Women of valor – heroines of Zionism and Israel

A recent debate in Israel about whose portrait should be on the yet-to-be issued new currency notes put the focus on the role of women in the history of the state of Israel and the years leading to its establishment.

This led me to make this long, yet incomplete list of prominent and other remarkable women in the history of Israel and Zionism. I’ve gathered most of the information from the Hebrew web. On some there is material in English, and I provided links in those instances. In many cases the information is scant, some had even been forgotten from Israel’s collective memory.
This list is by no means complete, but a farther research will require some leg work in universities and public libraries. I do hope that by just mentioning them I’m giving them some of the honor they deserve, though no doubt they deserve far more than a blog post can provide.

Dona Gracia Nasi (?1510-1568)

First among the firsts and first ahead all the firsts, a banker, a philanthropist and a stateswoman, a member of a known family of Jewish marranos who fled the inquisition in Portugal to Antwerp. Like Yehuda Halevi befor her, she was a precursor of Zionism. He dreamed about the return to Zion in his poems, she lobbied for it in Istanbul. Her work led to the return of the Jews to the city of Tiberias, one of the four holy cites in Judaism. (The others are Jerusalem, Safed and Hebron). For more information click here

Emma Lazarus 1849-1887

Where does this bond between the United States of America and Israel exist?

It exists in numerous places along history and culture; and in the very psyche of both nations. One such place is Emma Lazarus; her famous words carved at the statue of Liberty gave America a new ethos and a place of morality among the nations. Like Dona Gracia, she was a Jew of Portuguese origin, and one of the firsts public figures to embrace Zionism. For more information click here.

The four mothers of present day Israel

Little needs to be said about most of these remarkable women.

Golda Meir, 1898-1978

Israel’s first woman prime minister was a stateswoman of great stature, who has been through Israel’s toughest hours, when hard decisions had to be made, from The War of Independence to The Yom-Kippur war. For more information click here.

Shoshana Damari, 1923-2006

She began her career in the times of British mandatory rule. Her song reflected the resistance to the foreign power, and served as a focus of hope and a source of strength to the entire society. In the years following Israel’s independence, her voice and songs became national symbols of Israel, along side the flag and the national anthem.

Hannah Robina, 1890-1980

The first ‘First Lady’ of the Israeli theatre.

Henrietta Szold, 1860-1945

An educator and a leading social activist, her memory has eroded in Israel over the years, as sadly did her legacy. She made Israel a welfare state long before there was Israel, and shaped its society into one that puts the concerns for the weak and the needy close to its heart, and the education and well being of its youth at its center.

Israeli legends

Other famous women of legendary fame the warriors Sarah Aharonson, 1870-1917, and the poet Hanna Senesh, 1921-1944. They lived in different times but those periods were demanding and dangerous. Of their own choice they volunteered to help change the fate of their people for the better. Sarah chose the risky and ungrateful work of espionage during the upheavals of the First World War, and Hannah volunteered to be a commando deep in enemy held territory, recruiting people to fight the Nazi menace. They both paid the ultimate price, which built their legends. But their legends are not the stories of their death but the stories of their lives. More on Hanna Senesh.

Haika Grossman, 1919-1996
She was a partisan, a legislator and a civil rights activist, a warrior for good in the full sense of the word.

The soul of a nation and its culture is in its authors, poets and singers, weaving their words and rhythms into an intense experience of been and living. And women made their mark on it just like men.

The author Leah Goldberg, 1911-1970

She is a major pillar of The Modern Hebrew literature.

Naomi Shemer, 1930-2004

She is Israel’s most famous poet and lyricist.

Rachel Bluwatein, 1890-1931

Known as Rahel Hameshoreret (Rahel the poet), her words touch heart and soul of everyone who reads, sings or just listens to her poem.

Ofra Haza, 1957-2000

A captivating singer and actress, the tragic end of her life did not overshadow a glamorous career, filled with upbeat songs.

From among the pioneers who carried the burden of creating Israel out of the destitution of the people and the land these women stand tall: Manya Shohat, 1880-1961, a pioneer, a revolutionary, a guard and a negotiator; and her friend Rahel Yanait Ben Zvi, 1886-1979, the wife of Israel’s second president Yizhak Ben Tvi, and a counsel to the younger generations..

Other preeminent figures from history and society

Haviva Reich, 1914-1944

Like Hannah Senesh she volunteered to fight the Nazis, deep behind enemy lines, where the odds were against them. She was eventually caught and executed, “every day that we remain alive is a gift from the heavens” she said about their chances, yet she went on.

The singer Bracha Tzfira, 1911-1990
The first voice of Zion.

Sarah Levy Tanay, 1911-2005
The mother of modern Israeli dance and a composer

Talia Shapira ,1947-1992
Actress and comedian.

