Integration without assimilation? Ethno‐nationalism in Israel and universal laïcité in France

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Integration without assimilation? Ethno-nationalism in Israel anduniversal laïcité in FranceJulia Resnika

a School of Education, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

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International Studies in Sociology of EducationVol. 20, No. 3, September 2010, 201–224

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Integration without assimilation? Ethno-nationalism in Israel and universal laïcité in France

Julia Resnik*

School of Education, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, IsraelTaylor and FrancisRISS_A_516108.sgm(Received 30 November 2009; final version received 1 April 2010)10.1080/09620214.2010.516108International Studies in Sociology of Education0962-0214 (print)/1747-5066 (online)Original Article2010Taylor & Francis203000000September [email protected]

The adoption of multiculturalism and multiethnic views of society seemsto be a convergent tendency among Western democracies wherepopulation flows are becoming increasingly heterogeneous. However, theestablished citizenship models and migrant groups’ experiences havedifferent impacts on the multicultural discourse in each country. This‘integration without assimilation’ thesis has been examined comparingtwo countries – Israel and France – that differ largely in their definition ofnationhood. Despite large demographic changes in both countries, theevolution of conceptions of citizenship in France and in Israel reflects areaffirmation of existing models – the particularist Israeli ethno-nationalism and the universalist French republicanism and laïcité – and thecontinuity of their assimilationist and homogenizing tendencies towards aJewish uniform identity in the former and towards a uniform secular (orcatho-laique) identity in the latter.

Keywords: multiculturalism; citizenship; migrant groups; ethno-nationalism; republicanism; laïcité

Introduction

After WWII, waves of immigrants from different cultures increased the heter-ogeneity of multiple societies, a tendency that has been accentuated since the1980s by the globalisation process and the massive population flows aroundthe world. In the 1950s–1970s the prevalent mode in most countries to inte-grate migrants, and migrants’ children in particular, consisted of erasing theircultural origins and assimilating them into the majority culture. Thus, since the1970s the diffusion of multiculturalism throughout Western countries haschallenged established citizenship models and monolithic conceptions ofnational identity. The adoption of multiculturalism and multiethnic views ofsociety seems to be a convergent tendency among Western democracies(Kymlicka 2007), though the influence of multicultural discourse might vary

*Email: [email protected]

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202 J. Resnik

between countries depending on the different migrant group experience andthe established citizenship models (Joppke 1996, 1999).

Waves of immigrants arriving to France and Israel, starting in the 1960sand again in the 1980s, contributed to the cultural and religious heterogeneityin these societies. Following Joppke’s analytical model, I undertook a study todetermine if and to what extent migrant groups in France and Israel have influ-enced traditional models of nationhood through multiculturalism. Do ethnicgroups in Israel and France challenge the homogeneous national identities –Jewish ethno-nationalism and universal laïcité, respectively, and their strongassimilationist traditions? In spite of the dissimilar concepts of nationhood,multiculturalism has found no significant echo in either the French or theIsraeli education system, the main site of national identity formation.

The large-scale immigration in Europe, beginning in the 1960s, throwslight on the exclusionary aspect of citizenship as a legal status. Countriesdiffer in their attitudes and responses to migrants, the way they are received inthe host society, the initial rights of migrants upon arrival and after how long,if ever, migrants can attain full citizenship. In countries like France or theUSA, where the jus solis (lit. right of the territory) prevails, newcomers aregranted citizenship under certain conditions, while in countries such as Israeland Germany (until recently), where citizenship is awarded based on jussanguis (lit. right of the blood), migrants not belonging to the majority ethnicgroup are prevented from naturalising. Models of citizenship, historicallyestablished, are rather stable and the different waves of immigrants have hadlittle influence upon them (Brubaker 1992). In contrast, Soysal (1994) main-tains that guestworkers today have achieved post-national membershipanchored not in national belonging but in a world discourse of human rights.

Nonetheless, as several scholars note, the legal status of citizens does notguarantee that immigrants will automatically belong to a national politicalcommunity. Joppke (1999) argues that the concept of citizenship includes twodifferent meanings with regard to immigrants. The first refers to their legalstatus and indicates formal membership, while the second refers to their iden-tity and points to the culture and common practices that constitute a politicalcommunity, or to what Seligman (1992) refers to as the difference betweenmembership and participation in citizenship. Kymlicka (1995) contends that itis not sufficient to grant equal citizen rights to immigrants from differentcultures, but that ‘poly-ethnic rights’ should be awarded in order to integratethem more effectively into society.

The diffusion of multicultural ideas and the struggles of groups for theircultural rights around the world entailed a tendency in liberal states not toassimilate migrants but, rather, to respect and protect their separate ethnic iden-tities (Kymlicka 1995). Indeed, according to Joppke (1996) multiculturalismchallenges established models of national identity at different levels. He pointsto three different dimensions of multiculturalism that represent the three typesof multicultural claims: (1) Multiculturalism as a challenge to the nation by


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deconstructing ready-made national identities, (2) Multiculturalism as a chal-lenge to individual rights and recognition of group rights entailing compensa-tory treatment claims and (3) Multiculturalism as an anti-colonialist discoursebased on the centrality of culture claims-making groups in attaining politicalemancipation (liberation). Multiculturalism plays an especially important rolein schools, as they are primary sites where ‘national’ citizens are constructed.

In the study presented in this article I examined the multicultural conver-gence thesis in two different countries – Israel, which represents ‘an ethnicnation’ welcoming ‘homeward-bound’ immigrants (Ahmed et al. 2003) andrecruiting foreign workers and France, which represents ‘a political nation’confronting a post-colonial immigration.

Since the inception of the State of Israel in 1948, a Jewish ethno-nationalmodel of citizenship prevails that clearly differentiates between a ‘homoge-nous’ Jewish majority and an Arab minority. During the 1950s and 1960s amassive wave of ‘Oriental’ or ‘Mizrachi’ Jews arrived in the country, theirculture and relationship to religion were different from those of AskenaziJews, which at that time constituted the majority of the population. In the1990s, a new wave of immigrants, this time much more heterogeneous, intro-duced a new demographic shift in the country’s population. Nearly a millionimmigrants from the Former Soviet Union (FSU), who insisted on preservingtheir Russian culture (Rapoport and Lomsky-Feder 2002), undermined thecountry’s supposed cultural homogeneity. At the same time, around 85,000‘doubly Jewish’1 Ethiopians arrived in Israel, adding to the racial, as well ascultural, demographic heterogeneity of society. The arrival of around 200,000non-Jewish migrant workers mainly from South America, Africa, Poland, thePhilippines and Thailand to Israel, at a time when the population numberedaround five million (Kemp et al. 2000) presented an even greater demographictransformation. The debate around the naturalisation of migrant worker (non-Jewish) children, together with the establishment of Arab-Hebrew bilingualschools in the 1990s, that catered almost exclusively for Oriental or FSUchildren, presented a challenge to the traditional model of citizenship.

