Izhak Schnell

• Professor Emeritos
• Head of Department at Tel Aviv University

Abstract The term 'social integration' refers to the extent in which the individual participates in a wide scope of social relationships with others within his community and feels that he/she belongs to it. During the last years, new and complicated definitions of social integration have been adopted, and pioneer studies which used new tools to exa...

Background Previous studies examined the effects of urban environments on the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS). These studies measured the effects of environments on Heart Rate Variability (HRV) averaging different time intervals to one value. Yet, the dynamics of change, reflecting the functions and their derivatives that describe the adaptation to...

Mediterranean cities are the oldest in Europe, built according to the practices and worldviews of their times. City cores are densely settled, having developed spontaneously with almost no systematic planning. The result is a core that lacks open spaces for greenery. The goal of the present study is to compare the existing state of residential gree...

Studies on the effect of urban environments on human risk to health and well-being tend to focus on either physiological or cognitive and emotional effects. For each of these effects, several indicators have been proposed. They are determined either by a physiological-emotional theory or by a cognitive theory of direct attention. However, the inter...

The impacts of lasting occupation:

The adoption of Neoliberal policies raises the question on whether small businesses in the Israeli Northern periphery are successful in breaking the barriers of peripherality and ethnicity in developing their businesses. It is argued that peripheries create heterogeneous ecosystems for entrepreneurs. In our research, the main division within the pe...

Throughout the last few decades, plenty of attention has been paid to restorative environments that positively affect human psychological health. These studies show that restorative environments affect human beings emotionally, physiologically, and cognitively. Some studies focus on the cognitive effects of exposure to restorative environments. A w...

Studies on the effect of urban and green environments on human risk to health and well-being tend to focus on either physiological or cognitive and emotional effects. For each of these effects, several indicators have been proposed. They are determined either by a physiological-emotional theory or by a cognitive theory of direct attention. However,...

The segregation or integration of minority groups is a core issue in contemporary urban fabrics. The literature tends to highlight the difference between ethnic groups while diversity within them receives less attention. This study addresses such differences by looking at Arab residents of ethnically mixed Israeli cities. Specifically, it highlight...

Portable and tracking devices open up new opportunities for systematic and accurate measurements of human exposure to environmental nuisances in urban fields. We argue that they represent a new people oriented paradigm. Two branches are applied in a way that may complement each other. First a micro-scale analysis based on measurements from portable...

ABSTRACT This article explores the impact of German Jewish youth educational travel in Israel on changing attitudes toward Israel. The travelers are engaged in direct interaction with the host country, directly experiencing the environments and interacting with members of the host society while touring places with symbolic meaning. The encounters w...

Generally, larger cities are characterized by traffic congestion, which is associated with higher concentrations of pollution, including Carbon Monoxide (CO) pollution. However, this convention requires empirical support on the basis of accurate and reliable measurements. In addition, the assessment of the effect of CO on the autonomic nervous syst...

The segregation or integration of minority groups is a core issue in contemporary urban fabrics. The literature tend to highlight the difference between ethnic groups while diversity within them receives less attention. This study addresses such differences by looking at Arab residents of ethnically mixed Israeli cities. Specifically, it highlights...

We calculate the effects of selected social and physical environmental nuisances on the autonomic nervous system balance among Jewish and Muslim mothers. Seventy-two Jewish and Muslim young healthy mothers from an Arab and Jewish neighboring city were tested in seven urban environments. Three social mediators (social discomfort, participation in ho...

A B S T R A C T Background: The home environment is regarded as a safe, comfortable environment, however, home can also be a stressful place. Compared to staying in the indoor home environment, the effects of short visits to outdoor urban environments on short-term psychological, physiological and cognitive responses were not studied previously. Ai...

During the 20th century, surveying and mapping became vital tools for states; and colonizers used them to know and claim the land. The Mandate of Palestine’s Survey of Palestine surveyed parts of historic Palestine. Their modernist ethos to register the land converged with Zionist visionaries to make it their own. With the Hagannah looting the Surv...