Thelma Bentwich Yelin 1895-1959
A cellist who founded the ‘Thelma Yelin High School for the Performing Arts’, a school that has educated many of Israel’s actors, musicians and directors.

Bracha Peli, 1892-1986

A publisher and a businesswoman.

Bracha Habas, 1900-1968
Journalist, editor and documentarian, one of the first women journalists in the land of Israel, wrote for “Davar” and edited its children supplement “Dvar Le Yeladim.”

Baba Eidelson Trachtenberg, 1885-1975

A pioneer and a legislator in the very first years of Israel’s parliamentary life, she focused on workers’ rights and women’s rights. Her approach was that even the language of the law can’t differentiate between the genders, and every right given to men is a right given to women as well.

Miriam Schwartz who died in 1983
Founder of Beit Hagalgalim for disabled children. See also here

The price of an armed struggle

We did not choose to make this an armed struggle, the choice was made for us, and when it was made we fought. In many cases men and women fought next to each other, and fell next to each other. The following is barely a sample of the price women had paid in the course of this violent conflict.

Rahel Halevi Hadad, from the first to settle in Petach Tikvah, died 1886. Beaten to death by a looting Arab mob she tried to fend of with her bare hands that raided Petach Tikvah when most of the men went to the court in Jaffa carrying evidence of a previous Arab raid on their cattle.

From the heroes of Tel Hai

Along with Yosef Trumpeldor, 8 people died in the battle of Tel Hai, and the circumstances leading to what is considered the first battle in the history of Zionism, two of them were women.

Deborah Drechler was killed on March 1^st 1920, just as the battle began. A heroine in her own right, during the First World War she helped her fellow men pioneers when they were held prison in Turkish jails, first in Nazareth then Damascus, she smuggled food to them and help them exchange letters with the outside world.

And Sarah Chizik, her fried and fellow pioneer who was killed the day after.

Latrun
Israel war of independence was demanding and costly from everyone.

During the second battle over the Latrun police station in late May 1948, Hadassah Lempel Halenia was the radio technician in the armored vehicle that broke into that fortified garrison. Her death from heavy enemy fire was recorded in the film “Cast a Giant Shadow.” She was a gifted painter.

Jerusalem
Esther Cailingold, 1925-1948

She was a member of an affluent Jewish family from England. She volunteered to help her people and the state of Israel following the horrors of the holocaust. Helped Jews immigrate to the land of Israel against the British blockade. In Jerusalem she was a teacher. She was killed while defending heroically the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem.

Gush Etzion
The names of the women killed in that battle and the massacre of the prisoners that followed. Ester Koyfman Dersiyger, Tzipora Rozenfled, Tzipora Kurtztag, Rahel Zegelshtein, Sarah Midzinsky, Haya Masha Musel, Shoshana Tenenboim, Haya Ledermam Hela, Hannah Zinger, Haya Vesertil Lena, Rahel Hiler Rania, Hadassah Noyger Krantz, Batia Pas, Ester Rosentzveig , Zilpa Caraso, Tzipora Yaacobovitz, and Rahel Viner.

Most of them holocaust survivors that have been through the death camps, a few came to Israel in the middle of WW2 in what was called “Teheran children.” They were all members of religious Zionists movements.

The Second Lebanon War

Sergeant 1^stclass Keren Tendler, 1979-2006, a helicopter flight mechanic in ‘The Second Lebanon War’. Killed when her helicopter was shot down by enemy fire.

This list is by no means complete, but it is more then enough to show that in a society considered chauvinistic and patriarchal, women had made an important and impressive mark, even more so when we look at present day Israel.

Sources:

Israel’s memorial site for the fallen (Hebrew)

Jewish Women Archive

Gaza Freedom March

I know I’m been highly predictable in my Zionist reaction to this cartoon, originally portraying Palestinian kids trapped in Gaza, but what can I say, I couldn’t help my self.

Defending Muslims’ civil rights, between Switzerland and Kfar-Yasuf.

These days Israel is at war, declared on it by people speaking in the name of Islam. This while very few people or any, who also speak in the name of that religion, stand up against them.

This does not mean that every Muslim is an enemy of Israel, or at war with it. Or, that I, as a Jew, an Israeli and a Zionist, should stand aside when the rights of Muslims are violated. It does mean I should be careful, because there is a dilemma here, and it is not a simple one.

Championing the civil rights and human rights of strangers and enemies is elementary survival for everyone. If someone else’s fundamental rights are violated, and we stand by the sidelines, uninvolved, sooner or later one of us will be violated the same way. It’s maybe an old liberal cliché, but it is still correct and accurate, and the recent event in Moldova demonstrates that to the letter.

But what if the ones whose rights we are defending are hell-bent on violating our civil rights and human rights?

The fact of the matter is, that whenever Arab or Islamist terrorists violate the human rights of Israelis, when they are attacking Israeli civilians, acts that are war crimes and crimes against humanity, Muslims communities in the west support those crimes in droves.