The French universalist model of nationhood based on republican values –freedom, equality and fraternity – awards citizenship, in principle, to everychild born in the country without distinguishing their religion, culture or race.The laïcité2 that lies at the heart of French republicanism strives for a completeseparation between religion and state and for protection of religious minorities.Since the 1950s, France has experienced substantial post-colonial immigrationof Moroccans, Algerians and North African Muslims who arrived during theeconomic boom of the 1960s and 1970s. Current conservative estimates placetheir number at 4–5 million people out of a total population of 56 million(roughly 8%) (Judkins 2008). The first generation of Muslim immigrantsaccepted the ‘rules of the game’ including the laïcité prescript by of the hostsociety. This first group of immigrants has since been augmented by morerecent waves of immigrants including refugees and asylum seekers who are


204 J. Resnik

more diverse in terms of geographic origin and cultural background (Judkins2008). Today, as the affair of the Islamic scarf and the founding of Muslimschools (Judkins 2008) indicate, second and third generations of Muslims seemto defy the cultural status quo and question the principle of laïcité.

French universalism and Israeli ethno-nationalism represent completelydifferent models of citizenship. French citizenship, representing the prototypeof universalism in which national affiliation is defined essentially by countryof birth, namely jus solis, can be situated at one extreme of the continuum. Atthe other extreme, we find the Israeli model of citizenship that, like its Germancounterpart (until recently), represents a particularist conception in which thedefinition of citizenship is based on jus sanguinis (Brubaker 1992). Notwith-standing this important distinction, the attitude towards immigrants, as well asthe apparent underdevelopment of multiculturalism, is similar in France andIsrael. Both have strong assimilationist tendencies, which encourage migrantchildren to adopt the national culture and to rapidly become ‘French-like’ or‘Israeli-like’, respectively. Moreover, the centralised structure of both theIsraeli and French education systems, the main site of citizen construction,enables governments to instill a univocal type of nationhood leading to homo-geneity in the national identities transmitted at school.

In this paper, I present a study that analysed the models of citizenship andthe collective identities constructed in the education systems in Israel andFrance, on one hand, and the ways migrant groups were integrated into thesesocieties, on the other, in order to examine whether and to what extent multi-culturalism or multicultural education challenges traditional national identityand the established concept of nationhood in each country.

The ethno-national citizenship model in Israel

The ethno-national model of citizenship prevailing in Israel is upheld by itsnational identity, conceived after state independence (1948), and recognisestwo separate collective entities – a Jewish majority and an Arab minority.Moreover, as the official state of the Jewish people, Israel is considered acountry of immigration and has always encouraged the arrival of Jewish immi-grants, who are granted citizenship almost automatically.

The ethno-national model of citizenship has proved problematic vis-à-visIsrael’s Arab Muslim and Christian inhabitants. Peled (1992) claims that whileJewish citizens are shaped mainly through an ethno-republican approachtoward membership in the state, the membership of Arab citizens is built bymeans of a liberal approach. On one hand, Arabs acquire the legal status ofIsraeli citizens but, on the other, the hegemonic national identity has excludedthem from the political community and Israeli culture. As Israeli citizens, theyare members of the community of reason (citizenship) but not full participantssince they do not share the dominant (Jewish) culture (Seligman 1992, 148).Arab children attend public schools that are part of the minority department of



the Education Ministry, although its officials are almost entirely Jewish.According to Al-Haj (2002), the resulting curriculum in Arab schools reflectsa multicultural approach, but it is one that was imposed only upon the Arabminority. While a large part of the curriculum in Arab schools deals with Jewishhistory and culture, Jewish students learn very little if at all about Arab orMuslim culture (Al-Haj 2002).

While Arabs and Jews are constructed as separate groups belonging to twodifferent national groups, Jews are seen as belonging to a homogenous commu-nity and sharing a common collective identity. This common Jewish identitystrives to homogenize competing elements such as Mizrachi/Ashkenazi andimmigrant/veteran populations and also balance the secular/religious dividethat has shifted significantly according to the changing socio-political circum-stances in Israeli history. In the education system, Resnik (1999) identified fourmain national images that shaped national ideology over the years: ‘a nationwith the right to a state’ and ‘a nation by right of religion’, images that emergedin the state’s early years, and ‘a state for a persecuted nation’ and ‘a state forall its citizens’, images that crystallized in the 1970s and 1980s. The authorconcluded that the universalist ‘Israeli’ components – the land and the State ofIsrael – of the national identity were slowly replaced by particularist andJewish elements – religion and the suffering of the Jewish people. The intro-duction of the last image brought about no substantive change in this primor-dialist national ideology (Resnik 1999). Thus, the dynamics of national identityconstruction demonstrates that most efforts have been made to consolidate theJewish community – Ashkenazi/Mizrachi, religious/non-religious, immi-grants/veterans – at the expense of Arab/Jewish solidarity.

Modes of integration of Mizrachi immigration in Israel

Traditionally, Israel is considered a country of immigration and, as the state ofthe Jewish people, has always welcomed Jewish immigrants. In the 1950s and1960s, immigrants from Africa and Asia doubled the Jewish population in thecountry. The first generation of Oriental Jews met a society in which the domi-nant Western culture differed radically from their Jewish Oriental tradition.Young migrants were strongly encouraged to assimilate and to abandon theirhome language (Arabic for the large majority), culture and traditions, whichwere disdained by Israeli society at that time (Kimmerling 2004, 292). The‘melting pot’ educational policy aimed at integrating Oriental Jews as part ofthe Jewish nation returning to Israel, thus incorporating them into the AshkenaziZionist account, which was at the base of the Israeli collective identity.

