Beyond Flesh : Queer Masculinities and Nationalism in Israeli Cinema

Yosef, Raz. "Beyond Flesh: Queer Masculinities and Nationalism in Israeli Cinema", Rutgers University Press, 2004. Marginalizing Queerness for National Good Amos Lassen It has only been recent that Israel's cinema industry has become part of the world-wide movie business. When the state of Israel was established in 1948, making movies was far from a priority for the new country; it was more important to create a national identity. Zionism, the backbone of the nation was both a political and ideological program and movie making included a sexual identity which the country was not ready to embrace. When the country was ready to become involved in the world of cinema, the creation of a national identity caused all aspects of sexuality, including queerness to be marginalized. It was felt that the Jewish male body had to be nationalized and rescued from the polemics of anti-Semitism, scientific-medical discourse associating homosexuality with disease, madness, degeneracy, sexual perversity and felinity. The Zionist movement wanted to transform the nature of European Jewish masculinity and the early films that were made emphasized through both visual and narrative tropes the image of the super-masculine and militaristic-nation builder and this image depended heavily on the repudiation of the feminine side of men. The new macho Jewish male became intertwined with attitudes of fathering children, racial improvement, masculine hygiene and perspectives from the Orient. This, in a sense, marginalized the population of Israel that came from the East--the Arab countries and north Africa. The new masculine Jewish male was Ashkenazi. Raz Yosef critiques the construction of masculinities and queerness in modern Israeli cinema and thereby successfully undertakes an investigation of male sexuality within the national culture of modern Israel. His book critically explores the complex and crucial role that Israeli cinema plays in the construction of heterosexual masculinity and how the homosexual element within Israel is marginalized in the attempt to build a national masculine identity. "Beyond Flesh" suggests a mode for the investigation of the role of male sexualities within a national culture and challenges the tendency that lies within modern critical discourses to look at race, sexuality and nationalism as separate issues. Raz claims that these must intersect and thereby open a space in between these categories in which subjectivity exists.

Raz Yosef explores Israeli cinemas role in the creation of national identity and the complex ways the marginalization of queerness became necessary to that goal.

Zionism was not only a political and ideological program but also a sexual one. The liberation of Jews and creation of a new nation were closely intertwined with a longing for the redemption and normalization of the Jewish male body. That body had to be rescued from anti-Semitic, scientific-medical discourse associating it with disease, madness, degeneracy, sexual perversity, and femininityeven with homosexuality. The Zionist movement was intent on transforming the very nature of European Jewish masculinity as it had existed in the diaspora. Zionist/Israeli films expressed this desire through visual and narrative tropes, enforcing the image of the hypermasculine, colonialist-explorer and militaristic nation-builder, an image dependent on the homophobic repudiation of the "feminine" within men.

The creation of a new heterosexual Jewish man was further intertwined with attitudes on the breeding of children, bodily hygiene, racial improvement, and Orientalist perspectiveswhich associated the East, and especially Eastern bodies, with unsanitary practices, plagues, disease, and sexual perversity. By stigmatizing Israels Eastern populations as agents of death and degeneration, Zionism created internal biologized enemies, against whom the Zionist society had to defend itself. In the name of securing the life and reproduction of the new Ashkenazi Jewry, Israeli society discriminated against both its internal enemies, the Palestinians, and its own citizens, the Mizrahim (Oriental Jews).

Yosefs critique of the construction of masculinities and queerness in Israeli cinema and culture also serves as a model for the investigation of the role of male sexuality within national culture in general.

1 The Zionist Body Master Narrative 16 -- 2 Cannon Fodder: National Death, Homoeroticism, And Male Masochism In The Military Film 48 -- 3 The Invention Of Mizrahi Masculinity 84 -- 4 Homoland: Interracial Sex And The Israeli/palestinian Conflict 118 -- 5 The New Queers: Sexual Orientation In The Eighties And Nineties 142. Raz Yosef. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 173-189), Filmography (p. 191-192) And Index.