Throughout the 20th century, the rise of the Zionist national movement paralleled the strengthening of the Palestinian national movement. The struggle of the Israelis and the Palestinians over Palestine also manifested itself in the history of surveying and mapping, and their respective rights to do so. After the Hagannah looted the Survey of Pales...

It is central for international relations to support state- and nation-building; “nation-building” entails forging common national identities, and “state-building” consists of establishing infrastructures to enhance governance. This chapter examines some of the ways that nation-states have been made—through narratives, ideas, and practices as well...

Border Studies scholars have increasingly focused attention on borders as sites of investigation. Borders are particularly significant in the case of Israel/Palestine, as many of these boundaries are contested. The mapping of Israel’s borders are where top-down mappings by colonial powers or clueless politicians intersect with complex regional real...

The story of the establishment of the Israeli nation-state exemplifies some of the main ingredients of nation-state building in the 20th century. Israel came into being where historical narratives, national imaginations, scientific and technical know-how, human and material resources, and national and international support intersected. In the strug...

Post-1967, the “peace camp,” what are considered left-wing peace and human rights organizations, also actively used maps to put forth their geopolitical visions of an Israeli territory delimited by international law, while drawing on scientific cartographic conventions. Maps produced by the “peace camp” are informed by a range of very different dis...

Maps—whether they are on paper or online—have become ubiquitous. While maps used to be the purview of a trained cadre of experts and came about with the rise of the nation-state, mapping practices have increasingly become democratized. Now everyone with mapping software and an internet connection can engage in map-based activism and put forth parti...

Jewish organizations and Israeli institutions, before and after the establishment of Israel in 1948, produced various maps that fostered an “imagined community” and helped build the state. The Jewish National Fund, in particular, become a powerful socializing agent into notions of territory. Its widely disseminated Blue Box helped brand the territo...

This book traces how the geographical sciences have become entwined with politics, territorial claim making, and nation-building in Israel/Palestine. In particular, the focus is on the history of geographical sciences before and after the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, and how surveying, mapping, and naming the new territory become a...

Educational tours by German youth to Israel promote an understanding and empathy for the Israelis, but they tend to provide a limited understanding of Palestinian reality

Parental stresses are normal responses to raising children. They are affected by stresses parents and children accumulate and bring to their interrelations. Background factors like economic difficulties or the relations between the parents may affect parental stresses as well as demographic and environmental factors like noise and access to urban p...

Parental stresses are normal responses to raising children. They are affected by stresses parents and children accumulate and bring to their interrelations. Background factors like economic difficulties or the relations between the parents may affect parental stresses as well as demographic and environmental factors like noise and access to urban p...

It is well accepted that visits to parks improve peoples' well-being. Numerous studies highlight the positive social consequences of more intensive visits to parks, and thus its impact on well-being. Other studies emphasize the relaxing effects of parks visitors. Some studies are rooted mainly in deep ecology and Biophilia and focus on the relevanc...

Exposure to alien inter-group environments can differently effect ethnic groups’ autonomous nervous system, measured by heart rate variability (HRV). Our aim was to evaluate the effect of crossing alien ethnic boundaries on heart rate variability in three selected types of environments. In a field experiment study, we test responses of 72 Muslim an...

The study is an exploratory test of ethnic minorities and ethnic migrants success in embedding themselves in host societies either in destination country or their majority space. It is based on a cross-cultural comparison of three cultural groups in three Mediterranean countries (Morocco, Italy, Israel). Methodology consists of a multidimensional m...

Few previous studies evaluated ethnic differences in the effects of urban environments on the autonomic balance in intra-ethnic environments and the mediation effects of environmental exposures (air pollution, noise, and thermal load). In a field experimental study, we exposed 48 Muslim and 24 Jewish women to park, town center, and residential stre...

Very little is known about the transition to adulthood and particularly the causes of high NEEThood (not in employment, education or training) rates among young Arab men in Israel. This article aims to analyse the main routes of integration into the labour market and postsecondary education among Arab male citizens of Israel. It is argued that give...