However, the failure of the social and political integration of Mizrachiimmigrants and their feelings of discrimination initiated a process in whichIsraeli Jewish homogeneity was questioned in multicultural terms. An unorga-nized protest launched in 1971 by a group of young Mizrachim in Jerusalem,the ‘Black Panthers’ – a name inspired in the Black movement in the USA –


206 J. Resnik

grew rapidly into a large protest movement. The leaders of the movement weresecond-generation Mizrachi immigrants who grew up and were educated inIsrael. They believed in the egalitarian rhetoric of the education system butwere frustrated by the Israeli society’s inability to accomplish its own criteria.The social pressure of the ‘Black Panthers’ brought about, among other things,the 1976 establishment of the ‘The center for the integration of the Orientalheritage’ in the education system. This program aimed to introduce changesinto the official curricula in a ‘pluralist spirit’. In the following years a numberof prose and poems by Mizrachi writers were added to the literature curricu-lum. Nevertheless, these small changes did not affect the bulk of the curricula,which remains largely Ashkenazi biased (Ben Amos 1995).

Advent of multiculturalism in the 1990s and the influence on education

Like the rest of the world, multicultural ideas penetrated the Israeli academicworld – narrowly aligned with US universities – sustaining a new politics ofidentity in Israel (Peled 1994). This politics of identity concerned differentgroups: feminists, Palestinians, homosexuals and immigrants (Yona andShenhav 2000). Among Mizrachi people two different movements encour-aged separate Oriental identities: the Shas party and the new Mizrachi. Thefirst, a popular movement that obtained unprecedented success from the 1988elections onwards, addressed a large Mizrachi – orthodox and traditionalist –constituency; it proposed an alternative national identity to the prevailingAshkenazi identity and strove to empower the Mizrachi population (ShalomChetrit 2004, 230). The second, an elitist group of scholars and intellectuals,most of them from Mizrachi origins, aimed at unveiling the economic, politi-cal and cultural Ashkenazi hegemony and the way it disempowered theMizhrahi population. This group rejects the dominant Jewish/Arab dichotomyand constructs the Mizrachi identity through political activism (268). One ofthe most active groups of the new Mizrachim is Hakeshet Hamizrachit (the‘oriental rainbow’) which struggles against economic and housing discrimina-tion and promotes a multicultural Israeli culture (269).

The spirit of multiculturalism also influenced the field of education andmulticultural discourse was incorporated into the education system, at least ina superficial manner.3 Moreover, processes unrelated to multiculturalism,primarily British and US neoliberal approaches (Apple 1993; Peters,Marshall, and Fitzsimons 2000) that encouraged the creation of magnetschools, school autonomy and parental choice (Inbar 1993; Shapira,Haymann, and Shavit 1995; Sabar-Ben Yehoshua and Zilberstein 1999)opened the doors to the creation of multicultural schools. This was the impetusto the founding of Kedma schools (Shalom Chetrit 2004). The Kedma Foun-dation for the Advancement of Egalitarian Academic Education in Israel wasestablished in 1993 and operated until 1998 with the purpose of creatingschools that would redress the education system’s discrimination against the



Mizrachi population (Yona 2002). The foundation began its activity when theissue of parental choice was raised as an innovative solution for what wasconsidered the failure of the melting pot policy in the education system.Activists, who believed that parental choice would increase the existingeducational gap between Mizrachi and Ashkenazi populations, severely criti-cized the proposed policy. In order to soften the opposition, the Knesset(Israeli Parliament) approved the creation of the Kedma Foundation andauthorised them to create autonomous schools for the advancement of educa-tion of Mizrachi children (Ayalon 2004). In 1994 the Foundation opened twoschools and while a third school was slated to open the following year, onlyone school in Jerusalem remains open (Yona 2002, 78). This school recruitsmostly children from disadvantaged Mizrachi families and reinforces the‘Oriental’ identity of its pupils. Nurturing a separate Oriental identity repre-sents a multicultural challenge to the Jewish nation.

Following the Oslo Agreements of 1993–1996 and the rather optimisticpolitical outlook that initiated the peace negotiations between the PalestinianLiberation Organization and Israel, a new type of multicultural schoolemerged: the bilingual school. The Center for Bilingual Education (CBE),established in 1997, sought to initiate and foster egalitarian Palestinian-Jewishcooperation in education, primarily through the development of bilingual andmulticultural coeducational institutions (Bekerman and Horenczyk 2004). In1998, the Center established two schools guided by these principles, one inJerusalem and the other in the Upper Galilee. The central goal of the CBE, asexpressed in its official public relations publications, is to develop a neweducational scheme for Jewish-Palestinian schools that joins children, parentsand the rest of the community with governmental institutions (Ministry ofEducation local authorities) in building a cooperative framework structuredaround the basis of equality and mutual respect. The CBE document posits thatbilingual study (Hebrew and Arabic) can be instrumental in deepening eachgroup’s understanding of the other and mentions that bilingual education is anempowering pedagogy that helps increase the self-esteem of minority students(Beckerman 2005). Multiculturalism, as it is conceived in bilingual schools,challenges the Israeli nation in which Arab and Jewish pupils are constructedas belonging to different national collectives.

Modes of integration of Former Soviet Union, Ethiopian and non-Jewish immigration in the 1990s

The ethno-national ideology encouraged Jewish immigration to Israel.Accordingly, around a million of Jewish immigrants from the former SovietUnion and 85,000 from Ethiopia, arrived to Israel in the 1990s. However,among the FSU and Ethiopian immigrants, we find a significant proportion ofnon-Jews. This population includes many who are legally allowed to settle inIsrael according to the Law of Return, and to acquire Israeli nationality, but


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are nonetheless considered to be non-Jews according to Israeli religiousauthorities (Kemp et al. 2000). These non-Jewish new Israelis were stronglyencouraged to convert to Judaism. While conversion might be seen as a purelyreligious act, the support of the Israeli authorities and the encouragement ofimmigrants to undertake this extremely difficult and complicated endeavourcan be understood as an effort to safeguard the Jewish majority in the countryand the Jewish character of the state (Goodman 2008).

During the same period large numbers of non-Jewish labour migrants,approximately 200,000, entered Israel. This was the first time in the history ofthe State of Israel that such a massive wave of non-Jewish immigrants arrived tothe country, thus further complicating the already complex Israeli demography.

