Leadership Behind the Curtains: The Case of Israeli Women in 1948

Abstract

In recent years, women and gender have become important topics in research on Jewish society in Palestine in the first half of the twentieth century. Studies on these topics show that women were deeply involved in nation-building but were marginalized in Zionist politics. 1 The story of women’s organizations in the Israeli War of Independence is much the same—the tale of a responsible, enterprising, and creative leadership that was not privileged with political gains and has been excluded from the historiography of the War of Independence to this day. At the focal point of the events stands an umbrella organization of women’s entities, the Council of Women’s Organizations (CWO), and its constituent bodies, most of which were affiliated with political parties or the World Zionist Organization (WZO). This coalition and its constituents responded in real time to a series of difficulties and failures that occurred both during the pre-sovereignty part of the war era, when formal state authorities did not exist, and during the transition period following the establishment of statehood, when many matters slipped between the cracks due to the state of emergency, budget constraints, and confusion among authorities. The women’s organizations responded to three distinct social groups that were harmed by system failures: civilians in the rear who had suffered war damage and were left without housing and sources of livelihood, combat soldiers on the front who lacked prepared meals and essential equipment, and soldiers’ families whose livelihood was impacted by the mobilization of family members. The women’s activities provided these groups with an alternative logistical response in the absence of a central authority that would act comprehensively. The women identified the problems, devised solutions, marshaled the resources needed, and carried out the actions either by themselves or by using large-scale volunteer forces. In some cases, the CWO also represented affected groups vis-a-vis the authorities and alerted the authorities to their needs. Since the boundaries of the coalition were rather loose, one cannot always tell whether a given service was delivered by the CWO