ial in academic and activist contexts, and all are linked by a commitment to critical thinking. By deconstructing first the state, then the nation, and finally Israeli feminism itself, Israeli feminists have continuously deepened their commitment to a transformative politics of knowledge. In the 1980s the liberal critique was focused on exposing the myth of gender equality in Israeli society by drawing on empiricist and positivist social scientific data. The implicit solution seemed to lie in increasing women’s access to male-dominated privilege through incremental inclusion. A top-down model of legislation, governmental and parliamentary commissions, and greater inclusion in existing male-dominated leaderships was believed to hold the key to eliminating discrimination. The radical critique of the 1990s pursued two modalities: a reconstruction of women’s cultural and literary traditions and a reevaluation of nationalist ideologies as inscribed in Zionist historiography and ethnographic culture. Rather than greater inclusion and equality, radical feminism pursued an analysis of cultural politics and transformational revisions of literature, politics, law, and society as inevitably gendered apparatuses that reproduce the problem even as they apparently seek to eliminate it. The postmodern phase ushered in a redefinition of power as discourse, thus paving the way to critiques of feminist scholarship and processes of knowledge production. In addition it introduced the concept of difference as fundamental to all definitions of feminist collective identity, thus enabling a powerful critique of hegemonic articulations of totalizing feminist agendas. The cultural politics of differences between and among Israeli women was analyzed by Mizrahi, Palestinian, and lesbian theorists who highlighted the institutional and discursive silencing of marginal women. The foregrounding of discourse and difference turned the critical lens on Israeli feminist scholarship itself, opening out new fields of research and activist agendas. The essay ends by urging scholars to move from a definition of postmodernism as the sign of a depoliticized, late capitalist affirmation of the multiplication of difference along ever-widening axes of analysis, toward a critical redefinition of postmodernism as a form of anti-essentialist critical practice.
In “Politicizing Masculinities: Shahada and Haganah” Sheila H. Katz draws out parallel tropes in early Zionist and Palestinian nationalist discourses. She argues that the woman question in both nationalist discourses was keenly embedded in redefinitions of true modern masculinity. Sovereignty over one’s land and control of one’s destiny were framed as major themes in the politicization of masculine identity. The new political ideal, the nation, demanded the ultimate sacrifice from real men. In Palestinian nationalism this sacrifice was defined as “shahada,” or martyrdom, while in Jewish nationalism it was defined as “haganah,” or self-defense. Texts written almost entirely by Jewish and Arab men, both in-and outside Palestine, imagined the new collective communities as masculine. As leaders and propagandists, men defined problems and solutions in ways that linked nationhood to manhood. Zionism was configured as a transition from effeminate exilic passivity to self-assertion and independence. Both nationalisms defined themselves in relationship of rebellion or continuity with their fathers. Sacrificial heroism in both national discourses was naturalized as a condition for achieving security, freedom, and dignity.
In “The Double or Multiple Image of the New Hebrew Woman” Margalit Shilo proposes that the reinvention of the new Hebrew man in Zionism was inspired by a search for perfection modeled on the myth of biblical manhood, working the land and rooted in nature. The reinvented Hebrew man was entrusted with the preservation and promotion of land, language, and labor. The new Hebrew woman in the meantime was a default creation falling into three categories—the invisible woman, the traditional woman, and the new w