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Dancing Between Old Worlds and New

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Dancing Between Old Worlds and New Dancing Between Old Worlds and New: The New Eretz Israeli Jewish Body From a Dancer's Perspective Gdalit-Avidia Neuman A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS GRADUATE PROGRAM IN DANCE YORK UNIVERSITY TORONTO, ONTARIO AUGUST 2011 Library and Archives Bibliotheque et 1*1 Canada Archives Canada Published Heritage Direction du Branch Patrimoine de I'edition 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington OttawaONK1A0N4 Ottawa ON K1A 0N4 Canada Canada Your file Votre r6f6rence ISBN: 978-0-494-80473-5 Our file Notre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-80473-5 NOTICE: AVIS: The author has granted a non­ L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive exclusive license allowing Library and permettant a la Bibliotheque et Archives Archives Canada to reproduce, Canada de reproduire, publier, archiver, publish, archive, preserve, conserve, sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public communicate to the public by par telecommunication ou par I'lnternet, preter, telecommunication or on the Internet, distribuer et vendre des theses partout dans le loan, distribute and sell theses monde, a des fins commerciales ou autres, sur worldwide, for commercial or non­ support microforme, papier, electronique et/ou commercial purposes, in microform, autres formats. paper, electronic and/or any other formats. The author retains copyright L'auteur conserve la propriete du droit d'auteur ownership and moral rights in this et des droits moraux qui protege cette these. Ni thesis. Neither the thesis nor la these ni des extraits substantiels de celle-ci substantial extracts from it may be ne doivent etre imprimes ou autrement printed or otherwise reproduced reproduits sans son autorisation. without the author's permission. In compliance with the Canadian Conformement a la loi canadienne sur la Privacy Act some supporting forms protection de la vie privee, quelques may have been removed from this formulaires secondaires ont ete enleves de thesis. cette these. While these forms may be included Bien que ces formulaires aient inclus dans in the document page count, their la pagination, il n'y aura aucun contenu removal does not represent any loss manquant. of content from the thesis. 1+1 Canada IV ABSTRACT Muscular Judaism, a concept presented by Zionist leader Max Nordau at the Second Zionist Congress of 1898, had far reaching ramifications. One of these was the construction of a new human type; the blond haired, blue eyed, masculine and muscular indigenous/authentic Hebrew person. The Sabra, born in and to his homeland, would be superior to his diasporic ancestors in body and spirit. Through a combination of archival work, media analysis and interviews, the present study traces the gendered New Muscular Jew ideology from turn of the century Central Europe to Eretz Israel through the dance realm. In so doing it demonstrates dance's importance as a medium through which Sabra youth were taught hegemonic characteristics of the ideal New Jew image. Finally, interviews with first generation Sabra dancers were conducted regarding their self image in order to analyze further the relationship between on and off stage performances of Sabra identity. V DEDICATION I would like to dedicate this thesis to my mother, Dr. Manuela Neuman, whose guidance and support were of tremendous importance to me during this process. I would also like to dedicate this project in memory of my beloved grandmother, Mali Cerbu, who was my first and most important teacher. VI ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I thank my thesis supervisor and mentor Professor Danielle Robinson, for her scholarly guidance, support and expertise. Her genuine enthusiasm for my research never wavered. Most of all I thank Professor Robinson for challenging me to think critically every step of the way. I am indebted to my interviewees who generously shared with me their personal stories and reflections over a cup of coffee (or two). I would like to thank the graduate faculty with whom I have had the pleasure and honour of studying during my time as a graduate student at the Department of Dance at York University. Thank you to Professor Paul Frosh and Professor Michal Frenkel of Hebrew University's Rothberg International School for increasing my understanding and aiding me in gaining further insight into Israeli society. I would like to thank librarian/archivists Victoria Chodorkovski and Irena Chenter from the Dance Library of Israel for their, help, enthusiasm and support of my research over the past year. Thank you to Batia Leshem of the Central Zionist Archives and Zippi Rosenne of Beit Hatfutsot for their time and generosity. I would like to thank The Centre for Jewish Studies at York University as well as Canadian Friends of Hebrew University for their generous financial support of my research