Overview

The book challenges the notion that Israel is a homogeneous state, whether in theory or in practice. It offers a detailed and critical intersectional analysis of nationalism, ethnicity, gender and marginality in Israeli society, revealing how these forces converge to produce multiple as well as fused identities within a complex social fabric. Examining the ruptures and fault lines that shape a multi-layered society, the study contends that Israel’s exceptionality lies not in its self-proclaimed “Jewish and democratic” character, but in its resort to exceptional legal and coercive measures to mask internal diversity. By obscuring this heterogeneous reality, the state cultivates an illusion of a monolithic and uniform Israeli identity. The analysis presents a society far more fragmented and stratified than official narratives suggest, offering readers an understanding of how intersecting structures of identity and power operate in the Israeli context, and how social and political institutions respond to and regulate internal difference. This book will be of interest to academic researchers, postgraduate and doctoral students and policymakers engaged with questions of nationalism, marginality, identity and Middle Eastern politics, particularly within the disciplines of political science, sociology, Middle Eastern studies and gender studies.

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9781032846958

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Reviews

‘This work is a highly commendable attempt at interrogating the myth of the Israeli state being the political organisation erected atop, and for, a monochrome Jewish society. The ""Jewish democracy of Israel"" is and always has been a highly fragmented entity, where even the categories of ""Jewish"" and ""Israeli"" are not susceptible of uncontested understanding. This has been the subject of a vigorous debate right from the time of its birth in 1948, and possibly even before. The work explores deep into those component frames within the larger ""Jewish"" identity, teasing out the nuances that are often missed by outsiders, but frequently leave considerable impact on the state and society of Israel. Ms Singh has discussed threadbare an astonishingly complete range of debates within the Israeli society about the various aspects of political, social and cultural life in the state of Israel. The book has the potential of being an essential item on the reading list wherever Israel is studied without either favour or prejudice.’ Professor Kingshuk Chatterjee, Department of History, University of Calcutta; Distinguished Fellow, Centre for Middle East and Global Order, Berlin; Author of Ali Shari’ati and the Shaping of Political Islam in Iran (2011)

‘This work is a highly commendable attempt at interrogating the myth of the Israeli state being the political organisation erected atop, and for, a monochrome Jewish society. The ‘Jewish democracy of Israel’ is and always has been a highly fragmented entity, where even the categories of ‘Jewish’ and ‘Israeli’ are not susceptible of uncontested understanding. This has been the subject of a vigorous debate right from the time of its birth in 1948, and possibly even before. The work explores deep into those component frames within the larger ‘Jewish’ identity, teasing out the nuances that are often missed by outsiders, but frequently leave considerable impact on the state and society of Israel. Ms Singh has discussed threadbare an astonishingly complete range of debates within the Israeli society about the various aspects of political, social and cultural life in the state of Israel. The book has the potential of being an essential item on the reading list wherever Israel is studied without either favour or prejudice.’—Professor Kingshuk Chatterjee, Department of History, University of Calcutta; Author of Ali Shari’ati and the Shaping of Political Islam in Iran (2011)

Author Information

Priya Singh is associate director at Asia in Global Affairs (AGA), Kolkata. She has held research positions as fellow at the Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Institute of Asian Studies, Kolkata, and as IDRC (International Development Research Centre, Canada) postdoctoral researcher at the Centre on Gender and Forced Displacement under the Gender and Development Studies programme at the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), Bangkok.

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