Israeli Backpackers: From Tourism to Rite of Passage

In the period after their military service, Jewish Israeli youth customarily embark on a unique touristic practice: the backpacking trip. Combining sociological, anthropological, and psychological research—based on innovative fieldwork conducted with Israeli backpackers in Israel and abroad—this book depicts the complex relationship between the traveling youth and their society of origin. Via a perspective the editors term "outside-in," we learn how social and cultural tensions and tenets, identities, fantasies, and preoccupations are acted out within a symbolic, touristic space by scores of Israeli youth.

Chaim Noy teaches in the Department of Communication at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Erik Cohen is George S. Wise Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and is the author of many books, including Contemporary Tourism: Diversity and Change.