Amos S. Ron
My research interests are in three main areas of enquiry: tourism & leisure studies, cultural geography and geography of religion. My interests in tourism & leisure research focus on human-cultural aspects, especially spiritual and religious tourism, pilgrimage, heritage tourism, culinary tourism, tour-guiding and the sociology of tourism and leisure.
My research in cultural geography focuses on landscape interpretation, spatial commemoration, and the relationship between landscape and identity. My research in geography of religion focuses on the management of sacred cities, the spatial aspects of pilgrimage sites and places, and on religious themed environments. As a cultural geographer and landscape interpreter I have been very much influenced by the works of Denis Cosgrove, Edward Relph, J.B. Jackson, Donald Meinig and Yi-Fu Tuan.
Phone: +972-54-4922582
Address: Department of Tourism Studies
Ashkelon Academic College
12, Yitzhak Ben-Tzvi st., Ashkelon 78461, P.O.B. 9071 Israel
My research in cultural geography focuses on landscape interpretation, spatial commemoration, and the relationship between landscape and identity. My research in geography of religion focuses on the management of sacred cities, the spatial aspects of pilgrimage sites and places, and on religious themed environments. As a cultural geographer and landscape interpreter I have been very much influenced by the works of Denis Cosgrove, Edward Relph, J.B. Jackson, Donald Meinig and Yi-Fu Tuan.
Phone: +972-54-4922582
Address: Department of Tourism Studies
Ashkelon Academic College
12, Yitzhak Ben-Tzvi st., Ashkelon 78461, P.O.B. 9071 Israel
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Books by Amos S. Ron
====================================================================
This book will become the new standard work on Christian travel, a significant element in modern day tourism. There is nothing in the current literature which matches the depth and detail of this volume. It is well-organised, raises many important questions, presents well-documented arguments from a sound theoretical base and includes informative graphics and an impressive and highly valuable bibliography. Richard Butler, Emeritus, University of Strathclyde, UK
====================================================================
This book is the first comprehensive study of the role of contemporary Christian travel and thus fills a huge gap in the literature. It enhances our understanding of the overall subject and offers an innovative look at the complex phenomenon of religious tourism. It reminds us of religion's centrality to our understanding of contemporary society and culture and is an essential addition to the bookshelves of researchers from various disciplines. Noga Collins-Kreiner, University of Haifa, Israel
========================================================================================================================================
The book has been reviewed in four academic journals:
(1) Joshan Rodrigues, Church, Communication & Culture (2018) 3:3, 410-411.
(2) Bailey Ashton Adie, Journal of Heritage Tourism (2019) 14:5-6, 583-584, DOI: 10.1080/1743873X.2019.1607151.
(3) Shalini Singh, Tourism Recreation Research (2019) 44:2, 278-279, DOI: 10.1080/02508281.2019.1594575.
(4) Nikola Naumov, Current Issues in Tourism (2019) DOI: 10.1080/13683500.2019.1637106
Papers by Amos S. Ron
that are commonly used by guides, are identified through observations and interviews with guides regarding their practical handling of cross-cultural and ethical difficulties. These techniques, channeled into guiding practices, enable guides to engage other religions while fostering relations of intimacy.
Christian pilgrims.
Keywords: heritage foodways; cuisine; Holy Land; Last Supper; authenticity; Biblical food; tourism landscape; tourismscape; foodscape; spiritual edutainment
Keywords: typology; model; Christian travel; pilgrimage; sacred sites; religious tourism
Keywords: theme sites; Protestant gaze; Holy Land; pilgrimage
The normal task of an introduction to an issue such as this is to suggest how the essays it contains, with their interlocking themes and variations, form a coherent intellectual whole. There are, however, two additional challenges in the present case. First of all, being only the sixth year of the Journal of Management, Spirituality and Religion, we have, as editors, some responsibility towards readers to making a contribution to the emerging definition of the topic(s) addressed by the journal. What exactly, we might ask, is it that the journal is studying and what intellectual tradition does it belong to? What, in short, has brought us here? Second, given that the three editors are, at the same time, researchers of culture (anthropology, anthropology of tourism and cultural geography), there is a question about what, if anything, researchers of culture have to bring to discussions about management, spirituality, and religion. We will approach these issues partly by considering each essay, identifying the links, and extracting some pointers towards these broad issues. We start, however, by setting the scene in more general terms.
This paper explores the question of the relationship between tourism and religion, which can be characterized by competition, mutual influence, being complementary and even co-habitualness. Tourism and religion are competitive by nature given that both 'compete' over people's growing leisure time (Smith 1992). Alternatively, they can be complementary or co-habitual if the religious tourist manages to combine them within the time framework of his/her leisure time. The way these relationships are shaped is also infiuenced by the way the tourism industry perceives and addresses the tourists' religious needs. Tourism and religion can also impact on tourist behaviour; for instance, religion infiuences the choice of destination, tourist product preferences, and the offering of religion related opportunities and facilities to tourists. Similar to other tourism subgroups religious tourism should be seen more in the context of the current competitive environment, in which the tourism and hospitality industries are constantly searching for new customer segments. In this context the tourism industry often inhibits a competitive relationship, where tourists feel they have no other alternative than to compromise on their spiritual beliefs in favour of a tourist experience. Instead, tourism and religion should pursue a complementary if not co-habitual relationship. For this purpose, accommodating the religious needs of any faith and further studies addressing these needs, are required. Although religious needs are deemed less important in a dominantly postmodern secular if not atheist market, more people with a religious affiliation (religious tourists) are expected to become tourists, especially in developing countries, where tourism is still at an incipient stage (Rinschede 1992). Moreover, more religious tourists join multifunctional journeys especially to Western industrialized countries like Israel, which involve dominant religious factors
along with other tourist motivations (Weidenfeld 2006). Similar to other tourism subgroups, e.g. elderly, gay, and disabled tourists, the special desires of religious tourists need not be marginalized. Given that religion and tourism can be competitive by nature, it is plausible to question whether tourists who practise their religion at home do so in a similar way while away from home.
