Settler colonialism requires climate change: Netta Cohen, ‘Changing Climates: Zionist Medical Climatology in Palestine, 1897-1948’, in Sander L. Gilman (ed.), Jews and Science, Purdue University Press, 2022, pp. 205-228 | settler colonial studies blog

Settler colonialism requires climate change: Netta Cohen, ‘Changing Climates: Zionist Medical Climatology in Palestine, 1897-1948’, in Sander L. Gilman (ed.), Jews and Science, Purdue University Press, 2022, pp. 205-228

21Nov22

Abstract: This essay focuses on Zionist medical perceptions concerning the climate in Palestine from the establishment of the Zionist Organization in 1897 to the founding of the State of Israel in 1948. During this period Zionist medical approaches towards the climatic conditions in Palestine were not always consistent and they tended to reflect the general shift in Zionist perceptions towards both the Jewish body as well as the new Jewish homeland. More precisely, as we shall see, the aim of establishing a settler nation among European Jews was, at first, based on a romantic belief in an autochthonous belonging to the land. Thus, at the turn of the twentieth century many Zionist leaders and thinkers attempted to highlight what they perceived as an “organic” link between the Jewish people and the environmental conditions in Palestine. However, following the actual encounter of Jewish settlers with the natural realities of Palestine—especially after the establishment of the British Mandate in 1921, the increasing immigration of urban middle class European Jewish refugees during the interwar period, and the emergence of the Arab-Jewish conflict in this territory—discussions on climate gradually lost their romantic attributes and instead became associated with colonial scientific ideas on the perceived dangerous implications of non-temperate climates on Jewish European bodies and minds.

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