ABSTRACT
The following chapter offers to examine the relationship between the “actual Israel” and the “imaginary one” various movements within Israel fantasize about. The chapter will take the form of an analysis of the work of the important Israeli sociologist Michael Feige, who was far from being a scholar who allowed a world-embracing theory to color all sociological phenomena, including the contradiction-filled Israeli “project.” He saw the world of humanity as quite simply the earth and its fullness which cannot be reduced to dualities like oppressors and oppressed, employers and workers, occupiers and occupied, Ashkenazim and Mizrahim, men and women. His studies give an empathetic view of la condition humaine, and at the same time are clear-eyed and critical, sensitive and penetrating, revealing areas hidden from sight: dreams of redemption and the excavation of roots, hopes and fears, the real Israel and the imagined one.
