Ofer Idels – författare

Is the history of emotions a methodology or a subject? What is the relationship between emotions and culture? What role does the body play in the human experience? Addressing these questions and more, this element emphasizes the often-overlooked role of emotional and sensory experiences when examining the Zionist experience in the early twentieth century. Focusing on the visceral and embodied historical aspects of the linguistic modernization of Hebrew, it argues that recent cultural studies on Jewish daily life in Palestine have reached an impasse, which the history of emotions could help us overcome. Interpreting Zionist texts not solely as symbolic myths but as a historical, lived experience, this element advocates for the significance of the history of emotions and experience as an innovative methodology with profound ethical implications for our polarized era.

Is the history of emotions a methodology or a subject? What is the relationship between emotions and culture? What role does the body play in the human experience? Addressing these questions and more, this element emphasizes the often-overlooked role of emotional and sensory experiences when examining the Zionist experience in the early twentieth century. Focusing on the visceral and embodied historical aspects of the linguistic modernization of Hebrew, it argues that recent cultural studies on Jewish daily life in Palestine have reached an impasse, which the history of emotions could help us overcome. Interpreting Zionist texts not solely as symbolic myths but as a historical, lived experience, this element advocates for the significance of the history of emotions and experience as an innovative methodology with profound ethical implications for our polarized era.

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.