Founded in April 2010, Spinoza is the website of the skeptical community in Israel. Its mission is two-fold: to assist in developing and sustaining a thriving skeptical community in Israel, and to bring the skeptical way of thinking to the greater Israeli public.
Community
It’s amazing how often we hear this: people tell us that they have always been skeptics, but never knew their way of thinking has a name. Others tell us they follow the English-speaking online skeptic media, and already define themselves as skeptics, but have not expected to find like-minded people in Israel.
Spinoza is an Internet meeting-place for the nascent Israeli skeptical community, a place where all these people, and others, can find that “they are not alone”. It’s a place to get updated with news, read original relevant material and participate in discussions. We would like to make people feel at home, but also make them think, and engage them in activity.
Resources
When are are asked, and we are asked frequently, to recommend Hebrew reading about one subject or another, or about skepticism in general, we are usually forced to admit little or nothing is available. This is a huge issue, because Hebrew resources are critical for approaching the general public in Israel. It is often felt - we must admit that we don’t have any numbers to back this claim - that we are flooded by new-age and pseudo-science, with little to balance that up. Spinoza helps narrow this gap by publishing original Hebrew material and by translating material from English, by encouraging online public, skeptical discussion of issues, and by striving to make everything searchable, accessible, readable and enjoyable.
In practice : current activities
Spinoza runs a blog that publishes mostly original content on science, pseudo-science and anti-scientific approaches, as well as updates on the skeptical movement in Israel and abroad. Our questions & answers site, modeled after sites like Skeptic Exchange, is a place for open discussions of these subjects, organized in a way that makes the accumulated knowledge accessible for browsing and search. We are also in initial stages of translating The Skeptic’s Dictionary, and are continually looking at as many further online (and offline) activities as our volunteer’s time permits. We keep in touch with the community using Facebook, Twitter and a mailing list.
More Skeptics in Israel
Safek Savir (Reasonable Doubt):
A weekly podcast covering critical thinking and science news for the Hebrew speaking skeptic. Covers a range of international and Israeli science and skeptical news, mixed with more in-depth inquiries into core skeptical topics such as cognitive biases, pseudo-sciences, logical arguments and classic exemplars of “Woo”.
Skeptics in a Pub:
Two active "skeptics in a pub" groups meet monthly in Tel-Aviv and Haifa. The "pubs" are very successful both as a meeting place for the community, and a way to expose more people to our ideas and activities. With two more pub groups (Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem) currently planned, we hope to make Israel the most skeptically dense (in terms of "pubs" per square kilometer) country in the world!
Curious about the rest of the site? Try reading Spinoza in English using Google Translate. We can't vouch for the translation quality, though...
For information about Spinoza and about skeptical activities in Israel, email us at info@skeptics.org.il