Governing through educational discourse: the case of integration in Israel, 1970-1973

Abstract

Issues of ethnicity, culture, and national identity have been central in every political and social circle in Israel since the first days of the Zionist movement. The “new Jew,” a term created and lionized by the Zionist movement at the end of the 19th century, shadowed Israeli society and remained a critical part of the struggle for national identity and unity in the State of Israel after its independence in 1948. This Jew was to be a white, educated, westernized citizen, involved in both political and social processes, knowledgeable in the terms of the Western world. The concepts of the new Israeli-Jew completely ignored the fact that since the first days of the Zionism movement, the Middle Eastern Jew, born, raised and significantly involved in Arab countries, was a notable part of it and of the process of building the Jewish state of Israel. (author's abstract)