Loyalty, Belonging and their Discontents: Women in the Public Sphere in Jewish and Palestinian Cultural Discourse

The author focuses on Palestinian Arab and Jewish women, mainly in the first half of the twentieth century: For the Jews, this is the period of the pre-state waves of Zionist immigration and the proto-state Yishuv (the organized Zionist Jewish community of Palestine), culminating in the creation of the State of Israel. For the Palestinians, the same period marks the emergence of the struggle against Zionism, up to and after the Nakbah (tragedy) in 1948. The article shows how the tensions surrounding women in the public discourse are documented in various types of sources, and how the political, cultural, and literary discourse of both societies reveal a connection between the problem of women’s loyalty and the separation between the public and the various private spheres. The national struggle enhanced the importance of the group and was identified with the men, while women were regarded with mistrust and suspicion.

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/nashim/v006/6.1brand01.html