Ira Sharkansky is professor emeritus of political science and public administration at Hebrew University.
His books, which are available on Amazon, include:
*Alternative federal solutions to the problem of the administered territories
*Ambiguity, Coping, and Governance: Israeli Experiences in Politics, Religion, and Policymaking
*Ancient and Modern Israel: An Exploration of Political Parallels
*Coping with Terror: An Israeli Perspective
* Governing Israel: Chosen People, Promised Land and Prophetic Tradition
*Governing Jerusalem: Again on the World’s Agenda
* Israel and its Bible: A Political Analysis
* Maligned States: policy accomplishments, problems and opportunities
* Policy Analysis in Political Science
* Policy and Politics in American Governments
* Policy Making in Israel: Routines for Simple Problems and Coping with the Complex
* Politics and Planning in the Holy City
* Politics and Policymaking in Search of Simplicity
* Public Administration: Agencies, Policies, and Politics
* Public Administration Policy Making in Government Agencies
* Public Administration (2nd Edition): Policy Making in Government Agencies
* Regionalism in American Politics
* Rituals of Conflict: Religion, Politics, and Public Policy in Israel
* Spending in the American States
* The Policy Predicament: Making and Implementing Public Policy
* The Political Economy of Israel
* The Politics of Religion and the Religion of Politics
*The Politics of Taxing and Spending
* The Routines of Politics
* The United States: A Study of a Developing Country
* The United States Revisited: A Study of a Still Developing Country
* Urban Politics and Public Policy [Robert Lineberry]
* What Makes Israel Tick: How Domestic Policy-Makers Cope with Restraints
* Wither the State: Politics and Public Enterprise in Three Countries
By Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM — The Ethiopians have had their few days in the spotlight. Now it’s back to politics. Frustration is the likely theme of Ethiopian activists and politicians.. The argument about the Ethiopians remains between those who accuse Israel of a racist failure, and those who assert that the country took the initiative to […]
Shakiest of coalitions unlikely to bring much change Read More »
Ira Sharkansky, Middle EastBy Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM–The onset of protests by Ethiopian Jews Israel may have something to do with suggestions coming out of Baltimore, or they may reflect their own dynamic. It’s one of the questions that are impossible to answer about the social realities and politics of this issue. From the beginning, what has grown over
Ethiopian Israeli protests have many causes Read More »
Ira Sharkansky, Middle EastBy Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM — How important is Judaism for the Jews? We’ve long confused social science by being both an ethnic group (or tribe) and a religion. Among us are members of the tribe who deny religion, and converts to the religion who may have to wait a generation or two before being fully accepted
Ethnicity? Religion? Judaism is that — and more Read More »
Ira Sharkansky, Jewish Religion, Middle EastBy Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM — Every once in a while I feel a need to revisit what I wrote years ago, describing the US as a developing country. Read that as a place with elements of the Third World. Inspirations came from my youth in Fall River where the average adult hadn’t finished 9th grade, and
Baltimore riots highlight America’s flaws Read More »
Ira Sharkansky, Middle East, USABy Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM –Israel’s interests are ranging these days from Nepal to Ethiopia, to a bit of heating up in the north and among the Palestinians. And yes. There is still politics, with senior Likudniks in high fever at having to scrounge for the jobs left over by Bibi’s effort to create a government.
From Nepal to Ethiopia, Syria, the P.A., and the U.S. Read More »
International, Ira Sharkansky, Middle East, USABy Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM — Benyamin Netanyahu has been working at a government coalition since his party did the best in the March election It’s still not done. This reflects more than the details in current politics. It tells a story about Jewish history. Here we are, 3,000 years or more after we came into
Why Netanyahu struggles to form a government Read More »
Ira Sharkansky, Middle EastBy Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM–A number of individuals from my home town of Fall River have traveled to Ponta Delgada in the Azores to commemorate the refurbishing of a synagogue that they had financed. They also met with the one Jew still living in the islands. The story is long and interesting, and ironic from both
The Jews and Portuguese of Fall River Read More »
Ira Sharkansky, Jewish History, USABy Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM — It isn’t the Caribbean image of paradise made popular by Harry Belafonte, but the Israeli reality of being out of step with its surroundings. And the surroundings extend much farther than its Muslim neighbors. They also include pretty much the whole world as represented by the United Nations, as well
Perceptions of U.S. readers far from Israeli realities Read More »
Ira Sharkansky, Middle East, USABy Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM–We are seeing yet again the bobbing and feinting, complex maneuvers, and pursuit of partial treatment for problems that have no solution. We find it in relations between Israel and Palestine, with different moves toward Palestine West Bank and Palestine Gaza, between Israel and the US, as well as with Britain, Russia,
Half measures, bobbing, feinting in int’l politics Read More »
Ira Sharkansky, Middle EastBy Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM — Like some of the readers of these columns, I grew up in the US during the 1940s and 1950s. It was a time of assimilation for Jews and all the rest of the hoi polloi who had streamed from Europe. The US was ascendant as the result of World War II,
Face it, this is not the U.S. of our childhoods Read More »
Ira Sharkansky, Middle East, USABy Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM — We’re in the midst of Israel’s secular holidays, that are arguably more profound in terms of popular sentiment than the principal religious holidays of Yom Kippur and Pesach. Thusday was day to remember the Holocaust. Together with next Wednesday–the day to remember fallen soldiers and victims of terror–these are the two
Days of mourning have punch in Israeli society Read More »
Ira Sharkansky, Middle EastBy Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM — The two countries I know best are both immersed in political frenzy. In the United States it is the onset of the 2016 presidential campaign. In Israel it is sorting out the goodies and the claimants after last month’s election. Both are marked by hyperbolic claims and promises, which are not
Political promises vs. realities in U.S., Israel Read More »
Ira Sharkansky, Middle East, USABy Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM — Barack Obama is not a bad man, or a stupid man. It’s hard to say that he’s a bad president for the United States. He has made a mark for himself in bringing US health care into the 20th century, and it may even make it into the 21th century,
In defense, with a large caveat, of Barack Obama Read More »
International, Ira Sharkansky, Middle East, USABy Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM — Barack Obama isn’t looking as good as he did when he had the interviewers all to himself in the first few days after negotiators left Lausanne with smiles and handshakes, but nothing more than oral reports about what had been agreed to date. Commentators have poked around the details and
Iran speculation prompts numerous scenarios Read More »
Ira Sharkansky, Middle East, USA