The Israeli Druze Community In Transition

While there are books that describe the history and traditions of the Druze as an ethnic and religious group, this is the first and only academic book of its kind. It gives voice to the Israeli Druze, through in-depth interviews with 120 people, 60 young adults and 60 of their parents’ generation. How is this traditional group, bound together through the centuries by their secret religion and strong value system, dealing with modernization? What contradictions and continuity come to light in the stories of this people during a time of transition? Can their religion, and their very identity, survive the meeting with the modern, technological world? What resources do the young and the not-so-young bring to the task of preserving their community and helping it to flourish as the world changes around them? The people in this text answer these questions through the telling of their stories, in which they express their values, opinions, beliefs and aspirations. The book draws out theoretical, practical, religious and sociological implications from this analysis, in order to shed light on the challenges faced by other traditional societies meeting modernity.

Following the war of 1948 Palestine's Druzes became part of the state of Israel. Overwhelmingly rural, they sought to safeguard their community's age-old ethnic independence by holding on to their traditional ethno-religious particularism. Ethnicity and ethnic issues, however, were ready tools for the Zionists in the pursuit of their policy aims vis-à-vis the state's Arab population. Central among these was the cooptation of part of the Druze elite in an obvious effort to alienate the Druzes from the other Arabs - creating "good" Arabs and "bad" Arabs served the Jewish state as a foil for its ongoing policy of dispossession and control. The author painstakingly documents the political, social and economic factors that ensured the "success" of these Zionist policies, but concludes that the fissured identity of Israel's Druzes today bespeaks a feeling of musiba, tragedy, within the community itself.

This collective volume deals with the main components in the laws of Islamic societies, past and present: sharia, custom and statute. Covers a wide range of geographical areas, from the Balkans to Yemen, and from Iraq to the Maghrib -- Back cover.

This study examines the attitudes and policies on all sides of the majority/minority divide in Israel during the state’s formative decade, and how the social, political, and strategic decisions made vis-à-vis the non-Jewish populations then continue to impact this unique Middle Eastern state today. While land, labor, and settlement policies, or the educational, legal, or political systems, could have been used to explore majority-minority relations in Israel between 1948-1958, this study does so through the prism of the army – in theory, the state’s most unifying social institution. The central questions investigated in this study are; how did the leadership of the Jewish majority balance its declared commitment to the state’s democratic ideals and the principle of equality on the one hand, and its commitment to creating a Jewish state and ensuring its security on the other? Was the army – charged with instilling Zionist patriotism in Jewish youth – prepared to absorb and integrate Arabs, who constituted the overwhelming majority of the non-Jewish minorities? Would the state’s minority groups be viewed as trustworthy and loyal enough to serve in the army? Furthermore, how would (potential) Arab military service impact the educational mission, and particularly the simultaneously transformative and integrative effort the army was charged with carrying out among Jews? While a specialized work in the fields of Israel and Middle Eastern Studies, this book should appeal to all students interested in majority/minority relations and the state-building process in newly-emerging democratic societies.

This book presents insights into social justice issues through the work of educators in Israel, the US, the UK, Italy, Canada, Turkey and Kazakhstan. Each chapter provides local or global theoretical insights, and these combine to provide a rich international perspective. The book offers practical strategies for the classroom, methods of teaching social justice to future teachers in various curriculum areas, and knowledge for researchers and those working in higher education. The book is unusual in its combination of local and international perspectives, practical and theoretical wisdom, and its inclusion of a variety of voices. Readers will gain new insight into concepts like radical pedagogy, interculturalism, multiculturalism, failed citizenship and cultural identity.

Insider-Outsider Research in Qualitative Inquiry: New Perspectives on Method and Meaning explores the history, practice and particular benefits of conducting cultural research through a partnership of two researchers: one who is an insider to the culture under study and one who is an outsider. This book unpacks terminology around this type of research that has become outdated or cumbersome, looks at ethical issues and suggests specific methodological approaches. It also locates insider-outsider research, which is by its nature qualitative, in the wider research landscape. The authors specifically describe a researcher partnership, a relationship more intimate and fruitful than a team, much greater than the sum of its parts. Through their own nearly twenty-year research partnership and study of the Israeli Druze, the authors have developed mutual trust that has led to new depths of insight in understanding cultural codes and the meanings they embody. This, and the methods they use, will be illustrated through examples of some of their studies with the Israeli Druze. A highly accessible guide, this book will be of interest to ethnographers and other qualitative researchers, both graduate students and researchers of all levels of experience.