Dr. Matan Boord
- Modern Jewish History: Migration, Nation Building and the “New Jew”
- Emotions in cultural, political, Social and Everyday Life history
- Gender, Masculinities and the History of the Family
- Israel/Palestine: Social and Cultural impacts of Settlement Processes in Colonial Settings
- Cultural history of Warfare
CV
Dr. Matan Boord is a social and cultural historian of modern Jewish migration and nation-building in Palestine, examining the links between everyday life and major political and military developments. His forthcoming first book, Masters of the House: Labor Zionist Masculinity in Mandate Palestine (Ben-Zvi Institute and McGill-Queen’s UP), uses masculinity and the family as lenses to understand Labor Zionism’s rise to hegemony. As a Marie Skłodowska-Curie postdoctoral fellow, previously at Harvard University’s Center for Jewish Studies and now at Bar-Ilan University’s Program for Hermeneutics and Cultural Studies, he is writing his second book, Wandering Souls: Emotional Styles and the Emergence of the “New Jew” in Palestine, 1891-1948.
Research
Masters of the House: Labor Zionist Masculinity in Mandate Palestine offers a comprehensive history of several early Yishuv masculinities. Despite the labor movement’s ideological commitment to egalitarian family structures and freedom from traditional roles, this study reveals how its dominant urban factions had established a consensus by the late 1920s around an androcentric model centered on the nuclear family and a strict gender division of labor. Drawing on a vast array of sources, the book utilizes R.W. Connell’s theory of masculinities to analyze the intimate struggles that lie at the roots of Israeli masculinity.
My current research explores the emotional styles—culturally accepted ways to experience and express emotions—that developed in the Jewish community in Palestine during the first half of the twentieth century. Drawing on recent developments in the history of emotions, the book argues that debates over which emotions to experience and how to express them were central to the Yishuv’s social, cultural, and political life. It argues that while emotional restraint became a dominant ideal linked to the so-called “new Jew,” it was constantly contested by alternative styles. Weaving together intellectual history, the history of science and education, the history of everyday life, and political and military history, the book places emotions at the center of Jewish and Israeli history. At the same time, it makes a significant contribution to understanding the role of emotions in modern colonial and nation-building contexts.
Courses
| 2022–2023 | Instructor, The Program for Hermeneutics and Cultural Studies, Bar-Ilan University. Course name: “Essential reading in the History of Emotions” (year-long graduate students’ seminar). |
2020–2021
| Teaching Fellow, Tel Aviv University, Department of History, with Prof. Iris Rachamimov. Course name (graduate-students level): “Queer History”. The course was listed in the practice-oriented cluster of the curriculum, meant to connect students with civil society organizations operating in the course’s topic area and evaluate them on their activity as well as on academic performance. |
| 2018–2021 | Lecturer, Tel-Hai College. Courses names (B.A./M.A. levels): “The Rise and Fall of the Zionist Left”; “Masculinity and Sexuality in Zionism and the State of Israel”; “Local History and Our Location in History.” |
| 2017–2018 | Lecturer, Sapir College. Course name (B.A. level): “Local History and Our Location in History.” |
| 2009–2010 | Teaching Assistant, Haifa University, Department of Israel Studies. Assisted Prof. Motti Golani in teaching the course “Introduction to the History of the Land of Israel in the 20th Century” and ran the discussion group for the course. |
Publications
Books
1. M. Boord. Wandering Souls: Emotional Styles and the Emergence of the “New Jew” in Palestine, 1891-1948 (in progress).
2. M. Boord. Masters of the House: Labor Zionist Masculinity in Mandate Palestine, The Ben-Zvi Institute Press (Hebrew). Forthcoming 2025. *** An English version under tentative contract with McGill-Queen’s University Press.
Published peer-reviewed articles
3. M. Boord and H. Shoham (2025). ““Sometimes your heart fills to bursting”: “The New Jew” and Narratives of Emotional Restraint in the Yishuv.” The Journal of Israeli History, pp. 1-23. https://doi.org/10.1080/13531042.2024.2444017
4. M. Boord and H. Shoham (2024). “Sentimentality in the Mandate-Era Yishuv” (Hebrew), Zion 90, pp. 193-218.
5. M. Boord (2023). “Fatherhood in Labor Zionist Children’s Literature: Space, Masculinity and Hegemony in Mandate Palestine,” Gender and History 35, no. 1: 267-286. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1468-0424.12561.
