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THE STRUGGLE FOR EQUAL RIGHTS FOR WOMEN IN THE EARLY JEWISH DEFENSE UNDERGROUND: BAR GIORA AND HA'SHOMER, 1907-1918 Yaacov N. Goldstein Memphis State University and University of Haifa (ContemporaryJewryv.15 1994)

The Jewish NationaI Movement, emerging from the second half of the nineteenth century, brought many waves of emigration to Palestine. One o f those waves, the Second Aliyah, gave birth to new social-national concepts, including the aspirations both to establish underground organizations to defend the Jewish national enterprise in Palestine and to meet the aspirations of women workers struggling to transform the traditional status of women to one of equality. This essay explores the women's struggle for equal rights within Bar Giora and Ha'shomer between the years 1907-1918. The emergence of the Jewish National Movement in the 19th century was influenced by many factors: the national elements inherent in Judaism; the legitimation given to nationalism after the French revolution and Napoleonic wars; the emergence of the new European state which aspired to maximize unity and conformity among its citizens; the process of emancipation based on the assumption that Jews, while unique in their religion, share the same nationality with their countrymen; the process of secularization which created Jewish secular masses who wanted to keep their Jewish identity on the basis of nationality. These factors and others stimulated the appearance of the Lovers of Zion movement (1884) and finally the establishment of Political Zionism in 1897. Paralleling these phenomena were the waves of Jewish immigrants to Palestine, motivated by nationalism. The wave of immigration in the years 1882-1904 has been called the First Aliyah, and that from 1904-1914, the Second Aliyah. The term "Second Aliysh" is associated with a small number of young immigrants who established new political institutions and social concepts. These institutions and concepts later shaped the structure and values of the Jewish commRlaity in Palestine and influenced Israeli society after the establishment of the State. These immigrants believed in a comprehensive vision of a new Jewish egalitarian society i n

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Palestine, including a changed, equal, status for Jewish women (Ettinger 1969; Bemstein 1987). These young immigrants formed the first Jewish underground defense organizations: Bar Giora (1907; named for a Jewish hero who lead a rebellion against Rome in the Second Temple period) and Ha'shomer (the Watchman, in 1909). Their goal was to establish a defensive nucleus of Jewish power which would protect the national enterprise in Palestine. Bar Giora and Ha'shomer constitute one of the more enthralling subjects in the history of the Yishuv. The manifestation of the new Jew, who met force with force, was jealous of his honor and defended the national interest with weapon in hand, well suited the Zionist and Yishuv ethos that was seeking to shape a new Jewish individual and society in the ancient and renascent homeland. To this was added the aura of mystery and daring of the underground, which actually engaged in combat and even in external appearance struck a romantic chord in the youth of the Second Aliya and the periods that followed. Bar Giora and Ha'shomer also fashioned a bond between the Jewish present and the long-gone golden age of the First and Second Temples and its heroic figures. In this sense, the two organizations remade the historic fie replete with bravery that had been severed by millennia of exile. They heralded a different and better future. The Bar Giora and Ha'shomer associations were the first organized and consistent expression on a national, Yishuv, scale of the combination of the norm of force with the Zionist ethos for the purpose o f realizing national goals in Palestine. The fascination of Bar Giora and Ha's homer is, among other things, that for all their dedication and concentration on the dimension of force, they understood that to attain Zionist and social aims they had to actualize other norms too, no less important than that of force. These included the norm of Jewish Labor, return to the land, rural demographic expansion, understanding of Arab culture and mentality, and fostering friendship with the Arab population. Moreover, these defense organizations were integral parts of the workers' movement and shared its egalitarian vision for the emerging society (Laquer 1976). Thus, it is reasonable to expect that as a part of the new normative world outlook in the Second Aliyah, the participation and status of women in the Bar-Giora and Ha'shomer organizations would be based on the principle of equality between the sexes (Bernstein 1987). The reality was quite different, however. Everyday life was far removed from the vision of equal rights for women. The

