No abstract

Following recent studies on everyday de-stigmatization processes [1], I examine in this paper the culture resources working class Ethiopian-Israelis mobilize to contest stigmatized notions of Ethiopianness. Based on 30 in-depth interviews, and an ethnographically informed analysis of those interviews, I present two types of culture resources. The first is the use of "Ethnic Culture," in which Ethiopianness is presented as unproblematic ethnic distinctiveness, and non-Ethiopian Israelis are grouped along ethnic lines of different, but equally valued groupings. This is a strategy that emphasizes group membership and handles ethnic distinctions as commonsensical. The second is the use of "Universalism," in which all potential group memberships are rejected as meaningless for individual self-identification and evaluation. This strategy emphasizes equality on universal ground and uses various all-inclusive criteria. Guided by two distinct logics, emphasizing vs. rejecting group membership, both strategies are oriented towards creating horizontal relations with others. While previous studies emphasized the role of racial and national boundaries in the de-stigmatization processes among Ethiopian Israelis, the variations in this paper shed light on the working of ethnicity as a commonsensical source of value; thus, enabling us to further specify the different logics behind the absence of racial language among ordinary Ethiopians, and the varied degrees to which national boundaries matter in everyday contestation over stigmatized notions of group membership.

A fundamental building block of the Zionist vision is the claim of a primordial link between modern-day Jews and the people and territory of ancient Israel. This claim, which has proven remarkably durable despite its changing form and its tension with understandings of Palestinian indigeneity, continues to inform conceptions of nativeness in the modern-day state of Israel. This chapter explores how constructions of Jewish nativeness in Israel have changed in relation to successive immigration processes. Taking sociocultural and political dynamics as its focus, the chapter examines the cultural and institutional practices through which the notion of Jewish nativeness, its boundaries, and its logics of inclusion and exclusion were constructed and enforced in four historical periods. In each period, an increase in ethnic and religious heterogeneity challenged established notions of Jewish nativeness and membership in new ways. Although conceptions of Jewish nativeness have changed over time, they continue to shape social boundaries by signaling, and qualifying, membership in the Israeli collective.