Keywords. eco-leisure, ecotourism, environment, allotments, backyard birding
Résumé
Cet article examine le phénomène de l’éco-loisirs, par une approche théorique et pratique. Une distinction est faite entre l’éco-loisirs et l’écotourisme, et nous suggérons que les milieux universitaires doivent prêter beaucoup plus d’attention aux loisirs ayant lieux dans des environnements naturels. Le papier présente des exemples d’éco-loisirs et suggère une définition fonctionnelle de ce nouveau terme. Une explication du terme est fournie par l’élaboration sur trois aspects centraux de ce phénomène : le contexte urbain et rural, les aspects sociologiques, et les aspects écologiques. L’examen de chacun de ces aspects illustre comment l’éco-loisir peut contribuer à une vie urbaine saine. En plus de la contribution théorique de ce terme, l’éco-loisir a des implications estionnaires et pratiques, particulièrement en ce qui concerne l’amélioration de la qualité de la vie dans un milieu urbain et la réduction du stress.
Mots-clefs. éco-loisirs, écotourisme, environnement, répartition, l’ornithologie et les arrière-cours.
The Kibbutz movement was considered the heart and core of the Zionist movement for years, as it developed following the establishment of Kibbutz Degania Aleph in 1910.
This research analyzes the 50th, 70th and 90th anniversary celebrations of Degania Aleph, the archetype and symbol of the Kibbutz movement.
The paper examines the three celebrations within three spatial circles: local, regional and national. The relationships between the three circles have changed dramatically during the course of these forty years. At first, the local, regional and national circles overlapped. Gradually, the circles moved apart, thus symbolizing the changing status and roles of the Kibbutz movement within the Israeli society.
Key Words: anniversary celebrations, Kibbutz Degania Aleph, Kibbutz movement, spatial circles.
Hebrew Abstract
מעלית לאומית לקהילה פרטית: שינוי במעמד התנועה הקיבוצית כפי שהוא משתקף בחגי הקבוצה של דגניה א'
עמוס רון ועפרה קינן
מילות מפתח: קיבוץ דגניה א', התנועה הקיבוצית, חגיגות יובל, מעגלים מרחביים.
תקציר
מטרת המחקר היתה להתחקות אחר מערכת היחסים בין החברה הישראלית לבין התנועה הקיבוצית כפי שהיא באה לידי ביטוי בחגי הקבוצה של קבוצת דגניה א'. התנועה הקיבוצית נחשבה במשך עשרות בשנים כחלוץ הולך לפני המחנה, היא נתפסה על ידי החברה הישראלית כמובילה בהגשמת האידיאלים של התנועה הציונית. עם השנים חל כרסום ניכר במעמדה של התנועה הקיבוצית. ההשתנות באה לידי ביטוי, בין היתר, בחגי הקבוצה של דגניה א' שזוהתה עם האתוס הקיבוצי כולו בהיותה הקבוצה הראשונה. המאמר עוקב אחר חגי היובל של דגניה א' בשנתה ה-50, ה-70, וה-90, בשלושה מעגלים: מעגל הקהילה הפרטית, המעגל האזורי והמעגל הלאומי. היחסים בין שלושת המעגלים השתנו באופן דרמטי במהלך ארבעים השנה שהמחקר בודק. בחג החמישים שלושת המעגלים חפפו, החג הפרטי נתפס כחג האזורי וכסמל לחג לאומי; עם הזמן המעגלים התרחקו אחד מהשני, קהילת דגניה א' הפרטית העדיפה בחג ה-90 לחגוג את חגה במנותק גיאוגרפית וכרונולוגית מהחג הלאומי והאזורי, כאומרת אני בראש וראשונה קהילה פרטית. גם הקשר בין המעגל האזורי והמעגל הלאומי הלך ונפרם. ההתרחקות בין מעגלי החג מסמלת את השינוי שחל במעמדה של התנועה הקיבוצית בחברה הישראלית.
Jerusalem. The findings indicate that plotting at the Sataf involves an ideological commitment to nature and environment-friendly related themes. Accordingly, plot holding at the Sataf is termed an eco-leisure practice. In addition, the findings indicate that plotting at Sataf is an individual rather than a socially oriented experience. These findings are interpreted with regard to all of the particular features and developments in Israel, the specific literature on allotment holding, the study fields of leisure and tourism, and George Simmel’s philosophy of experience.
Key Words: Tourism, Volunteers, Postmodernism, Hosts, Guests, Self-Development
Book Chapters by Amos S. Ron
Religious needs among tourists and travelers have been with us forever, but the main body of academic research literature concerning these needs is only about a decade old. For example, when people traveled in the time of the Bible they had to observe a variety of religious rules and regulations concerning food, accommodation, keeping the Sabbath, and more. In addition to the formal rules and regulations they also had spiritual needs, such as prayer, which assisted them in overcoming their objective and subjective fears and anxieties concerning the travel.
