ABSTRACT
In this study we compared the socioeconomic achievements of three minority groups in Israel in two points of time, 1974 and 1991. Due to the existence of both Jewish and Palestinian minorities, the Israeli stratification system offers a unique opportunity to examine the confluence of cultural and structural forces. The Jewish majority in Israel is not made up of one group. Jews of Asian-African extraction suffer discrimination and are concentrated in the lower levels of the socioeconomic ladder. Asian-African Jews (“Easterners”) may therefore be treated as a minority relative to the dominant Euro-American Jews (“Westerners”). However, due to the pervasive ideology, according to which Jews of all origins are members of the same “people,” even Jewish minorities enjoy benefits of residence, employment, and education that are denied to Palestinians. The latter, who are also divided to several distinctive groups, are blatantly discriminated against as a result of official policies, and are commonly treated as outsiders by state authorities and by the Jewish public in general. The differential treatment of Jewish and Palestinian minorities provides us with an opportunity to study the impact of ethnocen-trism in comparison with the power of economic and demographic factors. 1
