Transnational migration to Israel in global comparative context / edited by Sarah S. Willen.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Willen, Sarah S.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Foreign workers--Israel.

Foreign workers.

Foreign workers--Legal status, laws, etc.

Israel.

Foreign workers--Legal status, laws, etc--Israel.

Physical Description:

ix, 268 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Lanham : Lexington Books, [2007]

Summary:

Transnational Migration to Israel in Global Comparative Context explores both how and why the recent influx of approximately two hundred thousand non-Jewish migrants from dozens of countries across the globe has led state officials to declare in definitive terms that Israel "is not on immigration country" despite its unwavering commitment to welcoming unlimited-numbers of "homeward-bound" Jewish immigrants. The presence of labor migrants, along with smaller groups of asylum seekers and victims of trafficking in women, has dramatically transformed the local labor economy of Israel/Palestine and generated a wide array of complicated legal, policy-related, cultural, and ideological questions and dilemmas for the Israeli state, local municipalities, and civil society.

This book is distinctive not only in its incisive comparisons between Israel and other "destination countries," but also in its multifaceted analysis of how the Israeli migration regime has shaped, constrained, and been challenged by the arrival of these unanticipated migrants. These original essays analyze the relationship between transnational migration processes and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; the heterogeneity of state and civil society responses to migrants' presence; transnational migrants' precarious status within existing local ethnoscapes and social hierarchies; the challenges their presence poses to Israel's distinctive citizenship regime; and undocumented migrants' efforts to craft "inhabitable spaces of welcome" within a consistently ambivalent and, since 2002, aggressively xenophobic host state.

Contents:

Part I Transnational Migration and the Israeli State in Flux: National-Level Perspectives

2 Labor Migration, Managing the Ethno-National Conflict, and Client Politics in Israel / Rebeca Raijman, Adriana Kemp 31

3 Litigating Citizenship Beyond the Law of Return / Guy Mundlak 51

Part II Tel Aviv as Global City: Local and Municipal Perspectives on Transnational Migration

4 Local Migrant Policies in a Guest-worker Regime: The Case of Tel Aviv / Michael Alexander 73

5 Migrant Workers' Segregation and Adaption to the Ethnic City: The Case of Tel Aviv / Itzhak Schnell 87

Part III Irregular Migration and Health

6 Rights, Citizenship, and the National State: Health Policies Toward Migrant Workers in Comparative Perspective / Dani Filc, Nadav Davidovitch 103

7 Undocumented Migrant Workers and Access to Health Services in Germany: Points of Comparison to Israel / Heide Castaneda 123

8 Asylum Seekers and Trafficked Women-A Comparative Perspective on Health Care Entitlements / Rami Adout 139

Part IV Seeking Inhabitable Spaces of Welcome: Ethnographic Perspectives on Undocumented Migrants' Everyday Lives

9 "Flesh of Our Flesh": Undocumented Migrant Workers' Search for Meaning in the Wake of a Suicide Bombing / Sarah S. Willen 159

10 The Rise and Fall of African Migrant Churches: Transformations in African Religious Discourse and Practice in Tel Aviv / Galia Sabar 185

11 Terms of Endearment: Undocumented Domestic Workers and Their Israeli Employers / Anat Rosenthal 203

12 Challenging Exclusionary Migration Regimes: Labor Migration in Israel in Comparative Perspective / Zeev Rosenhek 217.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 233-254) and index.

ISBN:

9780739110676

0739110675

OCLC:

129953830