Almost all religious and spiritual practices have direct or indirect connections to food. Many of today’s culinary delights and food-related practices derive from religious customs or spiritual traditions, and aliment is deemed sacred in many religions (Civitello 2004; Denker 2003; Laudan 2013; Roth-Haillote 2006; Sahu 2015; Wirzba 2011; Yoshizawa 1999). Food “is central to religion—as symbol, as subject of prayers, as marker of sharing and unsharing, and as communion” (Anderson 2014: 189). The roots of Thanksgiving in the United States and Canada, for example, those countries’ most celebrated annual feast, are not only in the commemoration of successful harvests but also in demonstrating gratitude to God for his bounteous blessings. While Thanksgiving has become more secularized in its celebratory elements, its origins come from the faith of North America’s earliest European settlers (Pleck 1999). America’s beloved cheesecake is also said to have had Jewish celebratory origins (Denker 2003).
This chapter is based on the view that religion is one of the most important manifestations of human culture. The beliefs, practices, ceremonies, doctrine, languages, social mores and morals of the world’s faiths are among the most penetrating constituents of human heritage (Timothy and Olsen 2006). Food and religion are in many ways inseparable. Food and drink form part of the physical manifestation of beliefs and spiritual traditions, and food is frequently the center of people’s spiritual universe. This chapter first examines the multifarious relationships between religion and cuisine, followed by a synopsis of prescribed and proscribed foods and gastronomic practices among some of the world’s main religions. Finally, it describes the ways in which service providers and tourism destinations are beginning to cater to the food-based religious requirements of the traveling public.
The American Protestant gaze on the Holy Land has been influenced, not only by Biblical paradigms, but by Orientalist world-views and the process of theming and disneyization. These processes shape the gaze both through the mass-culture industry, as well as within Evangelical churches. By analyzing the construction and narration of two fairly recent
Biblical sites, we demonstrate how new Holy Land sites are tailored to reflect changing American Protestant gazes and expectations. At the same time, local agents may strategically channel those gazes to legitimize their own interests and world-views.
Orientalism, according to Timothy Mitchell, has three salient features: essentialism, otherness, and absence. By organizing and producing the Orient as passive, static, emotional and chaotic, as opposed to an active, mobile, rational and orderly West, the colonial world can be mastered,
and that mastery will reinforce those defining features. At the
same time, the Orient was infused with romance, as a place of desire.
Furthermore, since the 19th century, the Orientalist view of the East – and the Holy Land in particular – has been produced and reified by the exhibitionary order: by the presentation of the East as spectacle. Whether as tableau vivant, miniature model or World’s Fair exhibit, such forms present themselves as controlled environments which can be visually consumed and comprehended by the Western spectator. The 19th century spectacles of the Orient also shaped American and British touring practices in the Middle East.
In the United States, additionally, the Holy Land and Zion have
served as an American cultural myth, which inspired numerous spectacular models and representations. These representations legitimized American Protestant visions of themselves and the world. Along with oil, visions and narratives of the ‘Holy Land’ as a site of mainly Christian
origins have forged cultural investments that allowed many Americans to become intimately involved in the Middle East. Here, we wish to focus on the way American Protestant values and images are being inscribed on the physical space of Christian sites in Israel/Palestine, shaping a Holy Land in the American Orientalist image.
Orientalism, however, is not uniform across cultures and time periods; it interacts with other interests and ways of seeing the world. American Protestant visitors’ images and expectations of the Holy Land are subject to changing forms of sensory experience of both geographical sites and religious truth at large. An important influence is that of Disneyworld and other theme parks. As part of the late 20th century
processes of globalization, Alan Bryman has identified disneyization as a process including four components: 1. themed environments, “material forms that are products of a cultural process aimed at investing constructed spaces with symbolic meaning and conveying that meaning to
inhabitants and users through symbolic motifs”; 2. hybrid consumption – the interlocking of different institutional spheres within forms of consumption; 3. merchandising – the sale of goods with copyright images and logos – and 4. performative labor – service work involving display of a certain mood as part of the labor involved. Disneyization has made
its way into religious worship as well, with a series of Christian theme parks that have popped up over the last twenty years, many, though not all, geared for Protestants and built in the United States.
For the purposes of this paper, we adapt John Urry’s understanding of the tourist gaze as a historically and socially constructed way of consuming landscape. The particular modes of the tourists’ search for the extraordinary, claims Urry, have consequences for the ‘places’ that are its object and, consequently, for the people building and running
those places. In recent years, scholars of tourism have noted how processes of McDonaldization and disneyization have extended the ‘environmental bubble’ typical of group tours to more and more touristic spaces throughout the world. We will demonstrate how forces of Orientalism and disneyization have generated a distinctly contemporary American Protestant pilgrim gaze, which, in recent years, has been accommodated
by new Holy Land sites which materialize that gaze and thus reproduce it.
We begin by providing a brief sketch of the processes of Christian sacralization of space in the Holy Land, particularly for Protestants. We then turn to two recent Biblical sites – Yardenit on the Jordan River and Nazareth Village – and demonstrate how the American Protestant gaze is objectified by local agents’ construction of sites to accommodate it. In
doing so, we will also show how local Israeli or Palestinian agents devise strategies to channel that gaze to serve needs of their own identity politics.
