ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the work and leisure lifestyles of Israelis associated with the rise of a post-industrial globally oriented economy that began in the late 1990s. The concept of lifestyle has many meanings. The Oxford Online Dictionary describes lifestyle as human characteristics, while a Google search shows 11 million Internet sites identified as lifestyle, covering areas such as health, diet, sports, work, safety, and many others. Some of the elements of the lifestyle performance model resemble those of the value stretch model. A conceptual shift from class to status in politics and in marketing has led the generic sociological term 'lifestyle' to emerge with a new meaning. Many contemporary lifestyle studies identify and explain the patterns of behaviour, actions and conduct of people. They reflect on, but do not necessarily justify, the manners of human beings in order to reveal their values and aspirations, and they explicate why they behave the way they do.
