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This paper presents the past and present of higher education in tourism and hospitality management in Israel. The paper discusses the growth of higher education in hospitality and tourism through local initiatives and by franchising and extensions from foreign institutions. The nature of the higher education system in Israel and the accreditation processes of local academic programs is discussed. The case of Ben-Gurion University' is introduced to illustrate the development of an academic program in hospitality and tourism management. The paper also compares the current state of the available academic programs to the year of 2000, at the eve of the Palestinian uprising. The paper analyses the complex relations between the Israeli hospitality industry and the higher education programs, as well as the challenges of future graduate programs mid industry-academe relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of Mental Homelessness is presented and developed. This paper will provide a historical review of the connection between mental illness and housing and the changing approaches toward institutionalization and de-institutionalization over several centuries. Case illustrations from practice in Israel will be presented to highlight the theme of home, or rather the theme of lacking a home as an element which may be inherent to a mental illness. More specifically, the paper argues that homelessness is a state of mind of which the actual, physical homelessness may be a manifested reflection of. If so, even if a mental patient does initially own a home, he or she is at high risk to lose it somehow. This work is a primary attempt at developing a new idea, stemming originally from the field of mental health, with an attempt to widen its theoretical scope to populations not usually defined as mentally ill. Clinical characteristics are presented, as well as an attempt at a theoretical formulation of this concept permitting the development of therapeutic implications. These are presented in relation to existing psychodynamic concepts and therapeutic approaches related to the phenomenon of homelessness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a life-threatening and potentially disabling disease, End Stage Renal Disease and its treatment cause stress as well as other psychosocial problems for patients and their families. This paper examines the results of an innovative activity-based intervention aimed at reducing some of the psychosocial repercussions of hemodialysis. A modified withdrawal/reversal design was employed to compare patients participating in the intervention and those who did not, at two points in time. The findings confirmed that dialysis patients in general have relatively high levels of psychological distress, difficulty adhering to the treatment regimen and poor self-rated health. Patients participating in the group activity were more anxious and had lower levels of interdialytic weight gain than the non-participants. After the intervention was terminated, levels of psychological distress, hostility and phobic anxiety among patients in the treatment group dropped, while their weight gain continued to be less than that of non-participating patients. The implications of these findings as well as the methodological difficulties entailed in this type of study are examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is argued in this paper that in spite of the fact that the media was seen as the central arena for deliberation about the national identity, such a discourse did not take place, with respect to the aftermath of the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin on November 4, 1995. The suppression of the public discourse during the period following the assassination did not result in the molding of the Israeli collective memory or the reinvention of the entire Israeli collectivity.

Four major patterns of media-politics relationship and numerous ways of political control over the mass media are identified in this paper. The notion of In/Outsider is introduced after presenting the mass media as performing a vital mediation function in any democracy. Since no power could remain uncontrolled in any democracy, a range of mechanisms is developed to ensure checks and balances between the In/Outsiders and other social institutions. The Israeli case seems to illustrate the continuous and Sisyphus process of media institutionalization in a new democracy. Social responsibility principles were accepted in Israel as part of democratic norms, with the changes demanded by the special circumstances of a young democracy.

This paper analyzed the cultural convergence of Israel's Jews and Arabs in the area of bilingualism. Israel is a setting where Jews and Arabs represent conflicting identities but where Hebrew, the dominant language, Arabic, the minority's official language, and English, the first foreign language, are all diffused in the majority as well as the minority. The determinant factor of inter-group interaction is the dominant culture, which legitimizes a linguistic and cultural pluralistic model of majority-minority relations.

This paper deals with technology as a gender issue in Israel's moshavim which are smallholder's village organised as producers' and consumers' cooperatives. The subject is examined the household context as well as in the farm unit managed and worked as a productive economy producing mainly for foreign markets. This study indicates that the crucial variable which influences gender differentiation in work roles is technology itself rather than the particular context of its application. At the same time it is clear that the man is able to transcend his stereotyped image more easily than the woman in the application technology.