====================================================================
This book will become the new standard work on Christian travel, a significant element in modern day tourism. There is nothing in the current literature which matches the depth and detail of this volume. It is well-organised, raises many important questions, presents well-documented arguments from a sound theoretical base and includes informative graphics and an impressive and highly valuable bibliography. Richard Butler, Emeritus, University of Strathclyde, UK
====================================================================
This book is the first comprehensive study of the role of contemporary Christian travel and thus fills a huge gap in the literature. It enhances our understanding of the overall subject and offers an innovative look at the complex phenomenon of religious tourism. It reminds us of religion's centrality to our understanding of contemporary society and culture and is an essential addition to the bookshelves of researchers from various disciplines. Noga Collins-Kreiner, University of Haifa, Israel
========================================================================================================================================
The book has been reviewed in four academic journals:
(1) Joshan Rodrigues, Church, Communication & Culture (2018) 3:3, 410-411.
(2) Bailey Ashton Adie, Journal of Heritage Tourism (2019) 14:5-6, 583-584, DOI: 10.1080/1743873X.2019.1607151.
(3) Shalini Singh, Tourism Recreation Research (2019) 44:2, 278-279, DOI: 10.1080/02508281.2019.1594575.
(4) Nikola Naumov, Current Issues in Tourism (2019) DOI: 10.1080/13683500.2019.1637106
that are commonly used by guides, are identified through observations and interviews with guides regarding their practical handling of cross-cultural and ethical difficulties. These techniques, channeled into guiding practices, enable guides to engage other religions while fostering relations of intimacy.
Christian pilgrims.
Keywords: heritage foodways; cuisine; Holy Land; Last Supper; authenticity; Biblical food; tourism landscape; tourismscape; foodscape; spiritual edutainment
Keywords: typology; model; Christian travel; pilgrimage; sacred sites; religious tourism
Keywords: theme sites; Protestant gaze; Holy Land; pilgrimage
The normal task of an introduction to an issue such as this is to suggest how the essays it contains, with their interlocking themes and variations, form a coherent intellectual whole. There are, however, two additional challenges in the present case. First of all, being only the sixth year of the Journal of Management, Spirituality and Religion, we have, as editors, some responsibility towards readers to making a contribution to the emerging definition of the topic(s) addressed by the journal. What exactly, we might ask, is it that the journal is studying and what intellectual tradition does it belong to? What, in short, has brought us here? Second, given that the three editors are, at the same time, researchers of culture (anthropology, anthropology of tourism and cultural geography), there is a question about what, if anything, researchers of culture have to bring to discussions about management, spirituality, and religion. We will approach these issues partly by considering each essay, identifying the links, and extracting some pointers towards these broad issues. We start, however, by setting the scene in more general terms.
This paper explores the question of the relationship between tourism and religion, which can be characterized by competition, mutual influence, being complementary and even co-habitualness. Tourism and religion are competitive by nature given that both 'compete' over people's growing leisure time (Smith 1992). Alternatively, they can be complementary or co-habitual if the religious tourist manages to combine them within the time framework of his/her leisure time. The way these relationships are shaped is also infiuenced by the way the tourism industry perceives and addresses the tourists' religious needs. Tourism and religion can also impact on tourist behaviour; for instance, religion infiuences the choice of destination, tourist product preferences, and the offering of religion related opportunities and facilities to tourists. Similar to other tourism subgroups religious tourism should be seen more in the context of the current competitive environment, in which the tourism and hospitality industries are constantly searching for new customer segments. In this context the tourism industry often inhibits a competitive relationship, where tourists feel they have no other alternative than to compromise on their spiritual beliefs in favour of a tourist experience. Instead, tourism and religion should pursue a complementary if not co-habitual relationship. For this purpose, accommodating the religious needs of any faith and further studies addressing these needs, are required. Although religious needs are deemed less important in a dominantly postmodern secular if not atheist market, more people with a religious affiliation (religious tourists) are expected to become tourists, especially in developing countries, where tourism is still at an incipient stage (Rinschede 1992). Moreover, more religious tourists join multifunctional journeys especially to Western industrialized countries like Israel, which involve dominant religious factors
along with other tourist motivations (Weidenfeld 2006). Similar to other tourism subgroups, e.g. elderly, gay, and disabled tourists, the special desires of religious tourists need not be marginalized. Given that religion and tourism can be competitive by nature, it is plausible to question whether tourists who practise their religion at home do so in a similar way while away from home.
Keywords. eco-leisure, ecotourism, environment, allotments, backyard birding
Résumé
Cet article examine le phénomène de l’éco-loisirs, par une approche théorique et pratique. Une distinction est faite entre l’éco-loisirs et l’écotourisme, et nous suggérons que les milieux universitaires doivent prêter beaucoup plus d’attention aux loisirs ayant lieux dans des environnements naturels. Le papier présente des exemples d’éco-loisirs et suggère une définition fonctionnelle de ce nouveau terme. Une explication du terme est fournie par l’élaboration sur trois aspects centraux de ce phénomène : le contexte urbain et rural, les aspects sociologiques, et les aspects écologiques. L’examen de chacun de ces aspects illustre comment l’éco-loisir peut contribuer à une vie urbaine saine. En plus de la contribution théorique de ce terme, l’éco-loisir a des implications estionnaires et pratiques, particulièrement en ce qui concerne l’amélioration de la qualité de la vie dans un milieu urbain et la réduction du stress.
Mots-clefs. éco-loisirs, écotourisme, environnement, répartition, l’ornithologie et les arrière-cours.
