Stuart Schoenfeld

In the Eastern Mediterranean, where political negotiations between Israeli governments and Palestinian governments have so far failed, intermittent warfare continues, and almost all person-to-person initiatives have been abandoned, there has been some success in maintaining organizations working on the agenda of shared regional environment challenges. The two most active organizations – the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies and EcoPeace - can been seen as sharing a common strategy: 1) involving participants in activities related to a shared problem, 2) involving participants in activities that provide immediate practical benefits, and 3) while acknowledging the reality of adversarial relations, building empathic personal networks that incorporate people from adversarial societies. This is not a strategy of conflict resolution but a strategy of building support for conflict resolution that recognizes the needs and interests of the various sides to a conflict while at the same time improving the lives of those involved with each organization. The paper reviews how each organization implements this strategy. It then explores challenges to maintaining this strategy during continuing unresolved conflict and asks how these challenges might be addressed.

Work toward Arab-Israeli peace in the 1990s involved activities at dual levels. While there were formal negotiations, there was also work to build popular support for peace through projects that would show the benefits of cooperative rather than hostile relations. Formal negotiations led to agreements between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, and the Peace Treaty between Israel and Jordan. Work to build cooperative projects with mutual benefits took a variety of forms, including building links between civil society groups and creating new settings to bring Israelis, Palestinians, Jordanians and others together. Environmental issues--water, energy, pollution, biodiversity and habitat protection--were acknowledged at both the formal and civil society levels. Formal agreements included sections on these topics. Cooperative projects not only addressed environmental issues, but also involved the creation of a small civil society network to promote regional environmental research and policy formulation. This chapter describes initiatives that have fostered regional environmentalism in the Eastern Mediterranean at both the formal and civil society levels. It is not history written in hindsight with perspective, but notes towards a future history of an initiative whose outcome is still very much uncertain. The uncertainly comes not only from inherent limits of forecasting, but also from the awareness, on the one hand, of frustration and failure, and, on the other hand, the perseverance and commitment of those who are working to make environmental initiatives ultimately a success.

In recent years, the Palestinian – Israeli conflict has been a contentious topic on Canadian university campuses. The conference “Israel / Palestine: Mapping Models of Statehood and Paths to Peace” held at York University in June 2009 was the occasion for a recent, high profile example of the debate over the management of university events on contentious issues. This paper approaches this debate from the perspective that participants with different standpoints frame contentious events in different ways.

Regionalism, as a socio-political project, involves the social production of knowledge; common interests are identified and a common identity around these shared interests is promoted. In the Eastern Mediterranean three projects of transnational environmental ...

Jewish educators are understandably interested in research on how bar/bat mitzvah affect Jewish education or research on what Jewish schools have done to avoid the distortions of a focus on bar/bat mitzvah. Research might also focus on the somewhat dif-ferent and more ...

... Eric Abitbol and Stuart Schoenfeld YCISS Working Paper Number 50 February 2009 Page 2. ... and Stuart Schoenfeld Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, Glendon College, York University YCISS Working Paper Number 50 February 2009 ...

Israel by a variety of actors that are working in different ways to address environmental challenges. This paper reflects upon Palestinian and Israeli environmental narratives as they were manifested in Johannesburg Earth Summit 2002. Several documents of both Israelis ...

This paper examines the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies, focusing on organizational strategies for advancing environmental and peacebuilding efforts across Israel, Palestine and Jordan. The paper will argue that by developing a continuing resource base and a distinct organizational culture, the Arava Institute is able to act as a protective buffer in a region of conflict. It seeks to transform its surrounding societies through three main strategies: 1) by aligning its organizational culture with the life plans of the students who participate in its work; 2) by building both bridging and bonding social capital and; 3) by using this social capital to create new environmental networks both regionally and globally. The analysis highlights the ability of the organization to cultivate a culture of organizational learning, so that it is able to adapt to its changing context while at the same time remaining true to its core mandate.

