LOOKING FORWARD AND BACKWARD: MODERN AND TRADITIONAL GENDER PATTERNS AMONG YEMENITE IMMIGRANT WOMEN IN A MOSHAV

Abstract

Immigration of Jews from Yemen to Palestine increased during the early twentieth century. The Yemenites came to escape economic and political persecution under Turkish rule (which lasted in Yemen until after World War I) as well as persecution by local Moslems. They were particularly influenced by Jewish emissaries who came to Yemen on behalf of the Zionist Federation (notably Shmuel Yavni'eli in 1911), by religious sentiment, and by news of the Balfour Declaration in 1917.1 The first immigration wave (1881-1904) came from the capital city, Sana' a, and its environs, and the majority of the new arrivals settled in cities, mainly Jerusalem and Jaffa.2 Most of those who came in the second wave (1904-1914), on the other hand, came from rural areas in the north and south of Yemen. They established agricultural communities near the big cities, where they worked as hired farm hands under poor conditions, for low pay.3 After World War I, immigrants continued to arrive and to settle in the towns, especially Tel-Aviv, and in neighborhoods near the old and new agricultural settlements.4 Despite the continuous increase in the number of Yemenite immigrants and their contribution to the establishment of Jewish agricultural settlements in Palestine, the Zionist settlement institutionsthe Jewish Agency and the Jewish National Fund (JNF)made no attempt to establish independent agricultural settlements for them, even when requests were put to them by representatives of the Yemenite community.5 The Jewish leadership did not believe