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This thesis examines the philanthropic organisations and projects with which elite Jewish women in Chicago were concerned during the years 1890–1900. It concentrates on the National Council of Jewish Women, which was founded by a group of Chicago women in 1893 after the Jewish Women’s Congress at the World’s Columbian Exposition. The NCJW was this community’s highest-profile philanthropic organisation, bringing them local, national and international attention. The 1890s were a turbulent decade—politically, socially and economically. Against this backdrop, Chicago’s philanthropists were pioneers of the Progressive Movement. The NCJW showed early interest in Progressivism, but came from a Jewish community with set notions of appropriate roles for women. The NCJW's leaders encouraged philanthropic innovation, but presented themselves themselves very traditionally, as ‘model’ American women. Previous scholarship has emphasised the conservative character of the NCJW, suggesting that it was only different from contemporaries by having a Jewish membership. This thesis will show that this was not the case. Beginning with an introduction to Chicago and Chicago’s Jewish community, this thesis contextualises these women’s philanthropic work. It then moves on to examine—in greater detail than can be found in existing scholarship—the foundation and early years of the NCJW. Its final two chapters address the other philanthropic organisations and projects with which elite Jewish women were associated, within and outside of the Jewish community, showing that they were intimately involved in Progressive philanthropy. The philanthropic activities of this group show them to have been far more radically-minded than has generally been thought. Their work with the NCJW brought them influence and acclaim which has been forgotten. This thesis seeks to provide a deeper understanding of this group and their work, placing them within the context of the time and place in which they lived.

The aim of this thesis is to investigate the Colombian-Lebanese community in Bogota, and specifically the identities of a particular group of Colombian-Lebanese. I explore the role of ethnicity in the construction of their identities, through the concepts of space, performance and community. The Colombian-Lebanese community has a particular position within Bogota society as part of Bogota’s elite. This privileged position means the Colombian-Lebanese community is a confident group that does not have to endure the negative aspects of ethnic labelling that other less privileged communities may have to sustain. Most of the Colombian-Lebanese participants in this study have been successfully upwardly socially mobile whilst keeping a connection with their ethnic community. At the same time, less upwardly mobile descendants of Lebanese immigrants are more likely to completely assimilate into Colombian society, or if they are recent Muslim immigrants, maintain their religious identity but their ethnic identity is likely to gradually dilute. By adopting an ethnographic approach, with an emphasis on interviews and participant observation, I focus on the Colombian-Lebanese organisations that work within this ethnic community, including a social club, a Maronite parish, a charitable organisation, and a cultural association. I analyse a number of activities and events organised by the Colombian-Lebanese, observing the locations where these take place, their participation in the events, as well as how identity is performed within them. There have been few studies of the Colombian-Lebanese in Colombia, most of those focussing on the history of migration and settlement. This thesis aims to address this by adding a contemporary view of the Colombian-Lebanese in Bogota. Moreover, it contributes to the growing literature on migrant communities investigating whether upward mobility is compatible with ethnic identification. I argue that social status is as important to Colombian-Lebanese identity as ethnicity, and that the two combine in order to belong to the organisations that work within the community. The social positioning of the Colombian-Lebanese in Bogota’s society positively influences their relationship with their ethnic identity, which they can choose deliberately when and where to perform.

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This thesis attends to the major question ‘how is Jewish identity created and maintained in contemporary Britain?’ To answer this question, I have done one year of ethnographic fieldwork in Britain, which included 121 interviews with Jewish people of various ages and across different religious as well as non-religious denominations. This thesis identifies four major elements informing the creation and perpetuation of Jewish identity: One, a sense of difference from the majority population creates and maintains the identity. Jews can perceive themselves to be different religiously, nationally, ethnically and/or culturally from white Christian British people. Two, trauma memory has an impact on the creation and sustenance of this identity. Vicarious group trauma, meaning trauma experienced by proxy of previous generations, can inform identity through its influence on everyday experiences. Three, community affiliation plays a role in creating and particularly reinforcing the identification. The Jewish community provides resources, social interaction and thus signalled attention, and regard; all of them respond to innate human needs that a person aims to have satisfied. Four, a group norm of continuity is important in the perpetuation of this identity within and across generations. This norm is created and sustained by its members through their focus on endogamy. Wanting to have a partner from one’s own group, have Jewish children and raise them in a Jewish lifestyle can, thereby, reinforce and maintain a sense of Jewishness (inter-) generationally. Without members marrying within the faith and having children that are raised with Judaism, it would be difficult to preserve Jewish identity in a country where the group does not constitute the majority. The thesis concludes that there are two reasons why Jews in diaspora have been able to sustain as a group and maintain their identity over time. Firstly, the multi-dimensionality of the Jewish group and respective affiliation platforms have allowed its members to create a multi-faceted meaning of being Jewish, and, secondly, continuous external challenges to the group’s security together with constant reminders of those challenges; both have prevented the group from assimilating into mainstream society.