Jewish migrants in the 1990s and their multicultural challenges

The FSU immigrant community accepts the Jewish majority versus Arabminority division that lies at the base of the Israeli model of citizenship. Onthe other hand, FSU immigrants are reluctant to adopt Israeli identity. Schol-ars explain their reluctance by their identification with the universalist Jewishculture, their intellectual spirit and also by their high self-esteem and theirperception of Israeli culture as Levantine and non-sophisticated (Elenbogen-Frankovitz 1994; Lissak 1995; Ben-Rafael, Olshtain, and Geijst 1997; Resniket al. 2001; Rapoport and Lomsky-Feder 2002). The immigrant populationfrom the FSU is mainly secular, urban and characterised by a high percentageof working women, fewer children and a higher cultural, educational andoccupational status than the average Israeli (Mitrany-Gozlan 1993; Paltiel,Sabatello, and Tal 1997).

According to Epstein (2007), the most salient characteristic of Jewish iden-tity in the FSU was academic excellence. Therefore, the assimilation policy inIsrael aiming to erase their cultural identity has been counterproductive and itencouraged the immigrants to cling to their unique cultural roots. Their culturalexpectations for academic excellence of FSU immigrants explain their dismiss-ive attitude towards the Israeli education system and their initiatives to developalternative education frameworks such as MOFET (‘Mathematics, Physics andCulture’). Created in 1992, the MOFET foundation aims ‘at founding in Israelexclusive schools whose mission is to advance the instruction of mathematicsand physics for highly motivated young people interested in exact sciences’(Epstein 2007, 9). Among the principles of MOFET we find strong oppositionto the philosophy of educational integration, the development of learning skillsat a very young age (related to the existing norm of low motivation of the Israelieducation system) and the development of creative thinking and nurturingexcellence in learning academic subjects, mainly physics and mathematics.

The MOFET foundation transformed a failing school (Shevach) in southTel Aviv into a high-achieving magnet school (Shevach-MOFET) attended by1300 students, mainly FSU children, in which a hybrid Russian-Israeli identity



has been encouraged (Resnik 2006). In addition to this school, two FSU immi-grant teacher organisations direct more than 40 learning centres in differentschools, ten kindergartens, MOFET-based classes in junior high schools inAshdod, Jerusalem and Haifa, as well as nationwide after-school programmes(belonging to non-formal education), which are attended by more than 1500pupils (aged 5–15), most of them from Russian-speaking families (Epstein2007). The impact of MOFET has extended beyond the Russian-speakingcommunity as MOFET science curricula has been emulated in many Israelischools (Segal-Levit 2005). Another successful multicultural initiative under-taken by FSU immigrants was the right to take Russian language as one of thehigh school final examinations (Bagrut exams).

The tendency of FSU immigrants to preserve their language and culture isapparent in many cultural initiatives, such as the creation of a Russianlanguage television channel, the widespread circulation of Russian newspa-pers and the multicultural education programs. These initiatives challenge thehomogenising collective ideology in Israel. The increasing political power ofFSU immigrants, as the most recent elections in Israel (February 2009) show,along with the multicultural conception of Jewish-Israeliness they sustain,undermines the assimilationist and homogenous national identity that prevails.

Ethiopian activists also gained the right to have one of their officiallanguages (Amharic) offered as one of the subjects for the high schools finalexaminations. But, this similarity does not indicate that there are further resem-blances between their situation and status of FSU immigrants in Israel. Overall,the Ethiopian community adheres to the dominant national identity, but strug-gles for full acceptance in the Jewish nation: they condemn the official requestto be symbolically-circumcised in order to be considered ‘entirely’ Jewish andstrive for the recognition of their religious leaders as official rabbis (Antebi-Yemini 2004, 342). Instead of respect and recognition of their tradition,Ethiopian immigrants report racist attitudes in schools, the army and at theirresidences (report published by the Information Center of the Knesset 22 July2003). According to Kimmerling (2004, 441), their skin colour, their question-able Jewishness and their peculiar religious habits, which differ from the restof the Jews, make the critical mass of Ethiopian immigrants extremely notice-able. Their conspicuous presence might enrich the mosaic of Israeli society, asKimmerling contends, but because of their low education level and poor culturalcapital, their contribution to Israeli pluralism is not translated into a multicul-tural achievement that challenges the homogeneity of the Jewish nation.

Mode of integration of non-Jewish migrant worker immigration

Despite the selective migration policy, the economic and political conditionsin Israel and the impact of globalisation on worker movements have attracteda foreign labour force to Israel since the 1990s. Like European countries in the1960s and 1970s, the quest for a temporary solution to market demands for


210 J. Resnik

cheap labour led to the emergence of migrant worker communities and, later,the schooling of thousands of non-Israeli children in Jewish public schools.These children, whose parents were often illegal residents, themselves becomeundocumented persons when reaching legal age, in spite of the fact that theymight have arrived in the country at a very early age or were even born inIsrael (Resnik 2004).

This foreign population, which was considered a temporary work forcenecessary for the development of Israeli economy, was cordially welcomed bythe Israeli government and Israeli citizens during the first years after theirarrival in the early 1990s (Raijman and Semyonov 2000). When the economicsituation deteriorated and unemployment increased a few years later, thegovernment blamed the foreign workers and launched a campaign to signifi-cantly reduce the number of labour migrants (documented and undocumented)(Kemp and Raijman 2003). The initial, rather benevolent, welcome encour-aged many undocumented migrants to go to Israel and settle there with theirfamilies. They began to establish their own communities, which includedChristian churches, mostly evangelist, and communitarian kindergartens(Kemp and Raijman 2003), while older children attended regular Israeli(Jewish) public schools. Although in some areas, an increasing number of non-Jewish children attend public schools, the Ministry of Education has not to dateundertaken any initiative in order to confront this new demographic reality andhas not encouraged a revision of the national identity and its Jewish-particularcharacter. However, a local initiative of an Israeli principal at a school attendedby a vast majority of migrant worker children took into consideration thegrowing diversity of the school population. This multicultural school promotesa global identity and encourages both inter-ethnic/inter-cultural and religioustolerance (Jewish, Christian and Muslim) (Resnik 2006). This multiculturalidentity defies the constructed nation that includes a Jewish majority and anArab minority, a national model in which Christian people, who are neitherJewish nor Arab, are not considered at all. However, the school does not reallyquestion the dominant national identity because of the marginal status of itspupils. As the principal of the school at that time said ‘since most of the pupilsat the Bialik school are the children of migrant workers and other disadvan-taged groups, the Ministry of Education was not particularly concerned withwhat was going on in the school’ (Amira Yahalom, as cited in Bar Shalom,2004, 83).

