Hegemony, and Resistance -- Gender, Body, and the National Subject Israeli: Women's Poetry in the War of Independence -- Filming National Identity: War and Woman in Israeli Cinema -- Engendering the Gulf War: Israeli Nurses and the Discourse of Soldiering -- Epilogue -- Back Matter -- About the Contributors -- Index -- Back Cover.