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idealistic revolutionary young men were full of prejudices, entrapped by traditional concepts. The young women's desires for liberation and equal fights were far from being realized. Most young working women immigrating to Palestine with the Second Aliyah were single and came form the same socioeconomic and cultural background as their male comrades. Most came from Russia and were influenced by contemporary circumstances in that country, such as the various shades of revolutionary ferment, antiSemitism, persecutions and pogroms. The women desired a national revival that would build a new society in which women had equal rights. In some ways, these attitudes characterized the entire community of women workers in Palestine, and not merely the ones who adopted the Marxist-socialist world view. Their ideologies and the real conditions of their lives caused them to seek the concrete expression of their goals through work, primarily in agriculture, which was perceived as a symbol of the national and social renaissance. For these young women of the Second Aliya, working the land embodied the common link between the revival of the people in their land, the creation of a working society and the establishment of a workers' class. Precisely at this major junction, the inequality between men and women stood out. The young woman worker who migrated to Palestine and attempted to achieve her goals encountered the same problems as the men: the land was a backwater, the climate was harsh and alien to them, the Turkish authorities treated them with hostility, the economy was undeveloped, there was no labor market and the Arab worker was preferred by the Jewish farmers who were suspicious of the secular outlook of the newcomers and of their newfangled social ideas. But in addition to all these, the young women workers had to contend with obstacles that were special to them. These women of the Second Aliyah demanded equal social status and equality of the right to work and rights at work. Nevertheless, traditional concepts prevailed in all social strata of the country, including the Jewish population. The status of the Jewish woman was inferior. For Jewish women of the traditional Sephardi community, neither working outside the confines of the household nor ideas of equality with men were conceivable. The farmers' wives and daughters did not usually undertake physical labor and agriculture, except, perhaps, in the moshavot (villages) of Galilee. In all, the normative sphere was more traditional, severe and extreme than in Diaspora society from which they came. Furthermore, the existing situation in the practical sphere was disheartening. Sara Malkin, among the earliest

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migrants of the Second Aliyah and a founder of the women workers' movement, wrote (Malkin I935: 202): The farmers found us strange. They could not and did not want to grasp the idea of a woman working not only out of necessity but also out of ideology; how much less could they comprehend how it was possible for a woman to occupy herself in work in the field and in the village. Although perhaps overgeneralizaing, Sara Malkin clearly portrays the spirit of the Jewish settlement at that time. A lively debate on women's labor developed at the Fifth Assembly of the Galilee workers' agricultural union, held at the Poria farm from March 12-14, 1914. Yosef Baratz, a leader ofHa'poel Ha'tzair party and a founder of Kibbutz Degania, addressed the issue of work by women, and stated: Palestine is not yet able to solve the problem of women's labor. The role of the woman is not to become daily laborers, but to attend to the farmstead. Therefore, there is no place for women workers with the farmers, but in groups that will work autonomously (Labor Archives 120 IVA file 3b). Eli'ezer Yaffe, the dominant figure in the Galilee workers' union and a founder of the workers' cooperative settlement movement (moshav ovdim) and a leader of the national workers' movement, did not hesitate to reveal the whole truth about the attitude of male workers to females: "As everywhere in the world, the young men treat the girls as women. It seems to the men that the woman should be secondary to the man." Special problems within Bar Giora and Ha'shomer, which spearheaded the Labor Movement in the "conquest of guarding" (kibush ha'shmira) and, to a large extent, in the "conquest of work" (kibush ha'avoda), may have exacerbated inequality between the sexes. This article examines the struggle of young women for equal rights within the framework of the first Jewish defense underground organizations, Bar Giora and Ha'shomer, mainly during the years 1907-1918. I As part of the working women's struggle of their generation, they laid the cornerstone for future victories of the women's Liberation Movement before and after the establishment of the State of Israel. In general, the fate of women connected with the two associations was similar to that of the women workers of the Second Aliyah. Additionally, they had an extra share of troubles owing partially to their attachment to the underground organization and its work. Although a few pioneering works were published in regard to the struggle of the women for equality during the Second Aliyah (Shiloh

