The First Roundup of 2015

A new year, a new roundup. For whatever reason, a bunch of really interesting articles popped up today, and I just don't have time to give them all the attention they deserve.

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Hadash (a joint Jewish-Arab party with Communist affiliations) has voted to join a unified Arab list, on the condition that the list include Jews and women (Hadash currently has four MKs, three Arab and one Jewish). Also of note is that former Israeli Knesset Speaker and Labor MK Avraham Burg appears to be considering a return to politics under Hadash's banner. He traveled to Hadash's conference on Shabbat because "because advancing solidarity between Jews and Arabs was 'a matter of life and death' that trumped the ban [on traveling during the Sabbath]."

A very good piece by Laurie Penny on the traumas faced by nerdy men growing up, and how they compare to those faced by nerdy women.

Brief reports to the contrary notwithstanding, Saudi Arabia denies that it will begin allowing Jews to work in the country. Israelis (and those with Israeli passport stamps) are barred from the country outright, Jews can (with some difficulty) obtain tourist visas.

The African Studies Association offers its first panel on African Jews (naturally, the first insight was that the term "African Jews" is too broad to do much useful work, but still).

Nothing too new for those in the know, but this short piece summarizing the empirical research on implicit racial bias may be useful for those looking for a quick-and-dirty introduction.

I am actually stunned by some of the findings in this poll of Israeli political attitudes. More Israeli Arabs have trust in their government than Israeli Jews (43% versus 37%). Strong majorities of both groups declare themselves to be proud to be Israeli (86% of Jews and 65% of Arabs). A bare majority of Israeli-Arabs say they trust the IDF (51%, the Israeli Supreme Court is the most trustworthy institution amongst Israeli Arabs at 60%).