Despite their marginality, undocumented children facing the threat ofdeportation who were educated in this multicultural and empowering schoolapplied for Israeli citizenship and were supported by NGOs in their struggle tobe naturalized. On June 26, 2005, after a two-year discussion on the legalstatus of undocumented children, the government agreed to award the status oflegal resident to children between the ages of 10 and 18 and their parents. Forthe first time, an agreement awards non-Jewish immigrants access to Israelicitizenship, an occurrence that can be regarded as a ‘civic revolution’ similar



to the one carried out in Germany. In Germany, however, access to citizenshipchanged from jus sanguis to jus solis and addressed a massive immigrantpopulation, while in Israel the decision was an exceptional arrangement andopened the door citizenship and legal residence to only a small number (a fewdozen) of undocumented children. The majority of undocumented children(several hundred) who did not meet the specific criteria remain vulnerable toimmediate deportation. In any case, the struggle of non-Jewish (and non-Arab)families to be awarded citizenship or resident visas in Israel represents achallenge to the dominant Jewish ethno-nationalism.

In Israel, the jus sanguis model of citizenship and the dominant Jewishethno-nationalism promote a homogeneous national identity. Nevertheless,some immigrant groups have succeeded in promoting a kind of multiculturalidentity that undermines the prevailing assimilationist tradition. In France,nationhood is constructed based on jus solis, which is supposed to be, in prin-ciple, a more accessible type of citizenship. However, as we will see next theassimilationist tradition based on a universal laïcité proved even more reluc-tant towards any form of multiculturalism in French society.

French universalism and laïcité

Contrary to popular belief, it was France and not Germany that established itsnationality on the right of blood (jus sanguinis) in its Civil Code in 1803. ButFrance was also the first to transform nationality into a right of the individual(in the same Act of 1803), a step that was intended to blaze the light of enlight-enment for the whole of Europe. French nationality is accorded primarily onthe basis of birth in France, but can also be granted through familial relation-ships, marriage and residence. It is through universalism and laïcité based onthe republican values of freedom, equality and fraternity that the French nationis constructed.

The school has been the locus for the construction of republican nationalidentity and the integration of the children into the nation. The educationsystem in France is laïc and addresses students as individuals, i.e. not recogn-ising groups, communities or minorities (Law of 1901). Each child shouldleave his/her socio-cultural particular characteristics at the school gate in orderto access citizenship and the ‘universal’. Since the time/start of the ThirdRepublic (1870) the education system has sought to enable all children to gainaccess to rational knowledge and to build a certain unity around the conceptof citizenship (Kerzil 2002, 130). The republican conception of unity includestreating pupils uniformly, offering them the same education and consideringthem future citizens (Schnapper 1994, 148). Uniformity is perceived as thebest means to reach equality and promote national consensus. This traditionalrepublican concept of identity ignores cultural particularities and impedesdifferentiation/variations or the development of alternative models of Frenchidentity (Meunier 2007, 56).


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Although laïcité is central to French national identity, since the Law of1905 declaring the separation of church and state, interpretations of laïcitéhave shifted between two main perspectives: one that encourages and grantsfreedom to all religions (including freethinkers) and a second that strugglesagainst the hold of religion over civil life (Bauberot 2004). Joppke (2007)refers to the former as the liberal version of laïcité and the latter as the Repub-lican version of laïcité. The 1882 Ferry Law on compulsory education was anearly expression of this double perspective. On the one hand, it removed reli-gious teaching from schools and secularised school premises and, on the other,it affirmed respect of the pupils’ religious freedom. The Debré Law of 1959legislated the right of pupils, irrespective of their religious beliefs, to receiveeducation suited to their skills and asserted that the state ‘should make thenecessary arrangements in order to ensure religious freedom and religioustraining for all pupils in the public education system’ (cited in Estivalèzes2005, 16). The Guidance Law of 1989 (or the Jospin Law) stressed the strug-gle against the hold of the church, declaring, among others, that pupils shouldenjoy religious freedom of information and expression, ‘provided these do notdetract from learning activities’ (Estivalèzes 2005, 14).

After World War II labour migration was encouraged in order to helprestructure the French economy. Since 1945 a large proportion of labourmigrants from former colonies (North and Black Africa) were naturalisedbased on the right of the land (jus solis). However, the world economic andenergy crisis and the unemployment it produced at the beginning of the 1970shindered this process and resulted in a change in the immigration policy.Immigration to France was stopped in 1974 and authorities sought to stabilisethe foreign population (Meunier 2007) through various methods, such asencouraging migrants to return to North Africa (Weil 2002). For a largenumber of Muslim immigrants, the decision regarding their juridical situationwas made only recently, in 1998, after thirty years of uncertainty. A publicdebate on migrant rights had been launched in 1985 that focused on the rightof migrant children to acquire French nationality by reason of their birth inFrance. Barely 20 years have passed since the mid-1980s, that the first gener-ation of North African migrants are part of the French state and do not need tofeel afraid of being deported (Weil 2003). Born after the Revolution, Frenchlaïcité was the result of a long and intensive struggle against the CatholicChurch. Three principles constitute the basis of the republican ‘laïcité’: (1)The republican ideal of equality that affirms that the republican law will beapplied to everyone and that it prevails over religious rules, (2) Freedom andautonomy that assures non- subjection to the will of others and (3) Fraternity,which identifies the moral, cultural and political principles of the Frenchcommunity and implies commitment to assimilation (Laborde 2005). Thepublic debate around laïcité is still vivid today, but this time the struggleagainst the hold of religion addresses Islam instead of the Catholic Church.Laïcité and the strict separation of church and state that forbids state funding



of religious activities of any kind entailed a complete disregard of basicreligious needs of Muslim immigrants. The estimated 15,000 mosques inFrance (most of which are located in basements, backrooms or garages) havebeen forced to find ways to pay their rent, recruit clergy and expand their rolein the community relying only on the cooperation and hard work of the localmembers (Judkins 2008). According to Laborde (2005), the difficultiesencountered by Muslim worshippers, as well as the ‘scarf affair’ that will beaddressed below, represent a dangerous culturalisation of the ideals offreedom, equality and fraternity that are accomplished not in the respect of theright of the republic but in allegiance to a specific culture, the French ‘catho-laique’ that prescribes public and private behaviours.