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1980; Porat 1972; Bemstein 1987), nothing has been published on the unique situation of the women in the two defense underground organizations, Bar Giora and Ha'shomer. This article is based mainly on primary resources, the archives and memoirs of the people involved, many of which are found in two collections, Kovetz Ha'Shomer (1938) and Sefer Ha'Shomer (1962). These memoirs have to be examined cautiously since they were written many years afar the actual events. The functions of the Ha'shomer women were restricted to traditional services and household duties: attending the kitchen and the laundry, repairing clothes, nursing the sick and, later on, caring for children. For example, Kayle Beker was called to join the collective at Sejera in 1907: "And so an invitation came to me from Sejera--how marvellous it was for meT--to go there, to work in the kitchen at the collective that had been founded; the invitation was from Israel Shohat" (Shohat was the leader of Bar Giora and later Ha'shomer). Thirty-five people ate from her kitchen at Sejera, that is, most of the workers on the farm. She single-handedly took care of them by preparing the food, serving the workers, and keeping the kitchen and the dlnlng-room clean (Gil'adi 1944). Even after she married Israel Gil'adi (one of the most prominent leaders of the two organizations) and went with him to live at the Kinneret (Lake Gaililee) farm, she continued in the same work: "I was a cook." Later, in her travels with her husband, she arrived in Zikhron Ya'akov, where they enjoyed the luxury of living in a room shared with three others and casual guests: "Here I used to cook the meal for the guards, and here, everyone slept on the floor" (Gil'adi 1944). Atara Shtorman, recounting her experiences at Merhavia, reinforces this picture of the concerns of the women connected with Ha'shomer:. "We had only one worry: how to make it easier for the men, what to do and how to behave so that the men would not feel any lack; how to spice the taste of the miserable food" (Shturman, 1944). Yet, the roles of women as servers and nurses are more evident in accounts of clashes with Arabs, and in security situations. The women were never involved in these conflicts and were not called on for consultations or decision making: "The women had no independent role in the skirmishes, but the succour they gave the men with great devotion and loyalty was very important." This succor was expressed by repairing the clothes of those who had fought in clashes with Arabs, in treating the wounded, in supplying much needed meals during the engagements and in nursing. The woman's most far-reaching operational activity was cleaning the guard's weapons (Shturman 1944).

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There is extensive evidence supporting the conclusion that the Ha'shomer women were limited to service and welfare roles. A

thorough description was given by Haya Kroll (1962: 365), who told of the days of her work at Hadera with the men of Ha'shome~. The guarding at Hadera was very hard owing to constant strife with the Arabs and never-ending lawlessness. The women took no part at all in the guarding. Our area of work--our mission--was limited to the kitchen and laundry alone) With the perspective of years, Haya Kroll permitted herself a measure of pique and irony. The memoirs of the Second Aliyah generation illuminate cases where certain women managed to obtain men's work. Most stories are linked with the glorious formative days of Bar Giora at Sejera in 1907-1908. There are well-known accounts of the camaraderie of weapons training during the period at the farm, and stories of how some women acquired pistols as personal weapons. The tale of Esther (Shturman) Beker (1962) and Tzipora (Beker) Zayd (1947) has been often told. In 1908, they subverted Israel Shohat's instructions and joined the group of Bar Giora members called urgently from Sejera by the Kefar Tavor farmers to help defend the moshav (village) against an jmrnlnent attack by Mughrabis (French Algerian Muslims who settled in Palestine in the nineteenth century). Alexander Zayd (1975: 61) also tells of the effort made by the women at Sejera to be included in guarding the settlement: One Shabbat, while I was standing guard, Tzipora and Esther (Shturman) Beker came out to me and said to me earnestly, "Go on, go in and sleep. We'll guard for you." I was skeptical for a moment, but without arguing too much I handed them the whistle and the rifle and I went to my cozy bed feeling quite aldght. Several nights passed quietly under their guard, and then they dared to make the same request to Meirke Chazanovich. He accepted their offer and gave them his weapon, but he stayed with them all night and sang his songs to them. Various other brief inroads were made by the women in participating in defensive activites, for example, when Bar Giora was commissioned to guard at Kefar Tavor prior to the establishment of Ha'shomer. 3 All the tales collected here, painted in such bold colors and with the elan of revolutionary transformation in values and in relations between the men and the women in the association, were transient episodes of the early days of the organization. They did not become the norm. Within a short time after the association became established, Ha'shomer

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women were confined to providing service and welfare, the domain of women in all traditional societies. As mentioned above, the problem of women's equality was especially serious in Bar Giora and Ha'shomer. These were elitist associations. Their members lived highly tense lives of permanent vocation, which alone could carry them through and compensate for the harsh reality, replete with suffering and self-sacrifice and a thirst for victims. The men obtained rewards from a sense of being revolutionaries, and from the social status of the organization itself. Even though the women obtained very little tangible compensation, they "enjoyed," paradoxically and overwhelmingly, the majority of the hardships of daily life. The Bar Giora and Ha'shomer women, with few exceptions, did not enjoy equal rights in the organization. From the slight and vague evidence available, some conclude a small group of six young women: Manya Vilboshevieh-Shohat, Esther (Shturman) Beker, Kayle (Beker) Gil'adi, Tzipora (Beker) Zayd, Rahel Yanait-Ben Zvi, Tova (Eliovich) Portugali, the wives or life-partners of the founders of the organization, had equal fights with the men. Rabel Yanait-Ben Zvi records another list, with the names of the following as members of Ha'shorner:. Manya Shohat, Rahel Yanait-Ben Zvi, Esther and Sara Shturman, Kayle Gil'edi, Haya Sara Hankin and Rivka Nisanov, seven women in all. The two lists are identical except that Tova (Eliovich) Portugali is missing from the second list, and Haya Sara Hankin and Rivka Nisanov are added. Beyond this limited women's group, no argument exists to refute the claim that the other women were deprived for many years of equal and full rights of membership in the organization (Brenner i980; Yanait-Ben Zvi 1962a: 168; Shohat 1937). It is almost certain that among the women mentioned, Tova (Eliovich) Portugali was not a member of the organization. A hint of this is found in Mendel Pormgali's letter to her, in which he wrote: I repeat that we should be equal, that is, in everything concerning our goals ... And I also recall that you were hurt by the fact that I do not share everything with you. Do you think that I too did not sense the truth of your words? I did not feel good about this truth, but my mouth remained sealed because I did not know what to tell you. Rahel Yanait-Ben Zvi states plainly that Tova Portugali was not a member of Ha'shomer before September 1915, the time of the Yavneel assembly (Opaz 1982-83: 3-4). 4

