“Thick, accusative, and critical, Wrapped in the Flag of Israel is indeed a must-read for all.”—Anne de Jong, American Anthropologist
“Important and provocative. . . . Recommended to researchers, postgraduate students, and undergraduates who are interested in Israel/Palestine, political protest, discrimination, and the anthropology of the state.”—Tobias Kelly, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute
“Incredibly insightful conceptually but also powerful politically. It does not merely challenge conceptual frameworks and academic canons but actively undoes them through shifting and diverse modes of writing.”—Adi Kuntsman, Journal of Middle Eastern Women’s Studies
“Engaging and insightful. . . . The book makes an important contribution to the literature, demonstrating that throughout the history of Israel, the Jewish immigrants of European descent have retained their privileged socioeconomic position and maintained claims to cultural superiority over communities coming from Asia and the Middle East. Wrapped in the Flag of Israel is an important ethnography of Mizrahi women and an excellent addition to anthropology of Israel.”—Yulia Egorova, American Ethnologist
“Lavie’s study is solid, scrupulously researched and documented and has the ring of truth that comes from the personal experience of a researcher who has had to live through her fieldwork situation in a manner that few anthropologists experience. . . . Lavie has created a text whose insights and analysis extend far beyond her admirable Israeli study.”—William O. Beeman, Anthropological Quarterly
“Lavie raises important questions about victimhood and agency pertinent to the study of the subaltern. . . . This book is not just a unique contribution to understanding gender and race in state bureaucracy and the operations of nationalism in the Middle East; it will interest anyone studying the disenfranchised and their everyday life, something that almost always involves ‘bureaucratic torture.’ . . . Wrapped in the Flag of Israel exposes how inhumanity can be normalized and can thrive in any modern liberal democracy.”—Sealing Cheng, Asian Anthropology
“Lavie’s meticulous ethnographic work and pointed theoretical analysis explain the hopelessness of social protest and problematize the concept of agency in the context of intra-Jewish conflict in Israel; in this Lavie also addresses the ramifications of Mizrahi marginalization on the wider Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”—Shoshana Madmoni-Gerber, Cultural Studies
“Lavie illustrates how asking difficult, troubling questions that disturb taken-for-granted silences can be an important strategy of resistance. In doing so, Wrapped in the Flag of Israel offers theoretical and political insights that extend beyond Israel’s undeclared borders.”—Simona Sharoni, Journal of Palestine Studies
“Lavie has written a brave and scholarly auto-ethnography using an extended case study method, of a social movement in contemporary Israel. . . . With theoretical sophistication and granular accounts of day-to-day struggles of her own and other single mothers’ efforts to survive and gain access to resources and entitlements as Israelis . . . This is a painful account well worth reading. Social workers from many nations who are involved in difficult macro- and mezzo-practice would find illuminating the many elements of social movement activity and peer-group support that Lavie characterizes and theorizes so powerfully.”—Barbara Levy Simon, Affilia: Journal of Women and Social Work
“At the crossroads between a coursebook, a piece of writing about life and a feminist manifesto, Wrapped in the Flag of Israel . . . [is] both an enlightening insight into Israeli intra-racism and an original and valuable connection between two seemingly unrelated concepts: bureaucracy and torture.”—Sorina Georgescu, Hypercultura
“Rarely one encounters a comprehensive, nuanced, insightful, and realistic exposition on Israeli society packaged in such a slim book. Wrapped in the Flag of Israel is such a research and book. The work is extraordinary, imaginative, and creative; it is a fruitful presentation of the anthropological imagination’s tremendous abilities to see a social world encapsulated in a drop of ‘fieldwork.’ Indeed, this is a tour de force of the unique abilities reserved to anthropology’s insight production.”—Meir Amor, Arab Studies Quarterly
“Far from traditional anthropology, Lavie’s work is a contribution to the legacy of women of color feminist works of auto-ethnography and documentations of affect in poetic and scholarly prose. . . . Readers will encounter worlds of knowledge placed in proximity, affinity, and opposition, resulting in a dynamic narrative and an informative, academic text. . . . A masterwork of transnational feminist studies and critical theory, a teachable work of feminist anti-Zionism from the perspective of a Mizrahi welfare mother and critical scholar—the like of which does not exist.”—Brooke Lober, Feminist Formations
“Lavie makes an important contribution in challenging traditional methods of ethnographic research and emphasizing the necessity of subaltern auto-ethnography, particularly in the study of marginalized groups. . . . While we should not disregard studies that emphasize the positive potential of mobilization, Lavie makes an important step in explaining a case where such mobilization was not only unsuccessful but never had the possibility of creating change. Scholars of social movements should follow her lead.”—Leonie Fleischmann, Peace and Change
“[Lavie’s] unflinching exposure of intra-Jewish racism and its political consequences is unmatched.”—Sally Bland, The Jordan Times
“[Lavie’s] compelling account defies conventional labels for ethnography by combining elements of auto-ethnography, memoir, testimonial, cultural critique, extended case study, Bakhtinian contrapunct, and the reflexive essay style of critical race feminists. . . . [A] courageous intervention of substantive, theoretical, and methodological significance.”—Faye V. Harrison, professor of African American studies and anthropology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and president of the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences
“Smadar Lavie offers a bracing alternative to the ‘Jewish Disneyland’ image of Israel in her book Wrapped in the Flag of Israel. The book documents the lived experience of women in Israeli society—from the feminist-of-color movement to the politics of funding NGOs to the role of the bureaucracy of the state. Using a combination of deep anthropological research and the personal narratives of Mizrahi single mothers, Lavie effectively challenges preconceptions about Jewish Israeli society, and in so doing, exposes the lopsided structures of power and privilege between Ashkenazi and Mizrahi Jews in Israel. Understanding Israel’s intra-Jewish racism and its impact on families is crucial to any just solution for the people of Israel/Palestine.”—Rebecca Vilkomerson, executive director of Jewish Voice for Peace
