Adriana Kemp, Rebeca Raijman
(2008). Migrants and workers: The political economy of labor migration in Israel. Jerusalem: Van Leer Institute and Hakibbutz Hameuchad Publishing House.
Publication year: 2008

Israel leads the list of industrialized nations that import cheap labor. In the past two decades, hundreds of thousands of labor migrants have come to Israel from all over the world. More than half the labor migrants in Israel today are undocumented workers. What is the process that made it possible to create a new category of noncitizens living in the backyard of Israeli society? What are the mutual relations between this new reality and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? Is the stream of workers reshaping the Israeli economy? In what ways are Israeli governments coping with those who have become permanent extras? of the state and Israeli society? These questions are the focus of this book, which concludes ten years of research. The authors present a historical and sociopolitical analysis of labor migration and combine it with a critical view in accordance with which although this is a global phenomenon, the factors that make it possible are very closely connected to local social, political, and economic processes. Migrants and Workers: The Political Economy of Labor Migration in Israel is intended for scholars, policy-makers, social activists, and the general public.