'בארץ הקודש הקמתי את משפחתי': דפוסים משפחתיים בקרב מהגרי עבודה פיליפינים בישראל

The number of ethnic-religious-national mixed families in Israel has been increasing in the past decade. In the socio-political context and the fraught framework of majority–minority relations in Israel, Jewish–Muslim mixed families often experience alienation and deal with daily complexity in their family relationships. In many ways, their daily family lives cross boundaries and encounter crossroads of religion,gender, and ethno-nationality, thus challenging the socio-cultural-gender and national perceptions of both societies. This article is based on qualitative interviews with Jewish women married to Arab-Palestinian men in Israel, who are also mothers.We examine the way these women use practices that construct their motherhood and femininity, seeing them as a prism for examination of the negotiations the women conduct with their partners regarding their identity and the raising of their children. Although all the participants live in mixed families, they do not follow a single family pattern; instead, they exhibit a multiplicity of identities stemming from the positioning of their status, education, religiosity, place of residence,and occupation. In their daily lives, these women deal with the construction of their feminine identity within wider family circles and negotiate their identity as women, partners, and mothers. The article makes its contribution by emphasizing the implications of macro-social elements for the construction of patterns of family,gender relations, and motherhood by making the women’s presence known and their voices heard. These women inhabit family structures that, while uncommon, are of significance in illustrating the diversity that exists within mixed families in Israel