The achievements of women’s writing in Hebrew rank among the unquestionable triumphs of Israeli feminism. From a (culturally speaking) atypical starting point of almost total exclusion from Hebrew language and literature, Israeli women writers have been able to ascend to a prominent position in the Hebrew literature of the early twenty-first century. In the space of less than fifty years, Israeli literature underwent a profound process of change, in which women played an important role. The talent of the women writers, coupled with the encouragement of women readers and academics, helped women’s writing to progress from marginalization to its rightful status. This change, which did not come about easily, was part of the struggle for equality of the sexes in every aspect of Israeli society. Before reviewing the accomplishments and analyzing the processes that produced the change, this article will focus briefly on the obstacles that confronted women authors writing in Hebrew.

During the two thousand years of the Exile of the Jewish people, the Hebrew language became the exclusive province of men. Very few women either read it or wrote it (Parush 1994). Men rarely spoke the language, but they did learn it and were fluent in it for the purposes of prayer and the study of sacred texts. Perhaps more than any other tongue, Hebrew—as the original language of the scriptures—was identified with the patriarchal perception of the sacred. It is grammatically a gender-based language, divided entirely into masculine and feminine, with no neuter gender. Women were forced to wait until the language became secularized in order to find their place in it. By virtue of its being the holy tongue—the language of The legal corpus of Jewish laws and observances as prescribed in the Torah and interpreted by rabbinic authorities, beginning with those of the Mishnah and Talmud.halakhah (Jewish religious law), law, and ritual—ancient written Hebrew was created and preserved as part of cultural creativity solely by men. Women’s exclusion from Hebrew, until approximately one hundred years ago, prevented them from playing a role in it, with the exception of rare instances (Kaufman, et al. 1999).

The Jewish Enlightenment; European movement during the 1770sHaskalah movement and Zionism, which waved the banner of women’s equality, provided women with the opportunity to study Hebrew and even encouraged them to write in it. The revival of the language was an essential component of the Zionist revolution and it was necessary to include women in this audacious undertaking. In order for the ancient tongue to once again become a language of daily speech, mothers would have to speak it with their children. The transformation of Hebrew into a living language, reactive and evolving, is one of the outstanding achievements of the Zionist movement, unparalleled in any other language. The major role that women played in this process resulted in grudging encouragement to participate in the creation of Hebrew literature. Even if the male authors did not intend to grant women writers an important role in the emergent culture, the absence of women’s emotionalism in Hebrew literature was obvious to them.

But familiarity with Hebrew as a spoken language still did not enable one to compose literature. Among the most difficult stumbling blocks faced by women was acquiring fluency in the Jewish canonical texts—“masculine” texts according to the gender-cultural definition—that were a prerequisite for writing literature in the late nineteenth century and until the mid-twentieth century. Since studying the sacred texts was off limits to women, their education lacked one of the central preconditions for participating in the creation of literature. The national cultural heritage, transmitted through the canonical texts, was the “father tongue” whose acquisition and “retooling” by women writers made it possible for them to create in it. It was only the merging of “the father culture” with the “mother culture” (Showalter 1985) that gave women writers in Hebrew the opportunity for authentic self-expression, which did not exist outside the canonical circle.

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An additional obstacle confronting the women writers was the androcentrism of the Zionist revolution. The ideal of the “new Jew” in Zionist ideology reflected the dream of a “masculine revolution”—a transformation from weakness and passivity to power and aggressive activism (Biale 1992; Almog 2000). The myth of the fighting sabra, which was a by-product of the military struggle that accompanied the settlement of pre-State Palestine, and especially the establishment of the State of Israel, also led to the marginalization of women. Despite the existence of a feminist ethos in the Zionist-socialist movement, equality remained an unfulfilled promise, a pretty slogan that concealed a different reality (Hazelton 1977). And the meta-narrative of Hebrew literature—redemption of the people through redemption of the Land—is a Zionist male myth addressed by most of the works of prose produced in the 1940s and 1950s (Shaked 1993).

The primary function of women’s literature in Hebrew was to present the authentic female experience, while battling the stereotypical characterization of women in much of men’s writing. The formulation of a feminine identity lay at the heart of the works of the “foremothers” of Hebrew poetry and prose—Devorah Baron and Rahel. Each of them was noteworthy for her profoundly independent nature, and each paid a heavy personal price for daring to infiltrate one of the key strongholds of Jewish culture—Hebrew literature. Baron produced the bulk of her work under conditions of self-imposed seclusion, not venturing outside her house for thirty years. Rahel sought to realize her pioneer dream in A voluntary collective community, mainly agricultural, in which there is no private wealth and which is responsible for all the needs of its members and their families.Kibbutz Kinneret, even traveling to France to study agronomy; but when she returned, ailing with tuberculosis, she was asked to leave due to her illness and died young, alone and destitute. Only after her death in 1931 was she allowed to return to Kinneret, where she was buried.

