Tamar Almog | Oz Almog
Oz Almog
Prof. Oz Almog was born in Haifa in 1960. He is a graduate of the Hebrew Reali High School in Haifa, where he met his future wife Tamar.
Almog served as an intelligence officer in the Israeli Defense Forces. He would later (during his reserve duty) be counted among the founders of the Population Behavior branch of the Home Front Command.
He holds a B.A. in Philosophy and Sociology and an M.A. in Sociology from Tel Aviv University and a Ph.D in Sociology at Haifa University in 1995 (summa cum laude).
Tamar Almog
Dr. Tamar Almog was born in Haifa in 1961. She is a graduate of the Hebrew Reali High School in Haifa, where she skipped a grade, and where she met her future husband Oz.
She holds a B.A. in Agriculture from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and an M.A. in Biology from the Technion. She received her Ph.D in Education in Science & Technology from the Technion in 1992.
His academic career began at the Yezreel Valley Academic College, where he was among the founders of the college’s Sociology department. In 2002, he moved to the Department of Israel Studies at the University of Haifa. He received his professorship at the University of Haifa in 2003, and has continued to research and teach at this university until the present day.
Almog is a sociologist and historian of Israeli society. His expertise is in macro-research, with an emphasis on identities, cultures, lifestyles, folklore, and generational shifts. He has published numerous articles and books (most of them in Hebrew) which have made waves among the general public. Many of his publications have won prestigious prizes and become best-sellers. His books on the Sabra generation and its role as a national symbol (The Sabra - The Creation of The New Jew. The University of California Press, 2000; Farewell to "Srulik" - Changing Values Among the Israeli Elite. Zmora-Bitan and University of Haifa Press, 2004) are considered textbooks and socio-historical classics of Israeli society.
His book Generation Y - As if there is No Tomorrow, Modan Publishing House, 2016 (co-authored with Dr. Tamar Almog) – has generated extensive media and public response (reviews, interviews, articles, thousands of posts and shares on social media, lectures, etc.) and has become one of the biggest non-fiction bestsellers of the last decade in Israel.
One of the expressions of this book’s success was two television documentary series (on channels 11 and 13) that dealt with this generation’s characteristics as portrayed in Almog’s study. The term ‘Generation Y’, which at the time was only known to a handful of people in Israel, became a common phrase in Israeli discourse, and the generation gap became a widely discussed issue in countless forums. [The English version was published under the title: Generation Y – Generation Snowflake?]
His new bestseller Academia: All the Lies - What Went Wrong in the University Model and What Will Come in its Place, 2020 (co-written with Dr. Tamar Almog) received a groundbreaking public response in Israel, as it was reviewed extensively by all major media -- press, radio, television, social media, etc.
Almog is a passionate and socially engaged researcher, and is considered one of the prominent commentators and lecturers in his field. In the past, he published a regular opinion column on the widely read Israeli news site Ynet; today, he offers his take on current events via his popular Facebook page (many of his posts have gone viral and elicited responses from various news media).
Among his other positions, he has served as a board member for the publishing house of the Ben-Zvi Institute in Jerusalem, a senior research fellow for the Samuel Neaman Institute for National Policy at the Technion (2007-2017), the co-chair of UNESCO’s Chair for Multicultural Education at the University of Haifa (2010-2017), and the chair of the Israeli Ministry of Education’s Professional Committee for Sociology Studies (2010-2016), and has taught an introductory course on Israeli society at the National Security College (2015-2016).
Almog is regularly interviewed by Israeli and international news outlets on various phenomena in Israeli society, and has delivered lectures at hundreds of conferences and seminars on the subject. He has also provided his consulting services to museums, research institutes, news media, and numerous public and private institutions.
In 2008, in honor of the State of Israel’s 60th anniversary, Almog and his wife, Dr. Tamar Almog, created the popular-informational website “People Israel – The Guide to Israeli Society.” The website provided a detailed overview of the many sectors of Israeli society through text and images, and was visited by thousands of users every week. It operated with the support of UNESCO and was sponsored by the Technion’s Samuel Neaman Institute for National Policy; in 2008, it was named one of the year’s 10 best websites by Ynet. The site was shut down in 2018 after an attack by hackers.