The Kibbutz movement was considered the heart and core of the Zionist movement for years, as it developed following the establishment of Kibbutz Degania Aleph in 1910.
This research analyzes the 50th, 70th and 90th anniversary celebrations of Degania Aleph, the archetype and symbol of the Kibbutz movement.
The paper examines the three celebrations within three spatial circles: local, regional and national. The relationships between the three circles have changed dramatically during the course of these forty years. At first, the local, regional and national circles overlapped. Gradually, the circles moved apart, thus symbolizing the changing status and roles of the Kibbutz movement within the Israeli society.
Key Words: anniversary celebrations, Kibbutz Degania Aleph, Kibbutz movement, spatial circles.
Hebrew Abstract
מעלית לאומית לקהילה פרטית: שינוי במעמד התנועה הקיבוצית כפי שהוא משתקף בחגי הקבוצה של דגניה א'
עמוס רון ועפרה קינן
מילות מפתח: קיבוץ דגניה א', התנועה הקיבוצית, חגיגות יובל, מעגלים מרחביים.
תקציר
מטרת המחקר היתה להתחקות אחר מערכת היחסים בין החברה הישראלית לבין התנועה הקיבוצית כפי שהיא באה לידי ביטוי בחגי הקבוצה של קבוצת דגניה א'. התנועה הקיבוצית נחשבה במשך עשרות בשנים כחלוץ הולך לפני המחנה, היא נתפסה על ידי החברה הישראלית כמובילה בהגשמת האידיאלים של התנועה הציונית. עם השנים חל כרסום ניכר במעמדה של התנועה הקיבוצית. ההשתנות באה לידי ביטוי, בין היתר, בחגי הקבוצה של דגניה א' שזוהתה עם האתוס הקיבוצי כולו בהיותה הקבוצה הראשונה. המאמר עוקב אחר חגי היובל של דגניה א' בשנתה ה-50, ה-70, וה-90, בשלושה מעגלים: מעגל הקהילה הפרטית, המעגל האזורי והמעגל הלאומי. היחסים בין שלושת המעגלים השתנו באופן דרמטי במהלך ארבעים השנה שהמחקר בודק. בחג החמישים שלושת המעגלים חפפו, החג הפרטי נתפס כחג האזורי וכסמל לחג לאומי; עם הזמן המעגלים התרחקו אחד מהשני, קהילת דגניה א' הפרטית העדיפה בחג ה-90 לחגוג את חגה במנותק גיאוגרפית וכרונולוגית מהחג הלאומי והאזורי, כאומרת אני בראש וראשונה קהילה פרטית. גם הקשר בין המעגל האזורי והמעגל הלאומי הלך ונפרם. ההתרחקות בין מעגלי החג מסמלת את השינוי שחל במעמדה של התנועה הקיבוצית בחברה הישראלית.
Jerusalem. The findings indicate that plotting at the Sataf involves an ideological commitment to nature and environment-friendly related themes. Accordingly, plot holding at the Sataf is termed an eco-leisure practice. In addition, the findings indicate that plotting at Sataf is an individual rather than a socially oriented experience. These findings are interpreted with regard to all of the particular features and developments in Israel, the specific literature on allotment holding, the study fields of leisure and tourism, and George Simmel’s philosophy of experience.
Key Words: Tourism, Volunteers, Postmodernism, Hosts, Guests, Self-Development
Religious needs among tourists and travelers have been with us forever, but the main body of academic research literature concerning these needs is only about a decade old. For example, when people traveled in the time of the Bible they had to observe a variety of religious rules and regulations concerning food, accommodation, keeping the Sabbath, and more. In addition to the formal rules and regulations they also had spiritual needs, such as prayer, which assisted them in overcoming their objective and subjective fears and anxieties concerning the travel.
Almost all religious and spiritual practices have direct or indirect connections to food. Many of today’s culinary delights and food-related practices derive from religious customs or spiritual traditions, and aliment is deemed sacred in many religions (Civitello 2004; Denker 2003; Laudan 2013; Roth-Haillote 2006; Sahu 2015; Wirzba 2011; Yoshizawa 1999). Food “is central to religion—as symbol, as subject of prayers, as marker of sharing and unsharing, and as communion” (Anderson 2014: 189). The roots of Thanksgiving in the United States and Canada, for example, those countries’ most celebrated annual feast, are not only in the commemoration of successful harvests but also in demonstrating gratitude to God for his bounteous blessings. While Thanksgiving has become more secularized in its celebratory elements, its origins come from the faith of North America’s earliest European settlers (Pleck 1999). America’s beloved cheesecake is also said to have had Jewish celebratory origins (Denker 2003).
This chapter is based on the view that religion is one of the most important manifestations of human culture. The beliefs, practices, ceremonies, doctrine, languages, social mores and morals of the world’s faiths are among the most penetrating constituents of human heritage (Timothy and Olsen 2006). Food and religion are in many ways inseparable. Food and drink form part of the physical manifestation of beliefs and spiritual traditions, and food is frequently the center of people’s spiritual universe. This chapter first examines the multifarious relationships between religion and cuisine, followed by a synopsis of prescribed and proscribed foods and gastronomic practices among some of the world’s main religions. Finally, it describes the ways in which service providers and tourism destinations are beginning to cater to the food-based religious requirements of the traveling public.
