Jewish Voices in Feminism : Transnational Perspectives [1 ed.] 9780803277496, 9780803277045

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Copyright © 2015. Nebraska. All rights reserved. Jewish Voices in Feminism : Transnational Perspectives, Nebraska, 2015. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2015. Nebraska. All rights reserved.

Jewish Voices in Feminism

Jewish Voices in Feminism : Transnational Perspectives, Nebraska, 2015. ProQuest Ebook Central,

S TUDIES IN A NTISEMITISM Vadim Rossman, Russian Intellectual Antisemitism in the Post-Communist Era (2002) Anthony D. Kauders, Democratization and the Jews: Munich, 1945–1965 (2004) Cesare G. De Michelis, The Non-Existent Manuscript: A Study of the Protocols of the Sages of Zion (2004) Robert S. Wistrich, Laboratory for World Destruction: Germans and Jews in Central Europe (2007) Graciela Ben-Dror, The Catholic Church and the Jews: Argentina, 1933–1945 (2008) Andrei Oiúteanu, Inventing the Jew: Antisemitic Stereotypes in Romanian and Other Central-East European Cultures (2009) Olaf Blaschke, Offenders or Victims? German Jews and the Causes of Modern Catholic Antisemitism (2009) Robert S. Wistrich, From Ambivalence to Betrayal: The Left, the Jews, and Israel (2012) Efraim Sicher and Linda Weinhouse, Under Postcolonial Eyes: Figuring the “jew” in Contemporary British Writing (2012)

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R. Amy Elman, The European Union, Antisemitism, and the Politics of Denial (2014)

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Jewish Voices in Feminism Transnational Perspectives

Nelly Las

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Translated by Ruth Morris

Published by the University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln and London, for the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism (SICSA) The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Jewish Voices in Feminism : Transnational Perspectives, Nebraska, 2015. ProQuest Ebook Central,

English-language edition © 2015 by the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism Originally published in French as Voix juives dans le féminisme—Résonances françaises et anglo-américaines (Paris: Honoré Champion, 2011). The English edition has been revised and updated. All rights reserved Manufactured in the United States of America The Studies in Antisemitism series brings together major new research on the complex phenomenon of worldwide antisemitism, ancient and modern, from a broad range of perspectives: religious, economic, social, psychological, cultural, and political. Robert S. Wistrich, Chairman of the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Series Editor

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Manufactured and distributed for the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism (SICSA), The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, by the University of Nebraska Press Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Las, Nelly, author. [Voix juives dans le féminisme. English] Jewish voices in feminism: transnational perspectives / Nelly Las; translated by Ruth Morris. pages cm. — (Studies in antisemitism) "Original French-language edition: Voix juives dans le féminisme : Résonances françaises et anglo-américaines, Honoré Champion, 2011." Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8032-7704-5 (cloth: alk. paper) ISBN 978-0-8032-7749-6 (pdf) 1. Women in Judaism. 2. Feminism—Religious aspects—Judaism. I. Morris, Ruth, translator. II. Title. BM729.W6L3713 2015 305.48'8924—dc23 2015007012 SICSA Production Editor: Alifa Saadya

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Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

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Introduction: New Orientations and Commitments in Contemporary Feminism “If I am Not for Myself, Who Will Be for Me?” United States/France: Two-way Influences

vii

1 3 4

1. Differences and Identities: From Feminist Controversies to Current Jewish Dilemmas Feminist Theories: Thinking about Identities The Concept of “Difference” in Jewish Identity Dissolution of Identity: “Feminine” and “Jews” as Metaphors

9 9 18 27

2. The Use and Abuse of Jews/Women Analogies in Contradictory Arguments Historical Origins of the Jews/Women Analogy Contemporary Uses of the Jews/Women Analogy The Sexism/Racism Analogy Applied to Antisemitism

39 40 44 52

3. Identity through the Feminist Lens: American Responses In Search of Roots: The Emergence of a “Jewish Feminism” Opposition to Jewish Feminism: Alternative Approaches

