The transformation of Israel's religious-Zionist middle class

This article argues that the emergence of a new religious-Zionist middle class in Israel may be a factor in restraining the radical potential of the political tendencies that research on religious Zionism has been pointing to for years. It examines, as test cases, the restrained protest against the Israeli disengagement from Gaza in 2005 and the most recent attempt to change the political leadership of the religious-Zionist parties prior to the 2009 elections. It concludes by connecting the processes described here with a discussion of the possible role of the Israeli middle class in mitigating the rifts within Israeli society.     

The Conventillo,the Department Store,and the Cabaret: Navigating Urban Space and Social Class in Argentine Silent Cinema, 1916–1929

This article examines an understudied film genre that some Argentine early film periodicals labeled cinedrama porteño. Porteño cinedramas portrayed a bleak Buenos Aires, a dark metropolis of massive immigration and accelerated urbanization in which opulence was reserved for the few and misery was all around, particularly in immigrant neighborhoods. Centering on ‘fallen women’ and well-dressed wastrels, the genre foregrounded social instability by confronting emerging and established social actors in several locations, including tenement housing, department stores, and cabarets and garçonnières. Based on surviving film fragments, this article argues that porteño cinedramas rendered visible varying degrees of sociocultural proximity and separation in urban space. In doing so, the genre traced sociocultural cartographies and identitary strategies to confer narrative and visual saliency to mobile subjects, most noticeably urban outcasts. Porteño cinedramas warned against the dangers of upward mobility while at the same time denouncing gender and class inequality in Buenos Aires. Films discussed include Hasta después de muerta (Eduardo Martínez de la Pera and Ernesto Gunche, 1916), La chica de la Calle Florida (José A. Ferreyra, 1922), and La borrachera del tango (Edmo Cominetti, 1928).     

Reviews and book notes

Penelope Hetherington, British Paternalism and Africa 1920–1940. Frank Cass, London, 1978, pp. xvi + 196. Price not stated on review copy.

Agnes Heller, The Theory of Need in Marx, London, Allison and Busby in association with Spokesman Books, August, 1976, pp. 135. Cloth and paper, price as yet unavailable.

P. Loveday, A. W. Martin and R. S. Parker (eds.), The Emergence of the Australian Party System, Sydney, Hale & Iremonger, 1977, pp. xviii + 538. $9.95 paper.

Robin Evelegh, PEACE‐KEEPING IN ADEMOCRATIC SOCIETY; The Lessons of Northern Ireland. 1978, pp. 240, $7.50.

Tony Bunyan, The History and Practice of the Political Police in Britain, J. Friedmann, 1976.

Abraham Ashkenasi, Modern German Nationalism. Schenkman, 1976. $20.00.

Northern Ireland 1968–74 A Chronology of Events. (Blackstaff Press, Belfast). Volume 1 1968–71, (£3.95); Volume 2 1972–73. (£6.50); Volume 3 1974, (£7.50). All three volumes compiled by Richard Deutsch and Vivien Magowan.

Peter Gibbon, The Origins of Ulster Unionism, Manchester U.P., 1975, pp. 163. £6.00.

Nancy Kinghan, United We Stood, Appletree Press, Belfast, 1975, pp. 95. £1.90.

Halliday, R. J., John Stuart Mill, George Allen and Unwin, London 1976, pp. 151. $9.70 paper, $19.50 cloth.

Anthony Carew, Democracy and Government in European Trade Unions, George Allen and Unwin Ltd., London, 1976, pp. 207 + appendices. $24.80.

Charles McCarthy, Trade Unions in Ireland. 1894–1960, Institute of Public Administration, Dublin, 1977, pp. 587 + appendices. £15.00.