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The article reports that a prominent physician, who works in Israel and lives in Gaza, has lost three daughters in an air attack on his home. Doctor Ezzeldeen Abu al-Aish, a gynecologist at the Sheba Medical Center, was at his home when it was struck by an Israel Defense Forces bomb. Abu al-Aish was heard on national Israeli television appealing for an end to the violence.

How do protracted conflicts abroad impact the relations between diaspora groups in their shared host state? Drawing from the rivalry between the Israel and pro-Palestinian ethnic lobbies in the United States, this paper develops an original framework for assessing the relations diasporas have with one another when their 'homelands' are in conflict. The Israel and pro-Palestinian lobbies have used four strategies, along with their accompanying tactics, to actively hamper the interests of their opponent. The results raise important questions regarding the extent ethnic lobbies represent their diasporas, as well as drive the need for further research into other prospective cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article applies discursive institutionalism to compare the debates on the children of temporary immigrant workers in Israel and Taiwan. Policymakers in both countries adopted a guestworker program that prevents the long-term settlement of foreign laborers, let alone that of their children. Over time, the increasing number of children born to these laborers triggered the debate on the proper treatment of these children. The debates in these two countries demonstrated varying discursive themes and led to different policy outcomes. Though primarily built on a particularistic, ethnocentric discourse, the discursive interactions around Israel's Jewish identity resulted in two ad hoc, temporary decisions that legalized the status of hundreds of such children. In contrast, while the dominant narrative in Taiwan has been the supposedly more liberal idea of universal human rights norms, these children have been granted only temporary social service and education support, with no prospect of long-term legal settlement. To understand the seeming paradox in why the more ethnocentric discourse resulted in a degree of policy liberalization while a more universalistic discourse has not, this article shows how agents in the debate responded to the discursive opportunities, with each largely shaped by their respective national identity public philosophies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research note contributes to the growing body of knowledge on foreign fighters in international affairs. While most scholars in the field derive their understanding of the phenomenon from highly publicized cases of Western Muslims fighting alongside Jihadi groups in the Middle East, this article brings a new case study into the arena: Jewish foreign nationals who voluntarily enlist in the Israeli military, also known as lone soldiers. After a presentation of this to date unexplored case (i.a. through nineteen semi-structured interviews), the article delves into the conceptual realm, discussing whether Israel's lone soldiers can be analyzed within the foreign-fighter framework in the first place. Based on the empirical findings and an interdisciplinary literature review on foreign fighters the article argues that lone soldiers do constitute a relevant case study. This research note further suggests that much of the controversy on conceptual matters could be avoided by understanding the phenomenon as an action (i.e., foreign fighting) rather than an actor (i.e., foreign fighter). Further research is warranted to support these findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Floods rarely occur in hyper-arid deserts and little is known about the magnitude and frequency of sediment delivery from their basins, despite their importance to changes to the landscape, infrastructures and engineering activities. Sediment yield from the Nahal Nehushtan watershed (11.9 km2) located in the Timna Valley in southern Israel was determined by assessing stratigraphic sections in its 60-year reservoir deposits. Stratigraphic correlation between event couplets allowed for quantification of sediment yields representing 13 former flow and flood events. Based on the sediment volume in the reservoir, the 29.8 t km−2 year−1 average specific sediment yield is one of the lowest among other studied warm deserts. Among the event layers, the thickest layer, deposited by a flash flood caused by a single short rain event, contributed 31% of the total sediment yield. Based on event reservoir sedimentation from watersheds located in several hyper-arid areas in the Middle East and North America, we demonstrate that sediment yield increases with drainage area as expected and mean annual sediment yield increases in hyper-arid areas with flood frequency. Our quantitative results, together with previous studies of hyper-arid areas, provide complementary evidence of fluvial sediment transport—the main landscape designer in hyper-arid fluvial landscapes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Despite several intervention programs, the Bedouin population living in the Southern District of Israel has the highest mortality rate among children and adolescents from unintentional injuries. Our research questions asked: (1) How does increasing the involvement and participation of Bedouin community members influence the issue of unintentional injuries among children? (2) How does reframing of the technical issue of safety into security influence community involvement and cooperation? Objectives: 1) To identify effective and efficacious positive deviance practices through community-based participatory research with adults, children, and professionals in the Bedouin community. 2) To create wider and deeper connections and cohesion between and among diverse Bedouin communities by seeding and sparking opportunities for social networking and cross-learning. Methods: The study used a qualitative multi-method approach to generate a hybrid intervention model for reducing unintentional childhood injuries among the Bedouins. To frame the issue of unintentional injuries from the lived perspective of the Bedouins, we employed the Positive Deviance (PD) and Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR) approach. Drawing upon theatrical traditions, entertainment-education (EE), was employed as a way to narratively engage and persuade the Bedouins. Results: Our research resulted in: (1) the emergence of several PD ideas and practices for preventing and avoiding children's injuries; (2) the actual creation of a safe and secure playroom for children at a neighborhood mosque; and (3) the creation of cascading and cross-learning social networks between and among members of the Bedouin community spread across various locations. Conclusion: This study helped in reframing the technical issue of accidents and safety into the notion of sacredness and security, enhanced the