ארכיון Article - Prof. Marianna Ruah-Midbar Shapiro (PhD)

Article: The Sixties Did (Not Altogether) Skip Israel – Rosh Pinna’s Hippie Community

An article that presents the story of the first spiritual-alternative community in Israel, which was a bubble of the sixties at the heart of the mobilized Zionist miliee at the time. The hippy community of Rosh Pinna was an extraordinary refuge where a fascinating "social laboratory" functioned, which also gave birth to other spiritual and alternative Israeli spaces. The article includes a comparison between hippie and Zionist values - from the fields of society and the law to the attitude to nature and music. It includes unique illustrations and photographs.

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March 21, 2024

Read more about the article Article: “The Most Powerful Portal in Zion”—Kursi: The Spiritual Site that Became an Intersection of Ley-lines and Multicultural Discourses

Feminism gender and sex / Geography / History / Identity / Israel / Judaism and Kabbalah / Magic and paganism / Myth / Science/medicine and technology / State politics and law

Article: “The Most Powerful Portal in Zion”—Kursi: The Spiritual Site that Became an Intersection of Ley-lines and Multicultural Discourses

This article deals with the sanctification process of a site in the Land of Israel, by the Alternative Spirituality, or Neo-Pagans/Shamans. The site, that has a Christian history, and is directed by an Israeli governmental authorities, has become a focus if an invention of tradition that synthesizes a variety of discourses and traditions. Though it is percieved as a hub in a network of power sites arrayedthroughout Israel and the whole planet, some view it as the most powerful spiritual site on Earth.

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June 19, 2023

Read more about the article Article: The Doors of Creativity Shall Never be Barred – The Iconization Process of the Piyyut “Im Nin’alu” in Contemporary Pop Music

Art (music\film\literature etc.) / Critical theory / Identity / Israel / Judaism and Kabbalah / Methodology and models / Popular culture and mass media / Postmodernism / Typology and comparative study

Article: The Doors of Creativity Shall Never be Barred – The Iconization Process of the Piyyut “Im Nin’alu” in Contemporary Pop Music

Yes, the liturgical poem (piyyut) “Im Nin'alu” signifies orientality. But what is Orientality? Is this traditional, perhaps even religious, Yemenite Judaism? Is this Yemen similar to exotic India? Is this a symbol of the mystical/spiritual "other" (as we already mentioned India...)? And maybe it is a symbol of Kabbalah, another contemporary "Other" that turns out to be similar to all the other "Others", including the "Other East"... In this article we follow the change process of “Im Nin'alu” as a symbol, which symbolizes different things each time. The peyote has - it turns out - gone a long way, erasing traditional Yemenite Judaism into the contemporary universal and spiritual-alternative space.

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January 10, 2023

Read more about the article Article: Outdoing Authenticity – Three Postmodern Models of Adapting Folklore Materials in Current Spiritual Music

Art (music\film\literature etc.) / Critical theory / Identity / Israel / Judaism and Kabbalah / Methodology and models / Popular culture and mass media / Postmodernism / Typology and comparative study

Article: Outdoing Authenticity – Three Postmodern Models of Adapting Folklore Materials in Current Spiritual Music

The liturgical poem “Im Nin'alu” got various popular musical adaptations in recent decades. These adaptations raise questions - and provide different answers - regarding authenticity, identity, tradition, and more. Each of them embodies a different way of coping with the postmodern situation. The article presents three different models of relation to traditional materials, which are different ways of dealing with the problems of individuals in relation to these questions.

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January 9, 2023

Art (music\film\literature etc.) / Critical theory / Magic and paganism / Methodology and models / Mind and psychology / Popular culture and mass media / Postmodernism / Science/medicine and technology / Typology and comparative study

Article: The Creating-Our-Reality Motif in Contemporary Western Popular Spirituality

One of the most prominent themes in the contemporary spiritual discourse, as well as in the general popular discourse, is that we are those who create our own world. This idea has various versions. For instance, the positive psychology version depicts how thoughts and expextations may create a reality through the change of behaviour; the science fiction version sees us as players in a virtual space that choose and shape their enviroment; the magical version teaches us to cast spells of reality; and more. This research analyses the popular spiritual discourse on the creation of reality, and thereby reviels a few insights on the contemporary cultural tendencies, the cultural contradictions, and the emergence of a new ethic.

