From Cravat to Khaki: Gender, Sexuality, and Change in the Immigration of Fritz Wolf to Mandate Palestine1

This article offers an in-depth analysis of the relation of gender and change in the migration experience from National Socialist Germany to Mandate Palestine in the 1930s. Choosing a micro-perspective, this article draws on various unpublished writings of Dr. jur. Fritz Wolf (1908–2006). Concentrating on Wolf’s first encounter with Palestine, this article considers the different stages of migration—journey, arrival, and first year in a new homeland—to shed light on the crucial importance of gender in his observations, interactions, and self-perception in this process. While Fritz Wolf is at the centre of this case study, gender will be used in this article as a relational category, relating this case study to experiences of German-Jewish immigrants in general, both male and female. Therefore, this article provides a discussion of changing gender relations, different masculinities and femininities, and altered concepts of marriage and sexuality within the German-Jewish immigrant community in Mandate Palestine in general.