The Jewish women's revolution was one of the quietest and most angst-stricken of the revolutionary processes experienced by Zionism and the Yishuv (the Jewish community pre-1948) in Palestine during the first half of the twentieth century but at the same time one of the most profound and lasting among them. Jewish Women and the Defense of Palestine addresses women's struggle to join defense and military activities during the period between the establishment of the Hashomer organization in 1909 and the outbreak of the War of Independence in late 1947. It describes the battles women fought as they sought to challenge the male assumption that members of the "weaker sex" should not be integrated into defense activities. Moreover, the book analyzes the explicit and self-conscious aspiration of women, especially in the Labor settlement movement, to actively participate in defending and guarding their settlements as part of their broader view of women having an equal right to share the burden of building the Jewish national home in Palestine.

Examines the struggle of Jewish women to join defense and military activities during the decades leading up to the Israeli War of Independence.

''In this landmark book, Katz skillfully demonstrates the complex ways that gender ideology was inextricably linked to and reinforced the formation of both Palestinian Arab and Jewish Zionist national identities in the first half of the 20th century.

"During WWII some 3,600 Jewish women from Palestine volunteered to serve in the British armed forces in the Middle East. For the first time ever Jewish women joined the army, wore uniform, left home to defend their homeland and to support the Jewish people around the world. The Council of Women s Organizations, headed by Hadassah Samuel, spearheaded the recruitment. This recruitment was in defiance of all conventional male thought. Not least because these women were joining the British Army a foreign and colonial army and this created a unique situation that cast gender and nationalist issues in a new light, these subjects are tackled here for the first time. Using archival research and 60 last voice interviews, Granit-Hacohen tells the story of these women: their reasons for enlistment; their social background and status; the arguments over recruiting them at all. Their military roles are analysed from a gender perspective. She also discusses the locations where they were stationed and the nature of their service there; their relations with their British colleagues; their involvement with illegal activity as members of underground organizations and the Jewish and national identity which they developed during their service. Although this female initiative was conceived in the spirit of equality, and the women who served developed positive views on the roles of women in society during their service, after the war there was disappointment as to the lack of change to how women were treated in Palestinian, and later, Israeli society."--Book jacket flap.

Analyses the impact of the Occupation on the lives of women in Israel and Palestine. Internal conflicts have been exposed, threatening social structures; but political loyalties remain high and women's voices are now at last being heard.

A critical look at the history and culture of women of the Yishuv and a call for a new national discourse