IOSR Journal Of Humanities And Social Science (IOSR-JHSS) Volume 16, Issue 5 (Sep. - Oct. 2013), PP 85-91 e-ISSN: 2279-0837, p-ISSN: 2279-0845. www.Iosrjournals.Org www.iosrjournals.org 85 | Page Evolutionary Aesthetics and the Hebrew Male Body: Study of the Zionist metamorphosis of the Jewish masculine body and the birth of the “muscle Jew” Yosra Amraoui Abstract: The ancient history of the Jewish people testifies of many a reference to forced exiles imposed on the Jews resulting in a centuries-long journey of wandering and persecution that culminated in the Nazi Holocaust of the 20 th century. It is argued by theorists of the body that this history of non-resistance on the part of the Jews affected the physiognomy of the Jewish male in such a tremendous manner that physically transformed the stature of the Jew into one that is frail, short-sized and pale. It was not until the late 19 th century that the Jewish thinker Max Nordau (co-founder of the World Zionist Organization and close friend to Theodor Herzl) introduced the image of the “muscle Jew” at the Second Zionist Congress held in 1898 as an idealistic aspiration necessary to the realization of the Zionist scheme. “Muscular Judaism” then evolved into a body of studies and theories that examined the role of history and collective memory in the physical “regeneration” of the male Jewish body into one that is militarily fit to fight for self reaffirmation. This paper purposefully introduces the background of this body of theories and literature and frames it within the field of evolutionary aesthetics for a better demonstration of the journey accompanying the metamorphosis of the male Jewish body for Zionist and political ends. The present study also examines the related implications of this physical change on the birth of the concept of the “New Hebrew Man” and on the violent behavior of Israeli military recruits in the years preceding and following the creation of Israel in 1948. Key words: evolutionary aesthetics – metamorphosis – muscular Judaism – the new Hebrew man The vast field of evolutionary aesthetics stipulates that “all adaptations are aesthetic adaptations, because all adaptations interact in some way with the environment, external or internal, and prefer certain states to others.” (Thornhill 9) 1 The human body, among other aesthetic manifestations of life, evolves thus in sync with the evolution/devolution of the milieu and the conditions surrounding it which is why it is essential to cast a look upon the history of the body under study before commenting on its metamorphosis. As a complement to evolutionary aesthetics, there exists a recent field of revolutionary aesthetics that presents itself as a form of “protest and social metamorphosis for the re-humanisation in a given social matrix.” (Nwagbara 9) This paper examines the metamorphosis of the Jewish body within the broad fields of evolutionary and revolutionary aesthetics in an attempt at highlighting the impact of the traumatic history of the Jews on the devolution and then in the evolution of the Jewish male body throughout history. As the Jews suffered both at the moral and physical levels due to a long history of oppression and persecution, it is interestingly argued that this centuries-long suffering affected the physiognomy of the Jewish male at the long run and was one of the causes why Eastern Jews in particular were viewed as a passive and an easy prey to severe discrimination in their host countries. A close look at the history of Jewish persecution from the 11 th to the 20 th century provides for ground to assert that the Jewish life style transformed greatly from decent and/or average into a ghetto-life style. The incessant wandering and the history of expulsions only worsened the poor conditions in which the Jews lived with their families and sealed their acceptance of the oppression directed at them until the rise of the Zionist movement. Moreover, and as argued by Patricia Vertinsky in her article “Anti-Semitism, Physical Culture and the Jews‟ Foot,” anti-Semitic thinking led a considerable number of scientists and thinkers—mainly of German origins 2 —to start a wave of stereotypes against the Jews regarding the latter‟s short size or short arm length or even related to the so-called Jews‟ effeminate way of speaking. Some studies reported that the average height of Jewish males was 1,610 mm; therefore they were considered a lot shorter than non Jewish Ukrainian or Polish males, which was also a drive for governments to consider them unfit for military service. As to the effeminate allure of the Jewish male body, scientists linked it to a noticeable short arm length. As anthropologists usually calculate the length of stretched arms in comparison with the body height they noticed that in the case of male Jews, “the distance between the tip of the middle fingers of their [the Jews‟] left and right hands was 4,3cm 1 Randy Thornhill. “Darwinian Aesthetics Informs Traditional Aesthetics” published in the volume Evolutionary Aesthetics edited by Eckart Voland and Karl Grammer, p9 (2003) 2 Such as M. Englander, H. Hoppe, A. Kiefer, H. Singer and A. Elkind