Making Sense of Constant Change

Abstract

Since its foundation in 1948, Israel has been undergoing constant change associated with the government policy of in-migration, the ‘ingathering of the exiles’ along with the efforts of the state to meet the challenges of a modern, globalizing economy. For a long time, the contribution of sociologists was in the vein of apologetics. They formulated functionalist explanations to show that new immigrants had to be pressured into assimilation. Homogenization of the increasingly variegated Jewish population was presented as a scientifically warranted goal, while groups who were not of ‘western’ origin and those defined as minority groups could be relegated to ‘otherness’ and ‘difference’. The self-presentation of Israel as ‘Jewish and democratic’ was supported by sociological theorizing about Israel as a ‘unique’ sociopolitical phenomenon. The patent theoretical and practical contradictions of the ideology tended to be explained away and for several decades of the state's existence, the official ideology was all but unchallenged. With the growth of the academic community of sociologists, and, paradoxically, with the dynamic right-wing changes in politics, economics and culture in train since the 1980s, sociology is increasingly coming into its own. More researchers now attempt to make sense of the changes in ways that are attuned to contradictions. They look at (Israeli) society as a universal multi-factor processthat is subject to discoverable social laws; take as subject matter not what society oughtto be, but primarily what society actually is; and increasingly sift statements and conclusions founded on empirical datain their aspiration to scientific truth.