This paper examines perceptions and views of Israeli physicians regarding the potential effects of lay self-care. Self-care by lay persons refers to the set of preventive, diagnostic, curative, and rehabilitative actions which lay people take with the aim of preserving or ameliorating their health. The views of physicians regarding the effect of self-care have been examined in three substantive areas, two relating to the micro-level of clinical practice, and one focusing on the macro-level which concerns the healthcare system. The findings are considered against the background of the Israeli health context which is characterized by the high value placed on health in the culture, widespread exercising of physician authority in the doctor-patient relationship, and common acceptance of the latter as normative by most lay persons. A considerable range of views was expressed by physicians regarding the effects of self-care behaviors on individual health. In general, behaviors perceived as less risky and potentially effective for promoting health were viewed in a favorable light, while those involving potential risk, especially with regard to self-medication, were least favored. The criteria that physicians seemed to use to evaluate the effects of specific self-care behaviors are pragmatic and focus on the potential contribution and risk to health that these behaviors entail.

The intention of this paper is to describe a lay belief system of symbols and meanings associated with reproduction in Israel, and to contrast it with the clinical belief system of medical practitioners. A case of pediatric meningitis from the perspective of conflicting ideologies or belief systems, and their explanatory models is analyzed. Despite the scientific knowledge of the medical practitioners, their ideology was not accepted as valid by the patient's family, and mutual ethnocentrism resulted in frustration and lack of satisfactory resolution for all parties concerned. Meningitis with resultant permanent and serious mental and physical disability is more dramatic that unwanted pregnancy. One of the barriers keeping the patient and her husband from so-called rational methods of fertility control was a concern with body integrity and body wholeness. Artificial interference with natural processes, such as insertion of intrauterine contraceptives or tubal ligation for sterilization, may threaten body wholeness and ego boundaries. The case illustrates the conflicting meaning systems which may underlie communication difficulties and actually contribute to irrational behavior.

This section provides a backdrop for the papers included in the January 1, 1990 issue of Sociology of Health & Health Care in Israel--Studies of Israeli Society. It presents the reader with a picture of what has been going on in medical sociology in Israel and where the focus has been placed in terms of research. Following a brief description of the structure of health system, a number of dominant themes are noted. These have served as focal points of content around which much of the work in the field has been done. Some are intimately linked to special features of the social structure or culture of Israeli society: ethnicity, immigration, stress, and healthcare utilization. Other themes are more general and use Israel as an additional case study that augments the body of knowledge in the field. Finally, the community of medical sociologists has been scrutinized in terms of its structure and the kinds of research it has pursued. Some important gaps in the content of research undertaken to date is examined, and a number of critical questions have been indicated. The basic structure of the Israeli healthcare system, which in itself reflects broader social values and processes, sets the stage on which the health scene is acted out.

This paper investigates the contribution of community to ethnic stratification in Israel. We show that "development towns," a category of new settlements established to achieve population dispersal and immigrant absorption, have influenced (a) the areal distributions of different ethnic (country-of-origin) groups, (b) the tendency for each group to be concentrated in certain industries, and (c) the occupational opportunities available to the members of an ethnic population. We also review the relevance of this analysis for understanding ethnic stratification in America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents an interview with writer Haim Be'er in Tel Aviv, Israel. When asked about his work, he said that he writes a weekly column for a paper that deals with a variety of matters. He then elaborates on his autobiographical book "Notzot." Be'er states that to him, writing is primarily a way to self-discovery, and a means toward self-clarification. That to him is the reason why he writes mostly about stuff that interests or bothers him.

This paper describes the basis for the reform in mental health care system in Israel as presented in the report of the Netanyahu Commission (State Commission for Investigation of Functioning and Efficiency of the Health Care System in Israel, 1990) and the report of the State Comptroller's office (State Comptroller, 1991). These reports pointed to seven major problem areas in the mental health care system: (1) segregation of mental health and general health care systems, (2) variations in availability of services across the country, (3) conflict of interests within Ministry of Health which provides services and oversight, (4) overuse of hospital based care and under use of community based care, (5) reliance on hospitals for custodial care, (6) lack of appreciation of mental health service needs of non-severely mentally ill, and (7) lack of regional service planning. The article describes these problems and the proposed solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The section introduces a series of articles concerning the sociology of immigration to Israel. The focus is on immigration and emigration during the 1980s and 1990s. The paper includes a discussion of the place of Israeli research on migration in the context of theoretical views of other sociologists concerned with migration in the post-industrial societies. Studies consider migration in terms of countries of origin and destination, volume and timing of migration streams, patterns of emigration and demographic changes in the Israeli population structure resulting from immigration.