This title was first published in 2000: Comprising over one-third of the land area of Israel, the Negev is home to more than 400,000 residents representing one of the most unusual ethnic mixes in the world. Immigrants from many regions and countries: North Africa, Ethiopia, the Middle East, India, Europe, North and South America, and the Republics of the former Soviet Union, now reside in the Negev along with indigenous Bedouin Arabs and Jews born in Israel. Transitions is a dedication to the Negev people, brought together by Richard Isralowitz of Ben Gurion University, Israel and Jonathan Friedlander of the University of California, Los Angeles. It documents a year in the lives of three groups of people through carefully selected and expertly written chapters contributed by Israeli scholars familiar with issues of immigration and immigrant absorption, regional development, health, education, as well as racial and ethnic conflict concerning Russian, Ethiopian and Bedouin people of Israel¿s arid southern region.