64 67 77

4. Being Jewish and Feminist in France Postwar Reflections on Jewish Identity in France Discussing “Jewishness” in the French Feminist Movement Feminist Activists Raise the Issue of Antisemitism Voices of Remembrance and Silences of Memory The State of Israel: Identity-based Involvement Ambiguities of French Jewish Identity in “Feminine Writing”

88 90 91 97 100 103 107

5. From Confrontation to Dialogue: Jewish Women Face Christian Theologies The Birth and Development of a Feminist Theology From Anti-Judaism to Interreligious Dialogue

116 117 125

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Jewish Female Theologians Reply to Feminist Theologies Christian Feminists Denounce Anti-Judaism The Feminization of the Divine

130 133 134 143 144 149 151 155 157 160

7. Feminism and Zionism: Conflictual Narratives Defining Zionism through the Feminist Looking Glass Facing the Reality of Israel: Women’s Involvement

172 173 184

8. Israel and Zionism in the Global Feminist Debate UN Women’s Conferences: Jewish Women on the Defensive Anguish, Dilemmas, and Confusion: Confronting Israel’s Wars The Question of Zionism in Anglo-American Feminism Feminist Friendship for Israel: A French Exception?

202 202 207 208 218

Conclusion

239

Selected Bibliography

245

Index

255

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6. Feminism, Secularism, and Religion in France Some Theological Approaches within French Feminism The “Feminine” in French Jewish Thought Jewish Identity in the Context of Secular French Feminism The Status of Women in the French Jewish Community Jewish-Christian Dialogue in French Thought Islam, Judaism, Christianity: Striking a Balance

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Acknowledgments I would like to thank the many people and institutions that helped me in the course of my research. First, I will mention the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, directed by Professor Robert S. Wistrich, who welcomed my research and encouraged me to turn it into a book. After the book’s publication in France, he warmly supported its translation into English and proposed to publish it as part of the Studies in Antisemitism Series. I am grateful to the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute (HBI) for awarding this book the Translation Prize to cover the expenses of preparing the book in English, through the Helen Gartner-Hammer Memorial Fund. Particular thanks goes to Professor Shulamit Reinharz, HBI founder and director, who has supported and encouraged me since my first work on Jewish women in 1996. I owe a great deal to Ruth Morris, whose thirty years of translation experience made it possible to produce the English version of my book in record time. The translation provided an opportunity to revise and update some parts of the book. A special thanks goes to my editor, Alifa Saadya at the Vidal Sassoon Center, whose eclectic background and intelligent advice helped to make the subject more accessible for American readers. Many thanks go to the Fondation pour la mémoire de la Shoah (France) for its financial support which enable me to visit France on numerous occasions for interviews and archival research. I was privileged to interview many remarkable women (feminist activists and theoreticians from France, Israel, and the United States) who encouraged my project and were willing to share with me their experiences and testimonies. Each of them guided and inspired my own reflections. Beautiful friendships arose from these numerous meetings. With deep regret, I wish to pay homage to Rita Thalmann, Antoinette Fouque, and Françoise Collin, whose passing after the publication of the French edition of this book was a great loss to myself and to the French feminist movement. The same year I lost my beloved mother, Nina. she was the first to transmit to her daughters the best values of education, freedom of thought, and Judaism. Let me also mention the kindness displayed by my colleagues and friends from Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Paris who followed all the steps of this long and difficult journey. Special thoughts go to my sister Vicky, always full of infectious enthusiasm.

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Acknowledgments

I dedicate this book to my children Guy and Katia and their partners and children: Liora, Gilad, Orian, Tal, Ori, Noam, and Hallel. I hope they will find in this book positive echoes for their own progress.