For Israelis like myself it is an “either way we lose” situation. Added to it is the well-known fact that the biggest oppressors of Muslims in the world today are Muslim rulers, yet no major Muslim community in the west had ever went against them.

Which means that if we want to improve the human rights of Muslims on universal level and out of a universal concern, as a part of an effort to make the whole world a better place, our efforts will be useless, because we cannot improve the human rights of Muslims without Muslims taking major part in such an effort. Indeed the commitment to human rights cannot be sporadic or conditional; it needs to be complete, separated from politics and ideology. But that is precisely the case today, it had reach an absurd condition that for an Israeli to champion human rights becomes just as risky as abandoning it, and with it the effectiveness of campaigning fades.

A critic from the dogmatic left is likely to come to me and say I’m putting conditions behind my support on this issue, such critic will be right. I want this to work, and I want the rights of my people to be included. I’m not referring to the rights the settlers claim in face of the freeze imposed on them by the Israeli government, I am referring to the elementary rights for life and physical well being of my fellow Israelis in face of terrorism and the incitement that leads to it.

On the other hand, when it comes to the criminal and cowardly act of burning the mosque in Kfar - Yasuf by right wing extremists, there is no dilemma; this was a crime, a contemptible crime of hate - a hate crime!

No healthy society can tolerate hate crimes. By their definition they represent intolerance. Those who burned that mosque did it because they did not like its worshipers and their faith, not because they’ve done anything to them. The perpetrators call themselves ‘price tag’, demanding retribution from Palestinian civilians not over terrorism, which is also unjustified, but over an attempt to reach peace.

There is no question that the price the settlers are asked to pay in order to push the peace process forwards is heavy, both materialistically and emotionally, on a personal level as well as that of the community, and that while implementing something that contradicts their core convictions. Their resentment should not be ridiculed rather respected, but it does not justify violence, not against law enforcers, and certainly not against civilians and their property. The only threat to my own survival, and that of Israel, comes from the likes of those arsonists; their values are corrupt, their intolerance will not be preserved to non-Jews, but it will be delivered upon Jews they disapprove of, as it happened so many times in the recent past. Therefore I whole-heartedly hope that the police will do its job in the very best of ways, and find them with all the evidence needed to convict them and sentence to jail for the full length of time determine by the law.

Related link, from Ray Cook

The ‘Daily Show’ guests Anna Baltzer and Mustafa Barghouti, distortion center stage

For anyone who enjoys a professional work on television, especially satire, ‘The Daily Show’ with Jon Stewart is an almost guaranteed delight. Even on October the 28^th 2009, when his guests were leading Palestinian propagandists, Dr. Mustafa Barghouti and his current sidekick Anna Baltzer. It was a wall-to-wall professional performance by all participants. Jon Stewart was naturally professional in managing a sensitive subject with a somewhat charged audience, and his guests were professionals in doing their job and administrating their poison.

Speaking to a pro Israeli, pro Jewish public opinion, they had to appear pro Jewish themselves. But with an anti-Israeli purpose they had to shove in their hateful messages somehow, and as professionals they did so.

Four simple messages, simple and false, slipped between praise for the Jews as people caring for the weak and the oppressed:

The first one was that there are a lot of Israelis behind them. The fact of the matter is that when people sharing Baltzer’s political convictions showed up to demonstrate during Israel’s Hebrew Book fair in Tel Aviv in June 2009, there were barely 15 people among them, shouting in English, carrying signs in English, in a Hebrew language event (I was there). In other words, they were not there to win over Israelis, just to get their pictures taken and leave. In Israel, organizations with convictions close to that of Anna Baltzer have to spread throughout the country just to get a hundred Israeli Jews. Why?

Because they are not trying to win over Israeli Jews!

Second was Dr. Barghouti's statement that the state of Israel used the language of force for 60 years. This statement is evidently false by a simple examination of the historic facts: when the UN General Assembly voted for the two states solution in 1947 the Yishuv, the pre-state Jewish community in the land of Israel, accepted, the Palestinians and the Arab world rejected, violently. When a new government took power in Egypt in 1952, Ben Gurion sent a message of peace, but that government, that of Gamal Abdel Nasser marshaled the Arab world against Israel, culminating in the wars of 1956 and 1967. After the Israeli victories of 1967, Israel offered territories for peace but was answered by the Khartoum no, nos, and war resumed. When president Sa’adat of Egypt offered peace in 1977 Israel replied with a YES and evacuated the Sinai, including all settlements there. And this record goes on until these very days.

So why did Dr. Barghouti make such a monstrous lie? May be because his definition of a forceful act is different then that of the rest of the world, and he regards the very existence of Israel as something he is forced to accept against his will and against his convictions.

