Amos S. Ron | Ashkelon Academic College (original) (raw)

Books by Amos S. Ron

Contemporary Christian Travel: Pilgrimage, Practice and Place, 2019

This book provides us with a comprehensive understanding of the arguments regarding religious tou... more This book provides us with a comprehensive understanding of the arguments regarding religious tourism products and their growing consumer market. It touches upon the secular and the traditional aspects of religion in contemporary society – the believers and faithful on the one hand, and the experience seekers on the other. A well-structured book and a must-read for those interested in religious tourism. Carlos Fernandes, Polytechnic Institute of Viana do Castelo, Portugal
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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
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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
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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

Journal of Heritage Tourism, 2009

... Natan Uriely Ben-Gurion University of the Negev ... Central Park in New York City) and the co... more ... Natan Uriely Ben-Gurion University of the Negev ... Central Park in New York City) and the conversion of existing gentry and royal gardens into public parks (for example Regents Park in London), thus enabling the public to use them in the context of leisure (Connell, 2003; Goode ...

Special Issue - Tour Guides as Cultural Mediators

Ethnologia Europaea: Journal of European Ethnology, Dec 2018

The contact zone between groups of Christian pilgrims touring the Holy Land and the Jewish-Israel... more The contact zone between groups of Christian pilgrims touring the Holy Land and the Jewish-Israeli tour guides leading these groups can become an area of intercultural intimacy, respect and mutuality, based on a form of shared understanding, despite the cultural differences. Thus, after making sense of the piecemeal and practical notion of “shared understanding” that develops in the day-to-day interaction between the guide and the pilgrims, three practical mediation techniques
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.

This paper discusses the importance of Biblical food as heritage cuisine for religious tourists i... more This paper discusses the importance of Biblical food as heritage cuisine for religious tourists in the Holy Land. Based on empirical evidence and case material from sites in Israel, the study describes the role of Biblical gastronomy in the religious tourism landscape of Jerusalem and examines the dynamics of experience, cost and authenticity of Last Supper re-enactments for Christian tourists in Israel. Biblical food is an important theme for religious tourism in the Holy Land, and it is becoming more influential in creating spiritual and authentic religious heritage experiences for
Christian pilgrims.

Keywords: heritage foodways; cuisine; Holy Land; Last Supper; authenticity; Biblical food; tourism landscape; tourismscape; foodscape; spiritual edutainment

Christian pilgrimage began to develop during the Byzantine era. It was characterized by the prese... more Christian pilgrimage began to develop during the Byzantine era. It was characterized by the presence of pilgrims at various main destinations in the Holy Land – sites mentioned in the New Testament. Today, some 1700 years later, this phenomenon has developed and spread throughout the entire Christian world, and Christianity, the world’s largest religion, has developed an enormous number of overlapping Christian travel products. The aim of this article is to suggest and present an emerging and up-to-date typological model of contemporary Christian travel. Various tourism models and typologies have been developed by social scientists, and in the context of religious tourism, a few have been developed by religion and tourism specialists. In the context of Christian travel, however, there are only a couple of case-study-based typologies, all with a focus on Europe. The typology presented here makes a distinction between activities, practices and destinations related to pilgrimage and other non-pilgrimage forms of Christian travel. The typology comprises three categories of Christian pilgrimage and six categories of other forms of Christian travel. This typology can be used by students, scholars and tourism practitioners at three different levels: descriptive, analytical and interpretational.

Keywords: typology; model; Christian travel; pilgrimage; sacred sites; religious tourism

Christian theme sites are the latest stage in a process of sanctification of space in which histo... more Christian theme sites are the latest stage in a process of sanctification of space in which historically embodied Protestant ways of seeing inscribe Protestant understandings on the Holy Land to produce a textualized sacred landscape. After sketching the evolution of Protestant sacred spaces in the Holy Land, attention is focused on two recent Christian theme sites, Nazareth Village and the Biblical Resources Museum. The sites reflect the interaction of contemporary processes, such as the salience of mediatized images, and the increased importance of sensory experiences with Protestant values and habitus. By demonstrating how global flows of tourism are subject to the constraints of religious ways of seeing, the article seeks to broaden understandings of tourism hereto dominated by the image of the hedonist pleasure-seeker.

Keywords: theme sites; Protestant gaze; Holy Land; pilgrimage

(Introduction to the Introductory chapter) The normal task of an introduction to an issue such a... more (Introduction to the Introductory chapter)
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.

INTRODUCTION This paper explores the question of the relationship between tourism and religion, ... more INTRODUCTION
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.

Ron, A., Shani, A. and Uriely, N. (2008), Eco-Leisure: Theory and Practice, Leisure/Loisir: Journal of the Canadian Association for Leisure Studies, Vol. 32, No. 1, pp. 47-64.

This article looks at the phenomenon of eco-leisure, both in theory and in practice. A distinctio... more This article looks at the phenomenon of eco-leisure, both in theory and in practice. A distinction is made between eco-leisure and ecotourism, and it is suggested that the academia needs to pay more attention to ecologically oriented leisure activities. The paper presents examples of eco-leisure practice and suggests a working definition of this new term. An explanation of the term is provided by elaborating on three of the pivotal aspects of this phenomenon: the urban-rural context, the sociological aspects, and the environmental aspects. The review of these aspects illustrates how eco-leisure can contribute to the understanding of modern urban life and its leisure component. In addition to the theoretical contribution of introducing the term and its meanings, eco-leisure has a high potential for managerial and practical implications, especially the improvement of life quality in the urban environment including the reduction of the tensions and stress of contemporary urban reality.

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 main topic of this research is the relationship between Israeli society and the Kibbutz movem... more The main topic of this research is the relationship between Israeli society and the Kibbutz movement as reflected in the anniversary celebrations of Kibbutz Degania Aleph. The Zionist ethos includes anniversary celebrations of pioneering settlements. These celebrations are significant to the understanding of the identity and the status of the celebrating community.
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.

This article explores the phenomenon of allotment holding as a leisure practice, by drawing upon ... more This article explores the phenomenon of allotment holding as a leisure practice, by drawing upon on a 2-year field study conducted at the Sataf village allotment site near the city of
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.

This article provides a conceptual discussion regarding the phenomenon in which volunteer activit... more This article provides a conceptual discussion regarding the phenomenon in which volunteer activity and tourism are intertwined. First, it is suggested that the phenomenon of volunteering in tourism could be grasped as an expression of the so called “other” postmodern tourism. Second, it is argued that the notion of volunteering in tourism needs to be expanded beyond volunteering guests and include hosts who volunteer in the local tourism industry. Third, it is proposed that in addition to the notion of volunteer tourism as leverage for self-development, volunteers in tourism may also enhance their self-image and utilize their volunteer activity for self-presentation purposes. Fourth, it is argued that nature and results of the host-guest encounter may vary according to the different settings in which the phenomenon of volunteering in tourism occurs.

Key Words: Tourism, Volunteers, Postmodernism, Hosts, Guests, Self-Development

Book Chapters by Amos S. Ron

Tourism and Religion

INTRODUCTION Religious needs among tourists and travelers have been with us forever, but the main... more INTRODUCTION
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.

Introduction Almost all religious and spiritual practices have direct or indirect connections to ... more Introduction
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.

Olsen, D. H. and Ron, A. S. (2013) Managing Religious Heritage Attractions: The Case of Jerusalem. In B. Garrod & A. Fyall (Eds.), Contemporary Cases in Heritage: Volume 1. pp. 51-78. Oxford: Goodfellow Publishers Ltd.

Introduction The American Protestant gaze on the Holy Land has been influenced, not only by Bi... more Introduction

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.