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Nelly Las May 2014, Jerusalem

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Introduction

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New Orientations and Commitments in Contemporary Feminism

Feminism, a major twentieth-century phenomenon, has indisputably impinged upon all aspects of our society, both nationally and internationally. No longer limited to the topics bound up with the militant activism of the first women’s movements, it has become part of philosophical, religious, and political debate and contributed to an enormous field of thought, positions, and societal goals. However, feminism still has a highly controversial image, and it is often stigmatized in public discussions. Why is there so much suspicion about a movement that legitimately calls for women’s equality, autonomy, recognition, and equal participation in society? A movement that has achieved outstanding results in the last half century and continues to fight for the large numbers of women who are still oppressed and underrepresented? One of the reasons is that feminism not been content to simply be a social movement for the benefit of women. Instead, it has called into question society’s traditional foundations from a whole range of viewpoints, such as relations between the sexes, cultural and religious norms, and the nexus between private and public (or political). However, of feminism’s many forms, public opinion seems to focus only on the most radical, the most subversive, those which (deliberately or otherwise) stand out as a result of what are considered their “excesses.” There is a tendency to ignore the richness of thought, as well as the many different and sometimes conflicting theories to which feminism has given rise. These call for rethinking such topics as politics, difference, religion, the nation, identity, power relations, modernity, emancipation, exile, or globalization. But this theoretical or ideological aspect of feminism cannot be separated from its political and ethical commitments. This justifies consideration of its various positions on contemporary intellectual and topical issues, linked directly or indirectly to women’s struggles. These developments constitute the backdrop to my efforts to observe feminism’s impact on contemporary Jewish thinking, as well as feminist activists’ ambivalent attitudes to current developments in the Jewish world, involving aspects of identity, religion, nationhood, and memory. My aim is not to study the condition of women in Judaism, nor to compare the two areas of identity (Jews/women). These topics will however inevitably crop up. My

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Introduction

approach rather is to observe what happens when today’s feminist activism and Jewish dilemmas meet and intersect against a comparative background of France and the United States. The feminist debate is thus placed in a setting which does not address women’s “voices” only but also more generally historical and contemporary aspects in Jewish identity and dilemmas. Why look for correlations between two topics that seem so far apart? Why deviate from the focal area of feminism and pose questions about it on the slippery and complex terrain of Jewish identity? This initiative is based on both theoretical work and hands-on experiences, in the context of feminist thought as well as the Jewish search for identity. Our starting point is the principle laid down by feminists themselves: that the issue of women must be considered as it intersects with all issues in the society in which they live and develop. It is only natural that gender-equality issues should also be of particular concern to Jewish women, many of whom have played an active role in feminist movements. In addition, feminism (especially in the wave of the last forty years) has developed theories which involve political action and the utopia of a better world. More recently the question of identity has become part of feminist thought, especially in the framework of postmodern theories which seek to destabilize the very notion of identity. And as is well known, identity has been the bedrock of the Jewish questioning of modernity and secularism ever since religion on its own was no longer sufficient to define Jewishness. All research has its autobiographical roots, and the choice of this particular subject is definitely a reflection of various topics of interest to me, including Jewish history and current affairs, plus the universal topic of women, with the stress on France with which I have linguistic and intellectual ties. To this mixture I must add the American and Israeli sources and situations which have fed my Jewish and feminist experiences, enabling me to juxtapose different intellectual traditions. It goes without saying that “the Jews” are not a marginal topic, one studied only out of personal interest. Just as women’s issues do not concern women alone, so Jewish issues do not concern Jews alone. The Jews have played a key role in our civilization. They have in turn been idealized, denigrated, tolerated, or condemned, all the way to the abhorrent Nazi plan to exterminate them, a plan which passes all understanding. Today, they are still very much at the heart of current affairs, at the center of philosophical, political, and media discussions, especially in the context of the Israeli-Arab conflict in which, like it or not, they are caught up.

