‘Rebuilding a Shattered Life and a Broken Body’: Social Work and Disability Discourses in Israel’s First Decades

Building on the renewed interest in social work historiography, this article examines how disability was perceived and constructed by the social work profession in the first decades of the State of Israel. A discourse analysis of articles published in the country’s main social work journal (Welfare, 1957–77) underscores the importance of individualised discourses focused on the disabled person, her body, tragedy and, most importantly, her...