The search for public funding for Ontario Jewish day schools is examined in the context of the increasing role of transnational networks as aspects of religious life. Various scholars (Barber, 1993; Huntington, 1996; Kepel, 1994; Lawrence, 1996 [1989]) have interpreted the recent revival of transnational religious movements as indications of a shift towards a communal identifi cation which challenges identification with the nation-state. In some versions, religious communalism is seen as a movement to wards a non-Western (or anti-Western) form of modernization. In others, the emphasis is on the fragmented experience of capitalist culture at the end of the twentieth century and the use of religious communalism as a strategy to re-impose coherence onto the sub jectively perceived world. A local dimension of the revival of transnational religion may be seen in the politics of education in Ontario. Ontario, like other Canadian provinces, has never had a philosophic commitment to the sep...

1Yuri Slezkine consacre cet essai à l'histoire des Juifs russes durant l'époque soviétique, mais l'intitule de façon très générale : The Jewish Century. Il ne s'agit pas d'un coup de pouce par lequel l'auteur donnerait un titre alléchant à un ouvrage spécialisé : sa relecture de ce ...

Anywhere in the world, research will find that adults who have had more hours of Jewish schooling—above a threshold minimum—on average score significantly higher on measures of" Jewish identity"—eg, ritual behavior, having Jewish friends, being married to ...

The social scientific study of the Jews is preoccupied with the question of Jewish identity. In the modern world of nation states and secular ideologies, what is becoming of a people which traditionally thought of itself as a nation in exile with a divinely ordained destiny? What meaning do ...

A recent issue of the Palestine-Israel Journal of Politics, Economics and Culture (2006) examines the perceived failure of the "people-to-people" initiatives of the late 1990s and early 2000s. In contrast to the extended discussion of "what went wrong?" a short piece in the issue by Cohen (2006) about the Arava Institute of Environmental Studies is unusually positive. This contrast is

The papers in this section in four groups: 1)  recommended order for reading on the project’s primary focus: Eastern Mediterranean regional environmentalism in inter-government negotiations and social movements, with a focus on transboundary environmental organizations.  2) ethical and political issues in researching regional environmentalism in the Eastern Mediterranean  3) on the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies 4)  Miscellaneous

This paper begins with some explicit words about ethics.  The starting point is the ethic of “I and Thou” found in the work of Martin Buber (1970). Like his friend and fellow intellectual, Franz Rosenzweig, Buber struggled with the question of difference – how people can interact in a world where there are radically different understandings of the meaning of life.  Buber and Rosenzweig proposed a form of mutuality that was more than tolerance.  Tolerating the other, of course is better than intolerance.  But it is instrumental and pragmatic.  Mutuality requires a respect for the other, not just toleration.  Buber expressed this through his famous contrast of an “I-Thou” relation with an “I-it” relationship.  In an “I-it” relationship, other people have the status of things, they may be valued for their usefulness, but their needs are not the basis of our engagement with them.  An “I-Thou” relationship is one in which there is dialogue, which leads to empathy, understanding and mutual compassion.  Buber’s work is not a guide on how to do social science.  It is a guide for how to live.  It applies to social science as a part of life.
To this I’ll add another ethical position – a very simple ecological ethic, quoted from Mahatma Ghandi, “The world has enough for every person’s need, but not enough for one person’s greed.” (quoted in Guha 2000: 22) This is pithy, and provocative in the way that much of Ghandi’s approach is provocative.  It combines an ethic of personal modesty with respect for social justice and respect for nature. 
With these ethical considerations in mind, what happens when scholars try to do peacebuilding in the Middle East using an environmentalist perspective?

This paper is only partly about the challenge of human-nature relationships in the Eastern Mediterranean.  It is also about the urgency of establishing functional relationships that will respond to the challenge of environmental stress in the region, and, most importantly, it is about how some in the region are working towards these functional relationships.  The approach taken here is broadly social constructionist.  It is a truism in social science that “the answers you get depend on the questions you ask.”  The paper, then, inquires about those who ask about environmental distress in the Eastern Mediterranean, the strategies they use to promote their understanding of the region’s environmental challenges, and the conversation about how to respond to environmental concerns. 