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Israel Shohat states that "Manya Shohat, Kayle Gil'adi, Esther (Shturman) Beker were members of Bar Giora from the start." His assertion must be treated carefully because it was written many years later and, to a large extent, is apologetic in nature, gayle Gil'adi (1944: 29), in her memoirs concerning the Sejera days, corroborates Shohat: Shortly after I arrived they began to train me for the secret "order" that already existed. I was called to a meeting at which eleven members were present. The discussion was on the goal of the order and next steps that had to be taken...I was very happy at being attached to the group, but the responsibility imposed on me from that time on frightened me. Esther (Shturman) Beker also writes in her memoirs that she was present at the meetings of Bar Giora while they were still held in the famons cave at Sejera after her future hnsband, Zvi Beker, prepared and told her of the secret society. At the same time, her narrative does not fully elucidate whether she was accepted as a member with full, equal rights or as a passive observer at the meetings. Regarding Tzipora (Beker) Zayd too, her account is not dear, stating that Manya Vilboshevich-Shohat at Sejera suggested that she join Ha'shomer [should be Bar Giora - because Ha'shomer was established, by the members of Bar Giora only in 1909], but she refused. Only after some time did she change her mind, "and in a short time I became one of those whose entire might was devoted to this highly valuable and highly consequential service." Ruth Kroll describes life at Kibbutz Kefar Gil'adi after its restoration in the wake of the Tel Hai events in 1920, hence her account dates to the 1920s, the time of the Third Aliyah. She complains bitterly that despite the equality between men and women in various tasks on the kibbutz, in matters of security the situation was discriminatory: We women, products of the great Russian revolution, held different ideas about equality for women and the right of fighting for this equality. We sought equality with the men in the daily work of defense, and here we came up against one of the most painful features in the life of the country, especially at Kefar Gil'adi. Most of the women members of Ha'shorner were the wives or widows of guards. For objective reasons, arising from the special conditions of the country before the World War, it was impossible to involve the women members of Ha'shomer in the practical affairs of Bar Giora, and only two of the women

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participated fully in running these affairs: Manya Shohat and Rahel Yanait (R. Kroll 1962:360-61). Ruth Kroll is imprecise regarding Rahel Yanait-Ben Zvi, who was a member of Ha'shomer, not Bar Giora. The main weakness of her account is that she immigrated to Palestine only in 1922, after the disbanding of Ha'shomer. Therefore, her testimony is indirect, not first-hand. No evidence proves that Haya Sara Hankin and Rivka Nisanov were accepted into the ranks of Bar Giora and Ha'shomer by 1915. The same can be said of Sara Shturman. Regarding the names of women on the two lists noted above, reasonable supporting evidence of some form of membership in Bar Giora and Ha'shomer seems to exist only for Kayle Gil'adi, Esther Beker and Tzipora (Beker) Zayd (Beker 1962: 139). 5 With respect to only two women, Manya Vilboshevich-Shohat and Rahel Yanait-Ben Zvi, there is no doubt that they enjoyed equal rights in Ha'shomer. Manya Vilboshevich-Shohat was accepted to Bar Giora as early as Sejera; Rahel Yanait-Ben Zvi was accepted in 1909 by Ha'shomer at Kefar Tavor. Both achieved membership owing to their special status. Manya Vilboshevich-Shohat enjoyed a prestigious revolutionary record in Russia and the privilege of being a founder of the collective at Sejera. Through dint of personality and seniority, Manya assumed the role of sympathetic listener and mother-confessor to the young people of the association. These passionate young men and women, far from the comfort and support of their families, poured out their sorrows before her and sought solace from her. Manya was also the wife of the charismatic leader Israel Shohat, the partner in his dreams and deeds. Rahel Yanait-Ben Zvi had a similar status, both as one of the first active women in the Poaley Zion (Zionist Worker's) party in Russia and in Palestine, and as the recognized life-long friend and future wife of the leader and ideologist of the party and Ha'shoraer, Yitzhak Ben Zvi. An interesting picture emerges. These two women were not actively involved in the daily life of Ha'shomer (from told-1909 the Shohats lived in Haifa and never returned to practical work with Ha'shomer), that is, they did not set about actually implementing its goals. Yet precisely they, and perhaps a few other women, enjoyed the recognized status as full members of the organization. To the contrary, other women without education or party position, realized the goals of the