The American Protestant gaze on the Holy Land has been influenced, not only by Biblical paradigms, but by Orientalist world-views and the process of theming and disneyization. These processes shape the gaze both through the mass-culture industry, as well as within Evangelical churches. By analyzing the construction and narration of two fairly recent
Biblical sites, we demonstrate how new Holy Land sites are tailored to reflect changing American Protestant gazes and expectations. At the same time, local agents may strategically channel those gazes to legitimize their own interests and world-views.
Orientalism, according to Timothy Mitchell, has three salient features: essentialism, otherness, and absence. By organizing and producing the Orient as passive, static, emotional and chaotic, as opposed to an active, mobile, rational and orderly West, the colonial world can be mastered,
and that mastery will reinforce those defining features. At the
same time, the Orient was infused with romance, as a place of desire.
Furthermore, since the 19th century, the Orientalist view of the East – and the Holy Land in particular – has been produced and reified by the exhibitionary order: by the presentation of the East as spectacle. Whether as tableau vivant, miniature model or World’s Fair exhibit, such forms present themselves as controlled environments which can be visually consumed and comprehended by the Western spectator. The 19th century spectacles of the Orient also shaped American and British touring practices in the Middle East.
In the United States, additionally, the Holy Land and Zion have
served as an American cultural myth, which inspired numerous spectacular models and representations. These representations legitimized American Protestant visions of themselves and the world. Along with oil, visions and narratives of the ‘Holy Land’ as a site of mainly Christian
origins have forged cultural investments that allowed many Americans to become intimately involved in the Middle East. Here, we wish to focus on the way American Protestant values and images are being inscribed on the physical space of Christian sites in Israel/Palestine, shaping a Holy Land in the American Orientalist image.
Orientalism, however, is not uniform across cultures and time periods; it interacts with other interests and ways of seeing the world. American Protestant visitors’ images and expectations of the Holy Land are subject to changing forms of sensory experience of both geographical sites and religious truth at large. An important influence is that of Disneyworld and other theme parks. As part of the late 20th century
processes of globalization, Alan Bryman has identified disneyization as a process including four components: 1. themed environments, “material forms that are products of a cultural process aimed at investing constructed spaces with symbolic meaning and conveying that meaning to
inhabitants and users through symbolic motifs”; 2. hybrid consumption – the interlocking of different institutional spheres within forms of consumption; 3. merchandising – the sale of goods with copyright images and logos – and 4. performative labor – service work involving display of a certain mood as part of the labor involved. Disneyization has made
its way into religious worship as well, with a series of Christian theme parks that have popped up over the last twenty years, many, though not all, geared for Protestants and built in the United States.
For the purposes of this paper, we adapt John Urry’s understanding of the tourist gaze as a historically and socially constructed way of consuming landscape. The particular modes of the tourists’ search for the extraordinary, claims Urry, have consequences for the ‘places’ that are its object and, consequently, for the people building and running
those places. In recent years, scholars of tourism have noted how processes of McDonaldization and disneyization have extended the ‘environmental bubble’ typical of group tours to more and more touristic spaces throughout the world. We will demonstrate how forces of Orientalism and disneyization have generated a distinctly contemporary American Protestant pilgrim gaze, which, in recent years, has been accommodated
by new Holy Land sites which materialize that gaze and thus reproduce it.
We begin by providing a brief sketch of the processes of Christian sacralization of space in the Holy Land, particularly for Protestants. We then turn to two recent Biblical sites – Yardenit on the Jordan River and Nazareth Village – and demonstrate how the American Protestant gaze is objectified by local agents’ construction of sites to accommodate it. In
doing so, we will also show how local Israeli or Palestinian agents devise strategies to channel that gaze to serve needs of their own identity politics.
עם המעבר למאה ה-21 , גילו מוסדות שונים האחראים על הצגתה של ההיסטוריה ופרשנותה, כי הם נתונים במשבר. החברה שהם שרתו במשך שנים עברה מהפך והיתה לחברה המבוססת על טכנולוגיית מחשב, והשפעת השינוי הסתמנה כדרמטית. כלומר, הקשר בין השינוי הטכנולוגי לבין דרכי פעילותם של מוסדות אלה התקבל כמשמעותי יותר. כבר ב-1957 טען הוגה הדעות מרשל מקלוהאן כי "ככל שתרבותנו נעשית יותר טכנולוגית, הטכנולוגיה נעשית יותר תרבותית". גם
ג' מקדונלד וס' אלספורד במאמרם "לקראת מוזיאון וירטואלי: משבר ושינוי במילניום השלישי", הצביעו על כך שמוסדות המורשת נשרכים למעשה אחרי התפתחות זו, ומכאן הקושי למצוא לה תשובה הולמת. לדעתם, יש לתרגם את המשבר לאתגר, כפי שהנשיא קנדי אמר פעם כי המילה 'משבר' בסינית מורכבת משתי משמעויות 'סכנה' ו'אפשרות'.
