Local Context of Identity Formation

Abstract

Israeli women’s understanding of the historical process that enabled the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948 has a significant effect on their identity formation. In the context of the local bloody battlefield, almost everybody in Israel has strong views concerning entitlements, rights, resolutions, and hopes. These views develop, among other things, as part of beliefs regarding the continuous conflict between Jews and Arabs/Palestinians in this area. Thus, emotionally intense national matters affect all aspects of day-to-day life, including the relative importance of other identity dimensions aside from the national one. Under these circumstances, it is not surprising that our study reveals the Israeli scene to be the one where women’s marital names are not a gender issue alone, but also, concurrently, a national and ethnic issue. Preparing the background for analyzing the specificities of local naming practices thus necessitates an exposition of several of the main political processes. We begin this chapter with such an exposition, followed by a discussion on names from an Israeli perspective and a methodological note on the research presented in this book.