Leisure and Cultural Change in Israeli Society (Routledge Studies in Middle Eastern Society)

Providing an inclusive, yet multi- layered perspective on leisure cultures in dynamic hegemonic, subcultural, and countercultural communities, this volume investigates the disciplinary and interdisciplinary aspects of leisure studies in the age of mass migration, nationalism, cultural wars, and conflicted societies in Israel.

Israeli society has struggled with complicated geopolitical, intercultural, economic, and security conditions since the establishment of the State of Israel. Consequently, the emergent leisure cultures in Israel are vibrant, diversified, exuberant, and multifaceted, oscillating between Western and Middle Eastern tendencies. The chapters in this edited volume reflect dramatic influences of globalization on Israeli traditions, on one hand, and emergent local practices that reflect a communal quest of originality and authenticity, on the other hand. This book opens up a critical perspective on the tension between contested leisure cultures that are interconnected with spatial and temporal changes and interchanges.

Examining leisure as a part of social, interethnic, physical, gendered, and sexual changes, the volume is a key text for scholars and students interested in leisure culture, Israeli society, education, cultural and media studies, and the Middle East.

Tali Hayosh is an accreditation advisor for undergraduate and graduate programs, Head of “Tzevet – Best for Education” Program, in Beit Berl College, Israel. She is a senior lecturer and her research interests are leisure culture, consumption, and leisure education. In 2018 she authored two books about leisure (in Hebrew): Serious Leisure: Culture and Consumption in Modern Society (2018) and After the Bell: The world of Leisure for Children and Teenagers (the latter with Fadia Nasser-Abu Elhija, 2018), and also was a guest editor (with Meir Teichman) of Special Issue Mifgash on leisure culture of children and youth in Israel (in Hebrew, 2018).

Elie Cohen-Gewerc is a senior lecturer and researcher in Beit Berl College, Israel. He was on the board of directors of the Israel Broadcasting Authority. The main issues he investigates are freedom and the human challenge of being free. He has written various articles and four books, including Serious Leisure and Individuality (2013), with Robert Stebbins.

Gilad Padva is a film and media and queer studies scholar. He currently works for the Program for Women and Gender Studies with NCJW at Tel Aviv University, Israel. He is the author of Queer Nostalgia in Cinema and Pop Culture (2014), and co-editor of Sensational Pleasures in Cinema, Literature and Visual Culture (2014) and Intimate Relationships in Cinema, Literature and Visual Culture (2017). He has published numerous articles, chapters, and entries in distinguished academic journals, edited volumes, and international encyclopedias.