Revolutionaries Despite Themselves: Women and Gender in Religious Zionism in the Yishuv Period
Revolutionaries Despite Themselves: Women and Gender in Religious Zionism in the Yishuv Period
Lilach Rosenberg-Friedman
Abstract
In the British Mandate pre-state Jewish community in Palestine, a unique population sector with a complex ideology developed - the religious-Zionist community. This community, which advocated the preservation of Jewish tradition while embracing new ideas and concepts, was undecided as to what its role in the rebuilding of the Land of Israel should be. It was especially concerned as to how it would preserve the values of the past while at the same time becoming an integral part of the new Jewish society in Eretz Israel. It sought to guarantee the continued existence of Jewish tradition while establishing new gender relations, one of the underpinnings of the new society.
Three main areas spearheaded Zionist activity in Eretz Israel: the building of the new institutional-societal establishment; agricultural settlement throughout the country; and the establishment of a security system. These areas represented the new features of life in Eretz Israel and were reflected in fundamental changes that occurred in both urban and rural societies. All three are at the focus of this research, and each brings into sharper focus an in-depth examination of religious-Zionism, its new gender perceptions and how it dealt with the conflict between gender equality according to the national ethos and the division of gender roles in traditional Judaism.
Traditional Judaism draws a clear distinction between men's and women's roles in society, assigning a different status to each sex. Women are associated with the "natural" domain of the home, husband and children (the family), creating a unique sphere of women's existence. The era of national Jewish revival created a new situation. The entry of religious women into what had been exclusively male spheres in the Zionist endeavor placed religious women and religious-Zionist society on a crossroads between tradition and change, an intrinsically problematic encounter. The desire to integrate Zionism and religion created a new dilemma in defining the role of women in religious-Zionist society and their participation the revival of the nation. Religious-Zionism struggled with how to make the participation of religious women possible in the (male) national-public sphere, while at the same time preserving their traditional role in the private (female) sphere. Just as the religious-Zionist experience swung between tradition and the new experience, the new gender perception was also influenced by tradition as well as by the desire to be part of the new national endeavor. The gender issue consequently represented a challenge to religious society, and it may be viewed as a key criterion for measuring the extent of the integration of religiousness and modernity.
This book has two main goals: A. to reexamine the profile of religious society by studying its gender relations, understanding the male and female roles in religious-Zionism and examining the mutual relations between men and women; B. to understand the characteristics of the new image of women and analyze the influence of male society on how it was shaped. The religious-Zionist woman's narrative will add not only a new and unknown chapter to the research into the history of the Jewish population of pre-State Palestine, but also a new dimension to the understanding of how its society was formed. A secondary goal is to cast new light on the differences and similarities in how general and religious societies viewed women.
The opening section of the book deals with organization. The first chapter in this section analyses the new perceptions of women's and men's roles in religious-Zionism. The question of political involvement of religious women represents a test case for the understanding of the new gender perception. Further on, the book traces the process of how the religious women's movements were shaped: the Mizrachi women's federation and the laborers' organization of Hapoel Hamizrachi. The book describes the unique women leaders, their aspirations and activities, and compares and contrasts the middle-class religious organization and the religious women laborers' organization.
The goal of the organizations, their internal structures and activities are extensively reviewed in this book. The main area of women's activity was welfare, an extension of the traditional role of women.
Women's groups spoke in two voices. On the declarative and organizational level they completely identified with the men's organizations, although their activities and goals were feminine. Alongside their membership in the organization, they sought to develop their own independence, and alongside their organizational and financial dependence on outside forces, they also used innovational courses of action. The emergence of women into the public sphere, the signs of independence, initiative, financial management, the establishment of institutions and the management of independent political races were all new to the lifestyle of religious-Zionist women.
The chapters that deal with religious settlement raise a number of fascinating issues. The question of gender in the religious moshav ovdim can be viewed as an introduction into an in-depth discussion of the process through which the religious kibbutz was shaped. The members of the religious kibbutz movement drew on the general kibbutz movement for their values of communal life and equality and on traditional Orthodox society for their religious and traditional values. In other words, they had to conflate two very different, even opposed, cultures. On the one hand, the religious kibbutz movement declared that it favored equality between men and women and the full involvement of women in all areas of life, while on the other hand, it also remained faithful to the traditional religious principles that restricted women. This consequently forced the movement to contend with gender issues in the areas of work, family and religion.
The aspiration of members of the religious kibbutz movement to establish new gender relations was especially prominent in their endeavor to foster a new religious lifestyle. This was reflected in a number of areas, including the participation of the women members in Torah study, joint prayers for men and women without a partition between them, women's external appearance and dress, mixed dancing. The religious questions the religious kibbutz movement struggled with and which focused on women bear witness to the conflict between the new gender approaches the movement sought to implement and the traditional approach it in fact supported. While the questions were not decided unequivocally, the innovativeness of the religious kibbutz movement was reflected in the very raising of questions that had previously been considered taboo for public debate.
