Israeli Identity and Society Through Music and Pop Culture

Dance along as waves of Jewish immigration mix with indigenous traditions to create a unique culture reflecting a world of Jewish and non-Jewish influences across Israel’s diverse society.

How do Israelis express their diverse backgrounds and beliefs across popular culture and politics?

This course is made up of three sections:

• Part I: Immigration and Modern Israeli Culture — How waves of immigration from Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, Ethiopia, Russia and elsewhere have mixed with native Jewish traditions to create a diverse, unique Israeli state and rich cultural mosaic.
• Part II: Demographics and International Relations — How the quarter of Israel’s citizens who aren’t Jewish influence popular culture, just as Israeli music and other arts have worldwide impact, including Eurovision.
• Part III: Ideas, Identity, and Politics — How politics and religion affect popular culture and have produced an abundance of rich literature, visual arts and music.

What You’ll Learn

Upon completing this course, you will have a deep and clear understanding of how Israel’s popular culture reflects the geographic and ethnic diversity of its population, including:

• Cultural Zionism and the emergence of a “new Jew,” rejecting the powerless of minority Diaspora existence.
• Origins and politics of today’s Israelis, particularly the blending of Jews from Arab lands with Jews from Europe and the Americas.
• Music, food, art and other cultural expressions beyond Ashkenazi, Sephardi and native-born Sabra identity.
• Contributions of Arabs and other non-Jews to Israeli identity.
• Israelis’ impact on the global music scene.
• Religious disputes in society that spill over into the political realm.
• Cross-pollination in cultural expression.

And much more.

Estimated Completion Time: 1 hour*

* Those who want to dive deeper into these and ancillary topics will find accompanying sources that can keep you learning for hours on end.