6. M. Boord (2017). “Creating the Labor-Zionist Family: Masculinity, Sexuality and Marriage in Mandate Palestine,” Jewish Social Studies, 22.3, pp. 38–67. https://muse.jhu.edu/article/662546.
7. M. Boord (2016). “Professionals and Politicians: Labor Zionist Urban Men and the ‘New Jew’ in Mandate Palestine” (Hebrew), Israel 24, pp. 301–327. http://humanities1.tau.ac.il/zionism/images/Israel24/Boord.pdf.
8. M. Boord (2013). “The Attitude of the Jordan Valley’s Halutzim to the Jews of Tiberias in the First Two Decades of Labor Zionism” (Hebrew), Israel 21, pp. 61–85. http://humanities1.tau.ac.il/zionism/images/Israel21_Boord.pdf.
Manuscripts under review for publication in peer-reviewed Journals
9. M. Boord. “Rational Care for the Sentimental Child: Emotional Styles and Professional Instruction of Caregivers in Mandatory Palestine.” (submitted 25 April 2025, Journal of Contemporary History).
Published non-peer-reviewed articles
10. M. Boord (2020). “The Nuclear Family” (Hebrew), Mafte’akh — Lexical Review of Political Thought, pp. 167–169. https://did.li/JI5YH.
11. M. Boord (2016). “Chedva versus Zelig and Vice Versa: The Histadrut’s Comrades Courts and Gender Relations in Mandate Palestine” (Hebrew), The Social History Workshop Blog, 7.9.2016, http://www.haaretz.co.il/blogs/sadna/1.3061678.
Book Reviews
12. M. Boord (2024). Review of Andreas Krass, Moshe Sluhovsky, and Yuval Yonay (eds.), Queer Jewish Lives between Central Europe and Mandatory Palestine: Biographies and Geographies. Studies in Contemporary Jewry XXXIV.
13. M. Boord (2020). Review of Philip Hollander, From Schlemiel to Sabra: Zionist Masculinity and Palestinian Hebrew Literature. Political Theology. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1462317X.2020.1753291.
14. M. Boord (2014). “The Roots of the Zionist-Feminist Struggle,” Review of Margalit Shilo, The Zionist Women’s Struggle for Suffrage in Mandatory Palestine, 1917–1926. Ha’aretz book supplement, 1.4.2014, https://www.haaretz.co.il/literature/study/.premium-1.2283443.
Professional Reports
15. M. Boord (2023). “Industrial Democracy: Professional Overview” (Hebrew), Arlozorov Forum, https://www.arlozforum.org/post/10003-1.
16. M. Boord (2023). “Industrial Democracy in Israel: Policy Paper” (Hebrew), Arlozorov Forum.
Invited lectures
M. Boord (January 2022). “Masculinity in the Urban Labor Movement in Mandate Palestine” (Hebrew). Presentation at the Research Seminar on Feminism and Gender, The Open University of Israel.
M. Boord (March 2021). “Men of the House: Labor Zionist Masculinity in Mandate Palestine.” Presentation at The Taub Center for Israel Studies, NYU.
Matan Boord (November 2018). “Masculinity and Family Life in Mandatory Palestine” (Hebrew). Panel presentation in “Women and Gender in Mediterranean Spaces” conference, Sapir College and TAU.
Papers at International Conferences (Selected)
June 2024. “Parents’ Guides and the Creation of ‘New” Domestic Emotions for Jewish Migrants in Mandate Palestine”. Panel presentation at the North American Chapter of the History of Emotions (NACHE) Conference, The University of British Columbia.
December 2023. “Parents’ Guides and the Creation of “New” Domestic Emotions for Jewish Immigrants to Mandate Palestine”. Panel presentation at the annual conference of the Association for Jewish Studies (AJS), San Francisco.
