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Abstract
This study examines how members of minority groups in Israel cope with stigmatization in everyday life. It focuses on working-class members of three minority groups: Palestinian Arabs or Palestinian citizens of Israel, Mizrahim (Jews of Middle Eastern and North African origin) and Ethiopian Jews. It reveals the use of racial, ethnic and national markers in daily processes of social inclusion and exclusion in one sociopolitical context. Palestinians, a group with a fixed external identity and a limited sphere of participation, were found to use the language of race and racism when describing stigmatizing encounters. Ethiopian Jews, the most phenotypically marked group, strictly avoided this language. For their part, Mizrahi Jews perceived the very discussion of stigmatization as stigmatizing, while often using ‘contingent detachment’ to distance themselves from negative group identities. Despite differences between the communities and the powerful role of the state in establishing symbolic and social boundaries, members of all three groups expressed their intention to achieve or retain avenues for participation in the larger society.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the United States-Israel Bi-national Science Foundation for their financial support of this project, and to the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute for their financial assistance as well as for providing a home for the Israeli research team. We also wish to express our appreciation to Michèle Lamont for her helpful comments, to our wonderful research assistants, Assia Zinevich, Idit Fast, Avi Goltzman, as well as to our Tel Aviv University students who conducted the interviews, together with the interviewees who agreed to participate in the study.
Notes
1. Palestinian Arab is the political self-definition adopted by some Arab Israelis. This is the term commonly used in research in Israel.
2. This figure relates to Palestinian Arabs who are citizens of Israel according to the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics. For challenging definitions of this statistic see Haidar (2005) and Zimmerman, Seid and Wise (Citation2006).
3. We are speaking here of formal citizenship. Differences in substantive citizenship are apparent.
4. In this paper we deal with boundaries between Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel exclusively.
5. Among third- and fourth-generation native Israelis, about 20 per cent of the population is ethnically mixed (Cohen, Haberfeld and Kristal Citation2007).
6. For more ambivalent evaluations, see Yaar (2005).
8. In the Israeli context, for instance, it would be inconceivable for Arabs to change their names to Jewish names, unlike Arabs in other countries; see Bursell in this issue.
9. The fact that Rima is divorced and holds a managerial position in a Jewish town distinguishes her from most Arab women.
10. Similar findings have been reported by Lamont, Morning and Mooney (Citation2002).
11. This contention is further explained in Mizrachi and Zawdu in this issue.
12. Shohat (1989, 1999), Shenhav (2000), Shohat (2001), Khazzoom (2003), Shenhav (2006).
13. Characterized by its predominantly poor and working-class Mizrahi residents.
15. As aptly formulated by Taylor (1994), identity politics requires the recognition of difference as a source for dignity and as a cultural resource for claims of social equality. This discourse, frequently privileged by critical sociologists, is nonetheless confined to the bounded world of the highly educated. A similar finding is reported in Lamont (2000).
16. The use by Ethiopians of the language of race during instances of organized protest has been reported in the literature; see, for example, Ben-Eliezer (2004).