Tuesday, April 16, 2019

Your first Peoples of Israel Blog Post

Peoples of Israel Blog posts are different from Current Events Blog Posts.  Your Peoples of Israel Blog Post is your answer to a question about one or more Israeli population groups or social issues; that is, you are presenting a hypothesis and supplying evidence for it from assigned reading. 

Make sure that you start the post by clearly stating your answer.  When you present a piece of data as your evidence, you must describe its reliability and the viewpoint of the author who is presenting it. You must provide a link to it.  Because you cannot put in a link to the Rosenthal chapter, you must reference it as you do in the reading quizzes; for example, (Rosenthal 43); this rule also applies if you are referencing an assigned pdf. You MUST have links to the assigned online article and to any other online sources from which you draw information.  Showing that you have researched the topic is good.  Photos with captions can strengthen your arguments and brighten up the post.

Your post must be at least 600 words long, and it must include at least three sources of information. I specify these below.  Your post is due 11:59 p.m. on Friday, April 26.

Choose one of the questions below.

1. Why are some communities within Israeli society intolerant of homosexuality and sexual permissiveness?  

Present your informed answer on this subject by incorporating data from three sources (and you must refer to all three):
(1) The Israelis, by Donna Rosenthal (this counts as one source, even if you refer to multiple chapters)
(2) the Central Bureau of Israel Statistics “The population of Israel 1990-2009 Demographic Characteristics” booklet (on Week 11 Canvas)
(3) the Haaretz article Who’s Behind anti-LGBT, anti-Reform Signs in Israeli Cities?


2. Do all Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs hate each other, and does each group hope that the other would utterly depart from the State of Israel?   

Present your informed answer on this subject by incorporating data from three sources (and you must refer to all three):
(1) The Israelis, by Donna Rosenthal (this counts as one source, even if you refer to multiple chapters)
(2) Pew Research Forum "Israel's Religiously Divided Society" website (on Week 12 Canvas)
(3) the +972 article by Dahlia Scheindlin, Poll: Jews, Arabs much less divided than Israeli politics lets on

Friday, April 5, 2019

Your third Current Events Blog Post

Here are four articles for the third Current Events blog post assignment – you choose one you wish to summarize and analyze.

Before you start working on this, carefully read the evaluation of your first and second post so you do not make the same mistakes.

I suggest you re-read the assignment instructions in the Blog Hub tab entitled “Current Events Blog Post and Grading.” 

The first step in the preparation of your blog post is to understand the article, and this may entail reading some earlier reports on the same event (links to earlier articles are often included in online newspapers), reading about the topic in other newspapers or websites, or looking up terms or background information.   When you reference this information in your post, make a link to it – but be careful to differentiate between the actual article and the background information you are providing.  That is, your summary of the article should really be a summary of what is in the newspaper.  Your added explanation (it is probably essential to provide this) can follow the summary.

This assignment is worth 70 course points.  It will take a lot of work, so plan accordingly.  Your post will need to be a carefully researched and polished piece of writing.  Every article below deals with controversial matters, and you will need to write objectively.

Your post is due no later than 11:59 p.m. on Tuesday, April 16, 2019.


1. Israel’s election day was April 9, and this Haaretz article describes a range of statements from “undecided” voters.  If you understand how the Israeli election system works (and somewhere in your post you’ll need to explain it so that the article makes sense), you will see that voting decisions in Israel are far more complex than in the U.S.

2. This Jerusalem Post article focuses on the current effort to make a ceasefire between Hamas (the ruling group in Gaza) and the Israeli government/military.  Somewhere in your post you'll need to provide background about the current governance of Gaza.

3. This Times of Israel article, “With Netanyahu’s help, far-right party member could become MK,” explains why the Israeli political party, Otzmah Yehudit, is considered so troubling for Israeli voters.  Here, too, you'll need to give background information on that party and its agenda.

4. Election fever!  Here is an article from Palestine News Network showing that a majority of Palestinians (in the territories) want more elections.  The second and third paragraphs of the article seem to have some editing errors (perhaps you can find this information elsewhere), but the rest of it is pretty informative.