Towards the end, there are some observations about the one state / two state discussion.  These observations focus on the how the one state / two state discussion is often conducted.  They note, from a social constructionist perspective, that high profile one-state advocates frame their discourse in ways that reduce the chance that there will be an adequate response to the challenge of environmental distress.

Social movement related university programs (SMRUPs) engage in bridging activities at the intersection of social movement and university networks. After an overview of the incorporation of SMRUPs into universities, one unusual example – the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies – is used to show how the intersection of a social movement agenda and normal institutional activity provides opportunities to mobilize resources in support of social movement objectives.  The institute, founded in 1996 as an Israeli center for Middle East environmental education, is a credit granting institution directly tied to the environmental movement and indirectly to the peace movement.  The Edwards and McCarthy typology (2004) provides a useful framework for organizing a wide range of the institute’s resource mobilization activities.

Work toward Arab-Israeli peace in the 1990s involved activities at dual levels. While there were formal negotiations, there was also work to build popular support for peace through projects that would show the benefits of cooperative rather than hostile relations. Formal negotiations led to agreements between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, and the Peace Treaty between Israel and Jordan. Work to build cooperative projects with mutual benefits took a variety of forms, including building links between civil society groups and creating new settings to bring Israelis, Palestinians, Jordanians and others together. Environmental issues--water, energy, pollution, biodiversity and habitat protection--were acknowledged at both the formal and civil society levels.  Formal agreements included sections on these topics. Cooperative projects not only addressed environmental issues, but also involved the creation of a small civil society network to promote regional environmental research and policy formulation.

This chapter describes initiatives that have fostered regional environmentalism in the Eastern Mediterranean at both the formal and civil society levels.  It is not history written in hindsight with perspective, but notes towards a future history of an initiative whose outcome is still very much uncertain. The uncertainly comes not only from inherent limits of forecasting, but also from the awareness, on the one hand, of frustration and failure, and, on the other hand, the perseverance and commitment of those who are working to make environmental initiatives ultimately a success.

Concern over the global environmental crisis may be aligned with contrasting
discourses. On the one hand, it is invoked in the sentiment, “we are all in it
together.” Whether the scale of reference is the entire planet, region, or
nation, this discourse leads to calls for cooperation. Typically, environmental
cooperation involves management plans, new policy initiatives and technological
innovations. On the other hand, the global environmental crisis is
also invoked in an environmental justice discourse, which is about
privilege, asymmetric power relations, exploitation, and oppression. The
logic of this discourse leads to a strategy of changing power relations so
that the environment is managed equitably.

People who work on environmental issues quickly learn that there are different kinds of environmentalism.  This paper draws on the book length study of diverse approaches to environmentalism published by Guha and Martinez-Allier in 1997 (Guha and Martinez-Allier; 1997), and the subsequent more schematic work published by Guha in 2000 (Guha, 2000).  Both volumes pay particular attention to the contrast between the environmentalism of the affluent North and the environmentalism of the South, but also examine the diversity of environmentalism within as well as between the North and South. 

Adapting this work, this paper makes a broad contrast between three types of environmentalism – romantic environmentalism, environmental management, and environmental justice. Each has an associated narrative.  Narratives place issues in specific interpretations of past, present and future.  The paper applies this approach to Israeli and Palestinian environmentalism, arguing that recognition of different understandings of environmentalism will help clarify research projects and policy making on the regional environment.

Regionalism, as a socio-political project, involves the social production of knowledge;
common interests are identified and a common identity around these shared interests is
promoted. In the Eastern Mediterranean three projects of transnational environmental
cooperation construct geographically different regions – a region with Israel, the
Palestinian Territories and Jordan at the center, the Mediterranean, and the Arab region.
The analysis of these contrasting projects draws on literature on framing, Middle East
regionalism and regional environmental governance. The review asks whether these
contrasting initiatives are competing or part of a dynamic process in which they positively
reinforce each other.