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“I F I AM N OT FOR M YSELF , W HO W ILL B E FOR M E ?” 1 Feminism, beginning in collective or individual action towards the end of the nineteenth century, has embraced periods which saw the emancipation and integration of the Jews in the West, the birth of a racial form of antisemitism, the emergence of a Jewish nationalism, and the most murderous event ever known by mankind, the plan to exterminate the Jews of Europe, followed by the establishment of a Jewish state. At the outset, although women had no political rights whatsoever, they already had the right to speak out, and some of them were organized in philanthropic, religious, or political associations. What were the attitudes of these witnesses of the century? These were issues that I pondered after finishing my previous study on the mobilization of Jewish women confronted with Jewish suffering during the last century. 2 Large numbers of Jewish women became active in efforts to improve the futures of their disadvantaged sisters in the world, during the Russian pogroms, the mass emigration of the Jews, the Nazi extermination program, the rescuing of Jewish refugees, the establishment of a Jewish home in the Land of Israel, and finally, the problems that followed the creation of the Jewish state. Should the help of Jewish women for other Jewish women be viewed solely as a form of ethnic commitment and engagement? Why does this particularism exist in feminine solidarity? The explanation is quite simple. At the beginning of the twentieth century, a period which was particularly harrowing for the Jews, many Jewish women were involved in general feminist movements that called for women’s rights to vote and work, as well as for world peace.3 At the same time, organized action to help the oppressed Jews was undertaken almost exclusively by Jewish men and women. The Jewish women involved in these struggles had to fight for their co-religionists without any outside help. Unlike the nineteenth-century anti-slavery movement, which many white women supported, female activists showed no empathy over antisemitism.4 At times, as we will see, they even joined the antisemitic camp. In France, during the Dreyfus affair there were both proand anti-Dreyfus feminists. Similarly, between the two world wars and then under the German Occupation, no clear feminist line was adopted in favor of the Jewish victims of antisemitism.5 The phase of feminism on which we will focus here is the contemporary period, known as the “second wave,” which began at the end of the 1960s, some twenty years after the Nazi genocide and almost the same number of years after the establishment of the State of Israel. This period coincides with the beginnings of increased awareness and speaking out about the Nazi period, as well as support by the left for Third World struggles, especially that of the Palestinians. A number of Jewish women who had thrown them-

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Introduction

selves enthusiastically into the feminist movement were bitterly disappointed by the indifference, lack of empathy, and sometimes hostility of their nonJewish comrades about their fears and dilemmas. Others, including Israeli women, supported the vehement criticism of the Jewish state’s policies.6 Since this time, the feminist debate has included the question of Israel, the origins of Zionism and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

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U NITED S TATES /F RANCE : T WO - WAY I NFLUENCES The link between feminism and Jewish identities has mainly been considered in the United States and other English-speaking countries where identity has been an issue for ethnic and religious minorities since the late 1970s. At American universities, feminist theories have been used to analyze some aspects of the history of contemporary Jewishness, either as part of Jewish studies or more generally as part of cultural or gender studies. This interdisciplinary thinking has given rise to new perspectives, such as questions about masculinity, the body, sexuality, patriarchy, the place of women, passivity or heroism, applied to Jewish themes. A whole range of areas in modern and contemporary Jewish history has been reviewed and reconsidered, giving rise to new feminist and postmodern readings of traditional Jewish texts, including biblical interpretations. Some tools of feminist analysis have proven very effective in promoting in-depth reflection on the multiple components of Jewish identity and casting light on the multifaceted forms of feminist activism. In France, with some exceptions, the topic is restricted to internal religious discussions in the exclusively Jewish world. Generally these relate to women’s place in the community, and above all, the tricky question of personal status in Jewish law. In French feminist studies it is very rare to find discussions over Jewish identity issues similar to those found in the Englishspeaking world. Despite the changes that have taken place over the last halfcentury concerning aspects of French Jews’ identity, this topic is strictly offlimits for most feminists who have a clear preference for not discussing it in public. This does not mean that there is no adopting of positions at all in this area. So why show interest in a topic that has failed to arouse any attention in France? It is precisely because the French situation has been so hidden that it is important to study both what has not been said, as well as the few things that have been put into words. Some events in France in the last few years should have certainly encouraged thought about the situation, with a number of incidents having direct or indirect implications for both feminism and the Jewish community. These include upsurges of antisemitism connected with

