Zippori National Park as a Composite Narrative

ABSTRACT Zippori National Park is a condensed landscape in which six major narratives are inscribed in the same ground: Recreation, Mosaics (archeology), Christian sanctity, Jewish sacredness, Mishna, and Palestinian memory. Each narrative is based on distinct texts, elements on site, distinct audiences, and agents who promote the narrative. Amongst themselves, these narratives maintain complex relationships of competition, compliance, and indifference. Reviewing the history of the park, the article discusses the shift in its planning from a singular, comprehensive narrative aimed to foster national identity through recreation, to a composite of diverse narratives representing contemporary multicultural Israel and its diverse interests. Focusing on planning as an outcome of personal, social, political, and economic conditions, it addresses the relations between hegemonic and marginal narratives, grassroots narratives, and those initiated by the state. It discusses the emergence of the various narratives both chronologically and spatially.