The Role of Homosociality in Palestinian Hebrew Literature: A Case Study of Levi Aryeh Arieli's Yeshimon

Taking the ubiquitous presence of homoerotic elements in early twentieth-century Hebrew literature as its starting point, this article argues that these elements, rather than pointing to the existence of an active Jewish homosexual subculture, frequently functioned as part of a disciplinary system intended to reshape Hebrew literature's predominately male readership for more effective participation in the Zionist program. Many Zionists, like other contemporaneous nationalists, imagined a direct correlation between a nation's health and maintenance of proper masculine norms by its male members. Viewing the Jewish people as sick, Zionists, including many Hebrew writers, looked to return the nation to health through transformation of its men. While earlier discussions of this attempted transformation have focused on efforts to transform the male body, this article will argue that literature was used to bring about changes in Jewish male behavior. Drawing on the presence of homosociality, or the relations between men, at the heart of both Zionist commitment and homosexual relations, Hebrew texts exploited their male readers' fear of being stigmatized as homosexuals to push them toward behavior considered best suited to the accomplishment of collective aims. The article employs Levi Aryeh Arieli's novella Yeshimon (Wasteland) to demonstrate how Hebrew texts, including seemingly decadent ones, functioned in support of nationalist goals.