This article examines integration vs. segregation of Arabs in Israel’s social sphere. Most geo-spatial studies regarding inter-ethnic relations are single dimensional, focusing on residential segregation assuming its association to the social domain. We argue that in the globalizing world daily activity spaces, social networks and influences on eve...

This study examines social integration of ethnic groups using socio-spatial lifestyle approach as related to Arab residents of mixed Israeli cities. Inter-ethnic relations in mixed cities are a central theme in geo-spatial research, that until recently focuses primarily on residential segregation, assuming its association with social integration. R...

Arab women’s NEET behavior should be understood in the context of the transition of Arab society from a patriarchal to a modern one. The study is based on intensive open interviews with 40 young women aged 18–30 concerning their struggle for self-fulfilment as women in Arab society. The study’s novel aspect is its focus on women’s perspective on th...

The current study investigated labour market integration of Arabs in Israel using Schnell et al.'s (2015) global segregation/integration index (GSI) that assesses minorities’ socio-spatial integration in multi-ethnic contexts. The merit of this approach lies in being multifaceted and systematically incorporating socio-spatial spheres. The study als...

Entrepreneurship in the northern periphery in Israel should be viewed as a response to the crisis in rural agriculture during the 1980’s. Most entrepreneurs left their farms for salaried employment for a few years and they took professional courses in order to learn necessary skills before they opened their enterprises. They have developed new smal...

The objective of this report is to systematically review the literature pertaining to the evidence of the relationship between environmental carbon monoxide (CO) and heart rate variability (HRV). For this purpose, reports published in English scientific journals were critically reviewed by the authors employing PRISMA guidelines. Fifteen studies pe...

Very small businesses owned by Arabs and Jews in the north of Israel are compared and discussed along several dimensions: education and experience of the entrepreneurs, field and location of businesses, business success, formal and informal support of businesses, and strengths and weaknesses of the businesses. The main finding of the study is the c...

There is wide agreement among scholars that Arabs’ integration in the Israeli labor market is limited by their deficiencies and by discrimination by both governmental policies and employers (Semyonov and Lewin-Epstein, 1994; Khattab, 2003; Schnell and Sofer, 2006; Miaari et al., 2009; Miaari and Khattab, 2013; Khamaisi, 2013; Shdema, 2013). These m...

Image and Reality - German Youth Educational Tourism to Israel A chapter from the book: Mooving Moments Connecting for Life, published in Hebrew and German by ConAct, Germany, May 2015 ISBN 978-3-87576-784-1

Short-term personal exposure of passengers in different types of motor vehicles to carbon monoxide was investigated in an intensively used main road in Israel’s Tel Aviv metropolitan area. According to monitoring stations of the Ministry for Environmental Protection (MEP), concentrations of carbon monoxide (CO) along the road, at a height of 3 m ab...

The article examines the phenomenon of German youth educational tourism to Israel. A qualitative analysis of visits to the main tourist sites in Israel was conducted, and the analysis and interpretation of interviews that were conducted with the youths reflected characteristics of the youths’ sense of a tourist place. The experiences of the German...

Urban research on segregation and integration has been dominated by an obsessive focus on ethno-racial residential patterns, obscuring the multidimensional facets of separation versus encounter that define contemporary urban experience. In this study, we develop an explicitly multidimensional theoretical perspective that relates segregation/integra...

The paper is founded on the argument of moral geography on the one hand and Kolberg’s social-psychological theory of moral judgment in order to expose the ways Israelis morally judge the barrier with the Palestinian authority. I conclude that half of the secular Israelis who prove to make moral judgments based on universal criteria withdraw to more...

Maps have long been used as tools to dispossess the colonised, establish sovereign control over territories and help engineer states. They not only serve as national logos that encourage commitment to a nation, but cartographic representations also inform scientific and engineering knowledge and practices that are crucial for state-building. With t...

The present book engages with the phenomenon of protracted occupation, which it perceives as both attention-grabbing and puzzling in the 21st century, an era in which it has become an exceptional and very rare phenomenon. The analysis begins with a view which suggests that occupation, by its very nature, has in most cases acquired a negative connot...

