Jewish Women in Pre-State Israel: Life History, Politics, and Culture

Have Gender Studies Changed Our Attitude toward the Historiography of the Aliyah and Settlement Process?

J Yossi Ben-Artzi Have Gender Studies Changed Our Attitude toward the Historiography of the Aliyah and Settlement Process? Background The aim of this article is to examine to what extent gender studies in Israel have thus far changed our attitude toward the history of the periods of the First and Second Aliyah, and in general, the history of the aliyah and Jewish settlement processes in Eretz Israel at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries and to propose directions for research that are likely to make gender a central, different elucidator of known phenomena of these processes. In general historiography of the First and Second Aliyah periods, significant changes have taken place in the past two decades thanks to joint research projects or individual studies.1 They certainly have shed new light on the periods themselves, and they have presented new perspectives on each period or for understanding the settlement developments that occurred during them. For instance, the place of the moshavah in settlement history now appears totally different than it did in the previous classic studies.2 The roles of the Baron Edmond de Rothschild’s administration and of the Jewish Colonization Association (JCA) already are perceived completely differently than the way they frequently had been distorted in historical memory.3 A more balanced, fact-based picture has been drawn toward understanding the proportional role of private versus public capital in the processes of modernization, settlement, and land acquisition.4 All the foregoing are examples showing that in settlement historiography, a new stage has been created that completely changes our appreciation of pivotal phenomena: land purchases, settlement in its various forms, organization of settlements, factors in settlement, and so on. From this, we deduce that one may achieve fresh insight into central phenomena by using alternative research paradigms for the writing of classic history, such as the historicalgeographic approach, or the economic-historical approach, or understanding the place of institutions and organizations in historical processes. It should be stressed that the place of research into women and gender perception have not been left out of this renewed scrutiny of the early periods of aliyah; moreover, in recent years, many studies have focused on the feminine “voice” and the feminine view of processes and phenomena related to these aliyot. These studies have successfully met two important criteria in their own right from the aspect of the gender paradigm: first, an addition to existing knowledge, in the sense of new materials that emphasize feminine participation in the formation of the Yishuv with all its various characteristics; second, complementing the first, amplifying feminine or gender exclusion from study of the period. In this way, pioneering studies, such as those by M. Shilo, D. Bernstein, and D. Izraeli, became the foundation stones for a fresh look at well-ensconced “truths,” such as the equality attributed to women of the Second Aliyah and of the labor movement.5 Central Issues in the Study of the Period The central issues related to the history of settlement to which we will refer in the context of gender in this article are the following: • Immigration (aliyot) as a historical and social process: circumstances, characteristics, trends, dimensions, and results; • Settlement in its extended meaning: land acquisition, settlement distribution , forms of settlement, structure of the economy; • Formation of the social fabric: ethnicity, ages, genders, internal relations; • Education: institutions, methods, organizations; • Culture and creativity: language, writing, creativity, and the shaping of identity; • Political and organizational structure: movements, trends, parties, membership , and organizations. All of these phenomena and processes have been studied, of course, by a wide range of researchers dealing with the study of the history of settlement; ben-artzi: Have Gender Studies Changed Our Attitude? 19 and our goal here is to examine to what extent we would write a book on the history of settlement differently if we scrutinized all these through the prism of gender. Would we just gain additional knowledge, a contribution in the uncovering of new facts about women’s “participation” or exclusion, or would we, perhaps, forge new insight into the settlement endeavor in one, a part, or all of the issues listed? First we will examine in what way existing gender studies have changed our understanding of some of the phenomena mentioned. Then we will offer a list of questions, hypotheses, and topics for research from a gender viewpoint to complete the claim that...