Israel's Changing Society: Population, Ethnicity, and Development (review)

Abstract

128 SHOFAR Summer 1997 Vol. 15, No.4 Israel's Changing Society: Population, Ethnicity, and Development, by Calvin Goldscheider. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1996. 271 pp. $55.00. ,This comprehensive analysis of contemporary Israeli society presents a fresh perspective on an important topic by focusing on demographic processes and their interactionwith ethnicity and nation-building. Calvin Goldscheider argues that demographic processes have contributed significantly to the particular forms of nationbuilding , economic development, and ethnicity that have emerged in Israeli society. He draws on a wide array of secondary sources in his thematic treatment ofthese topics. Immigration is obviously a key component ofisrael's demographic history, as are the differing patterns of fertility and mortality over time and between Israel's various subpopulations. Goldscheider relates these demographic factors to changing conceptions of ethnicity, which he defmes as "a social construction that varies with who is categorizing, who gets categorized, and in what contexts these categories are applied during the life course" (p. 28). Goldscheider subscribes to the view that ethnicity is shaped by structural socioeconomic factors such as place of residence, education, employment, and family, that defme the social context in which people live. After an introductory overview of his theoretical approaches to demography and ethnicity in which he explains his view of ethnicity as based on institutions and structural social networks, Goldscheider proceeds with a historical discussion of the formation ofboth Jewish and Arab communities in Israel. The remainder of the book is organized around broad thematic units. Sections address issues such as settlement patterns and the development oflocal communities; forms ofinequality based on social class and gender in Israeli society; family formation; and the links between diaspora communities and ethnic continuities in Israel. For the purpose of his analysis, Goldscheider distinguishes between three major subpopulations within Israeli society: Jews of European and American origin, Jews of Asian and African origin, and Arab Israelis. Each of these groups is further broken down when there are relevant distinctions to be made. Assessment ofthe status ofArab Israelis in Israeli society begins with the assertion that what is sometimes construed by the Jewish majority as a demographic threat posed by Arab Israelis is based on ideological convictions rather than demographic evidence. In fact, while the Arab population in Israel has grown in absolute numbers, its proportion relative to the total Israeli population has remained remarkably consistent over the years, hovering between .18 and 19 percent. The more critical demographic issue from Goldscheider's perspective is the residential segregation and concentration of Israeli Arabs that has resulted from Israeli state policies. Combined with a discriIninatory Israeli labor market, this separation from the broader Israeli society reinforces not only Arab dependency on the Jewish economic sector but also the dependency of Arab women on Arab men and the reliance of the Book Reviews 129 younger generation of Israeli Arabs on the older generation for support. Goldscheider asserts that despite improvements in structural conditions such as higher levels of education, the continued segregation of Israeli Arabs has resulted in greater economic deprivation and lower morale. In this sense, he concludes that the high costs of residential segregation for Israeli Arabs have been similar to those for American blacks. Goldscheider argues that residential segregation has also worked to the disadvantage of Israeli Jews of Asian and African descent. While· some members of this population have achieved economic prosperity and have moved into higher status neighborhoods, Goldscheider contends that "those who have been left behind in the social mobility process have become a hard-core disadvantaged group, with a high level ofseparation from the Western origin population and from the upwardly mobile secondgeneration Asian and African population" (p. 93). The gap between Jews of European and American origin and those of Asian and African origin is socioeconomic as well as residential: Jews ofAsian and African origin continue to have lower levels ofeducational attainment and a lower occupational status than those ofEuropean and American origin despite absolute improvements in both of these areas. One issueraised by Goldscheider's analysis is what role culture plays in the educational attainment and employment status among Jews ofAsian and African origin. Goldscheider does not believe that "educational and other distinctions among ethnic groups...