Culture of Israel

[1] Similarly, Jerusalem has earned international acclaim; Time magazine included it in its list of the "World’s Greatest Places," and Travel+Leisure ranked it as the third favorite city in ME and Africa among its readers.

[24] Islam derives its ideas of holy text, the Qur'an, ultimately from Judaism,[25] and contains references to more than fifty people and events also found in the Bible including the creation narrative, Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, the Genesis flood narrative, Abraham, Sodom and Gomorrah, Moses and the Exodus, King David and the Jewish prophets.

Zionism links the Jewish people to the Land of Israel, the homeland of the Jews between around 1200 BCE and 70 CE (end of the Second Temple era).

The original purpose was to unify the newer immigrants with the veteran Israelis, for the creation of a common Hebrew culture, and to build a new nation in the country.

Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, who founded the Hebrew Language Committee, coined thousands of new words and concepts based on Biblical, Talmudic and other sources, to cope with the needs and demands of life in the 20th century.

[41][43] This serves at least to show how strong in later ages was the recollection of Akiva's philosophical speculation[41] Akiva's anthropology is based upon the principle that man was created בצלם, that is, not in the image of God—which would be בצלם אלהים—but after an image, after a primordial type; or, philosophically speaking, after an Idea—what Philo calls in agreement with Judean theology, "the first heavenly man" (see Adam ḳadmon).

He maintained that the reasons for religious commandments were beyond man's understanding, as well as irrelevant, and any attempt to attribute emotional significance to the performance of mitzvot was misguided, and akin to idolatry.

[46] One result of this approach is that faith, which is a personal commitment to obey God, cannot be challenged by the usual philosophical problem of evil, or by historical events that seemingly contradict a divine presence.

But “for Leibowitz, religious belief is not an explanation of life, nature or history, or a promise of a future in this world or another, but a demand.” Joseph Raz is a legal, moral, and political philosopher.

Other notable Israeli philosophers include Avishai Margalit, Hugo Bergmann, Yehoshua Bar-Hillel, Pinchas Lapide, Israel Eldad and Judea Pearl.

[50] The Ketuvim sector of the Hebrew Bible is a collection of philosophical and artistic literature believed to have been written under the influence of Ruach ha-Kodesh (the Holy Spirit).

The Book of Job, for instance, addressing the problem of theodicy – the vindication of the justice of God in the light of humanity's suffering[51] – it is a rich theological work setting out a variety of perspectives.

[52] It has been widely and often extravagantly praised for its literary qualities, with Alfred, Lord Tennyson calling it "the greatest poem of ancient and modern times".

It is also the first major work of Rabbinic literature,[57][58] written in religious centers such as Yavneh, Lod and Bnei Brak, under the Roman occupation of Judea.

[66] Following the expulsion from Spain and Portugal many Jews settled in the Ottoman Empire including Palestine, contributing greatly to the culture of the Jewish community, especially in literature, poetry, philosophy and mysticism.

[7] Native-born writers who published their work in the 1940s and 1950s, often called the "War of Independence generation," brought a sabra mentality and culture to their writing.

Yehoshua, Amos Oz, and Yaakov Shabtai broke away from ideologies to focus on the world of the individual, experimenting with narrative forms and writing styles such as psychological realism, allegory, and symbolism.

[73][74] Israel counts 140 scientists and technicians per 10,000 employees, one of the highest ratios in the world,[75] and 8,337 full-time equivalent researchers per million inhabitants.

Israel launched its first satellite, Ofeq-1, from the locally built Shavit launch vehicle on September 19, 1988, and has made important contributions in a number of areas in space research, including laser communication, research into embryo development and osteoporosis in space, pollution monitoring, and mapping geology, soil and vegetation in semi-arid environments.

[92] Israeli scientists contributed many inventions and discoveries in a variety of fields including Joram Lindenstrauss (Johnson–Lindenstrauss lemma); Abraham Fraenkel (Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory); Shimshon Amitsur(Amitsur–Levitzki theorem); Saharon Shelah (Sauer–Shelah lemma); Elon Lindenstrauss (Ergodic theory); Nathan Rosen (Wormhole); Yuval Ne'eman (prediction of Quarks); Yakir Aharonov and David Bohm (Aharonov–Bohm effect); Jacob Bekenstein (formulation of Black holes Entropy); Dan Shechtman (discovery of quasicrystals); Avram Hershko and Aaron Ciechanover (discovery of the role of protein Ubiquitin); Arieh Warshel and Michael Levitt (development of multiscale models for complex chemical systems); Ariel Rubinstein (Rubinstein bargaining model); Moussa B.H.

Youdim (Rasagiline); Robert Aumann (Game theory); Michael O. Rabin (Nondeterministic finite automaton); Amir Pnueli (Temporal logic); Judea Pearl (artificial intelligence); Shafi Goldwasser (Interactive proof system); Asher Peres (Quantum information); Adi Shamir (RSA, Differential cryptanalysis, Shamir's Secret Sharing); Yaakov Ziv and Abraham Lempel (Lempel–Ziv–Welch); Notable inventions include ReWalk, Given Imaging, Eshkol-Wachman movement notation, Taliglucerase alfa, USB flash drive, Intel 8088, Projection keyboard, TDMoIP, Mobileye, Waze, Wix.com, Gett, Viber, Uzi, Iron Dome, Arrow missile, Super-iron battery, Epilator.

In painting, sculpture, photography, and other art forms, the country's varied landscape is the protagonist: the hill terraces and ridges produce special dynamics of line and shape; the foothills of the Negev, the prevailing grayish-green vegetation, and the clear luminous light result in distinctive color effects; and the sea and sand affect surfaces.

It tends to be very eclectic, and contains a wide variety of influences from the Diaspora, as well as more modern cultural importations: Hassidic songs, Asian pop, Arab folk (especially by Yemenite singers), and Israeli hip hop or heavy metal.

Others deal with issues of modern-day Israeli life, such as the Israeli-Arab conflict (Eran Riklis's "The Lemon Tree", Scandar Copti and Yaron Shani's "Ajami") and military service (Joseph Cedar's "Beaufort", Samuel Maoz's "Lebanon", Eytan Fox's "Yossi and Jagger").

Some are set in the context of a universalist, alienated, and hedonistic society (Eytan Fox's "A Siren's Song" and "The Bubble", Ayelet Menahemi and Nirit Yaron's "Tel Aviv Stories").

The rural architecture of communities of kibbutzim and moshavim consist of small, white-walled houses with red roofs, and are a symbol of Israel.

[115][116] Israeli cuisine is also influenced by geography, giving prominence to foods common in the Mediterranean region such as olives, chickpeas, dairy products, fish, and fresh fruits and vegetables.

[126] Activities such as hiking during Jewish holidays (particularly Tu Bishvat) or backpacking on the Israel National trail, are part of israeli nationhood, culture, and history.

Consequently, many young Israelis take several months to a year off to travel the world, primarily to hike and experience the outdoors in remote, mountainous areas, such as Nepal, India, China, Chile, and Peru.

[130] Civil ceremonies are not performed in Israel,[131] although a growing number of secular couples circumvent this by traveling to nearby locations, such as Cyprus.