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Foreword
- State University of New York Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
This book addresses labor immigration in Israel and its dialectic relations with state policies informed by Jewish Zionist national ideologies. The immigrant workers’ life circumstances in Israel, as “Aliens in a Homeland,” form a core paradox in Israel’s identity, as a state that was established as a refuge ground for millions of Jews. When it comes to its “others,” “the Gentiles,” one finds an utterly different attitude. I will unravel here a kind of “collective myth” of Israeli policy makers as well as citizens and argue that contrary to their “production line” image of foreign workers coming and going according to the flow of demand and procedure , in fact, these workers are here to stay, and in spite of setbacks, they gradually have embedded themselves in the host society, especially within large urban centers. Historical experience has shown that the presence of labor migrants has an enduring impact on their host society and its economic, social, and political structures. In Israel, the change they bring manifests itself in the transformation of Israel’s concepts about work and challenges the thinking about citizenship and national identity. This book attempts to unfold this complex process. It is by essence an ethnographic study of policy. It unfolds the everyday life and career cycle of foreign workers in Israel. The aim of this book is in a sense holding the rope on both sides—to depict the large, macro-evolution of working immigration policies, on the one hand, and, on the other, zooming in, seeking to understand differences between industrial sectors employing foreign workers and how on the micro-level of existence different cultural patterns appear. In the last few decades an abundance of research has been conducted regarding the phenomena of working immigrants as part of globalization. Although immigration of populations across lands and continents is ancient, a successful method of human survival, a practice of satisfying economic needs in the face of scarcity, the occurrence of immigration in modern times has unique characteristics—it is embedded within a highly technological, mass communication and more than all a bureaucratized world. Within these xi Foreword digital, transparent, and lucid landscapes, humans try to improve and mold their destinies—struggling through appealing to court, child bearing, overt and hidden political pressures on decision makers, ideological claims, and public opinion and mass communication, and many times through running away and hiding in the wake of night. On the other side is the state, and its regulative policies, which seeks “immigration criminals” in the wake of night, deporting them at sunrise. Behind this highly dynamic and restless world seethes the immigrants’ great passion for personal welfare, identity, belonging, and survival, manipulated and consumed by opponents such as employers who are motivated by greed. This book tells the story of people who are not satisfied with what their local subsistence economy offers them. They travel far from home, many times getting caught up in, addicted to, the flow of money, sometimes preferring to settle in the host societies. I invite the reader to join me in this tale, based on nine years of collecting data of all forms and sizes by observations, interviews, court decisions, in newspapers, and more. It is an exploration within the deep, dark waters of Israel policy making, and implementation operates in the shadow of the seemingly pure, elitist ideology of Zionism. It also is a story of the dynamics of struggle of those foreign workers who dare to seek a better life for themselves and their families by heading toward the stormy waters of a small immigrant society, Israel, a country with huge geopolitical troubles. This book evolved out of my engagement with many—endless encounters with foreign workers from all walks of employment, documented and undocumented; government and municipal officials at the top and at the “street level”; employers, small and large, and those who devoted themselves to all forms of advocacy work. During the writing of this book I witnessed how the presence of foreign workers in Israel appeared to have ramped up their life and work embedded in every aspect of the Israeli existence, its economic and political realities as well as its culture and identity. Writing this book entails the cooperation and support of many people . In particular, I am indebted to generations of students in my seminar on foreign workers in Israel, to the faculty of the Social Science, the Department of Public Policy, Tel-Aviv University. Their enthusiasm, commitment and natural sense of social justice are...