Did the Israeli State Engineer Segregation? On the Placement of Jewish Immigrants in Development Towns in the 1950s

Israel's "development towns" are known to be comparable to U.S. inner cities in all but one respect: while most agree that Blacks are over-represented in the inner cities because of discrimination, there is still disagreement over how Middle Eastern Jews (Mizrahim) came to be over-represented in the towns relative to European Jews (Ashkenazim). Israeli sociologists are divided between those who see an ethnically disinterested process of state-building – in which the state sent weak immigrants to the towns – and those who see one of ethnic formation – in which the state sent ethnic minorities. Findings from Israel's 1961 census largely support the latter. The net effect of ethnicity on the likelihood of being placed in a town was large, and among available schemes of ethnic categorization, placement followed those least associated with weakness. Moreover, the interaction between ethnicity and human capital was such that even high status Mizrahim were as likely to be sent to the towns as low status Ashkenazim.