What is the relationship between social protest movements in the State of Israel and the Israel-Palestine conflict? Why did mass protests that culminated in “Tahrir is Here” in 2011 end in failure? Israel’s Mizrahi single mothers are at the forefront of feminist activism. Yet, time and again, their protests are truncated by lethal bureaucratic entanglements. Wrapped in the Flag of Israel explores the relationship between Israel’s bureaucracy, social justice activism, and foreign affairs. Lavie presents a model of bureaucracy as divine cosmology. In Israel, bureaucracy is based on a theological essence that fuses the categories of religion, gender, and race into the foundation of citizenship. Mizrahi feminists who advocate racial justice are silenced by demands for national unity in the face of an acute threat to the survival of the Jewish State. The afterword to the second, updated edition examines the striking interplay between the 2014 War on Gaza, Israeli ultra-nationalism, and Mizrahi feminism.
 
Smadar Lavie is Scholar in Residence, UC Berkeley; and Visiting Prof., University College Cork

Conférence présentée par le CÉRIUM et le Département d’anthropologie