The Jewish women's revolution was one of the quietest and most angst-stricken of the revolutionary processes experienced by Zionism and the Yishuv (the Jewish community pre-1948) in Palestine during the first half of the twentieth century but at the same time one of the most profound and lasting among them. Jewish Women and the Defense of Palestine addresses women's struggle to join defense and military activities during the period between the establishment of the Hashomer organization in 1909 and the outbreak of the War of Independence in late 1947. It describes the battles women fought as they sought to challenge the male assumption that members of the "weaker sex" should not be integrated into defense activities. Moreover, the book analyzes the explicit and self-conscious aspiration of women, especially in the Labor settlement movement, to actively participate in defending and guarding their settlements as part of their broader view of women having an equal right to share the burden of building the Jewish national home in Palestine.
Author(s): Meir Chazan
Publisher: SUNY Press
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 302
City: Albany
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1 Power, Heroism, Socialism, and Women during the Second Aliya Period
Chapter 2 A Lost Battle: Women Volunteers for the Jewish Legion in 1918
The Activity of the Committee of Women Volunteers
Chapter 3 The Women of Kibbutz Ein Harod as a Microcosm of the Women’s Struggles
Bassewitz Expression on Gender, Individual Needs, and Guard Duty
The Connection between Passivity in Public Life and Defense of the Home
From 1929 to “the Third”
The Place of the Individual in Kibbutz Society
Chapter 4 Kibbutz Women and Guard Duty during the First Wave of the Arab Revolt in 1936
The Beginning of the Women’s Struggle in 1936
Chapter 5 Gender, Defense, and the Public Status of Women, 1937–39
The Status of Women in Conferences Held during the Lull in the Revolt
Gender, Defense, and the Public Status of Women during the Last Years of the Revolt
The Jewish Women’s Struggle against McDonald White Paper
Chapter 6 The Debate on Jewish Women’s Enlistment into the British Army during WWII
The Early War Years
Negotiations with the British
The Debate Rages
Enlistment in the Shadow of the Ongoing Debate
Morals in the Army
Call-up Notices for Women and Evasion of Service
Chapter 7 “There”—Heroes of the Holocaust, “Here”— Fighters in the Palmach
“There”—Holocaust
The “Paratroopers”
“Here”—Palmach
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Archives
Journals
Published Minutes
Books
Articles and Book Chapters
Unpublished Academic Works
Index