In 2012, Oz and Tamar established the “Spirit of Israel Gallery,” which specialized in digital exhibits focusing on Israeli ethnography.
Almog states his professional mission thus:
“I am passionately curious about human behavior, and believe that I have the luck and honor to make a living in the world’s most remarkable profession, which is also my hobby. I have always aimed to reveal social realities to my readers and listeners that would otherwise be invisible to them. The beauty of the social sciences is that they reveal the hidden complexity in our everyday live.. Israeli society, the central object of my research, is a sort of "amusement park" for social scientists, because, as the classic Israeli song goes, “No moment is ever dull/either a scandal or a festival.”
Her academic career began at the University of Haifa in 1994, where she has continued to teach until the present day (in the Department of Learning, Instruction and Teaching Education).
Dr. Almog specializes in alternative instruction, educational systems, and youth culture. She was appointed to the first team of experts to provide support for the integration of computers into the Israeli public school system.
In 2002, she established the Unit for Online Learning at the University of Haifa; she served as the head of the unit until 2006.
Tamar was appointed a senior research fellow at the Technion’s Samuel Neaman Institute for National Policy (2007-2017) and was selected as the co-chair of UNESCO’s Chair for Multicultural Education at the University of Haifa (2010-2017).
In 2008, in honor of the State of Israel’s 60th anniversary, Dr. Almog and her husband, Prof. Oz Almog, created the popular-informational website “People Israel – The Guide to Israeli Society.” The website provided a detailed overview of the many sectors of Israeli society through text and images, and was visited by thousands of users every week. It operated with the support of UNESCO and was sponsored by the Technion’s Samuel Neaman Institute for National Policy; in 2008, it was named one of the year’s 10 best websites by Ynet. The site was shut down in 2018 after an attack by hackers.
In 2012, Tamar and Oz established the “Spirit of Israel Gallery,” which specialized in digital exhibits focusing on Israeli ethnography. Tamar was appointed the primary curator of the gallery.
Her book Generation Y - As if there is No Tomorrow, Modan Publishing House, 2016 (co-authored with Prof. Oz Almog) – has generated extensive media and public response (reviews, interviews, articles, thousands of posts and shares on social media, lectures, etc.) and has become one of the biggest non-fiction bestsellers of the last decade in Israel.
One of the expressions of this book’s success was two television documentary series (on channels 11 and 13) that dealt with this generation’s characteristics as portrayed in Almog’s study. The term ‘Generation Y’, which at the time was only known to a handful of people in Israel, became a common phrase in Israeli discourse, and the generation gap became a widely discussed issue in countless forums. [The English version was published under the title: Generation Y – Generation Snowflake?]
Her new bestseller Academia: All the Lies - What Went Wrong in the University Model and What Will Come in its Place, 2020 (co-written with Prof. Oz Almog) received a groundbreaking public response in Israel, as it was reviewed extensively by all major media -- press, radio, television, social media, etc.
Almog states her professional mission thus:
“I believe that it is both possible and essential to teach every subject clearly, no matter how complex or complicated it may be. Innovations of all kinds have always intrigued me, especially innovations that make life easier, provide more effective solutions to problems, and inspire curiosity and creativity. New technologies have never fazed me, and it was only natural that I would immediately adopt and integrate the computer revolution into the field of higher education, a field to which I have always been drawn. I worked with a personal computer and advanced software in the fields of writing and training back when those were in their infancy and rarely used. I felt that I could—indeed, was obligated to—help implement them on a larger scale. It was for this reason that, rather than going into research, I chose an academic professional track that focuses on teaching the teachers.
The online revolution has opened new and exciting possibilities for teaching, and has tightened the connections between image, sound, and text. In general, I believe that an aesthetic environment contributes significantly to the functionality of the learning environment, and that every educator and teacher must work towards making his or her skills in this area more sophisticated.
It upsets me greatly that the education system is collapsing, primarily due to its conservatism and its rigidity. Sadly, much of the blame falls on academia, which is so enthusiastic to publish scholarly papers (that almost no one will ever read) that it has become detached from the real world and has not led the way in initiating the necessary changes.”