Orit Abuhav, In the Company of Others: The Development of Anthropology in Israel. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2015. 272 pp.

This chapter reviews the book In the Company of Others: The Development of Anthropology in Israel (2015), by Orit Abuhav. In the Company of Others examines twists and turns in the development of anthropology as a discipline in Israel. Many of anthropology’s outstanding practitioners were born and educated abroad and, for reasons that were both intellectual and personal, were drawn to Israel. According to Abuhav, there are about 130 anthropologists in Israel, thirty of whom hold university positions and ten who are employed in colleges. Four decades ago, women made up about twenty-five percent of Israeli anthropologists, but by the 1990s the disproportion had been largely corrected, at least at the junior level. With regard to Mizrahim and Palestinians, however, the imbalance remains. An unusual feature of Israeli anthropology is that its “field” is largely confined within the borders of the state.