The Jewish farmer, the village and the world fair: politics, propaganda, and the “Israel in Palestine” pavilion at the Paris International Exhibition of 1937

Technion, Israel institute of technology, Faculty of architecture and town planning, Haifa, Israel

Corresponding author: ftzafrir@gmail.com

Abstract

At the Paris International Exhibition of 1937, a few steps from the Nazi Germany and USSR pavilions the Yishuv (Palestine's Jewish Zionist community) had its own presence, the “Israel in Palestine” pavilion. Initiated by the Zionist leadership, the pavilion was a hybrid construct of modernist and traditional architecture; its front was made from concrete and glass, its rear modelled on Palestine's rural vernacular architecture, with arches and terraces. Inside the pavilion, the exhibition depicted the achievements of the Zionist Jewish resettlement project, presenting it as a solution for the so-called “Jewish question”. Conceived as part of an orchestrated effort by the Zionist movement to use the World Fair, the professional architectural media, writers, and architects to gain support for the movement's activities, the pavilion sought to present Palestine's settler society as both modern and well rooted, and to display the renaissance of nationhood through the representation of the Jewish farmer on the international stage.