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This paper focuses on the analysis of the discourse in major Israeli ultra-Orthodox newspapers during the first year of COVID-19. Following Durkheim, we argue that the pandemic not only brought about a health emergency, but also a state of anomie. Analyzing both Hamodia and Yated Neeman—both major news outlets of the ultra-Orthodox community in Israel—we show how in a time of anomie when the sanctity of life (pikuach nefesh) conflicted with the sanctity of the community, the latter prevailed. Thus, this study unveils a different set of moral priorities than the one commonly referred to in Israeli bioethical discussions in the pre-COVID-19 era. We also found that the Durkheimian "totem" or "God" metaphors—a symbol of society itself—are highly relevant in analyzing how leaders of the Haredi community in Israel tried to keep their congregation together. This was expressed in the two heavily censored newspapers we analyzed: they placed communal living above the sanctity of individual life in a way that exposed how the cohesion of the group and the community itself were sanctified. At the same time, what was identified as the real virus was in fact secularism and not COVID-19. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article contributes to the theorization of hope in the cultural industries in conflict zones. Although the merits of hope in explicating the behavior of creative workers in cultural production in western countries has won some attention, the literature has fallen short of addressing the impact of conflict on the meaning of hope for minority creative workers in this field. To fill this lacuna, we explore the experience of Palestinian creative workers in Israeli cultural industries, which are very functional in national identity making and branding. Our evidence is helpful in illuminating the temporal dimension of hope, as a resource and a form of passive action that takes place in the present in order to keep the horizon open for a better future, also when this future does not entail a clear referent. It also sheds light on the affinity of hope with ethical agency claiming in the cultural industries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to explore Palestinian-Israeli actors' and actresses' experiences in the Israeli TV market and their understanding of the rationalization/racialization processes taking place in the global television industry, which is dominated by Streaming Video On Demand platforms. The study is based on observations and interviews. The observations were conducted on the set of the internationally successful action drama Fauda during its second season. Fauda is a co-production of Netflix and the Israeli satellite conglomerate YES. It portrays the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in a way that some see as Zionist and hegemonic. The interviews were conducted with the Palestinian-Israeli actors and actresses. Our analysis of their experiences on the set of Fauda shows a dialectical and complex reality in which self-exploitation, which results in justifying playing terrorists and villains for the sake of money or art, resolves itself into an antithesis of subversion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our study seeks to compare attitudes towards family life and gender roles between Generation X and Generation Y, focusing on the ages of 18-29, a period regarded as that of emerging adulthood. Most of the academic scholarship on this issue focuses on Western and Anglo-American individuals, their values and perceptions. By contrast, our article explores questions of gender roles and family life among Generations X and Y in the Middle Eastern country of Israel, utilizing the perspectives of the Second Demographic Transition and the Stalled Gender Revolution. Using the 1994, 2002, and 2012 waves of the International Social Survey Program (ISSP) module on Family and Gender Roles, our findings indicate that Israeli Gen Y young adults tend to report more conservative perceptions regarding family and gender roles than their Gen X counterparts. This is generally explained by a higher level of religiosity among Israeli young adults from Gen Y. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past three decades, side-by-side with the growing precariousness of the global television industry, a distinction between "quality" TV and "trashy," commercial TV has been established in many Western TV production fields. As a result, television creators – writers, producers, and directors – confront multi-faceted moral, financial, and professional dilemmas as well as struggles over positions and prestige. Taking the Israeli TV field as a case study, this article aims to study the set of social justifications employed by television creators vis-à-vis the above dilemmas. Drawing on Boltanski and Thévenot's concepts of social justification and the theories of Pierre Bourdieu, this article finds that in trying to resolve ideological contradictions between commerce and notions of artistry, Israeli television creators assume the position of professionals with social responsibility and artistic conviction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The cultural industries are major fields of producing, distributing and reflecting national icons and norms. They form major sites of contestation and conflictual self-categorization, especially in conflict zones. Our article explores the intersection between nationality and gender in cultural production in such contexts. It examines the engagement of Palestinian women filmmakers within the Israeli cultural industry, seeking to facilitate a better understanding of national minorities in the field of cultural production in conflict zones. Palestinian women filmmakers in Israel have introduced new themes that do not only address national issues that stand in tension between the Palestinian experience of oppression and the hegemony of the Zionist narrative in the Israeli cultural industries, but also challenge the prevalent patriarchal social values in Palestinian society. Exploring their experience allow us to better explicate the intersection of professional, gender and national factors in conditioning the cultural production of creative labour in conflict zones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the complexity of minority creative workers in the media industry. It challenges the common notion in the literature that minority creative workers are fully submissive to the dominant power structure and examines whether such workers could still be conceived as active agents by resisting submission and marginalization even when they cannot influence their own representation in hegemonic media texts. To answer this question, it explores the performances of minority creative workers in a hegemonic cultural industry. To determine whether one can speak of subaltern agency and, if possible, examine how it manifests itself in reality, it addresses the daily performances of Palestinian creative workers during the production of the second season of the Israeli television series, Fauda. Observations conducted during production demonstrate that since in such contexts minority creative workers cannot avoid being projected in negative roles in the media text, they adopt creative subversive practices of passing and transgressive mimicry, resisting full compliance with the production, without endangering their own position. By doing so, the article contributes not only to the emerging field of creative entrepreneurship in cultural production, but also enables determination of common practices of creative subversion in the cultural industries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cultural industries, television among them, are industries that exemplify harsh working conditions and precariousness. Recently, there has been greater attention paid to the specific experiences of ethnic and racial minorities in the creative industries in general and on television specifically. However, the study of minorities in television has generally focused on content analysis and not on the daily experiences of workers in the precarious television labor market itself. This paper offers an in-depth examination of the work process and conditions of ethnic–national minority (Israeli–Palestinians) versus majority creative workers (Jewish Israelis) in a television production, using observations conducted on the set of the Israeli TV series, Fauda (" Chaos " in Arabic) as a case study. Our study's conclusions emphasize the way groups' experiences reproduce social hierarchies based on ethnicity, nationality, and gender. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reality TV is a highly popular but much criticized television genre. However, little has been written about the attitude of state broadcasting authorities toward this genre and the degree to which it is regulated and controlled in different countries. In this article, we focus on the Second Authority for Television and Radio, the public body that oversees commercial broadcasting in Israel, and look at how it controls the volume and content of reality TV programs while considering factors that are unique to Israeli economics and politics. The findings of this article indicate that in Israel, reality television is legitimized de facto despite perception of its moral shortcomings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the properties of ‘quality television’ as constructed within the field of television production. It does so by analyzing the discourse of television creators and critics in two countries, Israel and Flanders, taking a theoretical approach based in part on Bourdieusian theory. Most academic work about ‘quality television’ concentrates on Anglo-American television drama series. In this paper we offer a different perspective by focusing on two small but prosperous television markets outside of the Anglo-American world. Our findings suggest that the quality discourse in both countries contains autonomous-artistic alongside heteronomous-capitalist ideological elements, apparently under the influence of the Anglo-American discourse of quality. Our findings also suggest that both ideological elements contribute to the cultural legitimation of the television drama series in both countries, though the capitalist discourse plays a more evident role among creators than among critics. Finally, we also discuss the differences between the Flemish and the Israeli discourses of ‘quality television.’ [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current study focuses on the social construction of definitions of quality in the field of the television drama series in Israel. By doing that, this work challenges Pierre Bourdieu’s claim that since artifacts of ‘popular culture’ industries are not regarded as ‘autonomous’, according to the autonomy-of-art ideology, they cannot be consecrated as works of art. Bourdieu’s thesis was challenged before, but the television field has not yet been extensively studied from this point of view. My study of the broad empirical corpus, including television reviews and interviews with acclaimed Israeli television creators, reveals that artistic quality and commercial appeal show less tension than Bourdieu had suggested. Furthermore, my findings indicate that the autonomy-of-art ideology can be reconfigured to accommodate commercial (e.g. capitalist) considerations. Within this reconfiguration, the ‘quality’ television series can be redefined to include elements of ‘autonomous’ art, such as authenticity, innovation and the input of ‘genius’ creators, alongside such capitalist requirements as profitability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trophic interactions play a critical role in regulating ecosystem functioning. Advances in trophic ecology have shifted the focus from characterizing resources based on a single 'currency' such as energy or biomass to more complex multidimensional approaches that consider the resource quality, hence require detailed estimation of different nutrients. For this purpose, ecologists use a wide plethora of extraction and quantification methods that differ substantially in precision and accuracy and vary in efficiency across sample types and taxa. Yet, ecologists seem largely oblivious to these methodological drawbacks and their severe theoretical implications. Focusing on the three main macro‐nutrients groups; proteins, lipids and carbohydrates, we provided an overview of the main extraction and quantification methods and their inherent limitations, and discussed possible consequences for ecology research and theory development. We urge ecologists to adopt a standard method for estimating each macronutrient group or to use multiple methods when feasible, until more accurate and precise chromatographic methods become accessible. We hope that our study will raise awareness to the many shortcomings of macro‐nutrient estimations to assist in strengthening and further developing the important field of trophic ecology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cultural taste, an enduring topic of concern for cultural sociologists, is predominantly studied through strategies that reinforce 'methodological nationalism'. Moreover, the study of taste remains confined to Western Europe and Anglophone countries, while being blind to transnational dynamics. This special issue expands these debates, focusing on center-periphery dynamics not necessarily centered around Western Europe and North America. This, while situating the study of class and culture within more inter-sectional analyses including race, migration, nationality and ethnicity. Thus, our special issue reveals the power of global inequalities across different cultural fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: Patients with relapsed/refractory AL amyloidosis (RRAL) have poor prognosis, but emerging data shows promising results with the use daratumumab. We evaluated daratumumab treatment in RRAL in real‐world setting. Methods: A retrospective multisite study of RRAL patients treated with daratumumab alone and in combinations. Results: Forty‐nine patients, diagnosed between 1.1.2008 and 1.2.2018 were included; 27% also had multiple myeloma (MM). Revised Mayo score was ≥ 3 in 67%. Hematologic overall response rate was 81%, 64% achieved very good partial response (VGPR) or better. Concurrent active MM was associated with lower rates of VGPR (OR 0.19, 95% CI 0.04‐0.81; P =.03) in a multi‐variate analysis. Cardiac and renal responses were 74% and 73%, respectively. Median progression‐free survival (PFS) was 28.4 months and median overall survival (OS) was not reached; 2‐year PFS and OS were 68.6 ± 7.5% and 90.4 ± 4.6%, respectively. Hematologic response correlated with prolonged PFS and OS. Daratumumab was safe and well tolerated, no patients discontinued therapy due to toxicity. Our data was aligned with outcomes from a systematic literature review, which identified 10 case series (n = 517) and 2 clinical trials (n = 62) meeting prespecified criteria. Conclusions: Our data support favorable safety tolerability and efficacy of daratumumab among non‐selective RRAL patients in a real‐world setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]