בעבודה זו נציע מודל תיאורטי ליצירת קהיליית מוזיאונים וירטואלית של מוזיאוני העלייה הראשונה במושבות, כשהפרק הפותח יציג מאפיינים עיקריים של מוזיאוני העלייה הראשונה, בהתבססו על מחקרים מובילים כמו של נינה רודין לגבי מוזיאוני ההתיישבות בישראל, יהודית ענבר על המוזיאונים בישראל, וסקירותיו של רן אהרונסון על המוזיאונים במושבות במסגרת הצעות לסיורים במושבות. בנוסף נעשה שימוש נרחב באתר הוירטואלי של 'המועצה לשימור מבנים ואתרי התיישבות', שהוא ניסיון חשוב ותורם ביצירת קהיליית המוזיאונים, לצידם של אתרים וירטואליים פרטיים במספר מוזיאונים של העלייה הראשונה; וכן נעיין במאמרים שונים שהתפרסמו בשנים האחרונות, ותרמו להרחבת המידע לגבי מוזיאונים אלה. זאת ועוד. על מנת להבין את ההקשר הכללי בין העולם המוזיאלי לבין הקמת המוזיאונים במושבות העלייה הראשונה, נבחן בראש ובראשונה את המושג אקומוזיאון (ecomuseum). מושג זה התפתח בחיי המעשה המוזיאלי החל משנות הששים המאוחרות, אך מצא את יישומו גם בעזרת מחקרים קודמים, בעיקר אלה של פיטר דיוויס.
Popular representations of history are taking on new forms and reaching wider audiences. The search for usable pasts is branching out into active appropriations of history: historical theme parks, housing developments, and live-action role play. Drawing on themed environments across the continents, the articles in this volume focus on how these appropriations bypass, are different from, or even contradict traditional as well as scientific modes of disseminating historical knowledge. Bringing together theorists and practitioners, they provide the basis for an interdisciplinary as well as a transcultural theory of how pasts are staged in various social contexts.
About the editors:
Judith Schlehe and Michiko Uike-Bormann (Anthropology), and Carolyn Oesterle and Wolfgang Hochbruck (North American Studies) are members of a research group on History in Popular Cultures at the University of Freiburg (Germany).
WWW: Hidstorische Lebenswelten / History in Popular Culture
Corfu (or Corkyra as it was then known) was settled by the Corinthian exile Kersicrates in 734 BC. Since that time, and in no small part due to its strategic geographical location to the East of the heel of the boot of Italy, and to the West of the southernmost part of the Albanian mainland and the westernmost part of the Greek mainland, Corfu has been a part of the Roman Empire (229 BC), Byzantine Empire (337 AD), Normans (1081), Byzantine Empire again (1152), Venetian Empire (1386). 2016 marks the 300th anniversary of the 2nd Siege of Corfu in 1716, when, while Corfu was then under Venetian rule, there was an attempted Turkish invasion of the island. Whether the invading army was defeated by the islander’s defence leader Count Johann Matthias von der Schulenburg, or by its patron Saint Spyridon, the result was that the invaders were defeated. The island was next taken by France (1797), then it fell to the Russians, then the Ottoman Empire, before France’s second occupation in 1807. In 1815 Corfu became a British Protectorate, which it remained until formally becoming a part of Greece in 1864. During the 20th Century, the island fell to Italy during 1923, and again during WWII, until its liberation in 1944.
In such an historic year for the island, we feel it will be very interesting to consider these issues of thinking and re-thinking about places.
I am also delighted that the Institute of Place Management (IPM) has once again provided formal accreditation for the Symposium.
The Institute of Place Management’s links with the Journal of Place Management and Development, with its focus on communicating with academics, practitioners, policy makers and local government, is also a driving factor behind the balance between academic and practitioner input into this event.
The Holy Land and Zion have fueled the American imagination since Puritan times. If Biblical visions of Zion shaped pioneers' understandings of America, the visions of the frontier constitute many American Protestants' expectations of Israel. Their ways of viewing and experiencing the Holy Land are conditioned through the reading of the Bible, as well as through model cities and media images diffused throughout the USA. Practices such as in situ Bible reading, the search for uncluttered nature, the viewing of the land from broad vistas, the adulation of technological progress, the penchant for archaeology and Orientalism all inscribe American Protestant understandings on the land to produce a textualized sacred landscape.
By examining the theming of Protestant sacred sites in Israel, the narrative techniques of Jewish-Israeli guides working with American Protestant pilgrims, and the itineraries of tour companies catering to the American Christian market, we demonstrate how the Holy Land is tailored to the American Protestant gaze. The theme sites and guiding techniques reflect contemporary processes, such as the salience of media images, and the increased importance of sensory experiences in forming contemporary American identity. Yet such sites and guiding narratives are oriented, not to provide thrills, but to develop meaningful relationships with God, the Bible, and the past.
The products and performances employed increase the authority of new religious tour sites, while generating political support for the State of Israel. We also demonstrate how alternative organizations employ related tropes and techniques to garner American Christian support for the Palestinian cause.
Amos S. Ron
Department of Tourism & Hospitality Studies
Kinneret College on the Sea of Galilee, Israel
According to the New Testament, Jesus was crucified, buried and resurrected in Jerusalem. Since then, imaginary representations of these events have been produced all over the world, usually in the form of paintings, icons and souvenirs, but also in the form of passion plays, pageants and movies.
In the last few decades we have been witnessing an abundance of Christian themed environments (also known as Bible Parks or Spiritual Theme Parks) that aim at presenting the life and death of Jesus. These spatial representations are tourism imaginaries that draw hundreds of thousands of visitors annually, and are located in countries across the Americas, Europe, and in Israel.
This research will focus on the touristified imaginary presentation of the crucifixion and burial of Jesus in four such sites (The Holy Land Experience in Florida, USA; Tierra Santa Parque Tematico in Buenos Aires, Argentina; Licheń Stary, in Poland; and the Biblical Resources Museum, in Jerusalem, Israel); it will elaborate on the relationship between the different locations and their spatial outcomes, by using the theory and terminology of cultural geography, in general, and landscape interpretation, in particular.