The introduction chapter presents a new conceptual general framework that analyses the relationship between the occupier and the occupied society. It suggests that an occupation cannot operate in separation from the occupying society, especially when the occupier settles in spaces which are the perceived as a continuation of the homeland territory,...

In conclusion, the chapter summarizes the insights derived from the chapters of the book, from which three themes emerge: 1. The development of an Israeli identity and of the emerging regime-It is our contention that the Israeli model of prolonged occupation has been characterized more than anything else by a policy of creeping annexation, or a lon...

The chapter explores how the State of Israel has related with duplicity to the occupied territories. On the one hand it has preserved their legal status as occupied territories, while on the other hand it has activated a wide variety of practices whose purpose has been to include the territories within a territory identified with the Jewish nation....

This research disassembles the factors included in the concept of sense of place into its components. The study took place among 120 evacuees from both Gaza and northern Samaria. The research investigates what factors affect the creation of an attachment to place and what characterizes each level separately. It was found that the physical landscape...

There is unanimity in the academic discourse regarding the importance of local knowledge in improving the planning product. Local knowledge is individual and communal knowledge of inhabitants that represents the perspective of local people, i.e., individuals and communities who could be affected by plans. Local knowledge’s epistemological intricacy...

This study suggests a shift in focus from studying environmental discomfort in urban strategic stations, from which average results for the city or specific results for selected sites are deduced, and from measuring environmental conditions in fixed monitoring stations to a study in which we monitor, with mobile portable sensors, the exposure of pe...

The two largest development projects built in Israel are the Hachula drainage, excuted in the 1950s and the Cross Israel highway built in the 1990s. Both projects became cores of intensive debate on the environmental consequences of the project, but the main narratives used in the debate changed drastically. While during the 1950s the state and its...

Immediately after the 1967 war and the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza the national religious youngsters (Gush Emmunim settlers) reached out to settle the new frontier of the biblical places. By thus, they have developed a Messianic myth. The interpretation of Gush-Emmunim settlers’ experience of landscapes reveals a complex and contradictory...

המונח "תחושת מקום" - Sense of Place - מורכב מאוד. המונחים "מקום" בכלל ו"תחושת מקום" בפרט, אינם מוגבלים לשטח מסויים, ויכולים להתקיים בכל טווח וקנה מידה שהם, מבית פרטי ועד לחלק כלשהו מכדור הארץ. ועם זאת - רוב הספרות המחקרית אינה מבחינה בין הרמות השונות של המונח "מקום". מחקר זה בוחן בצורה השוואתית את ה"מקום" לפי קני מידה שונים, מהבית, עבור דרך היישוב...

המחקר מתמקד בחוויית העקירה הכפויה של מתנחלי רצועת עזה וצפון השומרון. על בסיס ראיונות פתוחים ושאלונים מובנים עם עקורים נמדדו בקרב העקורים תופעות פוסט טראומטיות של אבל על מקומות המוצא שלהם בהתנחלות. אלו לוו גם בחוסר מסוגלות לגבש לעצמם תחושת שייכות למקום חדש. תחושת האבל מועצמת מאוד על ידי תחושת הנבגדות של המתנחלים הן מהמנהיגות הלאומית, הן מהתקשורת וחל...

מחקר זה בוחן את ההבדלים בין תושבי חבל עזה וצפון השומרון, שבחרו להתגורר לאחר "ההינתקות" במסגרת קהילתית ("קהילתיים"), לבין אלה מהם שבחרו במסגרת פרטנית ("פרטניים"). לאור ספרות המחקר, המתייחסת בדרך כלל למשאב הקהילתי כתורם לשיקומם של עקורים, שאלת המחקר המרכזית של המאמר היא: האם מצבם של העקורים הקהילתיים מחבל עזה וצפון השומרון טוב מזה של הפרטניים, ובמה....

