Introduction

Abstract

Introduction Rachel Rojanski (bio) and Bat-Sheva Margalit Stern (bio) New perspectives on women in Israeli society, the first special issue of the journal Israel Studies dedicated to women's issues, reflects how the study of women in Israel has developed in recent years. In order to understand these changes and how they have shaped this collection, it is important to begin by looking back at them. Sixteen years ago, in January 2006, Cathedra, the Hebrew-language journal for the history of Eretz Israel and the Yishuv, published an issue dedicated to women.1 In her introductory essay, sociologist Deborah Bernstein2 reviewed the development of gender research in Israel. She pointed to a 1979 article by historian Margalit Shilo on the women's agricultural training farm at Kinneret,3 the first academic article to use gender in its analysis4 and deal with the problems and experiences of women as a separate group in pre-state Israel. "Shilo," Bernstein wrote, "took a term from the historical discourse of that time and discussed it using the terminology and insights of feminist historical writing as it had started to evolve in those days."5 Shilo's article was followed by the studies of Bernstein herself and Dafna Izraeli, another prominent sociologist who expanded the academic discourse on the Women's Workers Movement and working women in pre-state Israel (both organized and un-organized).6 "This was the beginning" Bernstein concludes, "of the historical and sociological writing on women in pre-state Israel."7 All five articles in that issue of Cathedra were historical in nature. The historical emphasis could already be seen in an extensive collection of articles on gender issues in Israel titled Jewish Women in the Yishuv and Zionism—A Gender Perspective [Hebrew] published in 2001, five years before the issue of Cathedra.8 The book, which contained 24 articles in 6 sections on various aspects of women's lives was compiled by editors from three different disciplines: history, historical geography, and folklore. Yet although the editors emphasized the multidisciplinary nature of the volume, the vast majority of articles were historical in nature and [End Page 1] only a few treated women in literature and the arts. The opening section, "Constructing the Historical Narrative," included three articles, one by Bernstein about the study of women in Israeli historiography,9 another by Henriette Dahan Kalev on Mizrahi Women10 and a third by Yossi Ben-Artzi, with a title that was put as a question: "Have Gender Studies Changed Our Attitude towards the Historiography of Aliyah and the Settlement Process?11 Ben-Artzi's 2001 question was given pride of place as the opening essay of yet another volume on women and gender, a two-volume collection of articles published in 2011 by Iyunim, a Multidisciplinary Periodical for the Study of Israel under the title Gender in Israel [Hebrew].12 In answer to Ben-Artzi editors Margalit Shilo and Gideon Katz asserted that attitudes towards gender issues in general and women's issues in particular had indeed changed significantly. Their goal in the volume, they said, was to present a better understanding of these new perspectives through the gendered approach of the articles they published dealing with both the period of the mandate and the State of Israel.13 c of the articles in their edited volume were based on historical research (including art history, the history of medicine etc.), a few of them, especially among those dealing with the State of Israel, came from the social sciences or legal sciences. Three years later, in 2014, Shilo published a comprehensive article on the development of the study of gender in the historical research of pre-state Israel. In her article, (Hebrew), "Women, Gender and the History of the Yishuv: Goals and Accomplishments"14 Shilo surveyed the development of the field as a "branch of historical research" in Israel as well as in the U.S. She also pointed to an important development that was occurring in the 21st century, namely, that historical methodology itself was undergoing significant changes "some of which are inspired by theories and methodologies taken from gender and women's research. … Moreover, following...