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association, with devotion and self-sacrifice. Nevertheless, though they fulfilled its precepts, they did not win rights similar to those of the men.

The heads of Ha'shomer explained this paradox by arguing that a woman could not be a guard, and therefore, could not be equal in rights to men. In other words, the theory ran, the major criterion for membership was active duty as a guard, which the women supposedly could not undertake. It is interesting that this yardstick was not applied to Manya Vflboshevich-Sbohat and Rahel Yanait-Ben Zvi. The service jobs that the women did, raising and caring for the family, and even farmwork, were not recognized as equal to laboring as a guard or as satisfying the major criterion on which the association was based. In this, the leaders found justification for the discrimination that existed. Most members of the association were unaware of the anomaly in which they lived, namely that although the women shared the harsh life of guarding the settlement in every way, in most cases carrying a heavier burden, they were still denied the right to full membership. Alexander Zayd was one of the few who fought consistently to eradicate the imbalance that was so unfair to the wives of members and the other young women who were attached to the association: The lives of our women in the collective were hard. We wanted to transform our life root and branch, but we did not alter our conceptions of the role of the woman in society. For generations we had been trained to see the woman as housekeeper and mother only. The women rebelled against this attitude, demanded change in their way of life, and tried to pave new paths for themselves . . . . It was not easy for our women comrades to win an honoured place in our life. On the surface, we were all equal, members of a single collective, but we, the men, were members of Ha'shomer and they, the women, who suffered with us, bore the burden, nursed us, looked after us, worried about us, made our lives pleasant and bore us children--they remained outside the association, and were not officially deemed members (A. Zayd 1975: 6061). Rahel Yanait-Ben Zvi addressed the problem in her description of the Seventh Annual Assembly of Ha'shomer at Yavnecl, in Lower Galilee, on September 9, 1915. By her account this assembly, like all the others, was attended by all the women of Ha'shomer even though they were not members. "They 'assembled" outside the assembly, not

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being admitted to the conference hall. The Ha'shomer woman, if she was not a member, had no right to participate in the annual assembly." At the Yavneel meeting there was a wide-ranging debate on the status of women in the association. Rahel Yanait-Ben Zvi (1962a:) wrote of the fiery advocacy by Alexander Zayd of equal fights for women:

He defended the stand of the few male members who said that a woman comrade who became attached to a member of Ha'shomer, fully aware of what she might expect in family life, was by virtue of that alone a natural candidate for Ha'shomer. She stressed that Zayd felt the problem profoundly, always siding with the women, at the Yavneel assembly. There he declared that "not on sufferenace, but by right should they be accepted into Ha'shomer'(Yanair-Ben Zvi i962a: 168). 6 There is no doubt that the disaffection over the imbalance between duties and rights and between the ideal and the actual, that existed in the lives of the Ha'shomer women, was profound. An expression of it may be found in Haya Kroll's (1958:264-267) recollections of her work with the guards at Hadera: The situation of the woman in the unit of guards was hard. She had constantly to be prepared to lose her life partner, and her day was filled with the feeling that the child she bore would not see his father's face. But this was not all. The woman did not regard herself as equal in all things to her male comrades. It pained us to see that the man was regarded as one who was to be a future member of Ha'shomer, while the women were regarded as workers, and that was all. For that reason we left the guards unit at the end of the year's work . . . . In 1913 1 went with comrades to establish the Ha'shomer village at Tel 'Adsshim. I was certain that from then on, at that place, the attitude to women would change . . . . But there too the solution to the problem of the woman in Ha'shorner was not easy to achieve. 7 All this bitterness, as we have seen, exploded, not accidentally, at the Seventh Annual Assembly of Ha'shomer in 1915 at Yavneel on September 9, 1915. The assembly was held during World War I. The general situation in the country was bad. The condition of Ha'shomer was especially grave because many of its members, without work, were obliged to retreat to Galilee and crowd together at their village Tel 'Adashim. The political and economic distress was great. Many harbored a sense of failure, a loss of direction and hopelessness. The

