Jewish and Israeli Feminists and Other Complexities

180 SHOFAR Fall 1995 Vol. 14, No.1 Jewish and Israeli Feminists and Other Complexities by Ruti Kadish Department of Near Eastern Studies University of California at Berkeley An American Feminist in Palestine: The Intifada Years, by Sherna Berger Gluck. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1994. 237 pp. $14.95. The Issue is Power: Essays on Women,Jews, Violence and Resistance, by Melanie Kaye!Kantrowitz. San Francisco, Aunt lute Press, 1992. 262 pp. $9.95. Calling the Equality Bluff: Women in Israel, edited by Barbara Swirski and Marilyn P. Safk New York: Pergamon Press, 1991. 343 pp. $21.95. As the titles indicate, each of these books addresses issues of feminism, identity, and politics, as they play out in Israel and Palestine. However, they also suggest that while all claim a feminist approach, each book has different perspectives. As a reader I welcome these diverse feminist voices, each an important contribution to a growing body of feminist work addressing Jewish and Israeli concerns. Jewish feminism is by no means a new endeavor, neither is the critique of nationalism by Jewish and Israeli scholars. Yet only in recent years are we seeing the proliferation of projects which demand the integration and the crossreading of the complex ideas of feminism, nationalism, and Israeli and/or Jewish identity.1 A recurring methodological point in feminist theory is that we mustn't indiscriminately apply western feminist standards when observing and analyzing non-western cultures. Indeed, these standards must be critically evaluated even when employed in our own social context. The authors and editors of these three volumes take great care to map out the social contexts in which they undertake their work. Sherna Berger Gluck, in An American Feminist in Palestine, does so in the ":lost self-conscious manner. In the opening paragraph of her introduction, Gluck locates 'The exception proves the rule: Lesley Hazleton's iIluminating book Israeli Women: The Reality Behind the Myths, published in 1977, remains an authoritative book on the topic. Review Essays 181 herself in a Jewish and Zionist background. Gluck's Jewish identity ostensibly guides her research. She explains that her memories of Talmudic discussions on justice shaped in her the social consciousness that came to embody the meaning of being a Jew. And, thus, as a Jew, she must speak out against Israeli injustices, overcoming her conditioning against "airing dirty laundry" in order to do so. Gluck's point is well taken. Many of us are ambivalent about publicly expressing criticism of the Jewish community in general and of Israel in particular. We risk being misrepresented and discredited by our own, or misinterpreted and exploited by others. Gluck courageously speaks despite these risks. She describes the range of responses her lectures and slideshows generate: anger directed at her, dismissal, defensiveness, embarrassed attentiveness, and compassion, recognition, and anger about the occupation. Indeed, I felt all of these as I read her compelling documentation of the daily reality of the occupation. She details individual lives, eloquently putting faces and places to the statistics of death and destruction . She also draws out the larger social ramifications of the intifada, astutely discussing the involvement of women, their shifting roles in the public and private spheres, their aspirations, and their efforts to create institutions to improve their lives and their communities. I confess I approached the book with ambivalence: although I believe that Jewish feminists need to write about the occupation and consider the intersections of gender and nationalism in IsraellPalestine, as an Israeli (even a left-wing feminist Israeli), I was suspicious of Gluck's use of "Jewish credentials" to somehow legitimate her work. Gluck seems to invokeJewish identity in order to compel herJewish audience to hear and see the people and events given voice in her account. Does it work? It does to the extent that the reader believes that Gluck is knowledgeable about Jewish concerns and takes them seriously. Sharing her doubts and confusion about the conditions she observes, recognizing and deflating her own romanticism, Gluck lends herself an aura of believability. Yet at moments she takes on an almost arrogant, self-righteous tone. She describes feeling alienated from Israelis as they go about their business, seemingly unconcerned about the...