We are here to bring the west, not only to ourselves: Zionist occidentalism and the discourse of hygiene in mandate palestine

Thus wrote Dr. Asher Goldstein in the Hebrew daily paper Haaretz (The Land) in 1935, lamenting the disregard for hygiene among Palestine's Jews. In Goldstein's text, hygiene is metonymic to Western progress, which the Jews were to bring with them to Palestine. Yet the Jews in this text occupy an ambivalent position: they are not only to bring the West to the entire backward Orient but also to themselves. A hygienic way of life, far from being a secured component in their cultural compendium, is presented as a goal yet to be achieved. Indeed, it constituted a project in which Dr. Goldsteinauthor of several hygiene manuals and editor of the health column in Haaretzplayed an important role.