Public Community Work in Neighborhoods with Both Citizen and Asylum-Seeking Residents: South Tel Aviv as a Study Case

This study offers insight into the moral deliberations of public sector community workers (PCWs), who operate in the super-diverse neighborhoods of South Tel Aviv, which are home to similar numbers of citizen and asylum-seeker residents. Two questions were central to our examination: How do PCWs decide which populations and residents constitute the “local communities” that deserve their support; and how humanitarian considerations may intersect with contestation over “community” and “locality” in PCWs’ work. The study’s findings, based on interviews with PCWs, illustrate what happens when community work is positioned as a “public” service in a deeply divisive political context.