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vision diminished. No glimmer of light was seen on the horizon. This state of affairs was fertile ground for the reinforcement of opposed positions and internal quarrels. In the absence of the Shohat couple, who had been deported by the Ottoman anthorites to Bursa in Anatolia, nobody apparently had the prestige to solve the disputes. At the Yavneel meeting, the conflict between the Gil'adi group and the Hefter-$hturman group was debated, culminating in a resolution forcing the former to leave Tel 'Adashim and move to Kefar Tavor. At Yavneel, a new committee was elected, which, for the first time since the founding of Ha'shomer, did not include Israel Gil'adi and Mendel Portugali, the two central figures apart from Israel Shohat. The sense of urgency that hung over the Yavneel meeting caused those present to relent on their old positions and concepts, as expressed, among other things, in an official draft resolution by the committee "to expand the framework of the association and not to act with undue stringency in accepting new members" (Yanait-Ben Zvi, 1962). Due to the general flexibility, the debate arose anew on the status of women in the association. It is also possible that Rahel YanaitBen Zvi's appointment to the Ha'shomer committee about six months before the assembly and her re-election to the wider committee at Yavneel contributed to a fresh and favorable approach to the question of the status of wives. Indeed, following a bitter debate, in which several of the senior women of Ha'shomer spoke, there was a change in the position of the association, which adopted the following resolution: A. As Ha'shomer has wider goals than guarding in the formal sense, such as general defense, the moshav, the Dutzot [h~az.a: precursor to the kibbutz - Y.N.G.], etc., there is room in the Ha'shorner association for active female members, from among the wives of members, and apart from them; B. To bring the wives of guards closer to the Ha'shomer association, we allow room for passive membership; C. Female members, like male members, are elected by the general assembly; D. To admit to the association all the wives of members with the right to speak and without the right to vote until the general assembly finds them ready as active members; E. The wives of guards may be present at our meetings without the right of expressing an opinion and of voting Cganait Ben-Zvi 1796: 173).s

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Following this resolution, two classes of membership were created for women: 1) A group admitted to the association on the basis of full, equal rights, a status known as "active membership." This group apparently included women married to guards for a long period of time. 2) Those wives of guards and other unmarried women who were granted a status known as "passive membership," meaning equal rights, except for the most important, the right to vote and become partners in determining the policy of the association with the right to elect the

committee. The problem of the status of women, then, received only a partial solution. An entire group of young women continued living in conditions of inequality, feeling unjustly deprived. Not surprisingly, therefore, the ferment continued. It boiled over some years later in a document submitted by three women on the eve of the Eleventh Annual Assembly of Ha'shomer at Tiberias, October 17, 1918 (Labor Archives 112flV, file 9): To the members of Ha'shomer! We, young women, who have been working together with you for several years now and who are always with you in the most difficult situations, want there to be no chance of our having to continue henceforward with our work in the same way as hitherto. We want to present facts and instances: they are quite well known to you. We have reached the decision that work is commnn and responsibility is common only when there are equal conditions in all things. We always must know in advance everything that is happening with us and awaiting us. Only then will we be able to match our work in the most desirable way to our goals and our aims. And if we have been comrades in dayto-day work for years now, we shall be comrades in all things. No assembly can take place without us, no secrets are withheld from us, and if the men have insufficient confidence in us for this, they must say so openly, then we shall know the situation as it is and we shall seek other ways of carrying out the work that brings us closer to our goal, which is also your goal. Tel 'Adas, 25 September 1918 We await a reply, Atara [CKro11)Shturman], Dvorah [Drechler], Yehudit [(Rozicha-

nsky) Hurwitz]9 Indeed, at this Assembly, all existing divisions between men and women in Ha's homer were probably eliminated formally, and full equality presumably granted to all women. However, it was apparently

