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Read more about the article Article: The Sixties Did (Not Altogether) Skip Israel – Rosh Pinna’s Hippie Community
Disputation or conflict / Feminism gender and sex / Geography / History / Identity / Israel / Science/medicine and technology / State politics and law / Typology and comparative study

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 Session: Periphery and Alternative – Spiritual Communities in the Galilee between Nature and Environment and Confrontation with the Establishment
Disputation or conflict / Geography / History / Identity / Israel / State politics and law

Session: Periphery and Alternative – Spiritual Communities in the Galilee between Nature and Environment and Confrontation with the Establishment

The connection to the land and nature of Israel is at the core of the Zionist ideology, and is closely related to ideological concepts of the conquest of the wilderness, the renewal of Jewish sovereignty, inhabiting the land, continuity of the people of Israel, and more. In alternative spirituality, on the contrary, there is a different ideological array, which also leads to different kind f practices, for example in regards to the relationship with the place/nature, national/personal identity, loyalty to the establishment. Naturally, this leads to conflicts between the bodies of the establishment and those communities. Therefore, it is convenient for such communities to operate in the periphery, such as the Galilee. A three-lecture session organized by Prof. Marianna Ruah-Midbar Shapiro dealt with these issues, in the framework of a conference at Tel Hai College in the spring of 2022.

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November 12, 2023
Read more about the article Lecture: Versions of Theme Design Reality Creation in New Age Culture
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

Lecture: Versions of Theme Design Reality Creation in New Age Culture

We create our own reality - this is a major idea in the contemporary cultural discourse. But how? From the Matrix to a magic stick, from positive psychology to mind control technics. Various lectures presented the research on this spiritual (or perhaps actually secularized) theme...

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December 5, 2022
Read more about the article Article: The Creating-Our-Reality Motif in Contemporary Western Popular Spirituality
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
Read more about the article A lecture on New Age elements in mainstream advertisments in Israel, in a conference at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute
Economy and business / Education and higher education / Israel / Popular culture and mass media / Typology and comparative study

A lecture on New Age elements in mainstream advertisments in Israel, in a conference at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute

The lecture took part in a conference titled "Political, Sociological and Historical Aspects of New Age in Israel", in a panel dedicated to "The New Age and the Israeli Arena: Education, Consumerism and Political Act", chaired by Boaz Huss, and with the participation of Dalit Simchai.

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November 25, 2021
Read more about the article Research Article: The Hippie Colony of Rosh-Pina – Appropriation and Design of Buildings and Scenic Elements for Creating an Alternative Spiritual Milieu
Geography / History / Israel

Research Article: The Hippie Colony of Rosh-Pina – Appropriation and Design of Buildings and Scenic Elements for Creating an Alternative Spiritual Milieu

An article describling an unknown chapter of the Sixties in Israel (some 10,000 words, in Hebrew). The article is part of a special issue of Horizons in Geography (edited by Anat Kidron) that was dedicated to the "Functional Places and Collective Memory" (how functional sites - such as a road signs, sports stadium or film theatre - are designed as to construct a collective memory and conciousness). Horizons in Geography is a journal published by the University of Haifa. See below links for a lecture on a similar subject as well as a research article on another site, that was also included in the same special issue.

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November 17, 2021
Read more about the article Lecture: From a Hippie to an Alternative Spiritual Identity: The History of the Hippie Colony at Old Rosh Pinna
Geography / History / Israel

Lecture: From a Hippie to an Alternative Spiritual Identity: The History of the Hippie Colony at Old Rosh Pinna

The (Hebrew) lecture describes a reserch about an unknown chapter in the history of Israel, in which the Hippie Sixties values were embodied in the life of the co,,unity settled at the uphill of Rosh Pinna. The lecture took place in a conference organized by the Zefat center for the Study of Galilean Cultures and Communities, Zefat Academic College, that was dedicated to Galilean identities. The session's chair was Essica Marx.

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November 17, 2021