The Divided People: Can Israel's Breakup Be Stopped

(Paperback)

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The Divided People describes a fracturing Israel, a deeply divided state whose political system is buckling and whose society is rapidly polarizing into religious and secular camps. Written by a social scientist and drawing upon social science research, the work documents the emergence of separate social networks, residential areas, symbols, and identities--and even a split in the Hebrew language itself. Yet rather than argue for a return to the commonality of the past, Eva Etzioni-Halevy champions Israel's painful transition toward a truly multicultural society prepared to embrace diversity and democracy. This provocative new book carries a supremely important message for a postmodern Israel taking its first painful steps toward pluralism, liberalism, and tolerance, and a wider lesson for western nations grappling with the problems of a devolutionary age.

Reviews

Eva Etzioni-Halevy gives a penetrating account of how the no-holds-barred power competition between religious and secular leaders is endangering Israel's democracy. A sweeping but deeply troubling analysis of Israel today and of the funeral pyre its political elites seem intent on building. -- John Higley
Even after concluding that Israeli Jews are increasingly divided on religious grounds, Eva Etzioni-Halevy redirects our attention to the erosion of the common ground that used to (ought to/can still) unite them as a nation and as a democracy. -- Elihu Katz, University of Pennsylvania and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
The Divided People [is] a fascinating dtudy of the variety of differences in worldview and experiences between secular and religious Jews in Israel. * H-Net: Humanities and Social Science Reviews Online *
While all commentators on Israeli reality focus on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Eva Etzioni-Halevy points out the crucial significance of the ongoing religious-secular confrontationwhich, to no lesser extent, questions the viability of this society. In this masterpiece of sociopolitical analysis, Etzioni-Halevy shows how the essential character of this only sovereign Jewish society is at stake in a battle where divergent camps oppose each other with obstination, willfully ignoring each other's legacy as well as the cultural foundation that holds them together. -- Eliezer Ben-Rafael, President, International Institute of Sociology, Tel-Aviv University

Author Bio

Eva Etzioni-Halevy is Professor of Political Sociology in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Bar-Ilan University. Her books include Classes and Elites in Democracy and Democratization (1997) and The Elite Connection (1993).