This thesis explores intersecting processes of inclusion and exclusion among Palestinians in Tel Aviv, a city considered to be essentially Jewish-Israeli. It looks at Palestinians from diverse backgrounds and statuses who engage with the city in search of employment, higher education, political activism, or an urban lifestyle. Although this self-consciously liberal city creates social and economic openings, unequal power relations and conflict prevail over urban civility and citizenship. The Palestinians face a paradox: the deeper their inclusion into Tel Aviv’s political economy, the stronger their estrangement and the more serious their dilemmas. Because their urban inclusion is limited, mobility and constant adaptation become obligatory and eventually disempowering. As they oscillate between conflicting desires and senses of solidarity or identification, the Palestinians in Tel Aviv struggle with intersecting forms of cultural and political power. They seek individual opportunities within a political system they oppose, demand recognition of their identity and history but also seek urban anonymity as unmarked individuals. Their balancing acts resemble acrobats: they walk a tightrope between contradictory worlds, unable to reconcile both into a stable balance and simultaneously prevented from ever fully arriving at the other end. They live in exile ‘at home’.

En l’espace de vingt ans (fin 1940 - fin 1960), des 105 000 Juifs qui vivaient en Tunisie n’en ont subsisté qu’un peu plus de 10 000. L’assimilation française, l’émergence de l’idéologie sioniste à la fin du XIXe siècle, l’épisode dramatique du débarquement allemand et la blessure laissée par la France de Vichy, la montée des nationalismes dans l’ensemble du monde arabo-musulman, ajoutés au contexte géopolitique de l’époque, ont favorisé l’éveil d’une conscience des droits politiques et humains inaliénables chez la population juive de Tunisie. A la fin de l’occupation allemande (mai 1943), des départs ont eu lieu vers la Palestine ; ils s’intensifient à la veille et au lendemain de la création de l’Etat d’Israël. En 1952, l’amorce de la lutte contre l’occupant français, qui se solde par l’accès à l’autonomie interne en août 1954, fragilise cette minorité, inquiète de ne pouvoir accéder pleinement à la citoyenneté sous la nouvelle administration tunisienne, et incertaine quant à son avenir du point de vue social, économique, politique et institutionnel. Jusqu’à l’achèvement du processus d’indépendance tunisienne, l’émigration des Juifs en France et en Israël s’effectue en corrélation avec les réseaux migratoires nord-africains. Les organisations juives mondiales et les associations communautaires juives tunisiennes sont nombreuses à conjuguer leurs efforts pour assister les candidats au départ. L’intégration des émigrants dans leurs pays d’accueil se fait généralement dans la difficulté et la précarité. En 1967, lors de la guerre des Six jours, les manifestations hostiles aux Juifs portent un coup fatal à une possible cohabitation judéo-musulmane en terre tunisienne. / Over a 20 years period (late 1940s- late 1960s), among the 105 000 Jews living in Tunisia just over 10 000 have remained. The French assimilation, the emergence of the Zionist ideology in the late nineteenth century, the dramatic episode of the German landing and the wound left by Vichy France, the rise of nationalism throughout the Arab-Muslim world, added to the geopolitical context of time, have favored the awakening of an inalienable awareness of political and human rights among the Jewish population of Tunisia. At the end of the German occupation (May 1943), departures were held to Palestine; these intensified right before and after the creation of the State of Israel. In 1952, the start of the struggle against the French occupation, which ended with internal self-government in August 1954, weakens this minority concerned about not being able to fully access citizenship under the new Tunisian administration, and uncertain about its future from the social, economic, political, and institutional point of view. Until the completion of the Tunisian independence process, the emigration of Jews in France and Israel takes place in conjunction with the North African migration networks. International Jewish organizations and Tunisian Jewish community associations have worked together to assist the candidates departures. The integration of immigrants into their host countries has usually been done under difficult and precarious conditions. In 1967, during the Six Day War, demonstrations hostile to the Jews have been fatal to possible Jewish-Muslim coexistence in the Tunisian soil.