Home Planning and Gender in Mandatory Palestine

The national Jewish awakening and the rise of Zionism set off several waves of Jewish immigration into Mandatory Palestine (1921–48), making housing an urgent issue. This article focuses on housing planning, using the lens of gender to explore the transfer and development of new household ideas from Germany to Palestine and the impact of these ideas on local housing debates. By tracing this process of knowledge transfer and contextualizing the kitchen discourse in Palestine within the context of contemporary European discourse, this study deepens our understanding of the development of Israeli home planning. Drawing on the professional opinions of architect Lotte Cohn and other women who described their own experiences in the home, it explores everyday aspects of the Zionist enterprise and how these intersected with the concept of the “new woman” in the Jewish community in Palestine.