There is no consensus about the exact appearance and location of the real Calvary and the real Tomb of Jesus - a fact which encourages the production and consumption of the imaginary themed versions. It is suggested here that these four imaginary representations of the same events differ in many ways, and can also be interpreted as four prototypes reflecting the heterogeneity of the Christian faith: the scientific (Biblical Resources Museum); the missionary (Holy Land Experience); the political (Licheń Stary); and the all-embracing (Tierra Santa Parque Tematico).
In the conclusions, I will try to elaborate on the implications of constructing and consuming imaginary sacred space by comparing the 'unreal' themed versions to the 'real' sacred space in Jerusalem.
עמוס רון – מכללת כנרת בעמק הירדן
amosron@kinneret.ac.il
על פי הברית החדשה ישו נצלב, נקבר וקם לתחייה בירושלים. מאז ועד היום ייצוגים דמיוניים של אירועים אלה נוצרו ברחבי העולם - על פי רוב בציורים, איקונות ומזכרות - אך גם בצורה של מחזות, תהלוכות וסרטים.
בעשורים האחרונים אנו עדים גם לפיתוח של שפע של סביבות נושאיות (themed environments) נוצריות (הידועות גם בשם Bible Parks), אשר שמו להן למטרה להציג את חייו ומותו של ישו. ייצוגים מרחביים אלה נמצאים בצפון ודרום אמריקה, באירופה ובישראל, והם מהווים סוג של נוף מדומיין המושך אליו מאות אלפי מבקרים בשנה.
במחקר זה אתמקד בהשוואה בין ארבע גרסאות תיירותיות מונשאות (themed) של הצגת צליבתו וקבורתו של ישו: ה-Holy Land Experience בפלורידה; Tierra Santa Parque Tematico בארגנטינה; Licheń Stary בפולין, ומוזיאון מקורות התנ"ך (Biblical Resources Museum) בירושלים. במחקר אתמקד בקשר בין המיקומים השונים ותוצריהם המרחביים על ידי כך שאשתמש בתיאוריה וטרמינולוגיה של גיאוגרפיה תרבותית בכלל, ופרשנות נופית בפרט.
אין כל הסכמה מדעית או תיאולוגית לגבי המראה והמיקום המדויקים של גולגותא (גבעת הצליבה) וקבר ישו, ועובדה זו מעודדת למעשה את הייצור והצריכה של מרחבים מדומיינים אלה. מחקר זה בא להציע התייחסות סמלית לכל אחד מארבעת המקרים כאל אבטיפוס (prototype); על פי התייחסות זו ארבעת האתרים משקפים את ריבוי פניה של הנצרות העכשווית: הפן המדעי (מוזיאון מקורות התנ"ך); הפן המיסיונרי (Holy Land Experience); הפן הפוליטי (Licheń Stary); והפן העוטף והמחבק (Tierra Santa Parque Tematico).
במסקנותיי אנסה להרחיב לגבי ההשלכות של בנייה וצריכה של מרחבים מדומיינים 'לא אמיתיים' בהשוואה למרחב המקודש 'האמיתי' בירושלים.
From Niche Tourism to Mass Pilgrimage
Amos S. Ron
Alona Roitershtein
Dep. of Tourism & Hospitality Studies, Kinneret College on the Sea of Galilee, Israel
Recent geopolitical developments, particularly the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989, have led to great changes in tourism patterns to Israel. During the 19th century, Russian Orthodox pilgrims came in great numbers (relative to the period); their spatial imprint on the landscape was very significant, and the construction of the Russian Compound in Jerusalem is just one example. Unlike the 19th century Russian Orthodox pilgrimage, contemporary Russian Orthodox pilgrimage to the Holy Land is an under-reseasrched topic.
During most of the 20th century, Russian pilgrimage to the Holy Land was practically non-existant, and can thus be regarded as a form of niche tourism. Data collected in the first decade of the 21st century indicate that “the Russians are back”: in 1999, approximately 37,000 Russians entered Israel as tourists, while in 2008, approximately 350,000 Russian tourists visited the country.
The main aim of this research was to observe spatial adaptations to this old-new phenomenon. There are two main findings:
1. The Israeli hospitality landscape has not changed much, and the noticeable changes were the insertion of small but important Russian-friendly elements, such as Russian bibles in the rooms, hot tea after supper and Russian-speaking staff.
2. A significant change was observed in souvenir stores, as many went through a process of rapid Russification, which included (a) signposting in Russian, (b) selling souvenirs that are percieved as Russian Orthodox (e.g. icons) and (c) employing Russian-speaking sales representatives – both Jewish and Arab.
A possible conclusion deriving from this research is that in a context of an imposed change in tourist population, souvenir stores are the first to adopt to the change (followed by hotels and sites) - thereby positioning themselves at the forefront of this (re)new(ed) wave of Russian pilgrims.
Foodways are becoming an ever more salient part of the cultural heritage of countries, regions and communities. Regional cuisines often form the foundations of a destination’s image abroad, and many places actively utilize culinary heritage to create a brand image or to help solidify their place identity. Cuisine and gastronomical traditions are an important element of heritage because they illustrate cultural norms and values, highlight people’s struggles with the natural environment, reflect the realities of geography and place, manifest the cultural heritage of places, undergo refinement processes through history, stand the test of time through inter-generational passage, and create an unmistakable imprint on other heritage realms.