Muscular Jews: Young England, gender and Jewishness in Disraeli's “political trilogy”
In Tough Jews, a recent study of the sexual politics of Zionism, Paul Breines describes the genesis of Jewish nationalism as uthe historic break with the culture of Jewish meekness and gentleness and the beginnings of a tough Jewish counterculture." Breines sees the context of "the emergence of a tough Jewish imagery at the turn of the century [as] an extension of the Jewish nationalist awakening of the period [and]... a logical outcome of the larger nationalist dynamic" sweeping contemporary Europe. He argues that it derives from a reaction against as well as a reflection of European nationalisms: "The racial and bodily dimension of much of turn-of-the-century nationalist anti-Semitism was a decisive factor in the emergence of Jewish ideals of toughness, courage and physicality. Modern, postreligious, racial anti-Semitism presented a double image of the Jew: first, as the wielder of immense economic power and, through it, of secret but extensive control of the world's political systems, and second, as physically weak, repulsive, and cowardly."1 Breines is right to locate the invention of a new masculinized Jewish body within the context of widespread aspirations towards the body politic at the end of the nineteenth century. In this essay, however, I would like to trace some of these currents back to an earlier moment in discussions about national identity in nineteenth-century England. Examining the writings of Benjamin Disraeli in the 1830s and 40s, and in particular his representations of "tough Jews," I will be looking at connections between masculinity, Jewishness and English national identity.
Israeli Disraeli: Benjamin Disraeli's Afterlives in Israeli Culture
ABSTRACT:Building on the work of scholars who have examined how Benjamin Disraeli's Jewish roots affected his life, career, and public reception in Britain, the present article considers how these Jewish elements were understood and represented in the Hebrew culture emerging in Eretz Yisrael—from early Zionist settlement in the 1880s, through the Mandate period, to the founding of Israel in 1948 and beyond. Exploring a broad range of cultural arenas, the article traces intricate responses to Disraeli's political style and imperial vision, to his conversion and myth of Jewish racial superiority, and to his art, both as novelist and political performer. While Disraeli's proto-Zionism was celebrated in Israel, at least up to the 1950s, other elements of Disraeli's persona and thought were suppressed or treated ambivalently—often the result of ideological fault-lines. Attempting to explain these reactions, the article concludes by demonstrating how performances of "Dizzy" still echo in contemporary Israeli political culture.
Communist History: An Annual Bibliography (2005)
The subject of this bibliography is the scholarly literature of communist history. For the USA coverage is extensive. For the rest of the Anglophone world coverage is selective, while coverage for the rest of the world is more selective still. Coverage of the former and presently communist countries is largely limited to works dealing with the Communist parties of those countries. Anti-communism is covered selectively, with somewhat more emphasis on its interaction with communism than its nature as a movement/ideology per se. Coverage of related topics, i.e. the labor movement, Marxism, other strains of radicalism, etc., is highly selective and limited to items directly relevant to communism. For coverage of current reportage (newspapers, news weeklies, journals of opinion, Internet/WWW discussion lists, etc.) see the Newsletter of the Historians of American Communism and the Historians of American Communism Discussion List (h-hoac@h-net.msu.edu). The Bibliography is organized into seven sections, listed below. Sections 1–5 are form and genre based (monographs, serials, etc.), while sections 6 and 7 are format based (sound and visual, electronic). Entries are arranged alphabetically within each section. Where the number of entries warrants it, a section is divided into USA and Other. There is no index. Please be aware that most citations for items in electronic format are listed under their appropriate form/genre, i.e. articles in electronic serials are listed under serials. Section 7 (Internet, WWW, etc.) only contains citations for items in forms and genres irreducibly unique to the electronic environment, i.e. discussion lists (and postings and threads therein) and for those web sites and other electronic resources not subsumed under categories 1–7. Items cited are from the calendar year in the title of the Bibliography, with two exceptions, Internet/WWW items, where publication/creation date information is often unavailable or indeterminate, and older items not cited