Books by Ofer Idels
Rutgers University Press, 2025
This original and thought-provoking study offers a fresh perspective on Zionism by exploring Heb... more 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.
Cambridge University Press, 2024
Is the history of emotions a methodology or a subject? What is the relationship between emotions ... more 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.
Articles by Ofer Idels
Humor: International Journal of Humor Research, 2024
Offering an inaugural analysis of Israeli Nonsense, this article explores humor, globalization, a... more Offering an inaugural analysis of Israeli Nonsense, this article explores humor, globalization, and Israeli identity since the early 1990s. Israeli Nonsense, a particular form of humor, emerged during Israel’s rapid shift towards neoliberal privatization and globalization. Influenced by the growing popularity of standup comedy and the rise of new commercial television channels, it became a distinctive humor style in an era marked by optimism and “normalization.” It quickly formed nostalgic classics, leaving a lasting impact on contemporary Israeli humor. Through interviews, newspaper excerpts, and sketch analysis, we identify five key attributes of Israeli Nonsense: (1) improvisation, (2) linguistic humor, (3) physical humor, (4) nostalgia, and (5) non-politicization. By challenging existing interpretations of 1990s Israeli culture and nonsense as “elitist” with anti-national and non-ideological tendencies, we highlight the popular manifestations of Israeli Nonsense to demonstrate that this distinct humor did not adopt a consciously critical and cynical stance towards society and culture but embodied an optimistic and empathetic attitude toward local identity in the age of globalization.
This special issue of The Journal of The Historical Society of Israel comprises five articles exp... more This special issue of The Journal of The Historical Society of Israel comprises five articles exploring the history of modern sports. This introductory article delves into the ambivalence surrounding modern sports, highlighting its dual nature as both a mass-consumption product and an ostensibly universal and "pure" ideal. Within the framework of this paradox, the article places special emphasis on historiographical inquiries. It surveys and analyzes various responses from historians and other scholars to one of the most popular phenomena of the twenty-first century, modern sports.
Journal of Modern Jewish Studies , 2021
During the interwar years, competitive sport become a global phenomenon, in which competitive gam... more During the interwar years, competitive sport become a global phenomenon, in which competitive games were organized by international bodies and professional athletes performed as (inter)national icons of health, beauty, and social success. The following article explores the nature of this transnational change in one particular place: the Jewish community of Mandate Palestine. By focusing primarily on two Zionist athletic delegations (male and female), the paper illustrates the particular way in which the Hebrew worldview positioned athletic performance within its emerging national project. Specifically, it highlights the way in which, unlike the athletes of many other societies at the time, the Hebrew athlete was not embraced as a national symbol. In incorporating the story of the Hebrew athlete’s marginalization, the article advances a necessary (re)examination of “big” Zionist phrases - like “new Jew” or “Muscular Judaism” - not as mere clichés, but in their historical context, as powerful reflections through which a specific group of people perceived themselves and their bodies.
![Research paper thumbnail of ‘Can We Call Gymnastics a Sport?’: The Inception of Competitive Sports in the Yishuv and the Limitations of Zionist Periodization [in Hebrew]](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/66069072/thumbnails/1.jpg)
Israel , 2021
The historiography of Zionism marks two pivotal moments in the relationship between sports and Zi... more The historiography of Zionism marks two pivotal moments in the relationship between sports and Zionism: Max Nordau’s ‘Muscular Judaism’ speech at the second Zionist Congress, and the establishment of the first Maccabi club in Palestine in 1906. In contrast to this common research assumption, I argue that the cultural and social significance of sport in the yishuv began only after the First World War. Based on recent historical writing on sports, which emphasizes the rapid globalization of modern sports during the interwar period, I show that sports, with their primary focus on competition, were a dramatic deviation from the notions and ideas of physical culture (primarily gymnastics) that were
common in pre-war Hebrew culture. Thus, through a discussion of the inception of modern sports in Palestine, the article provides and new historical base for the study of Jewish sport in Palestine that joins a growing literature that seeks to analyze Zionism and Hebrew culture in a broader historical context than the isolated and limited ‘Jewish perspective’ of classical Zionist historiography.
![Research paper thumbnail of Imagined Games: Sport, The Yishuv and the XI Olympiad, 1931-1936 [in Hebrew]](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/67347795/thumbnails/1.jpg)
Cathedra, 2018
The XI Olympiad, mostly known today as the 'Nazi Olympics', is one of the most controversial even... more The XI Olympiad, mostly known today as the 'Nazi Olympics', is one of the most controversial events in the history of modern sports. As a result, the event
has attracted a great deal of interest on the part of the academic world. Two of the issues that are dealt with in much of the rich historiography about the 1936 Olympics are the attempts to boycott the games and the question of Jewish participation and discrimination. Despite the relevance of Jewish society in Palestine to these questions, research has not yet adequately addressed the Yishuv's perception of the 'Nazi Olympics'. Using official documents, newspaper articles, and other publications, the article argues that the Yishuv’s perceptions of the event were not derived only from a general conflict between Jews and Zionism on the one hand and Nazism and Anti-Semitism on the other. Rather, opinions were also influenced by internal political struggles in the Yishuv itself, and by multiple European ideologies of physical culture.
Book Reviews by Ofer Idels
Journal of Sport History, 2022
Encyclopedia Entry by Ofer Idels
"Zionism" [encyclopedic entry] 1914-1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War, ed. issued by Freie Universität Berlin
An encyclopedia entry for '1914-1918-online: International Encyclopedia of the First World War', ... more An encyclopedia entry for '1914-1918-online: International Encyclopedia of the First World War', ed. issued by Freie Universität Berlin
Invited Publications by Ofer Idels
Helene Mayer: Zuschreibung und Aneignung eines Sportstars", Never Walk Alone: Jüdische Identitäten im Sport (Jewish Museum Munich, 2017), 123-126.
Public Academia by Ofer Idels
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Books by Ofer Idels
Articles by Ofer Idels
common in pre-war Hebrew culture. Thus, through a discussion of the inception of modern sports in Palestine, the article provides and new historical base for the study of Jewish sport in Palestine that joins a growing literature that seeks to analyze Zionism and Hebrew culture in a broader historical context than the isolated and limited ‘Jewish perspective’ of classical Zionist historiography.
has attracted a great deal of interest on the part of the academic world. Two of the issues that are dealt with in much of the rich historiography about the 1936 Olympics are the attempts to boycott the games and the question of Jewish participation and discrimination. Despite the relevance of Jewish society in Palestine to these questions, research has not yet adequately addressed the Yishuv's perception of the 'Nazi Olympics'. Using official documents, newspaper articles, and other publications, the article argues that the Yishuv’s perceptions of the event were not derived only from a general conflict between Jews and Zionism on the one hand and Nazism and Anti-Semitism on the other. Rather, opinions were also influenced by internal political struggles in the Yishuv itself, and by multiple European ideologies of physical culture.
Book Reviews by Ofer Idels
Encyclopedia Entry by Ofer Idels
Invited Publications by Ofer Idels
Public Academia by Ofer Idels