Anna Baltzer made the false comparison between Israel’s alleged violations of UN resolutions and those of Iraq, and Iraq got bombed for its violations.
Does she want Israel to get bombed? She stopped herself there.

But her comparison remains invalid, as Dore Gold had pointed out, all the resolutions against Israel are chapter 6 resolutions, negotiated solution resolutions where the use of force is unfavorable, while those against Iraq are chapter 7, enforceable resolutions against a recognized threat to peace. Sadly for Anna Baltzer even the bias UN does not see the existence of Israel as a threat to peace.

Anna Baltzer also repeated the familiar line about Jews living good under Islamic rule. It’s the old 50’s reasoning that said, ‘slaves like to be whipped’, the 1850’s that is. Because while there were relatively tolerant rulers in Islamic history; much like in the Christian world; they were not necessarily the norm, as recent history records. With examples such as Ali Burzi Pasha of Libya who murdered hundreds of Jews in 1785, Algiers where Jews were massacred in 1815 and 1830, Damascus where a classical blood libel lead to the murder of Jews in 1840, Safed, whose Jews were brutalized, plundered and killed in 33 days long fest by their Palestinian neighbors in 1834. Mashhed Iran, where Jews were forced to convert to Islam in 1839, and Baghdad where a famous pogrom took place in 1941, and more.

Now why would a Jew, or any other minority will have warm feelings for these kinds of memories? Why would those feelings be any different then those a slave has towards the whip?

Finally they claimed their divestment campaign is a non-violent resistance. Is it?
Have they ever condemned the murderous acts of Palestinian terrorist organizations?
Challenged them?
Protested them?

Have they encouraged a single farmer on the path of Israel’s security barrier to say ‘not through my land’ not just to Israel but also to the members of those armed groups, who crossed over so many times and murdered so many people in the name of that farmer and his people, in the name of Palestine?

Because if their punishment - oriented boycott campaign against Israel hasn’t even tried to avert a single suicide attack, a single rocket, then it is not there to replace the violent struggle, but to assist it, and support it, by punishing Israel for successfully defending its citizens.

Jon Stewart Mid East guests, the wrong criticism.

I do not wish to challenge CAMERA’s impressive record in monitoring media bias and inaccuracies regarding Israel and the Middle East conflict. However, Steven Stotsky criticism of Jon Stewart hosting Anna Baltzer and Dr. Mustafa Barghouti on ‘The Daily Show’ of October the 28th, is simply wrong. While I do share Stotsky’s outrage over the poisonous lies the two guests spread throughout the interview and like him I can point out their murderous intentions towards the Israeli population I see no reason why this outrage should spillover to ‘The Daily Show’ and its staff.
Throughout the years this show had maintained successfully a delicate balance, on one hand expressing unapologetically left wing liberal American views (not necessarily extremists), while hosting guests from a variety of political views, including the far right, such as Pat Buchanan and others. And each guest was given the same amount of respect, where he or she were given the time to express their views even when disagreements were prime. Regarding the Israeli Palestinian conflict the people behind the show took the neutral position, especially when interviewing guests, putting their own views aside.
These are all legitimate professional decisions, which should be respected. Along with the ability to make people laugh, even from things they disagreed with, they gave ‘The Daily Show’ its success and credibility. Deviating from them would have been bias in its ugliest form; the kind Israel is expose to from the more serious media outlets.
With guests like Anna Baltzer and Dr. Mustafa Barghouti this record was undoubtedly challenged to its maximum, and Jon Stewart did indeed handle it with care, trying to find a common ground with his guests on one hand (a common ground for Israelis and Palestinians), and allowing members of the audience to vent their emotions on the other hand. While these two were clearly there to spread lies and hate, ethics demands they should be given a stage, because the same ethics, when practiced gives us a stage:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Pierre Rehov
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

Is there a hope for peace?

I gave up long ago, which makes me a member of the majority here in Israel, and probably among the Palestinians as well, but sometimes people can surprise us for the better.
Usually talkbackers are full of trash talk and hate speech, but in this article by Yoram Ettinger, Mohammad and Said from Jordan had a lengthy constructive conversation with William and Logic from Israel.
This is only a trickle of hope, but by god I was thirsty, and so do a lot of other people.

J Street won’t decide the future of the peace process

DDizengoff Street in Tel Aviv will,
YYaffo Street in Jerusalem will,
The streets of Haifa, Netanya, Hadera, Gedera, Ra’anana, Kfar Saba and Rishon Letzion. Beer Sheva, Eilat, Askelon, Ashdod, Netivot and Sderot. Those and more, big and small, are the communities, whose residents will decide the future of the peace process. J Street can boo the critiques of the Goldstone report, advance it in the halls of power, praise the apologists and advocated of the Palestinian mass murder campaigns, all they like. Our lives are at stake, we, the citizens of Israel, have the final veto.