Sport und die jüdische Suche nach Gemeinschaft in (ost-)europäischen Metropolen der Zwischenkriegszeit

Abstract

AbstractThe main Jewish sport movement was and is Zionist (and as such nationalist), nevertheless I would claim that Jewish sport is a transnational practice par excellence. Sport, and especially Jewish sport, transcends the concept of nation and state, but sport historiography still follows national paradigms. The sport history of big cities might help to find an empirical basis for a transnational history of modern sports. The search for community and belonging is vital for the experience of the modern individual. From the nineteenth century onwards the »nation« was the preferred »imagined community« to fill the void left by religion and tradition after the age of Enlightenment. But there were other communities as well, such as the workers’ movement or other political communities and social classes or sporting communities. By looking at an East European Jewish metropolis such as Vilne (today’s Vilnius), I want to explore the ambiguous character of the Jewish sport movement and the agency of Jewish athletes in their search for identity and belonging.