Embodying the Revolution

The Hebrew Experience and the Globalization of Modern Sports in Interwar Palestine

Ofer Idels (Autor)

Buch | Softcover

168 Seiten

2025
Rutgers University Press (Verlag)
978-1-9788-4445-2 (ISBN)

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This original and thought-provoking study offers a fresh perspective on Zionism by exploring Hebrew culture’s ambivalent attitude toward modern sports. Drawing on extensive archival sources and contemporary literary theories, it focuses on Zionism’s surprising anxiety toward sports during the interwar heyday of “muscular Judaism,” revealing an unusual society in which athletes failed to attain national pride and distinction. Addressing themes such as the body, language, space, immigration, internationalism, amateurism, gender, and militarization, Embodying the Revolution presents an innovative reading of Jewish life in Mandate Palestine, linking the marginalization of sports to the meaning and experience of the Zionist Revolution. Idels' compelling interpretation of the appeal of sports, selfhood, and the compromises inherent in radical aspirations—narrated from the periphery of the interwar global rise of sports—challenges contemporary assumptions that dismiss ideology as an elitist myth.

OFER IDELS is the Jenny Belzberg Postdoctoral Fellow at Calgary University, Canada. He is the author of Zionism: Emotions, Language and Experience.

Contents
Preface
Introduction
1 Teaching Nordau to Play Soccer: Gymnastics and Sports Before and After World War
2 Competing in Hebrew: Revolutionary Language and the Sporting Presence
3 “Keep Away from the Prima Donnas”: Hebrew Purpose and the Athletic Body
4 “The Whole World Will Know Our Answer”: Sports, Internationalism, and the Jewish Return to History
5 “We Have to Learn to Sacrifice Everything”: Militarism and the Zionist Desire for a Useful Experience
Epilogue

Notes
Bibliography
Index

Erscheinungsdatum	16.10.2025
Verlagsort	New Brunswick NJ
Sprache	englisch
Maße	152 x 229 mm
Gewicht	454 g
Themenwelt	Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Sport
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie ► Mikrosoziologie
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie ► Spezielle Soziologien
ISBN-10	1-9788-4445-X / 197884445X
ISBN-13	978-1-9788-4445-2 / 9781978844452
Zustand	Neuware