A new exodus? Explaining Jewish migration from Europe after the Cold War

Why are European Jews migrating to Israel in significant numbers? Israeli leaders and popular press reports suggest that incidents of antisemitism have reached such high levels across Europe, even in fully democratic countries, that Jews are leaving once again to escape persecution and violence. Others suggest that Jews are migrating for the same reasons other migrants do: for greater economic opportunity. Until now, we have had no way of weighing the relative merit of these claims, hampered by the absence of reliable comparative data on antisemitism in Europe. Leveraging a new dataset compiled by the author, this study tests these competing hypotheses and finds that European Jews migrate because of greater economic opportunity in Israel. While concerns about antisemitism in Europe are at record highs and more Jews are considering moving to Israel than ever before in the post-war era, so far most Jewish migration is to take advantage of better economic opportunities in Israel.     

Religion and coping with health-related stress

Abstract

The empirical evidence concerning the association between various aspects of religion and adjustment to health-related stressors is reviewed, including examination of whether religion acts as a stress buffer or deterrent. Considerable literature suggests that some aspects of religion are consistently associated with adjustment to illness, and evidence for religion as a stress buffer and as a stress deterrent were found. Potential pathways by which religion may influence adjustment to illness were also delineated, including: (1) providing an interpretive framework or cognitive schema; (2) enhancing coping resources; and (3) facilitating access to social support and promoting social integration. Design, methodological and measurement limitations in the extant literature were noted. Further research is needed to elucidate how religion functions as a natural resource during health-related crises.     

Interpersonal Sensitivity,Partner Support,Patient–Physician Communication,and Sexual Functioning in Men Recovering From Prostate Carcinoma

Twenty men and twenty women were tested to determine patterns of latent hostility toward the Deity figure with a view governed by sex difference. It was found that men exhibited a consistently rigid pattern while women tended to move from lower to higher means on the “B” or benevolence scale. There was little differentiation on the “P” or potency scores. The technique utilized ink blot interpretations with subsequent ranking from the one most, to the one least, suggesting God. This attachment of symbol on a known factor to one of an unknown dimension has been labeled the technique of symbolic equivalence.     

Speech perception, lexicality, and reading skill

This study examined the interaction between speech perception and lexical information among a group of 7-year-old children, of which 26 were poor readers and 36 were good readers. The children's performance was examined on tasks assessing reading skill, phonological awareness, pseudoword repetition, and phoneme identification. Although good readers showed clearly defined categorical perception in the phoneme identification task for both the /bif/-/pif/ and the /bis/-/pis/ continua, the category boundary for /bif/-/pif/ was at longer VOTs than the boundary for /bis/-/pis/, which characterizes the classic lexicality effect. Poor readers showed less sharply defined categorical perception on both continua. Although poor readers did not show the classic lexicality effect, lexicality did affect the overall rate with which phonemes were identified as /b/ or /p/ at each VOT. These findings suggest that the lexicon may operate as a compensatory mechanism for resolving ambiguities in speech perception. Furthermore, statistical correction for group differences in phoneme identification made group differences in phoneme deletion disappear, suggesting that deficits in speech perception may play a causal role in the phonological core deficit associated with reading failure.