עבודה זו דנה באובדן תחושת המקום בחוויית המפונים מגוש קטיף וצפון השומרון במסגרת ההינתקות באוגוסט 2005, ובהשלכותיה על תפיסת זהותם. בריקוול מתארת במודל שלה את הדינמיקה של הבנית הזהות. על פי המודל, חוסר איזון יוצר איום על הזהות, פנימי או חיצוני. במצב זה בוחר הפרט באסטרטגיות פעולה המכוונות להחזיר את עצמו למצב של איזון רצוי. מהממצאים ניתן להבחין שלמתנחלי...

Within the last 2000 years the land demarcated by the Mediterranean Sea to the west and the Jordan Valley to the east has been one of the most disputed territories in history. World powers have redrawn its boundaries numerous times. Since the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948 within British Mandate Palestine, Palestinians and Israelis ha...

"Building conservation is a cultural phenomenon in the urban landscape, occurring by means of turning culture into a tradable product. In the article we illustrate that building conservation, serves the wealthy by means of the symbolic value given to these buildings and their surroundings, while those who pay the price are the poor. The conservatio...

Derrida's rogue model explains how the 'other' is characterized to form a threat on the existence of the 'self'. Demography plays a critical role in international conflicts, by creating these feelings of threat. As early as the 1930's, the demographic factor has become a central component in determining the borderline between national movements in...

The tendency to reduce the role of places in the formation of sociospatial identities and to emphasize the impact of sociopolitical structures on place making is growing. We argue that, under certain conditions, places may become salient sources of identity formation. In addition, we suggest viewing different types of places on a continuum from myt...

The transition to the era of post-modernism and neo-liberalism has defined new challenges for conservation planners. Conservation of whole sections of a city that represent the city's history has become the main means of creating symbolic economic value in urban development. These development projects are expected to be led by the private sector, w...

The aim of this article is to explore, through the case of the official Israeli state curriculum, how the educational system is affected by social changes and how it responds to them, and to suggest curricular directions that go along with the new social reality that has emerged in Israel during the past decade. We offer a conceptual-theoretical an...

Segregation is studied as a multidimensional characteristic of individual behaviour in social space. It is argued that in a globalising world, homology among residential, territorial (forms of regionalising daily life) and interactive (forms of developing social networks) segregations cannot be taken for granted. The study shows that even in the hi...

Sheinkin is an example of a place constituted by global forces. Yet Sheinkin creatively responds to scalar jumps of global forces, drawing from the capitals of the global system like Soho and Greenwich village. These models are embedded in the Israeli reality with Sheinkin becoming an incubator of post-Zionist identity. Young people from all over I...

Globalized bordering methods differ from national bordering initiatives and practices in their more complex and less clearly delineated structure. They are controlled by bundles of economic, political, cultural, social and jurisdictional institutions that operate on a four-Ievel scalar order. Flows on higher levels in the hierarchy may cross border...

The new strategic thinking in the Israeli government is motivated, among other things, by a new awareness of demographic issues, and from estimations that in 2006 the Palestinians will be the majority population in Mandatory Palestine, between the sea and the Jordan River. According to this viewpoint, the Palestinian population continues to grow at...

שיזור היזמות הערבית במשק הישראלי תקציר המאמר מציע הבנה של יזמות ערבית במסגרת תיאוריית הסטרוקטורציה תוך התמקדות בצורות השיזור של היזם הערבי במשק הישראלי. הניתוח מפותח בשני שלבים. בשלב הראשון מנותחים הקשרים הישירים של היזמים תוך הדגשת דגמי המכירות של העסקים. בשלב השני נבונים מבנה המודעות של היזמים ונגישותם לרשתות תומכות ביזמות; נגישות למקורות מידע על...

דיון בחסמים לפיתוח כלכלי במשק הערבי מתחלק לשתי שאלות משנה. ראשית מהם החסמים להשתלבות עובדים ערבים בשוק העבודה הישראלי הכללי ושנית, מהם החסמים לפיתוח יזמות כלכלית ערבית. עיקר העניין שלנו התמקד בשאלה השניה אך לא ניתן להימנע מציון מספר חסמים בולטים גם בשוק העבודה. נקודת המוצא שלנו היא שחסמים אלה הם מבניים, כלומר הם מוסדו בכלכלה הפוליטית של ישראל בתהלי...