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difficult to forego longstanding habits. In practice, discrimination again.~t women continued for years after Ha'shomer was disbanded in May 1920. Haya Kroll (1962: 366) relates that even in Kefar Gil'adi, after they returned and rehabilited the settlement after the events of Tel Hal, women were not involved in any communal activity. Our comrades could not understand that we were not interested only in looking after the children and service jobs. In those days the men were busy with guarding, defence, obtaining arms in great secrecy and developing relations with the neighbors, and they did not call on us to take part in their business. But we dreamed of social and communal activity, of agriculture and building an economy. The members of Ha'shomer, who were associated with members of Kefar Gil'adi but were not members of the kibbutz, used to come to the place and decide together on the fate of the kibbutz, and we, the women, were not given the right to express our opinion in all this. Once a woman friend alarmed me. She was all excited and her eyes were aflame. 'Come on,' she said, 'Let's go and break the windows of the schoolhouse, where the Ha'shomernicks are meeting to decide our fate and haven't bothered to invite us.m It took several more years for women to achieve the full equality they had been granted formally in 1918. Except for six or seven women who were equal members of those organizations, almost from the beginning, the great majority reached the goal of formal equality in two stages: in Yavneel in 1915; and then in Tiberias in 1918. It took several more years, even after the dismantling of Ha'shomer in 1920, until real and full equality was established in the kibbutz founded by Ha'shomer members, Kfar Giladi. Beyond Ha'shomer, the origins of the women workers' movement were at Kinneret, where the first assembly of women workers was held in April 1911. The women workers' movement, as an overall framework was established three years later at Merhavia (May 30 to June 4, 1914). The movement which started at Merhavia was continued by the Women Workers' Council which eventually became known as Na'amat and still exists today (Maimon 1955). Although great progress has been made since the period examined here, the struggle for full equal rights for women continues.

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NOTES t Sefer lta'Shomer (1962:474-475) lists the members of Bar Giora and Ha'Shomer in 1907-1920. Twenty-three of the 105 names are those of women.

z See: Alon (1962:356) on her work at Heders and Rehovot; Shohat (1962); lkkcr (1962). 3 See: T. Zayd (1947:532-33) on the fact that the women of Bar Giom did not have weapons like the men; and Yanelt-Ben Zvi (1962; 1976) for x slightly different account. ConcemingTova Port, gaff, Brenner (1980) cites Rahei Yanelt-Ban Zvi, who wrote that Toys Portugall believed that women should not be accepted into the association because they did not go out to guard. Therefore, she did not consider herself a member of the association and did not attend its meetings. Brermer's reference, namely Yanait-Ben Zvi (1962b:394), is mis~ken. The incident is mentioned in Yanak-Ben Zvi (1962a: 169). There she notes that "t'ova does not participate in the meeting. Yet she would be accepted, except that she herself denias her right to be accepted into Ha'shomer, as the woman member does not go out armed to ~,uard." s GLl'edi (1944:29) claims that the women in Ha'shomer were necessarily involved in everthlng that went on in the association. However, later she herself attests that all this was true for the pristine days of the organization, almost certainly meaning the Sejera period, but not subsequently: "When the movement grew and valous elements were attached to it, it became necessary to fight for rights and duties." See also: Yanait-Ben Zvi (1962a:169), who writes of the struggle of the senior women, Gll'edi and Hankin, for equal rights; and A. Zayd (1975: 60- 61). From Zayd's words it seems that even in the "glorious" days of the Sejera collective the women did not have full rights. Finally see: Shohat (1962:32); Gii'adi 1938:136); T. Zayd (1947:530-531); and R.Kroll (1962: 360-361). s Yanait-Ban Zvi is mistaken regarding the date of the assembly at Yavneel. As noted, the Seventh Ha'shomer Assembly was held at Yavneel on September 9, 1915, and not, as she writes, in August 1915. On the bitterness of the Ha'shorner women see also the memoirs of Alon (1962:358); Yanait-Ben Zvi (1962a:161); Portogali (1938: 259); and Yigael who writes (1938:256), "Participation in a meeting was allowed only to the active male members of l-Ia'shomer, while we, the women, could enjoy the radiated qlory only from afar." s The resolutions are cited also by Yansit-Ban Zvi (1976: 173). Moshe Levit, who took part in the Yavneel assembly, affirms that the subject of rights of women members came up and Zayed favoured granting them equal rights. Levit also states that the assembly decided on equality of rights (see Dagan 1988-95). * Labor Archives (II2/IV, file 9). The document also appears in Sefer Ha'shomer (1962:463) and in Yansit-Ban Zvi (1976: 182). Brenner (1980: 181) gives the date of the Tiberias assembly as September 9, 1918.