Universities have always been and are inherently settings for debate. Because these debates may
be contentious internally and externally, universities have constructed norms to protect
themselves as “safe spaces” for dissent and debate. Legally articulated norms of academic
freedom are central tools for establishing this safe space, but they are not the only ones.
Informal and sometimes formal norms are generated by concerns over how to establish a safe
space for dissent and debate. Nevertheless, there is a lively literature on the restraint of open
debate at universities and the associated question of how universities can effectively and
constructively use their resources with respect to contentious topics.
In recent years, the Palestinian – Israeli conflict has been a contentious topic on Canadian
university campuses. The conference “Israel / Palestine: Mapping Models of Statehood and
Paths to Peace” held at York University in June 2009 was the occasion for a recent, high profile
example of the debate over the management of university events on contentious issues. This
paper approaches this debate from the perspective that participants with different standpoints
frame contentious events in different ways.
Conference planning began in the fall of 2007, leading to an application for funding from the
SSHRC submitted in October 2008. The conference, organized by law professors at York and
Queens Universities, received support from the SSHRC through the normal peer review process.
In addition to the law schools and the SSHRC, the Nathanson Centre for Transnational Human
Rights, Crime and Security (York) co-sponsored the conference. The conference was listed
among the York events celebrating the university’s 50th anniversary.
From October 2008, up to the June 2009 event itself and after, there was public controversy -
criticism of the conference by academics and community organizations and defense of it by
academics, university officials and community organizations. The minister responsible for
SSHRC funding took an unprecedented step of asking for an additional review in June, which
resulted in the SSHRC endorsing its initial decision. York University and the Canadian
Association of University Teachers established formal reviews to “advise on the responsibilities of faculty members and University administrators in relation to conferences of this type” (York)
and examine “whether the academic freedom of the conference organizers and the integrity of
educational work were threatened by the actions of the York administration, SSHRC, and
others,” (CAUT) and in each case to make recommendations.
This paper reviews documents that were part of the public controversy over this conference –
documents produced by the conference organizers, York University colleagues and
administrative officials, academics critical of the conference, critical extra-university groups,
supportive extra-university groups, newspaper reports and committees of inquiry. This analysis
is limited to public documents; private communications of various kinds are not included.
The review asks a series of questions related to different standpoints and framings about these
documents. Among those who were critical, what were the variations in standpoint and how did
these impact their different understandings of issues raised by the conference? What do the
recurrent assertions of respect for academic freedom mean in this context? How did critics
understand the conference as one in a series of political actions rather than an academic event?
Among the defenders of the conference, what were the variations in standpoint and how did
these impact their different understandings of issues raised by the criticisms? Is there something
to be learned from these criticisms and responses that can promote effective and constructive use
of the universities as settings for debate over contentious topics?

In the Eastern Mediterranean, where political negotiations between Israeli governments and Palestinian governments have so far failed, intermittent warfare continues, and almost all person-to-person initiatives have been abandoned, there has been some success in maintaining organizations working on the agenda of shared regional environment challenges.  The two most active organizations – the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies and EcoPeace - can been seen as sharing a common strategy: 1) involving participants in activities related to a shared problem, 2) involving participants in activities that provide immediate practical benefits, and 3) while acknowledging the reality of adversarial relations, building empathic personal networks that incorporate people from adversarial societies.  This is not a strategy of conflict resolution but a strategy of building support for conflict resolution that recognizes the needs and interests of the various sides to a conflict while at the same time improving the lives of those involved with each organization.  The paper reviews how each organization implements this strategy.  It then explores challenges to maintaining this strategy during continuing unresolved conflict and asks how these challenges might be addressed.

