These stories represent the anxiety people felt about the fuzzy borders between their civilizations, according to Zvi Lederman, who co-directs the Beth Shemesh excavations with Bunimovitz.

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Avi Shemesh, a CIM founding principal, said if savvy local buyers see 432 Park as a desirable place to live, it would build credibility with the market.

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"Everybody has been talking about this and doing it, " says Mr. Robin, a statistician who lives in the town of Beit Shemesh, which is populated by many descendants of Americans.

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Just as poor, uneducated single mothers in Lod can be depended on to blame their troubles on an insensitive government, so groups of ultra-Orthodox extremists in Beit Shemesh, whose own communities decry them, can be trusted to treat nonreligious women poorly.

CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: Is Israeli society unraveling?