Creating the Labor-Zionist Family: Masculinity, Sexuality, and Marriage in Mandate Palestine

In the 1920s and 1930s, ambiguity regarding the interplay between courting, sexual relations, marriage, and the status of parents in these relationships was prevalent in Labor Zionist circles in Palestine. This reflected global trends that gained force in the revolutionary years at the end of and immediately following World War I. It also had much to do with Labor Zionist ideology and political and economic conditions in the growing community of immigrant Jewish workers in Mandate Palestine. In handling this ambiguity and trying to help their members avoid or cope with its worst outcomes, Labor institutions filled the gap left by the missing parents and communities that most of its members had left back in Europe and were instrumental in creating new forms of masculine domination.