Pioneers and Homemakers: Jewish Women in Pre-State Israel

Part I. Between Tradition and Change

Part I Between Tradition and Change A wave of Jewish immigration to Palestine began in 1882. It became known in Zionist historiography as the First Aliyah, to distinguish it from all preceding Jewish immigration. Thus a demarcation line was drawn between the Jewish community which had developed in Palestine during the nineteenth century-the Old Yishuv-and the community which grew out of the later immigrations beginning at the end of the nineteenth century-the New Yishuv. The former was characterized as traditional, conservative and non-productive, while the latter was seen as its polar opposite, a community based on social experimentation, nationalistic spirit, European modernism and secularism. The immigration from Yemen , which took place during the same period as the First Aliyah from Eastern Europe, was largely ignored, as it clearly did not fit into this popular dichotomy. However, a closer scrutiny of women's position in society indicates that the demarcation between Old and New Yishuv was not so clear and sharp as we have been led to believe (some of the other faults found in the above distinction have been discussed in the Introduction). The "New" had much of the "Old" contained within it, as far as women were concerned, especially in the early decades of Zionist immigration. This is evident in the life style of many of the immigrants, in their traditional conception of the Jewish community of family and of gender relations. The East European First Aliyah and the immigration from Yemen were immigrations of families. In both cases the women played a very small role in the decision to immigrate. They followed their husbands' decision, and did not appear to attach any special significance to their immigration in terms of their own role as women in the community and in society. Women were seen, and continued to see themselves, as the traditional helpmates to their husbands and homemakers to their families. However, as the three articles in this section reveal, the actual experience of women was 25 26 Part I far more complex. The transition to a new country and community, under changed circumstances, brought about a change in the lives of women, even as they continued to fulfill their traditional (and subordinate) role. The need to care for their families in a new environment , facing crisis, challenge, and hardship, created a new determination and a sense of communal involvement. But these transformations, unacknowledged by the men of the community, were riddled with ambivalence and insecurity. The sense of new involvement and strength was accompanied by unasked questions and often, as Yaffa Berlovitz and Nitza Druyan argue, by a sense of bewilderment and frustration. The peripheral role of women in the moshauot and the Yemenite communities accounts for the scarcity of documentation referring to them and for the fact that their situation has not been examined in later studies. Ran Aaronsohn, Yafl'a Berlovitz and Nitza Druyan have, therefore, had to discover and make use of a variety of less conventional sources-letters, oral poetry, women's tales of their life-story and literature written by women. These sources are used not only to document what has been excluded in historiography so far, but even more significantly, as Berlovitz emphasizes , to bring forth the woman's own voice-"her opinions, her thoughts, her emotional reactions and most important her interpretation of that soul-stirring historic event, the return to Zion." Ran Aaronsohn presents a unique view of women's experience through two letters sent by a woman of whom we know only that she was a "settler's wife." The two letters portray not only her day to day life and work, but also her feelings and sense of what was happening to her and around her, from her vantage point within her own home. She appears to be a typical "settler's wife"-"the wife of K."-a woman who followed her husband, grieving her departure from all that was close, familiar and civilized to go to a faroff land, and live "among the stones of the field". And yet, less than half a year later, she writes that "the land is like a Garden of Eden laid out before us." She seems to be content both with the community she has found herself in, of which she has learned much in the meantime, and with her own work in the farm and at home. She is an enterprising and hard-working woman. "The wife of K.", concludes Aaronsohn, "accepted her role as...