and studies abroad this year. Thank you to my colleagues and friends at Canada's National Ballet School, who believed in me and gave me the time and space to grow. This research was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council in the form of a Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship- Master's Scholarship Vll TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract iv Dedication v Acknowledgments vi Table of Contents vii List of Figures ix Preface x Introduction 1 1. Researching Culture through the Body 7 1.1 The Body in Eretz Israel 9 1.2 A Body of Work: Israeli Dance and Body Discourses 16 2. Embodiment of Sabra Spirit 21 3. Posture Perfect: The Intersection of Body and Spirit 31 4. The New Muscular Jew as Sabra Dancer 33 5. Dance on Film: Shaping the Sabra through Dance 51 6. Gender and the New Muscular Jew as Dancer 55 6.1 Is Folk Dance Feminine? Gender and the Folk Dance Camp 62 6.2 Common Ground or Gender Bound? Gender and the Dancing of Gertrud Kraus 67 7. Interviews: Sabra Identity, Dance and Self Image 71 7.1 Ayalah Goren-Kadman 73 7.2 Mirali Sharon 79 viii 7.3 Yoav Ashriel 82 7.4 Yonatan Karmon 89 7.5 Interview Analysis: Performing the Sabra 95 8. Conclusion: Muscle Memory 100 9. Notes 104 10. Bibliography 123 10. Appendix A: Glossary of Hebrew Terms 145 11. Appendix B: Supplementary Bibliographic Information on Interviewees 147 ix LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1 Photograph: Sabras dancing...xi Figure 2 Poster: Land for Youth...pg. 25 Figure 3 Photograph from a programme: Dalia Festival... pg. 30 Figure 4 Photograph from a programme: Israel Dance Suite...pg.39 Figures 5 & 6 Photographs: The Songs of the Ghetto....pg. 40 Figures 7& 8 Photographs: Gertrud Kraus dancing in Tel Aviv...pg. 41 Figure 9 Photographs: Gertrud Kraus' company dancing in Tel Aviv...pg. 42 Figure 10 Poster: The New Jew on a stamp...pg. 46 Figure 11 Poster: Hapoel Athletes...pg. 47 Figure 12 Poster: various manifestations of the New Muscular Jew Image...pg. 48 Figure 13 Poster: The New Jew as Dancer...pg.50 Figure 14 Poster: 50 Years to Jewish Physical Culture...pg. 56 Figure 15 Poster: Male and Female New Jews...pg. 70 Figure 16 Photograph: Children of Ein Harod 1930's...pg.71 x PREFACE My generation was at a time of first conquering of Israeliness, and cutting off from the past. We were born into a process of change. A change of identity, a change of names, a change of language, everything in the land followed a dramatic change, the codes of life changed, from religiousness to secularization, from a traditional framework to a nationalist framework of global identity. -Mirali Sharon They called us Tzabarim (Sabras). It was a surprise that children were born in Israel. There are kids and they're alive and they're fine. They educated us according to the ideology, to build the land, pioneering, to survive on very little. They educated us in the pioneering spirit. -Yoav Ashriel The kibbutz was really the most active social cultural establishment/organization, which pushed the creation of something that was original, indigenous, in this country, pre-Israel, in order to say: we too are creating our own indigenous culture and art! -Ayalah Goren-Kadman Figure 1 "The future generation will dance" - Gurit Kadman qtd. in The Palestine Post, 1947 Gurit Kadman Archives Printed with permission from The Dance Library of Israel 1 INTRODUCTION Constructed as the first generation of Jews born in the Land of Israel, the Sabras were viewed as a triumphant achievement of Zionist ideology. They represented the realization of a 2,000-year-old Jewish dream to return to Zion (the biblical name of Jerusalem and by extension of Israel) and live autonomously in the land of their biblical forefathers. This generation,1 born in the Yishuv (the name of the Jewish community in the pre-state) was distinguished from that of their parents', the pioneering Chalutzim (Jewish Zionist pioneers) generation, which bridged the gap between the old world and the new. In contrast, the Sabras were conceptualized as authentic natives; born in and to their homeland. Furthermore, they came to represent the total and complete embodiment of the 'New Muscular Jew,' a concept invented by the physician Dr. Max Nordau, one of Zionism's most important advocates, as a response to the anti-Semitic image of the European Jew as physically weak and effeminate. In the sections to follow I will track the New Muscular Jew image, from its inception during Nordau's speech at the Second Zionist Congress of 18982 to its manifestation, several decades later, as an important marker of Sabra identity in the dance realm. This is of relevance because, "by looking at dance we can see enacted on a broad scale, and codified fashion, socially constituted and historically specific attitudes toward the body in general, toward specific social groups' usage of the body in particular, and about the relationships among variously marked bodies..." (Desmond 32).
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