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The forging of an alternative feminine identity through a nonconformist reading of the scriptures and an affinity for negative or marginal female characters, has been a major aspect of the work of Hebrew women writers since the beginning of Israeli women’s literature. But in the poetry and prose of recent decades, the majority of the women writers have identified with a biblical heroine who was disgraced for eternity, such as the Wife of Lot or the Wife of Job, who are not even referred to by name in the negative context. There are dozens of examples of this feminist expression in the realm of poetry, in the article “Yayin Hadash bi-Kli Yashan” (Old wine in a new bottle, Rattok 1999) and in the book by Haya Shaham, Nashim ve-Masekhot: Mi-Eshet Lot ve-ad Cinderella (Women and masks: From Lot’s wife to Cinderella, 2002).

Two daring women writers of the 1990s are Nurit Zarhi (b. 1941), who depicts the biblical Joseph as a woman disguised in men’s clothing, in the story “Hi Yosef” (She is Joseph, 1993); and Michal Ben-Naftali, who rewrites the Book of Ruth as a love story between women (2000). Zarhi creates the androgynous ideal—a woman who, thanks to her male attire, achieves the special status of Pharaoh’s second-in-command by combining her feminine intuition (the ability to interpret dreams) and her masculine ability to take action. In her story, one of the more mysterious figures in the scriptures becomes the model of the woman of the future, who may be able to rescue not only her people but the entire world from the symbolic seven years of famine.

Michal Ben-Naftali’s choice of the ancient text of the Book of Ruth as the point of departure for an experimental work of art that combines a sweeping confession with a theoretical discourse—she opens the book with a “Chronicle of Farewell: On the Failed Love of Deconstruction”—is extremely interesting. Her Book of Ruth is a liturgical text that opens with a poem by Zelda but incorporates quotations and questions from Jacques Derrida and Julia Kristeva in addition to the Bible. In Ben-Naftali’s interpretation, the national text becomes a personal-feminine story that revolves around the power, complexity and torment of an intense love between women. A sensual, multihued portrayal of love between women also characterizes the work of Judith Katzir (b. 1963), from her first book Sogrim et ha-Yam (Closing the sea, 1990) to her most recent book Hinei ani Mathilah [Dearest Anne, 2003]; but the primary expression of this theme is through poetry, notably in the works of Agi Mishol (b. 1947), Sharon As and Shaz.

In the 1990s, Israeli literature experienced a major change, in which Orly Castel-Bloom (b. 1960) played a central role. For the first time, a woman was in the position of “modern-day prophet” previously held by men, where she occupied center stage. The post-modern prose of Castel-Bloom is characterized by a biting feminist-political message that is nonetheless conveyed with a sense of humor and fantasy that make it highly appealing. She succeeds wonderfully in describing the sense of misery amid a capitalist culture, in the wake of the collapse of the old, familiar frameworks. Her characters are marked by alienation, detachment and a lack of focus and meaning; they flit from one constantly shifting fad to another. Although the deconstruction of the subject is a universal problem of post-modern prose, Castel-Bloom ably spotlights its uniquely Israeli elements.

Her awareness of the “culture industry” (to use the terminology of the Frankfurt school) is evident in the title of her book Ha-Sefer ha-Hadash shel Orly Castel-Bloom (Orly Castel-Bloom’s new book, 1998). Self-parody, humor and the absurd are the hallmarks of her work, in which it is difficult to distinguish between fantasy and reality. In the story “Ha-Brigadot ha-Shehorot” (The Black Brigades, 1998), for example, she describes the situation in Israel following the appearance of mysterious vacuums that cause anyone who enters them to “lose his substance.” While the media are focused on debating the future borders of the state, the Black Brigades occupy these vacuums and wreak havoc within them. The tragicomic point is that these same brigades—perhaps “black holes” that engulf everything, perhaps newly awakened spores of the Black Plague—were actually intended to protect Israel in time of need.

The secret weapon against all possible disasters are the military elements that have been absorbed into the Israeli psyche. In the words of Castel-Bloom: “It is a mutation of the Ha-Shomer (pre-state defense) organization; a metamorphosis of the Haganah, the Ezel [Irgun Zeva’i Leummi, IZL or Irgun] and the Lehi [Lohammei Herut Israel]; and an internalization of the Israel Defense Forces.” If the very thing that ensures Israeli survival is a threatening entity that creates a spiritual-cultural-human vacuum, warns the author, our future is in danger. Her protest against the aggressiveness that is gradually taking over from within, is extremely effective, precisely because she uses everyday language and a highly personal tone: “It’s so scary! Who wants to be here anyway when they burst out of the ‘self’ of the people in order to protect them!”

