Voluntary Action and Location in the System: The Case of the Israeli Civilians During the 1973 War

Abstract

The 1973 war created a situation in which the actor was given relative freedom in choosing and performing volunteering roles. After reviewing the conditions created by the war and the institutional handling of volunteering, it is hypothesized that the tendency to volunteer is connected with the location on the center-periphery continuum, with centrality providing both a predisposition to volunteer and the possession of the necessary connections and skills. Data were gathered through a questionnaire answered by 515 persons who were heads of households during the war. As expected, a significant connection was found between volunteering and socio-economic status (SES) variables connected with centrality as well as between volunteering and membership in voluntary organizations during routine time. No connection was found between the costs of war and volunteering to the actor and her or his family and the tendency to volunteer. The ways in which volunteers got their jobs were usually connected with personal initiative and with attributes of centrality. These findings are interpreted in terms of the centrality hypothesis.