9781584658085
Distributed for Brandeis University Press
Jewish Women in Pre-State Israel
Life History, Politics, and Culture
This fascinating interdisciplinary collection of essays brings gender issues to the foreground in order to redress a profound imbalance in the historiography of the Yishuv, the Jewish community in Palestine, and in the early years of the State of Israel. Although male discourse still dominates this field, some initial studies have begun to create an authentic and multifaceted Hebrew-Israeli voice by examining the activities and contributions of women. This research has led to a number of basic questions: What was the reality of life for women in Jewish society in Ottoman and Mandatory Palestine (Eretz Israel), and in the early years of the State? What was the contribution of women to the renewal of Israeli society and culture? What is the place of gender perceptions in the study of the new local identity? The original articles in this anthology forge an innovative response to one or more of these questions, and reflecting the state of research in the field.
Table of Contents
Shulamit Reinharz, Ph.D. - Foreword Introduction Constructing the Historical Narrative Deborah Bernstein - The Study of Women in Israeli Historiography: Starting Points, New Directions, and Emerging Insights • Yossi Ben-Artzi - Have Gender Studies Changed Our Attitude toward the Historiography of the Aliyah and Settlement Process? • Henriette Dahan-Kalev - Mizrahi Women: Identity and Herstory Women and Immigration Michal Ben Ya’akov • Women’s Aliyah: Migration Patterns of North African Jewish Women to Eretz Israel in the Nineteenth Century • Joseph Glass - American Jewish Women and Palestine: Their Immigration, 1918–1939 • Esther Meir-Glitzenstein - Ethnic and Gender Identity of Iraqi Women Immigrants in the Kibbutz in the 1940s • Penina Morag-Talmon - Social Networks of Immigrant Women in the Early 1950s in Israel Pioneers and Defenders Einat Ramon - A “Woman-Human”: A. D. Gordon’s Approach to Women’s Equality and His Influence on Second Aliyah Feminists • Henry Near - What Troubled Them? Women in Kibbutz and Moshav in the Mandatory Period • Smadar Shiffman - Forging the Image of Pioneering Women • Hagar Salamon - A Woman’s Life Story as a Foundation Legend of Local Identity Education, Health, and Politics Margalit Shilo - A Cross-Cultural Message: The Case of Evelina de Rothschild • Shifra Shvarts and Zipora Shehory-Rubin - On Behalf of Mothers and Children in Eretz Israel: The Activity of Hadassah, the Federation of Hebrew Women, and WIZO to Establish Maternal and Infant Welfare Centers—Tipat Halav, 1913–1948 • Nira Bartal - Establishment of a Nursing School in Jerusalem by the American Zionist Medical Unit, 1918: Continuation or Revolution? • Bat-Sheva Margalit Stern - “They Have Wings But No Strength to Fly”: The Women Workers’ Movement between “Feminine” Control and “Masculine” Dominance • Hannah Safran - International Struggle, Local Victory: Rosa Welt Straus and the Achievement of Suffrage, 1919–1926 Creativity in Word and Music Orly Lubin - Nehama Puhachewsky: The Alibi of the Arbitrary • Tali Asher - The Growing Silence of the Poetess Rachel • Yaffah Berlovitz - Anda Amir’s Me-Olam, Demuyot mi-Kedem: A Proposal for a Modern Feminine Bible • Hannan Hever - Poems to the Ghetto: The Poetry of Yocheved Bat-Miriam in the 1940s • Yael Shai and Rachel Kollender - Women and Music in Jewish Society: Woman’s Role in the Music Tradition in Israel Shaping the Collective Memory Billie Melman - The Legend of Sarah: Gender, Memory, and National Identities (Eretz Yisrael/Israel, 1917–1990) • Judith Baumel-Schwartz - “We Were There Too”: Women’s Commemoration in Israeli War Memorials Aftermath • Notes • Glossary • Index