Mode of integration of Muslim immigrants

The current number of immigrants in France is around 14 million (includingforeigners and French from a foreign origin) from a total of 62.45 millioninhabitants (in 2009).

As noted above, since the 1950s France has experienced substantial post-colonial immigration that initially filled a vital economic void during theeconomic boom years of the 1960s and 1970s. This first group of Moroccans,Algerians and North African Muslims has since been augmented by morerecent waves of immigrants, including refugees and asylum seekers who aremore diverse in terms of geographic origin and cultural background and areoften less well-equipped to succeed in European society than earlier immi-grants. Conservative estimates of the self-identified Muslim population placeit at 4–5 million individuals out of a total population of 56 million at that time(Judkins 2008). Unemployment among French Muslims is 50% higher thanthe rate that is currently observed among citizens of French origin and standsat 14%. Poverty, frustration and racism are endemic among French Muslimsand might have motivated the two-week riots in November of 2005. Moreover,while higher education is often seen as pathway out of the ghettos, it hasbecome increasingly ineffective for French Muslim youth. While the unem-ployment rate for all college graduates in France is only 5%, college graduatesof ‘North African’ origin face less certain futures. For these graduates theunemployment rate stands at 26.5%, over five times the national average forcollege graduates. Racist attitudes are often cited as a major hurdle for Muslimjob applicants and under-employment is a chronic problem even for those whomanage to find jobs (Judkins 2008).

The high level of immigrant discrimination occurs in spite of their growingcultural assimilation, this assimilation has been measured through a variety ofindicators: mixed marriages with French citizens are the highest among thismigrant population (Lebon 1991, 1997, as cited in Safi 2006, 30), requests fornaturalization are also strong (Belbah et Chattou 2001, as cited in Safi 2006,30), civic participation is high (Jazouli 1986; Lapeyronnie 1987; Poiret 1994,


214 J. Resnik

1996; Baillet 2001; Quiminal and Timera 2002, as cited in Safi 2006, 30) andthe their level of language is higher than that of Turkish or Asian immigrants.These cultural attributes do not match the socio-economic indicators: veryhigh index of unemployment, precarious job and housing situations andchildren’s schooling difficulties (Safi 2006).

An EU integration policy was launched between 1998–2003 and 2003–2004, demanding the implementation of anti-discriminatory juridical disposi-tions in every European country. In France, the policies were developedaround two axes: the anti-discriminatory struggle and the integration of Islaminto the regime of rights and liberties guaranteed to other religions. Despite thecreation of an independent authority to examine and address anti-immigrantdiscrimination in social life, as suggested by the European Union, in 2004 the‘affair of the scarf’ that emerged at the same time exacerbated already existentdiscriminatory tendencies.

The realm of educational multiculturalism, better known in France as inter-cultural education, has evolved at a very slow rate since the 1970s, increasingat the end of the 1980s but retreating considerably since 2000.

Only in the 1970s did the Ministry of Education establish special coursesand provide complementary hours – Classes d’intégration, Classes d’adapta-tion and Cours de rattrapage intégré – to help immigrant children acquireFrench language skills to facilitate their integration into regular classes(Meunier 2007, 47). For the first time, in 1975, a program that represented aviolation of the rule of neutrality and laïcité – ‘Education of the language andculture of origin’ (ELCO) – was implemented in the education system(Lorcerie 1989, 97). Whereas the law speaks about facilitating the integrationof immigrant pupils in French schools, ELCO was conceived as primarily adiplomatic agreement to encourage the repatriation of labour migrant familiesto their countries of origin (Meunier 2007). The repatriation policies failed andmost migrant families did not return to their country of origin. In view of thefailure of the volunteer repatriation policy in 1978, the activities of the ELCOswere reformulated as intercultural programs for all pupils, French national andforeign. However, in practice, the ELCOs continued to address only migrantchildren (Kerzil and Vinsonneau 2004, 71).

An affirmative action program was implemented in France for the first timein 1981. The ZEP (Zones d’éducation prioritaires – Priority Education Zones)in which schools provided supporting activities to pupils were created accord-ing to a school’s geographic situation, the socio-economic level of families,the percentage of immigrant children and the percentage of at-risk children(Groux 2002, 165–6). In the beginning they encouraged taking children’scultural differences into account and teachers were trained to deal with immi-grant cultures; however, since 1984 the intercultural dimension has beendropped. An additional multicultural program – ‘Education for the sensitiza-tion of pupils to the problems of developing countries’ – was launched in 1981and revitalised later in 1985 and in 1989.



At the end of the 1980s, French society identified itself as pluralist, at leastin official texts, and schools were encouraged to consider social, cultural andreligious diversity (Abdallah-Pretceille 1992). A small number of multicul-tural initiatives were introduced: the recognition of Muslim festivals as legiti-mate reasons for absence from school and the acceptance of Muslim dietaryrules and the exclusion of pork from the menus in school canteens. Regardingmigrant children, the Berque Report (1985) proposed to change the curriculumand target ‘the plurality of civilizations in the world’ (Berque 1985, as cited inMeunier 2007, 52). However, when the socialist party returned to power in1989, the first ‘scarf affair’ took place entailing the elimination of the word‘intercultural’ from official texts and a strong return to republican values(Meunier 2007, 53).

At this time the French government officially discarded it, but interculturaleducation became increasingly relevant in the work of the European Counciland the European Commission as well as in the milieu of NGOs (Lorcerie2005, 61). In the mid-1980s the European Council elaborated different inter-cultural programs (Conseil de l’Europe 1986, 1989) and since then intercul-tural education has become a permanent dimension of public Europeaneducation (Lorcerie 2003, 262). In order to respond to supranationalinstances, certain intercultural orientations were introduced by the Ministry ofEducation in France but applied in a superficial manner. The influenceof European intercultural programs remained limited because the prevalenceof the republican model of school. The French government continues todecide curricular content, pedagogical methods and exams. The contentremained closed to other cultures because of the political convictions, schooland intellectual traditions and professional interests of the members of theGeneral Inspection (Inspection générale), powerful education discipline asso-ciations (i.e. history and geography) and teacher and university unions. Inaddition to those groups directly impacting educational values, the influenceof technocrats and economic actors in France also participated in the decision-making process and united in their desire to maintain a strong ethnocentrism.Their socialisation led teachers to ignore ethnic and national differences, onone hand and, in the name of equal treatment to pupils, to refuse to take intoaccount their pedagogy pupils’ particularities, on the other (Van Zanten1997, 152).

