Contemporary dilemmas of Israeli citizenship

Contemporary Israel is engaged in religious, national and ethnic struggles over the definition of citizenship, and this political struggle translates into a series of practical questions relating to identity, inclusion and rights. The dual commitment of the state of Israel as ‘Jewish and democratic’ presents a combined challenge to the balance between them (Jewishness and democracy) and a challenge to them separately. What is it that defines Jewish identity? What is it that defines the democratic character of modern Israel? Not only, therefore, does the presence of the Arab minority challenge the overall definition of the Jewish state and its ability to be democratic, but religious and secular Jews are also involved in a contest over the meaning of the Jewish state and the actual role of religion in the public sphere. To these relatively old debates there is now a number of new ingredients. First, there is a mass immigration from the former Soviet Union and, second, a rapid globalization of Israeli economy and society, which have been propelled into the liberal market of world capitalism. The presence of the Russian migrant complicates the debate about social groups struggling to define a place for themselves as citizens in Israeli society and the globalization of the Israeli economy transforms the essential meaning of citizenship and the rights it entails. Citizenship in Israel, the principal topic of this special issue of Citizenship Studies, is a site of contention that illuminates a variety of contemporary struggles between social groups and these struggles in turn raise problems about the legitimacy of the state and its institutions.