“We Are Here to Bring the West, Not Only to Ourselves”: Zionist Occidentalism and the Discourse of Hygiene in Mandate Palestine

Abstract

Thus wrote Dr. Asher Goldstein in the Hebrew daily paper Haʾaretz (The Land) in 1935, lamenting the disregard for hygiene among Palestine's Jews. In Goldstein's text, hygiene is metonymic to Western progress, which the Jews were to bring with them to Palestine. Yet the Jews in this text occupy an ambivalent position: they are not only to bring the West to the “entire backward Orient” but also to themselves. A hygienic way of life, far from being a secured component in their cultural compendium, is presented as a goal yet to be achieved. Indeed, it constituted a project in which Dr. Goldstein—author of several hygiene manuals and editor of the health column in Haʾaretz—played an important role.

Zionist identity and the British Mandate: Palestine's internment camps and the making of the Western native

“…In the common triad, the presence of the Arab allowed the European Jews to assert “Western” characteristics, by highlighting essential differences between themselves and the “Oriental” actor. This mechanism allowed the European Jews to obscure long‐lasting differences—real or imagined—between them and Euro‐Christian actors (Bar‐Yosef, ; Eyal, ; Hirsch, ; Khazzoom, ). However, Zionist efforts to ascribe native and Oriental attributes to the Arab contradicted a fundamental Zionist tenet, their historical right to the land that was Palestine.…”

The Arabian Mission in Kuwait, 1910–67: Effects of Modern Medicine on Women's Healing Practices and Ideals of Womanhood

“…75 As Hirsch discusses in the case of hygiene movements targeting Mizrahim in Mandate Palestine, understanding the essential nature of the Orient serves to define the Occident. 76 This section discusses midwifery as a gendered branch of traditional medicine. The entry of modern medicine into Kuwait with the mission's arrival affected both midwives and local women who relied on them.…”

The road to ‘Yerussalem’ –Asteraiand the Hebrew literature of Beta Israel

“…The perception of hygiene frequently divides the west from what is not western (Hirsch, 2009). Following that approach, the immigrants (who are not western) are perceived as dirty and carrying sickness, so a safe distance must be kept from them (by disposing of their blood, for instance).…”