Sociologist research of the 1990s showed that instead of the principle ofequality it was the principle of difference that prevailed in the republicanschools and, in 1998, the Haut Conseil à l’intégration admitted that thedistance between the ‘French’ and the ‘immigrant’ had been augmented. TheState denounced its ethnic discrimination but without reorienting its policy ofschool integration (Kerzil and Vinsonneau 2004, 11). Nevertheless, two multi-cultural initiatives were developed in the mid-1990s: the revision of the socialsciences curricula accompanied by the introduction of a critical discourse oncolonialism and the introduction of ‘Studies of Religious Facts’.


216 J. Resnik

Inspired by the events of the 1960s, history programs were revised and, inthe 1970s, a critical sprit was adopted; however, at the beginning of the 1980shistory programs returned to a traditional history of events. However, sincethe 1990s the social science curricula have adopted a more multiculturalperspective in the analysis of civilization by incorporating the study of Islam,Judaism and other religions and cultures, thus introducing a relativist attitudetowards Christian and Western values. Although history courses haveevolved very little, a revision of the history of colonisation, particularly inAlgeria, can be observed (see Françoise Lantheaume [2003] on the AlgerianWar in French text books). According to Régis Debray (2003), this rewritingof history is very important for the integration of the young children of immi-grants and for fostering a better understanding between these youngsters andthose of French origin. ‘For Algerians and their children, the history ofFrench Algeria should be emphasized and learned in order to enable a doubletask of (re)cognition: [First,] French people from the metropolis have tounderstand the mistrust of proclaimed republican principles …’ Second, ‘…These young people of Algerian origin have the impression that what ishappening to them today, being discriminated against on a daily basis, issimilar to what happened during the colonial era. That is why a separationand clarification of facts and representations is needed. They perceive,completely justifiably, that their part in the history of the French nation is nottaken sufficiently into consideration’ (112).

Originally, in the 1980s, interest in studies of religion, or ‘Study of Reli-gious Facts’ as it was designated in France, was related to an alarmist viewregarding pupils’ lack of (Catholic) religious culture. This lack of religiousculture impeded their understanding of a number of literary, historical, philo-sophical and artistic subjects by depriving them of necessary cultural refer-ences (Estivalèzes 2005, 19). A 1989 report submitted to the Minister ofEducation, Lionel Jospin, underlined the need to remedy this lack of cultureby assigning a higher significance to the history of religion in various courses(Estivalèzes 2005, 23). Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001,Jack Lang, who was then the Minister of Education of the Socialist party,commissioned Régis Debray to re-evaluate the ‘Study of Religious Facts’. Inhis conclusion, Debray (2002) referred to the lack of religious culture and thecrisis of the classics and humanities and pointed to the need to presentstudents not only with a patrimonial approach but also elements that wouldenable them to understand the contemporary world (28). Confirming thespirit of laïcité, Debray insisted that the ‘Study of Religious Facts’ shouldreflect a shift from a ‘laïcité of incompetence’ to a ‘laïcité of intelligence’(29). In this framework the study of religion should be presented as a univer-sal human experience and according to universal values based on knowledge.Knowledge entails exposing pupils to religious diversity and promoting toler-ance but also encourages young people to distance themselves from their ownbeliefs.



The scarf affair and the multicultural challenge

The republican model, which did not succeed in integrating young immigrantsencountering social and economic lack of opportunities, encouraged, in turn,the development of reactive ethnic identities (van Zanten 1997). This mightexplain the conspicuous presence of veiled students at schools since the mid-1980s. In 1994, 1123 cases were accounted for and in December 2003 1256cases were reported out of a total student population of 9 million. The StateCouncil of 27 November, 1989, affirmed that the use of religious signs inschool is not incompatible with the principle of laïcité. They considered theuse of the scarf a private issue and referred to it from a liberal laïc point ofview, reflecting religious freedom in need of protection. Despite this view andthe small number of cases a vivid public debate known as the ‘scarf affair’ hastaken place.

Muslim people were blamed for encouraging ‘communitarism’, which wasregarded as contrary to universal and republican ideals. Experts on Muslimimmigration disagree with this viewpoint. For instance, Bauberot (2004)understands the quest for visibility of young Muslims not as a manifestationof communitarian spirit but rather as individualism and subjectivity. This typeof Islam seems, according to him, ‘an existential experience that helps youngpeople to construct themselves as individuals’. He adds that ‘we see theconstruction of an individual through an Islam, that is different from that oftheir parents since it is not ritualistic and is not founded on a pre-establishedtradition strongly anchored in their spirits’ (233). Duprez and Leclerc-Olive(2001) also assert that the revindication of wearing the scarf does not neces-sarily indicate a return to communitarism. Young Muslim women justify theirdecision on behalf of modern beliefs, such as the freedom to choose one’s ownvalues. It is in the name of individual rights that they claim the right to followa tradition and not in the name of the tradition itself, which shows that they arewell integrated into modern society and its values (Schnapper 2001, 8). Simi-larly, according to Weibel (2006), the adoption of Islamic dress does notexpress a rejection of society but, rather, a means of individualisation thatreflects a modern spirit. In the name of individualism, young girls reinterpretthe Islamic religious dress-code as a personnel choice. For them, Islam is anelement of their European identity and a part of their citizenship.

After the access of the right to power in 2002, two commissions wereestablished in mid-2003 in order to deal with the ‘scarf affair’: the Presidentialcommission headed by Bernard Stasi to study ‘The implementation of thelaïcité principle in the Republic’ (Stasi 2003) and the Parliamentary commis-sion led by Jean-Louis Debré regarding the ‘Mission of information on thequestion of the display of religious signs in schools’ (Debré 2003). The tworeports recommended passing a law prohibiting the wearing of scarves inschools. The laïcité report, as Lorcerie (2008) points out, disseminated fear,alerted to the dangers of Islam and, according to Judkins (2008), was part of a


218 J. Resnik

denigration campaign against Islam and the exaltation of a national laïcité.Finally, in March 2004 the law prohibiting the display of ‘ostensible religioussigns’ in schools was enacted.

