Due to its artificial and unnatural structure, Israeli society has since the beginning of its establishment, been a context for the emergence of different kinds of cleavages and tensions. This state of affairs has endangered the political stability of the Israeli regime. The present research is trying to answer this question: what is the effect of religious-secular cleavages in Israel on the fu...

Ronald Dworkin and Philip Kitcher recognize that traditional, religious faith—especially in Christian theistic tradition—has virtues that seem to be missing in a secular worldview. To remedy this apparent deficit, they both propose that a secular worldview can provide a satisfying foundation for a flourishing, meaningful life. Moreover, Kitcher argues that secular humanism is far more justified...

Time-consuming and costly religious rituals pose a puzzle for economists committed to rational choice theories of human behavior. We propose that religious rituals promote in-group trust and cooperation that help to overcome collective-action problems. To test this hypothesis we design field experiments to measure the in-group cooperative behavior of members of religious and secular Israeli kib...

A nonsecular medical anthropology insists on the ways medicine and science have constituted 'the secular' itself through the 'secular self'-how medical knowing has been used to craft the secular political subject. As James Boon noted, too often in social theory, "religion gets safely tucked away-restricted theoretically to 'meaning' rather than power" (1998:245). The authors of the six articles...

Although racial/ethnic differences have been found in the use of mental health services for depression in the general population, research among Veterans has produced mixed results. This study examined racial/ethnic differences in the use of mental health services among 148 Operation Enduring/Iraqi Freedom (OEF/OIF) Veterans with high levels of depression and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD...

An Economic Perspective on Religious Education: Complements and Substitutes in a Human Capital Portfolio This paper models the tradeoffs between education in secular subjects, formal and informal, and the formation of religion-specific human capital. It explores some implications of negative externalities between religious and secular education. Applications include the tension between science ...

PURPOSE/OBJECTIVES To examine the differences among secular, traditional, and religious Israeli oncology nurses' intrinsic religiosity, extrinsic religiosity, spiritual well-being, and attitudes toward spiritual care. DESIGN A comparative, descriptive study. SAMPLE 148 Israeli Jewish nurses drawn from the membership of the Israeli Oncology Nursing Association. METHODS Nurses completed mai...