ABSTRACT
This chapter offers the basic parameters of Israeli society and to mark the main realm of opportunities of this society since the establishment of the State in 1948. It examines the relative effects of the factors presented on the mobility of individuals, in association with particular realms. The social history of capitalist societies demonstrates that the middle class — the petty bourgeoisie — has never disappeared but has gone through some substantive changes. The concept of a ‘realm of opportunity’ signifies a certain historical situation that is distinguished from other sequential situations. The methodology that should be adopted in order to study class formation is built on a process of identification that begins with the identification of the realm of opportunities in the history of the studied society, and hence, the options that are available at that definite period. The formation of the old middle class was effective for, or supportive of, the sociological ‘minorities’, Sephardim, females and Arabs.