Bowen (2008) argues that the escalation and conscious promotion ofdomestic and international anxieties about stability and ideology best explainsthe passage of the law. In the name of universal values, this law represents ‘amode of thinking that is rather intransigent and tolerates otherness (alterity)only in case it can be captured, perceived and integrated into a dominantmental world’ (Weibel 2006). The interdiction of the scarf in schools onlyfurther stigmatises an already stigmatised minority and sets aside the realproblems, including social and integration problems (Lorcerie 2008). Accord-ing to Lorcerie (2005), the ‘affair of the scarf’ was orchestrated by a few polit-ical actors from the right and the left and largely sustained by the media thatencouraged an anti-Islam ‘moral panic’. Lorcerie (2008) sustains that it wasnot the panic about international terrorism at the origin of the ‘affair of thescarf’ but an anxiety about Muslims and their questioning of national laïcitéand national identity. Or as Joppke (2007) contends, the Law on Laïcité wasfirst and foremost a measure of affirming unity over and against a diversifyingimmigrant society and at the cost of the individual rights protections.

The perception of Muslim immigrants as challenging French republicanideals and threatening the French nation has not subsided and is even encour-aged by the present head of government. The control of Muslim immigrantswas at the centre of Sarkozy’s business when, as minister of Interior (2002–2004), he created the ‘French Council for a Muslim Cult’ that was intended tobecome the official representative of all the different Muslim voices but wasperceived by the Muslim community as a means of control. Moreover,Sarkozy’s first decision as president on the creation of a ‘Ministry of Immigra-tion and National Identity’ in 2007 seems to point to the immigrant as antithesisof the nation and suspect of rejecting the nation’s ‘big narrative’ (Bertrand andLaurens 2007).

Conclusion

Large waves of immigrants since the 1960s and the diffusion of a multiculturaldiscourse to Western countries has promoted the integration without assimila-tion of immigrants in most European countries since the 1980s (Joppke 1999;Kymlicka 2007). This tendency neither guarantees true equal rights toimmigrants, nor does it provide a complete recognition of their cultures, butmulticulturalism was incorporated into citizenship models and multiculturaldiscourse pervaded educational policies. In order to check the multiculturalconvergence thesis I carried out a study that compared two countries that havereceived a large number of immigrants: Israel and France. The interest ofcomparing these two cases resides in the fact that Israel and France representcompletely different models of nationhood and opposed citizenship models.



Israeli citizenship is awarded based on jus sanguis and, by definition, opposedto any type of multiethnic national identity. France, on the contrary, awardscitizenship based on the jus solis principle and a universal view, both, appar-ently, more receptive to cultural and ethnic differences. Following Joppke’s(1999) framework I analysed citizenship models and collective identities inboth countries and the way migrant groups are integrated into these societiesin order to see whether and to what extent multiculturalism and multiculturaleducation challenge national identities and influence established concepts ofnationhood.

The study shows that the multicultural convergence of countries such asCanada, Great Britain, the USA (Mitchell 2003), Germany and the Nether-lands (Doomernik 2005) to integrate immigrants without assimilating does notinclude Israel and France. Although in most of the former cases, the efforts foractual integration of immigrants were poor, at the discursive level there weremajor changes. These countries adopted multicultural policies including largemulticultural education programs, whereas in Israel and France only a fewmulticultural initiatives have been implemented. In both countries the demandfor the assimilation of immigrants into the majority culture is still stronglyentrenched in national ideology. Nevertheless, in Israel, the introduction of aneoliberal discourse and a multicultural terminology used in previous anti-discriminatory battles paved the way to politically strong and large groupswith high cultural capital, such as immigrants from the FSU, to defy theJewish homogeneity of the dominant ideology. But, contrary to the transfor-mation that took place in Germany in the 1990s (Joppke 1996), from an ethnicperspective to a ‘territorial-civic’ form of citizenship we observe in Israel, asthe demand of naturalisation of migrant workers’ children shows, an ongoingrefusal to open its doors to non-Jewish people. In France, whose citizenshipmodel is constructed around equal abstract citizens, there is a basic reticenceto recognise a group’s cultural or religious differences and to encourage multi-culturalism. Moreover, the strong interests of the General Inspection andteachers’ unions and a republican socialisation of teachers contribute to thereinforcement of French ethnocentrism. The challenge of young Muslimwomen to the homogenising national culture not only did not encourage multi-cultural policies but triggered an offence against ‘otherness’ based on therepublican interpretation of laïcité and ended in a restrictive law.

Despite large demographic changes in both countries, the evolution ofconceptions of citizenship in France and in Israel reflects a reaffirmation ofexisting models – the particularist Israeli ethno-nationalism and the universalistFrench republicanism and laïcité – and the continuity of their assimilationistand homogenising tendencies: towards a Jewish uniform identity in the formerand towards a uniform secular (or catho-laique) identity in the latter. If we takeinto account the retreat of the multicultural tendency that is taking place inEurope in recent years (Joppke 2004), it is difficult to foresee an increase ofmulticulturalism in either Israel or in France.


220 J. Resnik

Notes1. The origins of the Jewish community in Ethiopia are uncertain. Different theories

exist concerning the beginnings (or start) of this community: they may be the lostIsraelite tribe of Dan; they may be descendants of Menelik I, son of King Solomonand Queen Sheba; or they may be the descendants of Ethiopian Christians andpagans who converted to Judaism centuries ago. For centuries, the Ethiopian Jewswere disconnected from the world Jewish community who was not aware of theexistence of a Jewish community in Ethiopia. Because the uncertainty of theirorigins and the disconnection from other Jewish communities in the world, theauthenticity of the ‘Jewishness’ of the community is questioned by the religiousauthorities In Israel.

2. Similar in meaning to ‘secularism’ but pointing at the special way the separationbetween the state and the church was conceived in France.

3. For instance, while in the past immigrant names used to be changed to Israelinames, in the 1990s the Ministry of Education instructed school teachers to keepthe original names of Russian speaking and Ethiopian pupils.

Notes on contributorJulia Resnik is a lecturer in the School of Education at the Hebrew University ofJerusalem. She earned her PhD at Tel Aviv University in 2002. Her main researchinterests are multiculturalism, globalization of education and international education.She is involved in a broad international enquiry on the contribution of internationalschooling and programs to the de-nationalization of education systems. She is theeditor of The production of educational knowledge in the global era (2008, SensePublishers, Rotterdam).

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Integration without assimilation? Ethno‐nationalism in Israel and universal laïcité in France

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