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A Morphology of Cultural Transformation The Campaign to Save ’s Wildflower and its Spatial Impacts

Meytal Eran-Jona and Roni Tiargan-Orr

IDF BSC: Behavioral BennySciences FurstCenter, Israel Hebrew University of December 2015 September 2017

Research Paper 17 September 2017

The Gildenhorn Institute for Israel Studies (GIIS) is proud to publish Benny Furst’s analysis on saving Israel’s wildflowers. By making it available to English scholars of agriculture, sociological relations, and public opinion, we hope that its analysis and research will contribute to the awareness about culture.

The GIIS is one of the largest and most active centers for the study of Israel in the United States today. Headed by Professor Yoram Peri, the Abraham S. and Jack Kay Chair in Israel Studies, the GIIS offers 15 courses each year to 500 students, which focuses on five different aspects of Israel: Israeli History, Society, Politics, Culture, and the Middle East Conflict. The GIIS also sponsors conferences, lectures, cultural events, and community forums.

One of the important aspects of the GIIS is sponsoring, conducting, and publishing research on various aspects of Israel Studies. Our signature research project is Israel 2023, a series of three monographs that construct different possible scenarios for Israel as it approaches its 75th anniversary in three broad areas of major concern: Relations between Arab and Jewish Israelis, Israel’s Geo-strategic position, and Religion and State in Israel. The Institute also regularly publishes on its website both original research and translations of important articles that have already appeared in Hebrew.

More information about the GIIS is available at:

THE GILDENHORN INSTITUTE FOR ISRAEL STUDIES

4123 H.J. Patterson Hall, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742 U.S.A.

www.israelstudies.umd.edu

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Benny Furst is a geographer and environmental planner. His PhD dissertation from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (2013) is about the effectiveness of environmental campaigns in Israel, and his current post-doctoral research at the Technion (2017) is about the NIMBY syndrome regarding energy infrastructures. Dr. Furst works at the planning division of the Israeli Ministry of Environmental Protection, and is a teaching fellow at the Hebrew University and the Technion.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT ...... 5

INTRODUCTION ...... 6

THEORETICAL BACKGROUND: CULTURAL TRANSFORMATION ...... 7

PRE-EXISTING SOCIAL STRUCTURE (T1): WILDFLOWER PICKING AS A CULTURAL NORM ...... 8

ACTION/INTERACTION (T2 – T3): THE EDUCATIONAL CAMPAIGN ...... 12

Legislation ...... 12

Education...... 13

Enforcement ...... 17

STRUCTURAL CHANGE (T4): ABSTENTION FROM WILDFLOWER PICKING AS A NEW NORM ...... 18

DISCUSSION ...... 19

CONCLUSION ...... 20

REFERENCES ...... 22

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ABSTRACT

In September 1998 the Standards Institute of Israel awarded its National Quality and Excellence Prize to the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel (SPNI) and the Israel Nature Reserves Authority (INRA) in acknowledgement of their wildflower protection project, which began in the 1960s. This was official public recognition of the joint campaign led by the two organizations to save Israel’s wildflowers, which was one of the most significant educational successes since the establishment of the State. One of the campaign’s major rubrics, “Go out into the nature but don’t pick the flowers”, is regarded to this day in Israel as one of the most effective and influential marketing slogans in terms of its impact on public behavior. To understand the power of this transformation and its significance, one must first understand the social conditions that pre