Sexual freedom is a prominent feature of women’s writing of the 1980s and 1990s. The boldest poetry belongs to Yona Wallach, who, in her series of poems entitled “Ke-she-tavo lishkav iti kemo …” (When you come to sleep with me like …), decries the tendency of men to relate to sex as a power game and an opportunity to hurt and humiliate women.

Detailed and forthright poems of erotic yearning are also being composed by Leah Ayalon (b. 1950), Maya Bejerano (b. 1949) and Rachel Halfi. Bejerano is the most conspicuous formative innovator after Wallach, drawing on materials from the field of contemporary science, while Halfi is characterized by feminist messages and an identification with exceptional, creative women who were unable to become artists because they were brutally put to death as witches. Nevertheless, this poetry also exhibits an element of fantasy and humor that attests to the new sense of independence and confidence that is part of women’s writing.

There is also a noticeable erotic openness in the field of prose, as evidenced by the work of Judith Katzir (b. 1963), Zeruya Shalev (b. 1959), Alona Kimchi (b. 1966) and Dorit Rabinyan. Sexuality as a liberated source of pleasure is a central motif of their writing, alongside the limitations of the institution of marriage. But the rendering of the female body, and the process of achieving personal liberation by freeing oneself of dependence on a man, is also fraught with pain. Breaking free of a symbiotic relationship with the mother figure, the courage to turn to artistic expression, and the difficulty of forging a feminine identity on the brink of the new millennium, are all topics that arise in this lively and fascinating body of work.

The same themes also appear in the work of the younger women poets Chava Pinchas-Cohen (b. 1955) and Efrat Mishori. Pinchas-Cohen, editor of the periodical Dimui (Image), is a major figure among religious poets in Israel. Her poetry expresses a courageous feminist attitude couched in the language of the A type of non-halakhic literary activitiy of the Rabbis for interpreting non-legal material according to special principles of interpretation (hermeneutical rules).midrash (biblical commentary in the form of stories and parables). Efrat Mishori is known for her poetic performances, her experiments with form, and her extreme feminist stance. Mishori attacked one of the central institutions of Jewish and Israeli culture in her poem “Kir ha-Imahut” (The Wall of Motherhood, 1994), in which she presented mothers as a “non-entity” (i-mahut).

The Wall of Motherhood

The two

sides

of

the wall

of motherhood

are the same

as

the two

sides

of

a piece

of flat

paper

not

exactly

because

the wall

of motherhoo

d is like

this poem

it i

s

rea

son and also

res

ult

of

the wall of m

otherhood

(translated by Rachel Tzvia Back)

The most radical prose attack on the institution of motherhood is that of Orly Castel-Bloom in her novel Dolly City (1992). The demand placed on the Israeli mother—to devote her life to caring for her son while at the same time preparing him to fulfill a military duty in which he may be wounded or killed—is presented in all its absurdity in this bizarre satire. Single motherhood, by contrast, is portrayed in a favorable light in the 1990s, in books by Eleonora Lev (Boker Rishon be-Gan ha-Eden [First morning in paradise], 1996) and Gail Hareven (She-Ahavah Nafshi [Whom my soul loved], 2000).

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, as Hebrew literature by women celebrates the first hundred years of its existence, we can note with satisfaction that one of the major changes in Hebrew culture occurred within its framework. Women writers, who at first played only a marginal role of helpmate to male writers, now participate equally in shaping the content, form and ideology of Hebrew literature. They no longer content themselves with minor genres such as the short story or personal lyric poetry or with writing for children and youth, but write comprehensive, intellectually demanding works in all literary genres. Neither do they follow trends created by members of their generation, instead leading and influencing both men and women and contributing to turning points in literature, such as the transition from modernism to post-modernism in the works of Yona Wallach.

The courage, talent and determination of individual women writers won the support of women editors of anthologies, periodicals and publishing firms. Feminist literary criticism, academic research with profound social commitment and also the feminist movement, which helped to raise social awareness of women’s unique contribution to the transformation in Israeli culture, all had a share in creating this change.

However, Hebrew literature by women is still in the first stages of creating two models essential to the completion of the revolutionary process it began: the image of the liberated woman and the image of a new Israeli society. The difficulty in creating these models stems from the harsh political situation, which allows neither men nor women the leisure to focus on egalitarian relationships that would permit them total self-expression unconstrained by outer factors that derive from living in the shadow of a dreadful, bloody conflict. Although women writers such as Orly Castel-Bloom protest against diverting the whole of Israelis’ psychological energy into politics, they do not have the power to change the public agenda so as to focus on the world of the individual. Even their considerable contribution in highlighting the religious dimension in Israeli culture, which in the long run marks the most important turning point, dulls only somewhat the dominant “color” in Israel’s daily life—the color of a heated argument over the physical borders of the state, which relegates to the margins the no less crucial discussion of the identity, the meaning and the nature of relationships that exist within the state.