An analysis of the type of jobs held by women members of the religious kibbutz movement points to both a new approach and traditional implementation. Many women worked at the traditional women's occupations that included the service areas (cooking, laundry, etc.) and childcare. There were women that worked in some agricultural areas, but because of the relatively small number of women in the kibbutz (about one-third of the total number of members in the period reviewed), as well as because of the traditional approach concerning the place of women in society held by both men and women, women were for the most part removed from the prestigious production areas. The religious kibbutz movement did not do away with traditional gender work divisions, notwithstanding their ideology of egalitarianism and institutional arrangements (dining hall, communal education of children, etc.). Additionally, women did not challenge this division and internalized the approach that deemed women as man's "helpmeet."
This book discusses the relationship between the sexes in the religious kibbutz movement in comparison with the general kibbutz movement and other religious communes worldwide. Issues such as family purity, childbirth, communal education for the kibbutz children are also discussed, as are issues related to the place of women during times of distress; maternal commitment versus national commitment. The involvement of women in the shaping of the kibbutz is also discussed in the chapters dealing with settlement.
The kibbutz launched the gender revolution on the conceptual-philosophical level, but the implementation remained deficient because a long-term process requiring internalization was involved. Nonetheless, a conceptual foundation was created for gender in society by the introduction of new ideas. The religious kibbutz movement shaped new religious identities: a religious person who was no less a pioneer than a secular person, as well as a new religious women's identity. This breakthrough made possible a new religious option for the younger religious generation, and also had the power to bring the religious kibbutz movement to the forefront, enabling it to lead religious society.
The final chapter in this book deals with gender and security. The connection between militarism and masculinity is a well-known cultural-societal premise, and the presence of women in the armed forces during the pre-state period challenged this traditional view. The religious community took an especially prominent stand on the issue of including women in active army service as they related to halachic issues, such as carrying arms and the prohibition on wearing clothing of the opposite sex, as well as value-based arguments that dealt with the fear of damaging the image of the traditional woman and the perception that army service for women undermined the "spirit of Israel." Despite this, the national imperatives during the period under review required the recruitment of maximum forces to defend the Zionist endeavor, and religious women contributed to the national effort too.
Very few religious women served in the early part of the period under discussion in the general framework of the Haganah. The reasons included opposition from their own community as well as objective difficulties that had to be dealt with in maintaining a religious lifestyle, such as keeping kosher and observing the Sabbath, which made it difficult for them to be fully integrated into this framework. However, after the establishment of the religious units in the Haganah, the door was opened to the integration of many young religious women, who served in security roles, especially in the area of communications and first aid, and some were even sent for officers' training courses. Young religious women also joined the "Women's Battalions" of the Haganah in Tel Aviv, and although they were a religious minority within a minority of women, they faced the difficulties head on and earned respect for their performance.
The absence of religious women from the security forces was especially notable in the ‘Palmah', which was viewed as a regular army force with clear political leanings. The story of a religious young woman in the Palmah represents a test case for the successful integration of religious people in society in general, and for the image of the "woman fighter" in religious society. A few young religious women enlisted in the British army during World War II, in opposition to the views of the religious-Zionist leadership, and they were exceptions to the rule. The reservations religious society had about the service of women in the British army and the reasons why the religious women, who were a special breed, enlisted, their performance in the army, the manner in which they dealt with the unique difficulties they faced and the way society treated them can teach us a great deal about the society to which they belonged and its efforts to contend with the introduction of new trends.
The War of Independence made it necessary for all forces to enlist in the war effort. The female presence in the Haganah, the gender-mixed youth movements, led by the Bnei Akiva movement, which taught the values of realization of ideals, regardless of gender, and the imperatives of the times joined together and prompted religious-Zionism to support the requirement of women's military training. The war forced the movement to come out with a new declaration and to formally anchor its innovative activity in a formal resolution. During the war, religious women found themselves at the front, and some, especially in settlements, functioned as soldiers. The fighting by religious women and the fatalities among them were the result of the reality of the times and were not the product of the new trends. The War of Independence, which made possible a complex cooperation of religious and non-religious people and of men and women in religious society and even contributed to the establishment of new gender relations, was a one-time episode. At the same time, the development of self-awareness by religious women during the period under review influenced their aspiration to take an active role in defending the endeavor that they helped to found.
The issue of gender placed religious society on a collision course with tradition. An analysis of religious-Zionism during its formative years through the lens of gender issues shows that during the pre-state period, a unique religious society that created a new model for women was formed. This model bears witness to the society's efforts to deal with the issues, combining the traditional past with new principles, and was a reflection of the dual nature of this society. The book discloses a society that was innovative in the manner in which it integrated women, and conservative due to its traditional nature. While it is true that in general society as well, the myth of equality between the sexes and reality do not always jibe, religious-Zionist society lagged behind the general Zionist society in all matters relating to gender. Conservatism alongside innovation and integration alongside isolation were the most prominent characteristics of religious-Zionism, especially as they related to gender issues. This gender-historic analysis sheds new light on the development of religious-Zionism and its complex nature.