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December 4, 2022

Art (music\film\literature etc.) / Feminism gender and sex / Judaism and Kabbalah / Myth / Popular culture and mass media

Article: The film “Noah” (2014) as an Environmental Cinematic Midrash

The film Noah (2014) is a cinematic Midrash. What does this mean? That it creatively interprates the biblical story of Noah anew, fills in existing gaps in the story, and striving at delivering an ideological message. This article surveys the sources of inspiration integrated in the film - from the sages' midrash to Zen Buddhism stories, and explains the film creators' interpretative choises and their message.

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December 1, 2022

Art (music\film\literature etc.) / Critical theory / Disputation or conflict / Feminism gender and sex / History / Judaism and Kabbalah / Myth / Popular culture and mass media / Science/medicine and technology / Typology and comparative study

Article: “Not Your Grandmother’s Bible”—A Comparative Study of the Biblical Deluge Myth in Film

Do you know the story of Noah and the deluge? Well, every generation had its interpretations and versions of the story. And when the deluge is retold - they actually talk of a humanity worthy of annihilation. Why? Every commentator has its own explanation, where lies criticism of the society they live in or encounter. The deluge as presented in current cinema isn't the flood as depicted in old traditions, since the story continues to evolve and get renewed. In this comparative study, we've surveyed Hollywood films that present the deluge iver the last century - in each of them the humanity is presented as facing annihilation, while offering an a current critic. Recently, for instance, the deluge myth is linked to the ecological discourse.

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November 30, 2022

Art (music\film\literature etc.) / Critical theory / Disputation or conflict / Education and higher education / Methodology and models / Popular culture and mass media / Postmodernism / Science/medicine and technology

Article: The Dynamics of a Cultural Struggle in Academia – The Case of New Age Music Research

The academia is a cultural player, and when it deals with a culturally controversial issue - the academic discourse actually plays a role in the cultural game and struggle between forces. This article - dealing with New Age Music - is a product of a scholarly cooperation between Omri and Marianna Ruah-Midbar, as a crossroad of their sceintific interests. It was published in Berkeley University's journal - Cultural Analysis.

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November 30, 2022

Art (music\film\literature etc.) / Disputation or conflict / Feminism gender and sex / Judaism and Kabbalah / Myth / Popular culture and mass media

Article: Worldviews in the Film “Noah” – Hedonism, Fundamentalism, and Ecofeminism

"We broke the world — we did this. Man did this. Everything that was beautiful, everything that was good, we shattered. Now, it begins again." (Noah's words, from the film) In this article we interprate the film Noah (2014), and identify various cultural/ spiritual/ religious worldviews that clash in the contemporary western society: a hedonistic-materialistic approach, religious and enviromental fundamentalism, and eco-feminism. We show how the film maker, Daren Aronofsli, express through the protagonist, Noah, the problematicalness in the various cultural stances, when the plot leads its hero thorugh a transformational process.

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November 30, 2022

Art (music\film\literature etc.) / Feminism gender and sex / Identity / Israel / Judaism and Kabbalah / Magic and paganism / Mind and psychology / Typology and comparative study

Article: The Roadmap of Israeli Judaism(s) in the New Age

This fundamental and encompassing article (about 12000 words, in Hebrew) surveys and maps the various ways in which New Age and Judaism meet and mix together, in Israel. It presents ten "types" of these meeting places, accompanied by many examples, while presenting a relevant theoretical background, and discussing the characteristics and trends of this emergent multifaceted space, one of them being the exotization of Judaism process in the New Age realm.

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November 16, 2022