Girls of Liberty: The Struggle for Suffrage in Mandatory Palestine (Brandeis Series on Gender, Culture, Religion, and Law & Hbi Series on Jewish Women) - Tapa blanda

"Shilo elucidates the strong historical connections between feminism and Jewish nationalism--and their mutual reinforcement--as Zionist women struggled for suffrage in Mandatory Palestine in the context of the movement to found a Jewish and democratic state. Except for a handful of studies . . . the women's victory in that struggle has virtually been erased from the political history of the State of Israel. Writing against the grain of the male-centered historical canon, Shilo applies up-to-date feminist scholarly methods to the 'herstory' of the suffrage movement. . . . An erudite tour de force."--Sylvie Fogiel-Bijaoui, Nashim "Thoroughly researched. . . . This dramatic and critical story is a missing link in Israeli society's collective memory. . . . The translation by Haim Watzman is exquisite."--Sylvie Fogiel-Bijaoui, Nashim "Israel Studies Review"

Following the Balfour Declaration and the British conquest of Palestine (1917-1918), the small Jewish community that lived there wanted to establish an elected assembly as its representative body. The issue that hindered this aim was whether women would be part of it. A group of feminist Zionist women from all over the country created a political party that participated in the elections, even before women's suffrage was enacted. This unique phenomenon in Mandatory Palestine resulted in the declaration of women's equal rights in all aspects of life by the newly founded Assembly of Representatives. Margalit Shilo examines the story of these activists to elaborate on a wide range of issues, including the Zionist roots of feminism and nationalism; the ultra-Orthodox Jewish sector's negation of women's equality; how traditional Jewish concepts of women fashioned rabbinical attitudes on the question of women's suffrage; and how the fight for women's suffrage spread throughout the country. Using current gender theories, Shilo compares the Zionist suffrage struggle to contemporaneous struggles across the globe, and connects this nearly forgotten episode, absent from Israeli historiography, with the present situation of Israeli women. This rich analysis of women's right to vote within this specific setting will appeal to scholars and students of Israel studies, and to feminist and social historians interested in how contexts change the ways in which activism is perceived and occurs.