Eliezer Ben-Rafael (; born 1938 in

Belgium Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland region known as the Low Countries, it is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeas ...

) is an Israeli sociologist. He is Weinberg Professor of Sociology, emeritus, at

Tel Aviv University Tel Aviv University (TAU) is a Public university, public research university in Tel Aviv, Israel. With over 30,000 students, it is the largest university in the country. Located in northwest Tel Aviv, the university is the center of teaching and ...

. Ben-Rafael is known for his work on the

kibbutz A kibbutz ( / , ; : kibbutzim / ) is an intentional community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. The first kibbutz, established in 1910, was Degania Alef, Degania. Today, farming has been partly supplanted by other economi ...

, on language and

ethnicity An ethnicity or ethnic group is a group of people with shared attributes, which they Collective consciousness, collectively believe to have, and long-term endogamy. Ethnicities share attributes like language, culture, common sets of ancestry, ...

in Israel, and on

globalization Globalization is the process of increasing interdependence and integration among the economies, markets, societies, and cultures of different countries worldwide. This is made possible by the reduction of barriers to international trade, th ...

and Jewish identity. He is editor of a series on Jewish identities for

Brill Publishers Brill Academic Publishers () is a Dutch international academic publisher of books, academic journals, and Bibliographic database, databases founded in 1683, making it one of the oldest publishing houses in the Netherlands. Founded in the South ...

. Ben-Rafael is a former president of the International Institute of Sociology and former Chair of the Israeli Association for the Study of Language.

Childhood

Eliezer Ben-Rafael was an hidden child in Belgium during the

Holocaust The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...

Work on Kibbutz Reform

In the early 1990s, Ben-Rafael was asked by the members of the

movement to chair a working group, "The Kibbutz at the Turn of the Century Project," to explore potential paths to the future for kibbutzim, many of which were failing both economically and failing to retain or attract members. Ben-Rafael was Chair of the Ben-Raphael Committee, a committee appointed by the

Cabinet of Israel The Cabinet of Israel (; ) is the cabinet which exercises executive authority in the State of Israel. It consists of ministers who are chosen and led by the prime minister. The composition of the government must be approved by a vote of con ...

to produce a series of recommendations on structuring a process by which those kibbutzim that so chose could transition to a more market-oriented economic model. The recommendations were accepted by the government in 2004.

Books

*
The Metamorphosis of the Kibbutz
'' Ben-Rafael, E. & Shemer, O. (eds.) Brill, 2020 *
Confronting Allosemitism in Europe: The Case of Belgian Jews
'' Brill, 2014

References

1938 births Belgian Jews Living people Belgian emigrants to Israel Israeli Jews Israeli people of Belgian-Jewish descent Israeli sociologists Academic staff of Tel Aviv University {{Asia-sociologist-stub