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to R. Kmll (1962: 360-361) tells of the actual situation at Kefar Gil'adi, in which the men took part in security work, but the women did not. On the discrimination preserved at Kefar Gil'adi, see M. Shohat (1937). Shohat (1971: 27), in a letter from Manya Shohat to Israel Shohat and Yosef Harit of Kefar Gil'adi dated February 27, 1938, writes that she was amazed to hear that at the course they were arranging on the theme of "Neighbourly Relations" between Jews and the Arabs they were not accepting women. Manya threatened that if they did not change their decision she would leave the League for Friendship with the Arabs. This means that as late as 1938, and on a political matter, Shohat and Harit tended still to exclude women.

REFERENCES /don, Hava (Assushkin). 1962. "Wife of a Guard," in Sefer Ha'Shomer. Tel Aviv: Ma'arachot-Dvir (Hebrew). Bernstein Dvora, 1987. A Woman In PalestMe (Hebrew). Hakibbutz Hameuhad, Tel-Aviv. Beker, Esther. 1962. "The Story of a Guard's Family." (Hebrew) Pp. 139-144 in 5efer Ha'shomer. Tel Aviv: Ma'arachot-Dvir. Brenner, Uri. 1980. "The Place of the Woman in Ha'shomer." (Hebrew) Shorashim IL 181-185. Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuhad. Dagan, Shaul. 1988. Between Tel'Adas and Hamara: Memoirs of Moshe Levit, a Member of Ha'shomer. (Hebrew) Tel Aviv: Protection Society Publication. Ettinger, Shmuel, 19699 History of the Jewish People. (Hebrew) Tel Aviv: Dvir. Gil'adi, Kayle. 1944 "In the Galilee," Pp.25-26 in Women of the Kibbutz.: First Collection. (Hebrew) Tel Aviv: HakibbutzHametthad. 9 1938. "From Sejera to Kefar Gil'adi." (Hebrew) Pp. 99-108 in Kovetz Ha'shomer. Tel Aviv: Labor Archives Publication. Sefer Ha'Shomer. 1962. Revised Edition. Tel Aviv: Ma'arachot-Dvir. Kovetz Ha'Shomer. 1938. Tel Aviv: Labor Archives Publication. Kroll, Haya, 1938. "Numbered Moments." Pp. 264-267 in Kovetz Ha'shomer Tel-Aviv. Labor Archives Publication. Kroll, Ruth. 1962 "Lights and Shadows." Pp. 360-361 in Sefer Ha'shomer. Tel-Aviv: Ma'arachot-Dvir. Laquer, Walter, 1976. A History of Zionism. New York: Schocken Books. Labor Archives. 1201ivlA, Files 2, 3b. Tel-Aviv: Labon Institute. Maimon, Ada, 1955. Fifty Years of the Women Workers' Movement 1904-1954 (Hebrew) Tel Aviv: Ayanot. Malkin, Sara. 1935. "The Women Workers at Kinneret." (Hebrew) Chapters of Ha'poel Ha 'tzair 3: 202-206.

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Opaz, Aviva. 1982-83. "Letters from Palestine: The Guard Mendel Portugali to His Wife Tova." (Hebrew) Hadarim 3- 4. Porat, Lola, 1972. "The Woman Workers in the Second Aliyah." (Hebrew) Basha'ar 5-6. Portugali, Tova. 1938. "On the Paths." P. 259 in Koverz Ha'simmer. Tel-Aviv: Labor Archives Publication. Shohat, Israel. 1962. "The Mission and the Way," P. 33 in 8efer Ha'slmmer. Tel-Aviv: Ma'arachot-Dvir. Shiloh, Margalith, 1980. "The Women Workers' Farm at Kinneret 1911-1917." (Hebrew) Cathedra 14. Jerusalem: Ytzhak Ben-Zvi Institute. Shohat, Manya. 1937. "The Woman in Ha'shomer." (Hebrew) Devar HaPo'elet: Supplement to Davar (March 11). Tel-Aviv. Yanait-Ben Zvi, Rahel. 1976. Manya Shohat. (Hebrew) Jerusalem: Ben Zvi Institute. 9 1962a. "In the Days of the First World War." Pp. 161-169 in Sefer Ha'simmer. Tel-Aviv: Ma'arachot-Dvir. . 1962b. Our Way to the Land. (Hebrew) Tel-Aviv: Am Oved Haifa's Worker's Council. Yigael, Haya. 1938. "Behind the Front." P. 256 in Kovetz Ha'simmer. Tel-Aviv: Labor Archives Publication. Zayd, Alexander. 1975 Towards Morning. (Hebrew) Tel Aviv: Am Oved. Zayd, Tzipora. 1947. "With Ha'shomer." Pp. 530-533 in Second Aliyah Book (Hebrew) edited by Bracha Habas. Tel Aviv: Am Oved.