The Enemy as Woman: Fictional Women in the Literature of the Palmach

The literature that spanned the first decade of Israel’s statehood (1948–1958) is known in Hebrew literary criticism as “the Generation of 1948” [Dor Tashah] or as the Palmach Generation [Dor haPalmach]. ¹ While the former term refers to the year in which Israel fought its War of Independence and was proclaimed a sovereign state, the latter refers to the assault units [plugot mahatz] of the Haganah, Israel’s voluntary army established in 1941. ² Both terms convey the close bond of this literature with the socialist Zionist ideology that dominated the value system of the Yishuv, the Jewish settlement in Palestine, up to 1948. The generation of authors who grew up in the 1920s and began to publish in the mid- and late-1940s gives expression to this ideology, while challenging and questioning some of its premises. In what follows I would like to question the gendering of this generation. Not only are the Palmach authors male, they gender the word in male terms that give supremacy to masculinity over femininity. The all-male composition of the Palmach Generation is not unique. Until the 1960s, women authors have been a rare phenomenon on the Hebrew literary scene, with the exception of Devorah Baron, who received critical recognition in the 1920s.

The authors whose works I will consider in this article participate in a process of male gendering, or masculinization, of ideals and values. The hero they write about is invariably male. Female characters appear as ancillary to the main plot, which focuses on building a new land and a new society. Not only are women marginalized, they are ambiguated as well. On one hand, they help in the process of nation-building; on the other, they often undermine the male hero, thus wreaking havoc and destruction. More often than not, the public sphere is masculinized and the private sphere is feminized. Thus women appear as wives, mothers, girlfriends, lovers—those whose realm of influence does not exceed the boundaries of the private world. In S. Yizhar’s work, women appear as objects of desire; and because they remain for the most part limited to the private sphere, they emerge as idealized characters. Moshe Shamir and Yigal Mossinsohn feminize the private realm, while simultaneously suggesting that it is in this realm that the potential for destruction lies. The ideal of nation-building required that the (male) individual subordinate the private and personal spheres to the public, national, communal act of collective building. Personal attachments, family obligations, emotional dependency—anything that could potentially drain the energy needed for the collective venture—was perceived as potentially dangerous. This may explain the frequent portrayal of female characters as deceptive, egotistical, devious, and overly sexed.

The socialist-Zionist value system was based on the idealization of the worker (socialism) and the fighter (nationalism). Both ideals merged in the ideology of the Palmach generation. ³ This ideology cultivated the image of the Halutz [the pioneer], on one hand, and the Sabra [the native son], on the other. The Halutz came from the Diaspora, a place of humiliation and persecution, to build a new Jewish future. The Sabra was born, as it were, out of the sea, as Gershon Shaked puts it, unencumbered by tradition or family. ⁴ The Halutz sought to reject and overcome the diasporic legacy. The Halutz epitomized sanity, simplicity, and physicality, while the exilic Jew represented religiosity, spirituality, and intellectualism. ⁵ The myth of the Halutz pitted his vitality and energy against the neurotic, passive, and deviant Galut Jew. ⁶ This mythical dichotomy between Jew and Israeli may explain the characterization in the literature of the Palmach of women as alienated immigrants, passive, and dependent—as Jews, rather than Israelis. Jewishness, in its most objectionable aspects, is frequently associated with femininity in the context of Palmach fiction. Although women also immigrated to the Land of Israel and were determined to work and build a nation, they were often relegated to service jobs even in the earliest Kibbutzim. In the city, fierce competition for jobs relegated women to less prestigious service jobs as well...