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| Who is a Jew: Israeli Law versus the Press |
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| Start Date: | 2/19/2013 | Start Time: | 4:00 PM |
| End Date: | 2/19/2013 | End Time: | 5:00 PM |
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Event Description
"Who is a Jew": Israeli Law versus the Press
Speaker:
Professor Yifat Holzman-Gazit
Religion-state issues are particularly contentious in the Israeli context and they are often resolved by litigation before the Supreme Court in its capacity as the High Court of Justice. A controversy that reached Israel's High Court of Justice in 2005 involved a petition to recognize the validity of non-Orthodox conversions to Judaism that were performed abroad and known as "stop-over conversions". In the research, we examined the role of both elite and popular newspapers in constructing the controversy over "who is a Jew". We found that two distinct frames were used by the papers to convey the essence of the controversy. While the organizing idea in Ha'aretz, the elite newspaper, was one of Israel as a civic state, Yedioth Achronot, the popular newspaper, emphasized the religious dimension of Israeli nationhood. However, both papers avoided challenges to the basic issue of whether religious authorities should control the definition of the character of Israel as a Jewish State. Thus, the media in effect defined the terms of the struggle over the Jewish identity of the state within consensual boundaries.
Free and open to the public. |
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