Social area analysis tends to view the city as constituted of a mosaic of socially homogeneous containers. The Chicago model views the mosaic as compactly organised around one centre and as a response to geometrically deduced forces. The Los Angeles model views social areas to be socially constituted in a more dispersed geometry. Our model, verifie...

Tel Aviv is a highly ethnic city in which ethnicity is deeply embedded in people’s perceptions of their social milieus. Shapira, as one of the most heterogeneous neighborhoods in Tel Aviv, supplies a unique demonstration of the inadequacy of the Chicago model, which assumes the emergence of homogeneous neighborhoods. The study shows that ethnicity...

This paper suggests a GIS-based methodology for the investigation of the extent to which the inhabitants of a representative sample of city residents perceives itself as living in socially constituted neighborhood territories. We ask residents about the relevancy of the neighborhood as a social unit and to delineate their neighborhood boundaries. W...

The aim of this paper is to contribute to the growing efforts to assess small businesses’ mode of embeddedness. To this end, it analyses the case of Arab entrepreneurs in a peripheral region of Israel, namely, the central Lower Galilee, of which Nazareth is the main urban centre. It is a heterogeneous multi-ethnic region, containing a majority of A...

In the article analysis of the segregation of 1000 representatives of eight important ethnic groups in Tel-Aviv – Jaffa is represented. The comparison of results was made on the basis of index of dissimilation. Each ethnical group is analysed with regard to its spatial distribu-tion, a sample of each group being analysed on the basis of the index o...

In the article analysis of the segregation of 1000 representatives of eight important ethnic groups in Tel-Aviv – Jaffa is represented. The comparison of results was made on the basis of index of dissimilation. Each ethnical group is analysed with regard to its spatial distribu-tion, a sample of each group being analysed on the basis of the index o...

Zionist geographers in Israel were highly involved in institutionalizing Israel's national identity. In search for interpretative schemes, they were highly committed both to Western paradigms and to Zionist narratives. Until the 1970s, organicist models of regional geography were popular despite contradictions between the use of tragic and comic na...

In the article analysis of the segregation of 1000 representatives of eight important ethnicgroups in Tel-Aviv – Jaffa is represented. The comparison of results was made on the basisof index of dissimilation. Each ethnical group is analysed with regard to its spatial distribution,a sample of each group being analysed on the basis of the index of di...

Tel-Aviv-Jaffa's members of the glocal lifestyle tend to perform their daily life in two reaches: their corporeal daily-life circulations and a virtual space of telecommunication and Internet. Their experiential space spreads into global horizons with the spaces of daily reaches intentionally being estranged. They experience three different types o...

The article offers a structurationalist analysis of the embeddedness of Arab entrepreneurs in the political economy of Israel in two stages. Firstly, we consider entrepreneurs' agency in the context of socio-spatial structural aspects concerning tangible networks that are directly associated with business operation. Secondly, we consider agents' ho...

Inter-ethnic as well as intra-ethnic dynamics have been shown to be barriers to local economic development. It has been suggested that local economy could benefit the social as well as the business communities by the integration of the various ethnic groups living in a region. The multi-ethnic composition of the Nazareth area in the Israeli Lower G...

This study investigates the structure and components of the Arab identity repertoire in Israel. We analyse the relative salience of each component and the structural relations among the components. In addition we interpret the meanings associated with each component of the Arab identity repertoire in Israel. Our study differs from traditional inves...

The purpose of the paper is to study the form and degree of ethnic firms’ (small and medium businesses and enterprises) local embeddedness in peripheral regions in Israel. Three theoretical propositions are at the base of our model. First, it is possible to study regions by studying firms’ networks and links, and the communities in which they are e...

Ethnic entrepreneurs' networks are analysed on the basis of three complementary dimensions: intensity and complexity of networks; power relations; and entrepreneurs' horizons of awareness. The analysis is based on two theoretical propositions. First, firms located in the periphery are weakly embedded in national markets due to their external depend...