association between emotions and cognition by means of experiential and EE methods, and stimulated creative thinking and the emergence of new culturally and contextually relevant ideas and practices through the PD process. It demonstrated the synergistic power of using a hybrid model that combined the rigor and vigor of different health communication approaches to address a significant disparity in the burden of child accidents faced by the Bedouins. Our study generated solutions that emerged from, and directly benefitted, Bedouin children—those, who face overwhelming risk of injury and death from preventable accidents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Flash floods are among the most devastating and lethal natural hazards. In 2018, three flash-flood episodes resulted in 46 casualties in the deserts of Israel and Jordan alone. This paper presents the hydrometeorological analysis and forecasting of a substantial storm (25–27 April 2018) that hit an arid desert basin (Zin, ∼1400km2 , southern Israel) claiming 12 human lives. This paper aims to (a) spatially assess the severity of the storm, (b) quantify the timescale of the hydrological response, and (c) evaluate the available operational precipitation forecasting. Return periods of the storm's maximal rain intensities were derived locally at 1 km2 resolution using weather radar data and a novel statistical methodology. A high-resolution grid-based hydrological model was used to study the intra-basin flash-flood magnitudes which were consistent with direct information from witnesses. The model was further used to examine the hydrological response to different forecast scenarios. A small portion of the basin (1 %–20 %) experienced extreme precipitation intensities (75- to 100-year return period), resulting in a local hydrological response of a high magnitude (10- to 50-year return period). Hillslope runoff, initiated minutes after the intense rainfall occurred, reached the streams and resulted in peak discharge within tens of minutes. Available deterministic operational precipitation forecasts poorly predicted the hydrological response in the studied basins (tens to hundreds of square kilometers) mostly due to location inaccuracy. There was no gain from assimilating radar estimates in the numerical weather prediction model. Therefore, we suggest using deterministic forecasts with caution as it might lead to fatal decision making. To cope with such errors, a novel cost-effective methodology is applied by spatially shifting the forecasted precipitation fields. In this way, flash-flood occurrences were captured in most of the subbasins, resulting in few false alarms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While groundwater recharge is one of the most prominently covered subjects in hydrogeology, the spatial distribution of recharge has been given relatively little attention, especially in semi-arid, karstic aquifers. Under conditions of highly diverse geology, relief, vegetation and land use, the complexity and variability of spatially distributed hydrological processes remains a challenge in many regions around the world. This is particularly true for hitherto ungauged basins, such as Wadi Natuf, a 103 km2 large karstic Eastern Mediterranean watershed in the Palestinian upstream mountain and recharge area of the Western Aquifer Basin (WAB), which is shared with Israel in the coastal plain. In this first in a series of two papers, distributed recharge is estimated and represented, based on 7 years of extensive field observations and measurements and based conceptually on observable physical landscape features such as geology, land use and land cover (LU/LC) and especially soil conditions. For the first time in the WAB, a forward calculated soil moisture and percolation model (SMSP) was set up with parameters directly gained from field observations. The model was parameterised in a strictly parsimonious manner, as a one-dimensional model (a.k.a. "tank", bucket or box model). This is based on dominant hydrological processes, in particular saturation excess in the soil column, and identifying patterns of linkage between different landscape features. Average soil thickness was encountered at the range of decimetres, rarely above one metre. Both soil thickness and LU/LC features, such as terraced olive groves or forests as well as grassland or barren rock outcrops, were found to be highly formation specific. This linkage allowed us to further simplify the model and its requirements in a realistic manner for eight soil moisture stations, chosen at six different geological formations with typical soil and LU/LC representations. The main result of the model was the determination of formation-specific recharge coefficients, spatially ranging between 0 % and almost 60 % of annual rainfall or up to 300 mma-1 in Wadi Natuf's climate. The karstified main aquifers showed recharge coefficients (RC) above 40 % and even the less prominent slightly aquitardal local aquifers reached RC values above 30 %. The model was separately tested on two conceptual levels: on the level of basin form (soil moisture) and basin response (signatures of peak recharge and local spring discharge events) under well-controlled conditions in isolated sub-catchments. In principle, our approach is applicable in many of the scarcely gauged karstic groundwater basins around the world with a highly diverse landscape and geology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Young ultra‐Orthodox women in Israel have been faced in recent years with a greater risk of developing disordered eating, as they are more exposed to Westernized norms of the thin‐body ideal, self‐realization, and personal choice. Most are treated by mainstream Israeli psychotherapists who likely have different value systems and different perspectives on the nature of the illness, aims of treatment, and recovery. Ultra‐Orthodox psychotherapists may well experience a conflict between a need to be loyal to their patients and a concomitant need to honor the values of patients' families and the community from which they come. The current article presents a theoretical background and four case studies highlighting the complexities and controversies inherent in the treatment of these women. We conclude that both ultra‐Orthodox and mainstream secular psychotherapists must be knowledgeable in regard to both Judaism and psychology, and be flexible, creative, and emphatic to all parties, to arrive at a compromised definition of recovery that can be accepted by the patient, her family, and her community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the shifts in settler colonialism in Israel, particularly the increasing deployment of highly-sexualized and gendered images that present Israel as far more liberating than its popular discourse. Topics discussed include normalization of gendered and sexualized violence against Indigenous Palestinians, public celebration of Palestinian deaths, and the relationship between settler colonialism, gender, and sexuality.

