The annual "End of Days" festival – which bills itself as a "place of light and unity, inspiration and calm" – has become something of a mini-Woodstock in the settlements, with meditation groups, religious study sessions, and a crowd dressed in colorful flowing clothes.
Staged on a wooded slope amid the ruins of Mesuot Yitzhak, a Jewish settlement captured by Jordan in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, the festival is evidence of how the young hilltop generation, despite a reputation for militancy and ideological fervency, has embraced many of the counterculture symbols of the 1960s American Left.
In addition to roots and folk music, the young settlers have pushed heavily into organic agriculture and eco-awareness, and dabbled in Asian accessories and philosophies. While they are more worldly than parents who had no Internet access when they established the settlements, they are less pragmatic and potentially more rebellious against the state.
"We're the new hippies. We are connected to the land. We are spiritual," says Yishai Fleisher, a radio host at the settler radio station Arutz 7 who attended the festival two years ago.
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