הספר בעריכתן של פרופ' סילביה פוגל-ביזאוי ופרופ' רחל שרעבי "בין הפרטי לציבורי , נשים במושב ובקיבוץ" בהוצאת מאגנס (2013) יצא בשפה האנגלית בהוצאת De Gruyter
Resting on the multifaceted and multicultural voices of women – secular and religious, old-timers and newcomers, at the center or on the periphery of their communities – it brings into sharper focus rarely raised issues related to gender borders and to the private and public spheres.
Beyond the specific society they treat, these essays contribute to our understanding of the social mechanisms that (re)produce gender inequality in modernity, in its socialist, capitalist, or postindustrial versions.
They also provide additional evidence for the limits of any attempt to achieve gender equality by focusing on the transformation of women, without challenging hegemonic masculinities
בהצלחה וכה לחי על התוצר הזה!
אשמח מאוד לקרא ואולי אפילו לכתוב ביקורת. הנה מתוצרי האחרון, באותו נושא:
Margalit Shilo, Girls of Liberty: The Struggle for Suffrage in Mandatory Palestine. (Waltham MA: Brandeis University Press, 2016), 200 pp.
Two enormous revolutions occurred in the 20th century and their repercussion still influence our life in the 21st century. They are the communist and feminist revolutions.
Both tried to change world’s order. The first concentrated on the economic disparities between people, and following Marx, communists understood that in order to change society, the course of history must be changed to eliminate the division of labor, social classes and the structure of the state. The communist revolution failed mainly because of human lust for power. However, evidence of its influence permeates most of the world’s social safety nets today, such as health care, social security, trade unions, minimum wages, compulsory education, etc.
The feminist revolution, by contrast, focused mainly on gender disparity and inequality in all spheres of life. Its success and achievements are visible everywhere, including legislation, education, the labor market, politics, ‘his-story’, the family, and much more.
Feminism also played a part in another important revolution, namely Zionism. Margalit Shilo’s Girls of Liberty (translated and abridged from Hebrew), is a thoroughly researched study of Zionist women’s fight for equal rights during the Mandate period. Women fought not only for the right to vote, but especially to be regarded as equal participants in making of the Jewish revolution.
Prior to 1948, it was certainly the most important battle fought by the women of the Yishuv. The book focuses on the period between 1917-1926, particularly on the activities of the Union of Hebrew Women for Equal Rights “to win for women the right to vote and to be represented in the new body” (10) of the ‘Assembly of Representatives’ (Asefat HaNivcharim).
The question whether women would be equal participants was largely fought by the New Yishuv against the Haredim of the Old Yishuv, who stridently opposed any involvement by women in the public sphere. It should be noted as well that many in the New Yishuv refused to see women’s equal participation as a major issue.
The New Yishuv was composed largely of socialists whose worldview – in principle – supported women’s equality and saw women’s rights as a given, but their priorities were different. The New Yishuv sought Jewish settlement of the land and jobs for its workers (mainly men). However, before the British Mandatory authorities they wished to present the Yishuv, as “one that could represent all the country’s Jews to the new regime” (30). Their priorities were proved by the diminutive selection of women to “Assembly of Representatives”.
The New Yishuv leadership was afraid that if they opposed the Haredim and let women participate in public life and be elected as representatives to the Assembly they would be seen as rejecting Jewish religion and tradition, which might alienate the Diaspora. They also feared a boycott by the Haredim, which would diminish Jewish voting strength. This dilemma shaped the nine-year debate over women’s suffrage.
Haredim were adamantly opposed to women’s suffrage because they viewed it as a mortal threat to their family-centered way of life. Voting would interfere in a woman’s inherent duties as laid out in the traditional texts: the Bible, the Talmud and its commentators, and the rulings of Halakhic authorities for generations. All these authorities view women as inferior and their role as to serve men. Women were considered lesser beings with a different nature and thus different rights.
Prominent Haredi scholars partook in this thinking. Rabbi A. Y. Kook, for example, maintained that women’s participation in elections ”would thus weaken Jewish people’s claim to their ancestral land” and termed granting the vote to women a “betrayal” of moral ideals (76-78).
This dramatic and critical story is a missing link from Israeli society’s collective memory. Only after the second wave of feminism in the 1970s did the topic of women’s politics and their place in the national project awaken interest among some female scholars. Shilo has researched and woven together more than twenty archives in Israel and elsewhere, including memoirs, analyses of public documents, and press reports.
The struggle for women’s equal voting rights in Palestine from1917 to1926 was not only a demand for a civic right but also a struggle to shape the ‘New Hebrew’, both male and female, in the old/new land. It was a national struggle. Nehamah Puhachevsky, one of the most remarkable women in the Yishuv, a writer, influential speaker, and feminist said in one of her impassioned speeches: “Let us be like you [men].”
The book focuses on feminist discourse, political events, and personal stories of Hebrew suffragists. It is impossible to separate the ‘private’ from the ‘public’ sphere. The many distinguished heroines of the new Jewish community in Palestine collectively expressed a Hebrew feminist point of view.
Women’s struggles generally began on the local level and only later appeared on the more significant national stage. In Palestine, however, they appeared simultaneously on both levels as the Yishuv prepared both for local elections and for the establishment of the national Assembly of Representatives. In each New Hebrew community, women were struggling for similar rights but in different ways. Ada Fishman (Maimon), a fascinating activist from Tel Aviv commented “Each city and its own war” (25).
In 1917, the men had no serious arguments to make against women’s suffrage – and probably their (successful) opposition in that year derived largely from traditional patriarchal views and a fear of the unfamiliar. In 1919 the proposal was raised again and, despite the doubts of its men, Rishon LeTzion, led by Nehamah Puhachevsky, became the first local council in Palestine to formally grant women the right to vote.
The campaign in Rishon LeTzion blazed the trail for women’s forces elsewhere in the Yishuv. They all argued that feminism was an inseparable part of the Jewish national movement, and that the national project could not succeed if women were not granted equal rights. In each locality the Haredim put up obstacles and tried to erect walls between the new ideas and Jewish tradition. In some places, it was only after the founding Haredi generation had passed away and new inhabitants had arrived, that women were granted the right to vote.
I found the book very interesting. The story of women’s right to vote during the Mandate period is remarkable. The marginal position of women in the Yishuv society left an imprint on history, but the Hebrew suffragist story was nearly forgotten. The notion that a new revolutionary Jewish culture and extraordinary ideas were formed, discussed, and dreamt of by men but excluded women, and that women had to fight for full equality, participation, and the right to be equal partners in that new society, is fascinating. The translation, by Haim Watzman, is exquisite.
Naturally, today, many things are taken for granted, but the struggle for women’s equality has not ended. The same reactionary group, the Haredim, is still trying to impose their views in Israeli institutions such as education and the army. The stiffness, vanity, lack of flexibility, ignorance, and lack of awareness of the vast changes in the new modern world haunts the old guard, and women seeking to be equal participants in democratic liberal society pay the price. But don’t we all lose?
Pnina Peri
University of Maryland
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