Israelis or Jews?

FAIN: FT-12170-74

Arnold M. Dashefsky
University of Connecticut (Storrs, CT 06269-9000)

To examine two questions: 1) What are the historical factors that have contributed to a decline in the pervasiveness of the ideology of the universality of Jewish peoplehood among Israeli Jews? 2) What is the historical context, in terms of existing social and cultural conditions, that influenced Israeli civil and rabbinic rulings on the matter of "who is a Jew." This project will contribute to a humanistic conception of the notion of ethnic identity in general and Jewish identity in particular.