Israel's Changing Collective Identity

Ben Gurion University Scholar Fred Lazin joins us to talk about changes in Israeli society from its "melting pot" past to today's "multiculturalism."   Come hear him address the place of Oriental Jews, the ultra-Orthodox, Liberal Judaism, the Russians, Israeli Arabs and McDonald's in contemporary Israeli society.

Fred A. Lazin is the Lynn & Lloyd Hurst Family Professor of Local Government at Ben Gurion University of the Negev. He has authored over sixty scholarly articles and chapters in books.  He is the author of eight books dealing with public policy in the United States, Israel and developing countries, Israeli politics and society and Jews in American politics.  His most recent book is The Struggle for Soviety Jewry in American Politics:  Israel versus the American Jewish Establishment.  His pioneering research on the response of American Jewish organizations to German Jewish refugees in the 1930s opened a new field in Holocaust Studies.