Sabbatical in Israel

During the Spring 2023 Semester, Dr. Trent Engbers, Associate Professor of Political Science and Public Administration, took a sabbatical from his faculty position at USI for a research opportunity—travel to Israel to learn how faith-based nonprofit organizations operate in the country. As he’s worked and researched over the last few months, he has gathered lots to share with the USI community back home—from experiences with fellow researchers and residents to opportunities to expand his research.

In April, Aubrey Swart, College of Liberal Arts intern, spoke to Engbers about his journey to Israel, his work there and what happens next when he returns.

What was it like getting settled and starting your research while in Israel?

Whenever you are in a new context there is always so much learning. For the first two months of my time here, I felt like my research was going so slow, it was so hard to get anything done.  But I really tried to invest a lot of time, in the beginning, in building relationships with people and really taking opportunities to meet with different people, experts in the field within the country here, leaders of major non-profit organizations; then that started to pay off. In March, the research started to pick up and now, I am probably 80% through. There will be some research tasks that will carry over to my return in a month, things that I will continue to work on once I get home, but it’s coming along.

I will say the research project has expanded a lot. It has been very fascinating. In the beginning, it was almost exclusively about faith-based nonprofit organizations; whereas now, there is another portion of the study where I am looking at organizations that serve people with disabilities and specifically Arab nonprofits. Israeli society is very divided between Jewish and Arab populations, and because of that the Arab nonprofits have their own unique dynamic. It is really understudied, really under-understood, and so I’ve been working with those organizations to try and learn more about them to develop some understanding of the way they work, so we can support them and make sure they’re strong and able to help people in the community.

What’s been something outside of your research that you’ve enjoyed about this sabbatical?

Traveling is great. One of the things that has been nice is, when you study non-profit organizations, almost every vacation experience is also a research experience. So, I had these opportunities to travel throughout the country, to many places that people think of as tourist destinations but actually operate as non-profits and so that gives me an opportunity to not only see some of the aspects of the country but to also study them at the same time. Israel is a country that’s ripe with history and culture and religion and society, and I’ve really been trying to take every advantage to do that. In fact, this week is a perfect example, today is the start of Passover here, and so I will be spending Passover with some colleagues, celebrating the first night’s seder of Passover with them in a very authentic way. Then, in two days, my family and I are going to Nazareth to start the beginning of the easter season. So, you get these very hands-on experiences that you can’t get any place else.

There has been a lot about Israel in the news; tensions seem to be running high in the country. Can you sense the tension? How has it been affecting your research?

I don’t feel like it is affecting my research a lot. But I will say it has been one of the more fascinating aspects of my visit here. If you were to have previously asked me if Israeli society divided, I would have said yes. You’ve got a 75-year-old conflict between Arabs and Jews that is unfolding in the Holy Land, but in many ways that is the tip of the iceberg. There is a significant conflict that exists between secular and religious Jews here. Within the Arab community there [are] a lot of tensions between Arab Muslims and Arab Christians.

In some ways, it is kind of sad, there is just an element of pessimism about life in Israel that I didn’t anticipate. And in terms of being here and watching history unfold, that is fortuitous timing. My Israeli colleagues have commented, “Wow you have come here at such an interesting time.” The word “historic” is mentioned almost every day, with the protests, the anti-government conflicts and then the pro-government conflicts taking place. I live in a city called Haifa, which is known as one of the most tolerant and hospitable cities in Israel, but even here we’ve had protests of 70,000 people. And when you look at Tel Aviv, which is just down the road, some of those protests have become violent, tragically so. It is a lesson in bureaucracy and government to say the least.

Have you experienced a shock at all adjusting to different types of food or any of the cultural customs or social behaviors since you arrived in Israel?

There are always cultural adjustments. I’d say the food, not so much; we adapted to the food pretty quickly, as it is very Mediterranean. Several of my kids have asked me at various points in time, “Are we in Europe or are we in Asia?” And that’s really, in many ways, a tough question to answer. Israel looks to the West, with their eyes firmly fixed on Europe. Geographically that question is a little more ambiguous. But certainly, it is not hard to find the influence of the Mediterranean and European culture here.

There are cultural challenges, inevitably. One example is during Passover—anyone who is Jewish is cleansing their home of any bread products. One of our neighbors brought us a bag down and there were chips and cookies made with wheat, a bottle of whiskey made with barley and a pack of gum that uses grain. Then on our street corner, there was a bonfire with huge oil drums filled with coal and fire, and people were coming out and burning all of this food from their home. To me, as an outsider, it feels just so terribly wasteful, like all of this food just being burned, but I’m trying to be open to what that means in terms of the history, culture and the traditions of the people I am living around.