Join Rabbi Marc Katz for a powerful and unexpected conversation with historian Ofer Idels author of Embodying the Revolution: The Hebrew Experience and the Globalization of Modern Sports in Interwar Palestine (Rutgers UP, 2025).
This episode dives into a fascinating paradox at the heart of modern Jewish history:
Why did Zionism—especially during the era of “muscular Judaism”—remain deeply ambivalent about sports?
Drawing on rich archival research and contemporary theory, Idels reveals a surprising story of Mandate Palestine, where athletes rarely became national heroes and sports never fully transformed into symbols of collective pride. This is more than a history of sports—it’s a conversation about selfhood, revolution, ideology, and the compromises embedded in every national dream. If you care about Zionism, Jewish culture, modern identity, or the meaning of revolution, this is an episode you won’t want to miss.
Ofer Idels is the Jenny Belzberg Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Calgary, Canada. He is the author of Zionism: Emotions, Language and Experience.
Rabbi Marc Katz is the author of Yochanan's Gamble: Judaism's Pragmatic Approach to Life.
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