WAR FANTASIES: MEMORY,TRAUMA AND ETHICS IN ARI FOLMAN'S WALTZ WITH BASHIR

This paper explores the relationship between memory, trauma and ethics in the Israeli war film Waltz with Bashir (Ari Folman, 2008). I argue that Waltz with Bashir highlights a traumatic rupture between history and memory, and points to the decline of national collective memory in Israel. In the film, the war is represented as the private memory of a distinct social group—soldiers who fought in the First Lebanon War—and is no longer a collective memory, a lived and practised tradition that conditions Israeli society. The film is constructed as a kind of lieu de mémoire that houses repressed traumatic events that have been denied entry into the nation's historical narrative, and which the protagonists feel duty bound to remember. This detachment from the national collective memory draws the film into a timeless world of dreams, hallucinations and fantasies. The film does not aspire to reveal the true details of the war. Rather, it is concerned with memory and the very process of remembering, as well as with the ethical questions that they pose to both the film's protagonists and its viewers. These questions are reflected both in the film's narrative and in its unique aesthetics.     

Immigrant identity of Israeli adolescents from Ethiopia and the former USSR: culture‐specific principles of organization

The study examines how a sample of 210 high‐school immigrant students (ages 14–15) from Ethiopia and the former USSR socially represent their notion of what klitat aliyah (successful adaptation to Israel) means. Prevalent relevant theories—Berry's model of Acculturation Tendencies (BAT), Social Identity Theory (SIT) and Social Comparison Theory (SCT)—suggest three kinds of patterns by which minority or socially weak groups deal with these kinds of situations. These underlying patterns were tested by a 47‐item questionnaire (with a 4‐point Likert‐like scale), constructed from immigrant narratives regarding their klitat aliyah according to SIT, SCT and BAT categories of adaptation strategies. A Guttman non‐parametric Similarity Structure Analysis (SSA) revealed four‐facet organization of items for both males and females in both sub‐samples. These facets, which reflected social representations of Israeli society, were dubbed: Extended Identity, Rivalry Identity, Secluded Identity and Identity Loss. Results did not confirm the underlying categorization of strategies suggested by SIT and SCT, and partially replicated those suggested by BAT. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Nearest neighbor analysis of point processes: Applications to multidimensional scaling

A new approach for evaluating spatial statistical models based on the (random) number 0 ≤ N(i, n) ≤ n of points whose nearest neighbor is i in an ensemble of n + 1 points is discussed. The second moment of N(i, n) offers a measure of the centrality of the ensemble. The asymptotic distribution of N(i, n) and the expected degree of centrality for several spatial and nonspatial point processes is described. The use of centrality as a diagnostic statistic for multidimensional scaling is explored.     

The neural reality of syntactic transformations: evidence from functional magnetic resonance imaging

The functional anatomy of syntactic transformations, a major computational operation invoked in sentence processing, was identified through a functional magnetic resonance imaging investigation. A grammaticality judgment task was used, presented through a novel hidden-blocks design. Subjects listened to transformational and nontransformational sentences in which a host of other complexity generators (number of words, prepositions, embeddings, etc.) were kept constant. A series of analyses revealed that the neural processing of transformations is localizable, evoking a highly lateralized and localized activation in the left inferior frontal gyrus (Broca's region) and bilateral activation in the posterior superior temporal sulcus. The pattern of activation associated with transformational analysis was distinct from the one observed in neighboring regions, and anatomically separable from the effects of verb complexity, which yielded significant activation in the left posterior superior temporal sulcus. Taken together with neuropsychological evidence, these results uncover the neural reality of syntactic transformations.     

Akiva Yosef Schlesinger—a forerunner of Zionism or a forerunner of ultra-orthodoxy

Rabbi Akiva Yosef Schlesinger (Pressburg 1838—Jerusalem 1922) is considered by some scholars to be a forerunner of ultra-Orthodoxy, but by others as a forerunner of Zionism. This article unravels this enigmatic personality, demonstrating that he was indeed a forerunner of ultra-Orthodoxy who was motivated by a complete rejection of modernity and promoted religious positions that were more radical than those of the Hatam Sofer. Those who associate Schlesinger with Zionism are misled by the fact that he encountered fierce opposition from his Hungarian colleagues and from the “Yishuv hayashan” in Jerusalem, advocated the use of the Hebrew language and promoted a “settlement” programme in Palestine. The article suggests that Schlesinger's programme was in reality designed to create a sacred utopian society, and was motivated by his desire to isolate the traditional Jewish community from modernity, rather than by a nationalist ideology. Furthermore, the opposition of the Jerusalem rabbis to Schlesinger's ideas was based largely on his unusual religious positions and his suggestion that the youth should be engaged in work. In analysing Schlesinger's legacy, the article also clarifies the distinctions between ultra-Orthodoxy and Zionism, as well as some common elements that they share.     

Experimentally Increasing Self-Continuity Improves Subjective Well-Being and Protects against Self-Esteem Deterioration from an Ego-Deflating Task

‘Self-continuity,’ or ‘continuous identity’ is the sense of cross-temporal persistence of identity and is associated with positive mood and decreased suicidality. Few studies have examined whether self-continuity is affected by reviewing cross-temporal patterns of personality traits and if increasing self-continuity improves subjective well-being. Study 1 examined the effects of writing about patterns of cross-temporal personality traits and found that this led to increased future self-continuity and reported life satisfaction. Study 2 examined the effects of a structured interview about cross-temporal personality traits and visualizing past/future selves and found that this led to increased future self-continuity, satisfaction with life, positive mood, and less deterioration in self-esteem after an impossible anagram task. These results suggest that increasing self-continuity may improve psychological health and well-being by increasing identity stability.     

Mothers who were severely abused during childhood and their children talk about emotions: Co‐construction of narratives in light of maternal trauma

The article focuses on detailed examination of the co‐construction of emotion dialogues between mothers and their 6‐year‐old children in light of mothers' experiences of being sexually, physically, and emotionally abused during childhood. We present examples from dialogues between 3 mothers and their children about emotional events experienced by the children and illustrate emotionally mismatched co‐construction processes. To better understand these difficulties, the article also provides vignettes from interviews with mothers about children's inner worlds and show how examining the interviews may help explain the unfolding of the dialogues and particularly points of difficulty. The dialogues between the mothers and their children were assessed using the Autobiographical Emotional Events Dialogue procedure (Koren‐Karie, Oppenheim, Chaimovich, & Etzion‐Carasso, 2000). The maternal interviews were obtained using the Insightfulness Assessment procedure (Oppenheim & Koren‐Karie, 2002). The discussion focuses on the significance of mother–child dialogues in shaping children's inner world, and points to the importance of providing intervention for adults who experienced childhood traumas that address not only their own personal issues but also their functioning as parents.