The article presents a comparison between Jewish Rabbis Shlomo Carlebach and Meir Kahane who are considered ubiquitous figures in postwar U.S. Topics covered include the views of Carlebach on Jewish liberalism, the representation by Kahane of a militant form of right-wing radical Zionism and the similarity between them with regard to how they understood Israel and its place in the American Jewish psyche.

The article talks about the food in Israel and the postcards that depict the country's national snack falafel. It analyses the correlation between food and nationalism, as food consumption leaves an impact on the domestic and global politics. Topics include ban on Foie gras that attacks French culture and identity, Thai food's popularity, and international values regarding food.

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As opposed to the approach that makes a dichotomous distinction between ‘rigid religiosity’ and ‘soft religiosity’, I would like to point to a reality in which these boundaries are blurred. I shall do so by examining the case of the religious revival movement in Israel (the ‘teshuvah movement’), which offers a broad range of teshuvah styles, out of which hozrim beteshuvah (penitents) select ‘teshuvah baskets’, which they fill and pack themselves, according to their own personal preferences. These ‘teshuvah baskets’ are dynamic, in that their owners can fill, empty and modify their contents, while they conduct an ongoing critical ‘market survey’. This dynamism creates a reality, accompanied by a discourse, which continuously blurs the symbolic boundaries separating the various types of religious ‘supply’ sources. It demonstrates how practices and beliefs related to ‘soft religiosity’ are expressed also by those participating in what is generally referred to as ‘rigid religiosity’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the motivation behind bounded groups’ creation of digital enclaves online. Through in-depth interviews with 19 webmasters and staff of selected Israeli Orthodox websites three critical areas of negotiation are explored: (1) social control; (2) sources of authority; and (3) community boundaries. Examining these tensions illuminates a detailed process of self-evaluation which leads religious stakeholders and internet entrepreneurs to form these digital enclaves in order to negotiate the core beliefs and constraints of their offline communities online. These offer spaces of safety for members within the risk-laden tracts of the internet. Examining the tensions accompanying the emergence of these religious websites elucidates community affordances as well as the challenges to the authority that integration of new media poses to closed groups and societies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Several articles from Israeli and international press sources are presented. The articles include "State Eyes Legal Takeover of Abandoned East Jerusalem Properties" by Akiva Eldar which is in the July 19, 2010 issue of "Ha'Aretz" newspaper, "In Desperate Search for Recruits, Israeli Army Targets Foreigners" by Catrina Stewart in the June 19 issue of "The Independent," and excerpts from "In Israel Many Russians View Conversion Bill with a Shrug," by Nathan Jeffay in the August 10 issue of "The Jewish Daily Forward."

