,Models of Israeli Social Analysis

Models of Israeli Social Analysis


 

Publication Date: September 1981

Publisher: Jewish Communal Service Association of North America

Author(s): Steve Zipperstein; Eliezer D. Jaffe

Research Area: Culture and religion; Social conditions

Keywords: Socioeconomic status; Jewish Communal Relations; Social Policy; Social Class

Type: Report

Coverage: Israel

Abstract:

The majority of Sephardim remain at the lower rungs of the socioeconomic hierarchy in Israel. The authors analyze the Sephardi-Ashkenazi gap in terms of sociopolitical
explanations given by Israeli scholars over the years. The dominant model offered is that this problem can only be solved through the modernization of the Sephardim. The authors demonstrate that this model has been used for several decades as the rationale and formula for social policies and relationships between the Ashkenazi and Sephardi groups. The authors critique this problematic notion of "modernization" as currently applied and offer alternative modes of analysis in working to solve the socioeconomic gap.

In Journal of Jewish Communal Service, 58:1.