With a fertility rate that nearly triples the national average and increased political power that accompanies demographic growth, Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) Jews in Israel are becoming an increasingly important piece of the country's diverse national mosaic. This raises economic concerns: Haredi women earn low wages, while most Haredi men do not…

In this work, we elaborate on the changes and transformations in the Israeli education system (including higher education) from Israel's independence in 1948 to 2019. Specifically, the study places special emphasis on developments commencing in 1976 in response to the establishment of a separate administrative division for Druze and Circassian…

My article narrates and theorizes one educational moment of speaking 'across' the social and political margins in a peripheral college on the northern border of Israel. I recognize the academic space as what historian Louise Pratt titled a 'contact zone' where peoples geographically and historically separated meet within radically asymmetrical…

Faith-based organizations (FBOs) have an important presence in contemporary civil society and have gained further prominence through their repertoire of social welfare and services. This study engaged social work educators (n = 316) across nine countries to examine their perceptions of including discourses on faith and FBOs in the social work…

The following article presents data from a mixed-methods practitioner research study that focuses on understanding how Jewish secondary students learned about controversial topics in Israel's history and how these topics impacted their connection to the country. The responses that were provided by the students showed that the material forced…

Background: The purpose of this study was to compare perceptions of coping as experienced by 240 mothers of adolescents with and without developmental disability in the Druze community in Israel. Method The mothers completed the Sociodemographic Questionnaire, Grandparents Functional Support Assessment, Family Adaptability and Cohesion Evaluation…

Despite the increased trend towards secularisation in state schooling, issues of religion and spirituality have remained important. Increased pluralism within societies through expanding migration patterns is changing the religious and cultural contours of many countries in Europe and North America, and is creating a need for a deeper…

In this article, Yaccov Katz describes Israel as a unique country housing a population that has increased ten-fold since independence in 1948. It is a country composed of Jews and Arabs, veterans, and immigrants hailing from over 100 countries throughout the world. On the one hand, Israel has a population of secular Jews who profess to be Jewish…

This paper studies one ultra-Orthodox group--Habad community, exploring its members' attitudes towards four languages: Hebrew, Loshen Koydesh (LK), English, and Yiddish, and focusing on usage, affection for the language, ascribed importance, and holiness. Research questions were: (1) What are the attitudes of Habad members towards these languages?…

The Druze community in Israel is a distinct religious community currently undergoing important ethnolinguistic shifts. The government's implementation of an official policy has led to the deconstruction and reshaping of the Druze political and national identity to one that differs substantially from that of the Palestinian minority in Israel. In…

Conflicts between different religious groups occasionally arise in my Christian and Muslim Israeli-Arab EFL students' school and area. In an attempt to increase students' knowledge of and respect for other faiths in the region, I conducted practitioner inquiry research in my religiously diverse Middle-Eastern classroom. Grounded in critical…

The author demonstrates that entry-level students can achieve a more comprehensive understanding of complex problems through an explicitly interdisciplinary approach than through a merely multidisciplinary approach, using the process described in Repko's (2014) "Introduction to Interdisciplinary Studies." Repko takes the…

The integration of highly religious minority students into institutions of higher education poses significant pedagogical and value challenges for students and teachers alike. We offer a framework for analyzing such challenges, distinguishing between practical concerns, identity issues and value conflicts. By contrasting a deficit perspective to…

This article reports some of the results of interviews with 120 Israeli Druze, 60 middle-aged adults and 60 young adults, regarding values, views of the Druze community, and personal identity. All participants expressed commitment to and love for traditional Druze values of familial respect, respect for others, modesty in dress and behavior, and…

This article examines the educational activism of two Arab civil organizations in Israel: the Follow-Up Committee on Arab Education (FUCAE) and the Eqraa Association (Eqraa). On the one hand, it explores the possibilities and limitations of the involvement of the FUCAE in the state's Arab education system, as a secular organization that is heavily…