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This copy has been deposited in the Library of _ULL This copy has been deposited in the University of London Library, Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU. -r"0 3 Religiosity, Coping and Suicidality among the Religious Zionist community of Israel Michael Daniel Band Thesis submitted to University College London for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy, August 2006 l UMI Number: U592626 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Dissertation Publishing UMI U592626 Published by ProQuest LLC 2013. Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. 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Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 Contents Abstract 4 Acknowledgements 6 Chapter One Religion and Mental Health - An Overview 7 Chapter Two Suicide and Religion 34 Chapter Three The Religious Zionist Community in Israel 62 Chapter Four The Semi-Structured Interviews: A Thematic Qualitative Analysis 93 Chapter Five A Quantitative Study of Religious Factors Relating to Suicide Ideation and Suicide Acceptance 141 Chapter Six Discussion 179 Chapter Seven The Summer of 2005 - The Disengagement Plan 204 Chapter Eight Conclusions 214 Glossary of Hebrew Terms 237 References 241 Appendix 1 Cover page of questionnaire booklet including information relating to biographical details 263 Appendix 2 Religious Belief Questionnaire 264 Appendix 3 Religious Behaviour Questionnaire 265 Appendix 4 Religious Motivation Questionnaire 268 Appendix 5 Suicide Ideation Questionnaire (Self-Assessment Questionnaire) 270 Appendix 6 Attitude to Suicide Questionnaire 272 Appendix 7 Religious Coping Questionnaire 275 Appendix 8 Additional questions regarding religious history and development 278 2 List of Tables Table 2.1 Research relating to Durkheim’s original treatise on suicide 41 Table 2.2 Research regarding suicide in reference to the different world religions 49 Table 2.3 Suicide rates in Israel 1990-2000 (per 100,000) 51 Table 2.4 International rates of suicide (per 100,000) 51 Table 2.5 Research connecting suicide to religiosity 58 Table 5.1 Countries of birth of participants and their parents 145 Table 5.2 Reliability scores for the Religious Behaviour Questionnaire 149 Table 5.3 Reliability statistics for the five categories of religious motivation 151 Table 5.4 Descriptive statistics for original RCOPE questionnaire (Pargament et al., 2000) 153 Table 5.5 Reliability statistics (per subscale) for the Hebrew version of the RCOPE 155 Table 5.6 Descriptive statistics for each of the scales used in the present research 162 Table 5.7 Correlation matrix for each of the scales used in the present research 163 Table 5.8 Correlations between religious belief and behaviour and suicide ideation and acceptance 164 Table 5.9 Significant correlations between the religious coping subgroups and suicide ideation and acceptance 166 Table 5.10 Correlations between religious coping styles and religious belief and behaviour 167 Table 5.11 Correlations between religious coping patterns AND religious belief and behaviour AND suicide ideation and acceptance 169 Table 5.12 Multiple regression analysis. Independent variables = religious belief, religious behaviour and 17 religious coping values. Dependent variable = suicide ideation (saq) 172 Table 5.13 Multiple regression analysis. Independent variables = religious belief, religious behaviour & 17 religious coping values. Dependent variable = suicide acceptance (asq) 172 3 Abstract The relationship between religion and mental health has been the subject of extensive research particularly in recent years. Concurrently, the issues of coping and suicidality have also been widely studied. Significantly however, how religious people cope with harsh life situations and how their religiosity impacts on their coping skills is an area which seems to have been overlooked. The present study analyses how members of one cultural group, the Religious Zionist community in Israel, cope with harsh life situations. Two introductory chapters reporting on previous research relating to religion, mental health and suicide are followed by a historical and psycho-sociological review of the development of the Religious Zionist community over the last 100 years. A qualitative study (n=18) informed the quantitative research (n=124) such that questionnaires were developed through insights gained in the interviews. A synthesis of the qualitative and quantitative studies led to conclusions which have helped to refine the understanding of the relationship between religiosity, coping, and suicidality. Although the study confirms the conclusions of previous research - in general religion creates a buffer to suicidal activity - the results showed arelatively lowimpact of religiosity on coping: people who regard themselves as religious find it difficult to access their religiosity during harsh life situations. Furthermore, religiosity appears to have a greater impact on suicide acceptance than on suicide ideation. The study highlights the critical role of religious coping as a mediating factor between religiosity and suicide. The thesis suggests certain themes which help to explain the findings, for example the specific complexity of personal and collective identities which characterise the Religious Zionist community, or - more significantly - the possibilty that religious coping is 4 not actually absent but is only available in a second, later stage of coping. As an example of a harsh life event which affected the whole community, the thesis presents a provisional analysis of the Disengagement plan of 2005, and finally the study analyses the significance of the researcher’s socio-religious background and its impact on the research. 5 Acknowledgements The writer is most grateful to the many people whose efforts, encouragement and cooperation made this study possible. First and foremost, heartfelt appreciation is extended to my tutors, Dr Simon Dein and Professor Kate Loewenthal. Their academic prowess together with their warm and enthusiastic encouragement was felt from the very first stages of the study. Their clear yet temperate supervision was an inspiration and their collaboration was a lesson in academic modesty. There is no doubt that together they turned a complex research project into an attainable goal - it was an honour and a pleasure to work under their guidance. The writer also wishes to thank a number of close friends who contributed hours of their time in translating material, mulling over the topics and debating the significance and implications of the results. In particular I would like to thank Rabbi Yitzchak Ben Pazi, Dr Ya’akov Amid, Rabbi Dr Shimon Rapport, Rabbi Dr Michael Harris and Mrs Yael Samuel. These true friends offered a sounding board for my ideas and were a party to every stage in the development of the research. Special recognition and thanks are expressed to my mother Mrs Daphne Band who painstakingly and patiently proof-read the text. Her natural academic ability was ever present and I felt her encouragement throughout all the years of research. I am well aware that without her, the thesis would never have reached completion. Finally, love and heartfelt thanks to my family - my wife Dana and my children Ya’ir, Ilan, Yehudah and Na’ama. I thank them for the sacrifices that they have made over the last four years, for their encouragement and for sharing in my excitement. A special thanks to Ya’ir for the hours spent in setting up the diagrams and tables. This thesis is dedicated

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