While environmental issues have often been exacerbating factors in conflicts (Homer-Dixon, 1999; Brock, 1991; Holst, 1989), the interdependent nature of Israeli-Palestinian eco-systems have led several organizations to identify environmental issues not only as critical in their own right, but also as an opportunity for peacebuilding (Alleson and Schoenfeld, 2007; Zohar, Schoenfeld, and Alleson, 2010; Schoenfeld and Zohar, 2008). Building on a growing body of literature that points to peacebuilding opportunities through environmental and health initiatives (Ali, 2007; Chaitin et al, 2002; Garber, 2002; Santa Barbara & MacQueen, 2004; Skinner et al, 2005; Smith & Abu Diab, 1998 Twite, & Menczel, 1996) this paper identifies factors that facilitate environmental peacebuilding through a unique environmental education initiative. Based on a series of interviews with alumni of the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies (AIES), the paper will argue that personal accounts of program-based...

Jewish educators are understandably interested in research on
how bar/bat mitzvah affect Jewish education or research on what
Jewish schools have done to avoid the distortions of a focus on
bar/bat mitzvah. Research might also focus on the somewhat different
and more ambitious topic of the role that bar/bat mitzvah
play in contemporary Jewish identity. Three examples—the meaning
of bar/bat mitzvah in intermarried families, bar/bat mitzvah
as a ritual entry into early adolescence, and how bar/bat mitzvah
perform values—indicate how this larger research agenda might
be useful to those rethinking the role of bar/bat mitzvah in Jewish
supplementary school education.

Does this watershed moment mean a dismal future for urban economies and city life? Current forecasts include some that are fairly grim. More working from home means empty office space, less patronage for downtown retail and fewer jobs for city residents who are low income service workers. Sports events, concerts, restaurants, theatres, tourism and street festivals will be curtailed and less appealing. City governments, more so than others, will face budgetary crises, and cut back on services and employees. All this will intensify income inequality, with poverty and homelessness concentrated in cities. Racial inequities will become more apparent and urban race relations more fraught.

An urban downturn would contrast with the impressive rebound of many American cities in the decades that followed their hollowing out in the 1960s and 70s. Beyond the serious implications for American society in general, what happens in cities has implications for Jewish life. Jews who live and work in cities are enmeshed in their issues, as are Jewish institutions inside cities and in the larger metropolitan areas.

The restructuring of the American economy in the late twentieth and early twentyfirst centuries has implications for the local geographies and social structure of Jewish life. Jewish urban population growth has been associated with the expansion of professional workplaces in such fields as higher education, medicine, and finance in the American world cities of the global professional service economy. As well, Orthodox populations concentrated in urban neighborhoods have grown. These
changes have been taking place in the urban cores of metropolitan areas with large Jewish populations and also in some with smaller ones. Data from 20 local Jewish community studies indicate an increase in urban Jewish population, often at a faster rate than in the federation area as a whole, and in many cases, these indicate thatJews have been becoming a larger fraction of total local urban population. Available data from various sources allow a preliminary exploration of the emergent significance of the increased urban Jewish presence for the social construction of identity. The exploration considers neighborhood relations in Orthodox enclaves, the values and preference of highly educated professionals, cosmopolitanism as an outlook and an urban neighborhood characteristic, the role of urban Jewish institutions in identity construction, and economic challenges facing residents and institutions in thriving urban centers. Areas of future research are suggested.

Both of these publications are studies of urban Jewish neighborhoods—one in New York City, one in Los Angeles, the first by a historian, the second by a sociologist.  Perhaps they will encourage more scholarly research on the local geography of 21stcentury Jewish life.

Available at link.springer.com
https://doi.org/10.1007/s12397-017-9216-7

The research reported here is a valuable contribution to the small number of cohort studies of changes over time in the ways that Jews think of themselves and act.  It is particularly important as a detailed examination of a small sample, an interwoven series of related case studies.  The study is rich in its account of how people see the world and account for their behaviors.  It uses theoretical concepts that add to the repertoire for understanding Jewish identity and argues for a research focus on the role of family systems in identity.

