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8 4 7 yael zerubavel Coping with the Legacy of Death The War Widow in Israeli Films Given Israel’s long and unresolved conflict with the Palestinians and its continuing toll on human life, one might expect that the character of the war widow would occupy an important place among the cinematic representations of the war experience in Israeli society. Yet the war widow has been a relative latecomer to Israeli films and has thus far received limited attention. During the pre-state and early state periods, the tendency was to highlight the national heroic aspects of nation building, the War of Independence and the foundation of the state and its governing organs. Israeli films, like other expressive forms of that era, showed a preference to feature Jewish youths in their social spheres of action and their mobilization for the national cause.1 In this context, male characters often took the center stage, while female characters were assigned to supporting roles. The fact that the war widow was largely overlooked in Israeli cinema reflected the social attitudes prevalent in the post-1948 years. At the time, the parents of fallen soldiers were seen as representing the entire community of mourners, and women who lost their spouses or companions in the war received little attention. It was only after the 1967 Six Day War that the media focused on widows’ plight and the public pressure led the government to establish new procedures of care for the widows and their children.2 Whereas the bereaved parents’ organization Yad Labanim (literally, “the memorial to the sons”) had been established in 1949, war widows founded their own organization in affiliation with it only in 1973, following the Yom Kippur War. It may not be surprising, therefore, that the war widow emerged as a major character in films only in the 1960s. The study of the cinematic portrayals Coping with the Legacy of Death 8 5 of the war widow can thus draw on a limited number of examples. In spite of this limitation, such a study provides an important venue to learn about changing attitudes toward the war widow and her experience following her husband’s death. The loss of a husband during his military service confers on his wife the status of a war widow. In this new position, she enters a new set of rights and obligations as the symbolic extension of the fallen soldier in her relation with the state and becomes a member of the national “bereaved family.”3 The war widow becomes the carrier of her husband’s memory and embodies the connection between a personal and a national sacrifice. While she copes with her often complex response to her husband’s sudden death and with being left behind as a young woman with or without children, she also faces the challenge of dealing with the social expectations that she should behave in conformity with her new status. These expectations, which are often unclear and even contradictory, inevitably place her in a new and vulnerable situation. The war widow is expected to go through a process of mourning, grief, and recovery but also to remain loyal to her social role as a living memorial, an obligation that is likely to inhibit the recovery process. The analysis of the cinematic portrayals of the war widow reveals an important dimension of the consequences of war and the direct impact it has on women. The discussion addresses the new sensibilities that transform the representation of the war widow and broadens our understanding of the interrelations of gender, memory, and patriotic sacrifice.4 The 1960s: The Struggle with Memory Two cinematic works mark the direct exploration of the war widow’s experience in Israeli film in the 1960s: The Hero’s Wife (Eshet Hagibor) in 1963 and Siege (Matzor) in 1969. Turning the widow into the lead figure and casting the male characters in supporting roles, these films invert the accepted gender representation of the national heroic films. They focus on the war widow and her social environment, while the fallen soldier whose death looms large as the trigger for the unfolding story is represented only through photographs, flashbacks, and occasional references to him. Both these films were shot in black and white, a choice that enhances the emphasis on the widow’s personal and subdued life under the shadow of death. The Hero’s Wife and Siege are clearly Israeli productions, shot locally with an Israeli cast and in Hebrew. Yet both...

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