December 2022. “Sentimentaliut in Mandate Palestine’s Hebrew Press and the History of Modern Jewish Emotions.” Panel presentation at the AJS, Boston.
June 2021. “The History of Emotions in Zionist and Israeli Historiography.” Panel presentation (virtual) at the annual conference of the Association for Israel Studies (AIS), University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
December 2020. “The Nuclear Family and Social Policy: From Contemporary Israel to Mandate Palestine and Back to the Present.” Panel presentation (virtual) at the AJS conference.
June 2019. “Extra-Marital Relations of Labor-Zionist Officials in Mandate Palestine: Gender, Class and Letter Writing.” Panel presentation at the AIS conference, Kinneret College.
December 2018. “Home and Away: Space and the Construction of Normative Fatherhood in Labor Zionist Children's Literature in Mandate Palestine.” Panel presentation at the AJS conference, Boston.
August 2017. “Attempts to Establish Romantic Relations among Histadrut Members in Mandate Palestine.” Panel presentation at the 17th World Congress of Jewish Studies, Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
June 2016. “Domestic Violence in Jewish Labor Circles in Mandate Palestine.” Panel presentation at the AIS conference, Jerusalem.
December 2015. “Masculinity and the Domestic Division of Labor: The Case of the Jewish Labor Movement in Mandate Palestine.” Panel presentation at the AJS conference, Boston.
December 2014. “Creating the Labor-Zionist Family: Masculinity, Sexuality and Marriage in Mandatory Palestine.” Panel presentation at the AJS conference, Baltimore.
June 2014. “Fatherly Feelings: Labor-Zionist Urban Masculinities in Times of War.” Panel presentation at the AIS conference, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Sede Boker.
Presentations at International Workshops (Selected)
January 2025. “‘A Wandering Soul, A Spirit and Its Abyss’: Jewish Soldiers in Palestine in the 1940s and their Emotional Styles”. Emotions in Modern Jewish History: An International Workshop, Bar-Ilan University and Ben-Gurion University, Israel.
March 2024. “Emotional Styles and the New Man in Early Zionist Thinking”. Harry Starr Fellowship in Judaica Seminars, Spring 2024, Center for Jewish Studies, Harvard University.
September 2023. “Parents’ manuals, colonialism, and the emotional styles of the new Jew in Mandate Palestine”. Presentation at the Israel/Palestine Forum, Harvard University.
October 2020. “Fatherhood in Labour Zionist Children’s Literature: Space, Masculinity and Hegemony in Mandate Palestine.” Presentation at the New York State Working Group on Jewish Women and Gender in Global Perspective.
July 2018. “Fatherhood and Hegemony in Labor Zionist Children's Literature in the 1930s and 1940s.” Presentation at the Leo Baeck Summer University in Jewish Studies, Berlin.
December 2017. “The Construction of the Normative Family in Labor Zionist Children's Literature in the 1930s and 1940s.” Presentation at the workshop on Disciplining the Modern Family: Gender, State and Society,” Tel Aviv University, The Zvi Yavetz School of Historical Studies.
November 2016. “Fathers Struggling to Feel: Emotions and the Construction of Labor-Zionist Masculinities.” Presentation at “Transforming Emotion Cultures: Transdisciplinary Perspectives on Immigration and Conflict,” International TAU-FU research workshop.
October 2015. “Creating the Labor-Zionist Family: Masculinity, Sexuality and Marriage in Mandate Palestine.” Presentation at “Jewish History in Context: National, Transnational and Comparative Perspectives,” graduate student workshop in modern Jewish history, the Center for Jewish History, New York.
May 2015. “The Bachelor’s Experience and the Creation of Families,” Middle East History and Theory Workshop, Council on Advanced Studies, University of Chicago.
February 2015. “Professionals and Politicians: Labor Zionist Urban Men and the ‘New Jew’ in Mandate Palestine.” Presentation at the workshop on Transnational Approaches to Modern Europe, Council on Advanced Studies, University of Chicago.
June 2011. “The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict from a Local Prism: Tiberias as an Example.” Presentation, International Doctoral Workshop, The Walter Lebach Institute, Tel Aviv University.
Last Updated Date : 08/10/2025
