“Contours of Israeli Politics analyzes opinion trends among minority communities of Jews within Israel.... Ridge employs marginal group membership theory to understand how non-Ashkenazi groups demonstrate higher levels of nationalist, illiberal, and expansionist views than their compatriots. She reports results from the datasets in depth, with ample use of written responses to illustrate the findings. The book will appeal mostly to specialists in Israeli society and politics.... Summing Up: Recommended.”—Choice

“[T]he book offers an essential contribution in documenting, in exacting detail, the shift in Israeli Jewish public opinion to the right. It convincingly shows that Israel’s democratic backsliding and shift toward conservative and increasingly violent methods for regulating its relations with Palestinians must be traced not to the October 7th attack but much earlier.”—Contemporary Sociology

“Ridge systematically explores the ways in which prototypical and nonprototypical Israelis perceive a number of issues along one important cleavage: marginal group membership. She makes a persuasive theoretical argument and identifies—and answers—an interesting puzzle in the study of intergroup relations. Contours of Israeli Politics addresses the ways in which members of marginal groups have a stronger sense of Jewish identity and are more aware of discrimination in contemporary Israel. It will be of great interest as Israel continues to see large public efforts to protect its democratic system of governance. Ridge’s rigorous findings will reshape our collective thinking on intergroup relations in Israel.”—Nazita Lajevardi, Associate Professor of Political Science at Michigan State University, and coeditor of Understanding Muslim Political Life in America: Contested Citizenship in the Twenty-First Century (Temple)