American Jewish Women and the Zionist Enterprise (review)

On November 29, 1948, Hebrew University student Zipporah Porath wrote home to New York:

I can't believe this year. So much has happened, but the most important thing by far is the birth of the state. I've been part of it and it will forever be part of me. I guess that means I am telling you I intend to see this war through and then remain on, whatever happens. This is now my home.

(p. 362)

These words close a valuable collection documenting, for the first time, the range of American women's contributions to Zionism. Following Brandeis University's 1999 conference "Untold Stories: American Jewish Women in the Yishuv and Early State of Israel" (convened to mark Israel's fiftieth anniversary), sociologist Shulamit Reinharz, a pioneering figure in women's studies, teamed up with historian Mark A. Raider, author of The Emergence of American Zionism (1998), to edit the proceedings. What began as a publication of conference papers wisely evolved into a far more significant book. In compiling American Jewish Women and the Zionist Enterprise, the editors added an array of primary and secondary sources, a number of them previously published, to extend their historical sweep, reaching back to the pre-Herzlian Zionism of Emma Lazarus and forward to the prime ministership of Golda Meir. By bringing all these together in a single volume, they dramatically convey the range and depth of American women's Zionist involvements, commitments, and activities.

The book, which is divided into four sections, opens with portraits of three visionaries: Emma Lazarus (by Arthur Zeiger, first published in 1958), Henrietta Szold (by Allon Gal), and Marie Syrkin (by Carole Kessner, also previously published). Accompanying their portraits are excerpts from their writings: Emma Lazarus's poem "The Banner of the Jew," a letter by Henrietta Szold, and a 1947 essay advocating partition by Marie Syrkin. By publishing these women's intellectual contributions to the development of Zionism alongside each other, the editors demonstrate that women were not only Zionist activists but also shapers of the Zionist idea.

These and the other original voices included in the book's final section, "Women Report and Remember: Documentary Portraits," make for compelling reading. In addition to Zipporath Porath's spellbinding account of the siege of Jerusalem during the War of Independence, the documentary portraits include Golda Meir's record of her astonishment at having to prove her value to Kibbutz Merhavyah, and Ruth Halprin Kaslove's memories of her mother, Hadassah president Rose Luria Halprin, whose activism propelled her, in the 1930s, to move her family to Palestine and from there to travel to Berlin for Youth Aliyah, where she was spied upon by the Gestapo. In another memoir, Lois Slott recounts her insider's view, from her perch as a stenotypist (a job one might have to explain to undergraduates) for the American Section of the Jewish Agency, of the dramas leading up to the new nation's birth and of the young men scurrying around the U.S. buying up arms for the coming war. These captivating voices enrich the collection, not only for a general audience but especially for students, who may well find it assigned in modern Jewish history classes. They will also benefit from the useful time line tabulating landmark dates in the history of American Jewish women, Zionist affairs, American and world Jewish affairs, and general world history, to which, in the interest of full disclosure, I note that I contributed.

The book's second section considers an array of American Jewish women's Zionist organizations. Going beyond the best known of the women's Zionist organizations, Hadassah (analyzed by Mary McCune for its membership success and by Mira Katzburg-Yungman for its early contributions to the Yishuv), the volume includes essays on Mizrachi Women, Pioneer Women, Hadassah-WIZO Canada, and the International Council of Jewish Women. The inclusion of religious and socialist groups underscores the diversity of women's Zionist activism and demands...