Between 2003 and 2005 Pomson and Schnoor interviewed 28 sets of parents and observed at an independent downtown Toronto day school, founded in 1998, that grew to just over 100 students.  They reported their findings in Back to School: Jewish Day School in the Lives of Adult Jews (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2008), showing how the school became a project for the development of Jewish networks and practices for parents as well as children.  Between 6 and 8 years later they were able to find and interview sixteen of these families to explore their subsequent family relationships and understandings of themselves as Jews.  Unlike the earlier study, the children, who were still living at home in high school or transitioning to university, typically participated in the interviews.  These detailed interviews are the basis of the current book.

Available at link.springer.com.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12397-018-9277-2

Research on Jewish life in contemporary North American cities has several elements.  First, it takes place in the context of changes in the North American urban landscape.  In many cities the demography, economics and culture of urban neighborhoods are changing.  Not in all cities, and certainly not in all neighborhoods, but something significant has been happening.  Second, those who promote urban living often speak of the urban preference as a shift to a more sustainable lifestyle, in part a local adaptation to the global environmental crisis.  For those of us who think that the environmental crisis is primary issue of the 21st century, this dimension of developing urban Jewish life is important to explore.  Third, the long shadow of Marshall Sklare’s landmark study, Jewish Identity on the Suburban Frontier, supports the implicit assumption that North American Jews are a suburban population.  The large majority of North American Jews do live in suburbs, but this was never entirely true, there has been reverse Jewish migration from suburbs to the core in a number of cities, and a number of federations have been investing in their cores.  Fourth, the recent report by the Pew Foundation on American Jews supports previous research on generational shifts in Jewish attitudes and practices.  The millennial generation is highly visible in the urban revival, suggesting that there is a geographic as well as generational dimension to their Jewish attitudes and practices.

The recommendations of A Time to Act include a call to develop a research capability. Presumably the Council for Initiatives in Jewish Education will be the body to see that this recommendation is implemented. The Commission on Jewish Education in North America ...

Looking ahead requires a textured understanding of where we have been and where we are now. In Jewish education, however, all too often it has been the case that planning has taken place in a vacuum. Basic data about Jewish education has often been lacking, and ...

As Europe moved towards a society of nation states, questions, known collectivelY as "The Jewish Question," arose as to how to zegard Jewish group idem~: Was itto be considered an anachronistic culture which could be we ~ ~ coerced into the majority? Was it merely a particular relig- ...

Lorsqu'il fut publié, Crestwood Heights fut beaucoup lu. Pourtant, on le cite rarement aujourd'hui dans la littérature sociologique canadienne. Je le ré-examine ici en tant que contribution au débat sur la théorie de la religion moderne, de Thomas Luckmann. Au moyen de ľétude ?une communauté, Crestwood Heights analysait comment des idées sur la signification ultime sont incorporées dans les institutions sociales, et comment ces institutions agissent comme médiateur entre modèles culturels et vies personnelles. Cette approche méthodologique donne prise sur des données qui échappent tant aux sondages qu'aux entrevues, et dont la pertinence pour la théorie de Luckmann s'impose. Je suggère aussi que ľinterprétation de la religion au Canada proposée par Reginald Bibby s'accorde bien avec la façon de comprendre la religiosité moderne que ľon trouve tant dans Crestwood Heights que dans The Invisible Religion.Crestwood Heights, widely read at its time of publication, but now rarely cited in Canadian sociology, is re-examined as a contribution to the debate over Thomas Luck-mann's theory of modern religion. Using a community study methodology, Crestwood Heights examines how ideas about ultimate meaning are incorporated into social institutions and how these institutions mediate between cultural patterns and the personal lives of individuals. This methodological approach directs attention to data relevant to Luckmann's theory which are not gathered by survey and interview methods. It is also suggested that Reginald Bibby's interpretation of religion in Canada is consistent with the view of modern religiosity contained in Crestwood Heights and The Invisible Religion.

The social scientific study of the Jews is preoccupied with the question of Jewish identity. In the modern world of nation states and secular ideologies, what is becoming of a people which traditionally thought of itself as a nation in exile with a divinely ordained destiny? What meaning do ...