E-Book Overview
Providing valuable insights into an element of European nationalism and modernist culture, this book explores the development of the 'Zionist body' as opposed to the traditional stereotype of the physically weak, intellectual Jew. It charts the cultural and intellectual history showing how the 'Muscle Jew' developed as a political symbol of national regeneration.
E-Book Content
1111 2 3 4 511 6 7 8 9 1011 1 2 13111 4 5 6 7 8 9 20111 1 2 3 4 5111 6 7 8 9 30111 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 40111 1 2 3 44111 M U S C U LA R J U DA I SM For centuries, the stereotype of Jews as physically weak and racially inferior persisted across Europe. Zionist thinkers sought to turn this stereotype on its head at the end of the nineteenth century by creating a popular counter image: the muscular Jew. By emulating their ancestral war heroes (such as Bar Kochba and the Maccabees) and participating in all aspects of the contemporaneous European body reform movement, Jews could cultivate discipline, agility, and strength—the very ideals that would help turn them into a healthy, physically fit, nationally minded, and militarily strong people. In this interdisciplinary history of the Jewish body, Presner probes the complex cultural and intellectual origins of the “muscle Jew.” He argues that the Jewish body was radically reconfigured at the end of the nineteenth and early part of the twentieth century in light of modern European discourses of regeneration. Traversing sports history, medical literature, popular culture, aesthetics, gender studies, colonialism, and military history, Presner weaves together the story of the regeneration of the Jewish body. Richly illustrated with rare archival material, Muscular Judaism will appeal to scholars and students of Jewish Studies as well as anyone interested in modern European history, gender studies, and histories of the body. Todd Samuel Presner is Associate Professor of Germanic Languages and Jewish Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, USA. His research focuses on modern German and German-Jewish intellectual and cultural history. He is also the author of Mobile Modernity: Germans, Jews, Trains. ROUTLEDGE JEWISH STUDIES SERIES Edited by Oliver Leaman University of Kentucky Studies, which are interpreted to cover the disciplines of history, sociology, anthropology, culture, politics, philosophy, theology, religion, as they relate to Jewish affairs. The remit includes texts which have as their primary focus issues, ideas, personalities and events of relevance to Jews, Jewish life and the concepts which have characterised Jewish culture both in the past and today. The series is interested in receiving appropriate scripts or proposals. MEDIEVAL JEWISH PHILOSOPHY An introduction Dan Cohn-Sherbok FACING THE OTHER The ethics of Emmanuel Levinas Edited by Seán Hand MOSES MAIMONIDES Oliver Leaman A USER’S GUIDE TO FRANZ ROSENZWEIG’S STAR OF REDEMPTION Norbert M. Samuelson ON LIBERTY Jewish philosophical perspectives Edited by Daniel H. Frank PHILOSOPHY OF THE TALMUD Hyam Maccoby FROM SYNAGOGUE TO CHURCH: THE TRADITIONAL DESIGN Its beginning, its definition, its end John Wilkinson HIDDEN PHILOSOPHY OF HANNAH ARENDT Margaret Betz Hull DECONSTRUCTING THE BIBLE Abraham ibn Ezra’s introduction to the Torah Irene Lancaster IMAGE OF THE BLACK IN JEWISH CULTURE A history of the Other Abraham Melamed REFERRING TO GOD Jewish and Christian philosophical and theological perspectives Edited by Paul Helm FROM FALASHAS TO ETHIOPIAN JEWS Daniel Summerfield JUDAISM, PHILOSOPHY, CULTURE Selected studies by E. I. J. Rosenthal Erwin Rosenthal PHILOSOPHY IN A TIME OF CRISIS Don Isaac Abravanel: defender of the faith Seymour Feldman 1111 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1011 1 2 13111 4 5 6 7 8 9 20111 1 2 3 4 5111 6 7 8 9 30111 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 40111 1 2 3 44111