Middle Eastern and North African Jewish Masculinities: Bodies of Knowledge across Generations and Geographies

The chapter introduces the volume Middle Eastern and North African Jewish Masculinities: Bodies of Knowledge across Generations and Geographies, which examines how Jewish masculinities from the MENA region are formed, negotiated, and changed across time, places, and languages. Moving from the late Ottoman era through Israeli statehood to today’s diasporas, it shows how migration, displacement, and cultural translation reshape fatherhood, labour, queerness, and writing. Using gender studies, history, and literary analysis, the essays presents MENA Jewish masculinity as a mobile, embodied concept – reimagined across empires, memories, and geographies.