Pioneers and Homemakers: Jewish Women in Pre-State Israel

8. The Women Workers' Movement: First Wave Feminism in Pre-State Israel

8 The Women Workers' Movement: First Wave Feminism in Pre-State Israel --- Dafna N. Izraeli --The Women Workers' Movement in pre-state Israel developed within the Labor Zionist movement as a reaction to the disappointment of a small group of women with the limited role they were assigned in the emerging society. From its beginnings in 1911, the movement aimed to expand the boundaries of the J ewish woman's role in pre-state Israel and to secure her full and equal participation in the process of Jewish national reconstruction. Members of the movement were nationalists and idealists who had come as pioneers from eastern Europe during the years 1904-14, and they were joined by women who arrived in Palestine after the First World War, from 1919 through 1923. These periods, known in the history of Zionism as the Second and Third Aliyah, are considered the formative periods of Israeli society. Because they were marked by social creativity, readiness for experimentation, and remodeling of institutional forms, these periods were also crucial for the status of women in the new society. The pioneers of the Second Aliyah emigrated from Russia following the pogroms that took place in 1903 and after the October revolution in 1905. Many pioneers were infused with radical and socialist ideas prevalent in Russia at the time, but they had been disappointed by the social reform movement there and by its failure to solve the problems of the J ewish people. The immigrants consisted primarily of middle-class young, single people or young couples, who came without parents. In a new country the usual restraints and obligations that bind women to domestic roles and traditional definitions of their domain were reduced, which allowed women freedom to experiment with alternative roles. Furthermore, there are indications that these women composed a self-selected group that had liberated itselffrom the effects of traditional social183 184 Dafna N. Izraeli ization. The move to Palestine required determination and idealism from all the immigrants, but even more so from the women. It is thus not surprising that women were only a small proportion of the immigrant pioneers, five to ten percent in the early years and rising to close to twenty percent in 1913. Women came to Palestine ready to participate more fully in social life than they had been permitted to do in Jewish bourgeois circles in Russia. They did not expect to struggle for women's place; they thought equality would be an accompanying feature of their move to the new homeland. While this account is a study of a specific place, time, and circumstance , it highlights dilemmas that commonly confront women in socialist movements generally, especially during periods of economic and political upheaval. At such time the commitment of a movement's participants tends to be heavily taxed, and the demand for undivided loyalties is great. Identification with a larger movement creates a set of constraints on the development of feminist ideology and on the creation of separate feminist organization, particularly when feminist dissatisfaction is directed toward the position of women within the movement itself (Slaughter, 1977). These constraints, and their consequences for the career ofthe feminist movement in Palestine, are the major themes of this chapter. Years oflncubation, 1904-11 Ideas and ideology played an important role in shaping the character of the pioneering society. A basic tenet of the ideology was the value attributed to the collective. The individual was expected to sacrifice personal interests to the welfare of the new Jewish society whose members included not only those who had already immigrated but also the multitudes of Jews who would "return home" in the future. Among the two most important cultural creations of the Second Aliyah were the image of the ideal pioneer- the halutz- and the ideal form of social organizationthe kuutza-(forerunner of the kibbutz) (Eisenstadt, 1967:17). Halutz literally means a member of the vanguard, one who goes before the camp and fulfills its highest purposes. During the Second Aliyah physical work was idealized and elevated to a religious value (Bein, 1954:31; Preuss, 1965:119; Gordon, 1959:373). The key elements of the halutz ideal had an essentially masculine character , which heightened the relevance of biological differences between the sexes. The Women Workers' Movement 185 The most urgent problem facing the new immigrants upon their arrival in Palestine was employment. In vain they knocked on the doors of the established farmers of the First Aliyah (18821903 ), who were unwilling to substitute Jewish labor...