American Neo-Hasidism in Israel today is part of a sustained revival of traditional Judaism that began in the late 1960s among followers of Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, who sought to restore meaning to Jewish practice and identity. This unique religious subculture blends elements of New Age spirituality and American countercultural values with Hasidism, a mystical movement within Judaism dating back to the eighteenth century. The result is a new syncretistic Jewish culture and practice. At two English-speaking yeshivas, one in Jerusalem and the other in Bat Ayin in the West Bank, this Neo-Hasidic subculture exhibits kinship with both the conservative religious culture of Israeli settlers and the countercultural spiritual values of young American Jewish immigrants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 1970s a growing number of Israelis have moved to seek spiritual fulfillment and communal attachments in new religious movements. The crisis of secular modernist Zionist Israel, which started after the Yom Kippur War in 1973, allowed new religious movements to find a fruitful ground for their activities. Many of these new groups developed within the Jewish tradition, often attracting followers based on different ethnic, political and gender sensitivities. Non-Jewish religious movements have also competed in an increasingly open market of spiritual and communal choices in Israeli society. The groups that have done particularly well are those that do not present "foreign deities" as part of their messages. New religious movements have helped Westernize and democratize Israeli society, turning Israel into a nation where individuals have the freedom to join or create new spiritual communities based on their preferences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A long series of excavations has been carried out since 1967 by Israeli archaeologists in 'unified' Jerusalem. Proponents have characterised this work as revolutionary and inspired by 'a free academic spirit'; critics have viewed it as part of the 'Jewish-colonial-nationalist project'. The truth of these views, which are not mutually exclusive, lies very much in the eye of the beholder. Despite the unified legal framework governing the excavation of Jerusalem, there is neither a single outlook nor an overarching plan in its conduct. Different excavators — and perhaps more significantly, different development agencies — have worked to different ends in Jerusalem, using a wide variety of means. Three stages may be discerned in the conduct of archaeological work in Jerusalem since 1967. The first two, spanning the first three decades or so of Israeli presence in East Jerusalem, may be characterised, by and large, as 'official' in outlook, i.e., governed by concerns of the central government and by the municipal leadership; the third, spanning the recent decade, is highly factional in outlook, i.e., governed by the pressures exerted on an increasingly decentralised authority by special interest groups, primarily those of the ideological-religious right. The conclusion of this paper puts forward some ideas for alternative action by archaeologists in Jerusalem, based on current concepts of best archaeological practice and on a proactive stance on archaeological ethics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses events which took place between November 16, 2008 to February 15, 2009 during the Israeli attack on the Gaza Strip, known as Operation Cast Lead. The author explains that the Israelis maintained a siege on Gaza because of Hamas's takeover there. The article details Israel's crossing into Gaza and Palestinian's use of mortars and rockets. The involvement of the Israel Defense Forces is talked about. Subjects of the article also include the ban on the Foreign Press Association, Palestinian prisoners, and attacks from members of the Islamic Jihad organization.

This article introduces two national religious-oriented (dati-le'umi) organizations that have emerged within Israeli society since the 1990s. Neither has openly called for the dismantling of the state rabbinate. Nevertheless, they challenge central aspects of its hegemony over religious life. Both are independent initiatives whose main mandate is to provide the average non-observant Israeli with an alternative address for religious guidance and services. Beyond engendering a re-conceptualization of the nature of the rabbinate in Israel, the article suggests that these new frameworks offer a window into broader realignments that began to emerge at the turn of the twenty-first century both in regard to the relationship of the secular population to religion and within Israeli national religious Orthodoxy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyzes the nature and impact of the brief ensuing anti-cult process from the opposing theoretical perspectives of social functionalism and social constructionism in Israel. According to the author, these theories were devised to account for the latent functions of societal reaction to cults, the strategies used, and their instrumental and symbolic outcomes in terms of societal repositioning. The cult and anti-cult movement in Israel started during the 1960s and these movements elicited various forms of negative reactions from influential mainstream sectors in society. The cult issue in Israel serves as an opportunity to examine the failures or defects in Jewish education and to call for inner soul searching.

This study focuses on the role of social networks in the decision-making process in migration which occurs between developed countries, specifically in immigration from North America to Israel. The central declared motives for immigration were religious; nevertheless, “materialistic” issues were also mentioned. The decision-making process was long, usually taking from 2 to 10 years. Information was gathered via personal contacts from social networks, during visits to Israel, and from Jewish organisations. The Internet also played a major role in this process. Networks that were set up by Israeli and Jewish organisations were found to be especially effective in organising immigration because they connected non-numerous dispersed individuals, who were thinking about Aliyah, and needed various kinds of support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Profiles Warder Cresson, a prosperous Pennsylvania farmer and religious enthusiast that was adjudged legally insane after his conversion to Judaism. Defense of Cresson's attorney General Horatio Hubbell in the appeal filed for the reopening of the case; Cresson's activities upon his return to Jerusalem, Israel; Different views on Cresson's religious conversion and fanaticism; Writings on the coming of the Messiah by Cresson.

The article discusses the influence of kibbutz socialism, with reference to its educational system on the kibbutz youth. The kibbutz socialization has succeeded in establishing a balance between achieving collectivistic and individualistic orientations. The kibbutz educational system induces a collectivistic value commitment in its members, which encourages them to volunteer for services meant for the betterment of the society such as serving in border settlements, developing towns and participating in youth movements. The kibbutz educational system is similar to the one followed in English public schools, in terms of their structural totality.