Muscular Judaism: The Jewish Body and the Politics of Regeneration

by Presner; Todd Samuel

• ISBN13: 9780415771788
• ISBN10: 0415771781
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2007-06-15
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

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.

Author Biography

Todd Samuel Presner is Associate Professor of Germanic Languages and Jewish Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, USA.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations	p. xi
Acknowledgments	p. xiii
Introduction: visions of muscle Jews	p. xv
The origins of muscular Judaism	p. 1
The rhetoric of regeneration: "clear heads, solid stomachs, and hard muscles"	p. 24
The aesthetics of regeneration: Martin Buber, E. M. Lilien, and the aesthetic state	p. 65
The gymnastics of regeneration: the anatomo-politics of the Jewish body	p. 106
The land of regeneration: seafaring Jews and the Zionist colonial imaginary	p. 155
Soldiers of regeneration: the military might of old-new Maccabees and the Great War	p. 187
Concluding remarks	p. 217
Notes	p. 219
Index	p. 267
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