Muscular Judaism: The Jewish Body and the Politics of Regeneration » (New Edition)

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.

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