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Introduction

5

fundamentalist Islam, the Islamic veil controversy, “communal isolationism,” forums of global justice movements, the extreme right, the extreme left, antiAmericanism or anti-Zionism—countless areas of disagreement which have sparked many a discussion and dissension among French feminists. By highlighting the positions of French feminists and comparing them with their counterparts in other countries—especially Americans who since the 1970s have published widely on these topics—we can introduce a littleknown discussion starting to make its appearance on the French stage. This is not a straightforward matter, however, given the diversity of trends in feminism and the great complexity of the Jewish world. When it comes to establishing dialogue, there are two sources of problems between feminists and current Jewish issues. One is the ideological pluralism characteristic of women’s movements, and the other is the great diversity of currents of thought to be found in Judaism and Jewishness, as well as among Jews themselves. Among the feminist theories that have influenced thought about Jewish identity, in particular we focus on feminism’s statement “the private is political” as applied to Jewish experience. Is it necessary—or even possible—to express and shift to the public domain so-called “personal” Jewish life, which modernity has consigned to the private domain? Can it be politicized? For many Jewish women, the new techniques of self-examination and “consciousness-raising” that feminists introduced in the 1970s helped them to become aware of the Jewish aspects of their identity. This made them think about their own experiences of antisemitism, of how they relate to Jewish memory, to religion, and to the State of Israel. Feminist theories on society’s patriarchal structures also confront Jewish feminists with the issue of patriarchy in Jewish society. There is also a form of Christian and post-Christian feminist theology that makes the Jewish religion responsible for all of women’s “woes,” since Judaism has supposedly put an end to the “original matriarchy.” This is an enormous area, with many intersections and comparisons between English-speaking countries and France. It will be delineated in the book’s different chapters. The first topic, “Differences and Identities: From Feminist Controversies to Contemporary Jewish Dilemmas,” outlines some of the relevant thinking that has shaped current feminist theories and their applications to analyzing the concept of difference and Jewish identity. The chapter entitled “The Use and Abuse of Jews/Women Analogies in Contradictory Arguments” discusses a strange phenomenon that goes back to the early Christian era. It was addressed in theoretical terms in the nineteenth century, and it has persisted to modern times. It involves the use of analogies between the condition of

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women and that of the Jews. Where did it come from, is it helpful, and what are its drawbacks, not to say its dangers? Chapter three on identity through the feminist lens refers to the many developments in the women’s movement that have taken place since the 1960s. It stresses the many different forms of Jewish awareness experienced by countless English-speaking Jewish feminists, and the development of a “Jewish feminism” which often demonstrates a form of symbiosis between Jewish identity and feminism. Chapter four addresses the specific nature of French feminism, under the influence of republican ideology, as reflected in the dilemmas and questions asked by Jewish women involved to varying degrees in this movement. The issue of how various feminist approaches relate to religions, especially the Jewish religion, is then examined in the two chapters which follow. This covers the background to the anti-Judaism of some of today’s feminist theology, the Jewish responses to their charges, and the different ways in which Judaism adapt to feminism in the United States and France. The last two chapters examine the complex, not to say ambivalent relations between feminism and Zionism, from a theoretical standpoint as well as relative to Israel’s current situation. The reason why we have given this topic such an important position is because it is highly topical and controversial, an issue that is central to both contemporary Jewish awareness and the feminist debate. These topics, together with many more, are the source of the questions posed about the relationship between Jewish identities and feminism, in terms of their symbiotic and antagonistic aspects. Our goal is to analyze this ambivalent relationship through the prism of contemporary Jewish discourse, comparing and contrasting French and American forms of feminism. In addition to a review of published material, numerous face-to-face encounters gave rise to fascinating insights into a vast range of viewpoints on many different subjects. I talked to women in France involved in many different kinds of feminist movements, researchers and lecturers in university departments of feminist studies, women’s liberation activists, women who played a pivotal role in the movement’s infancy, and new-generation feminists. I struck up friendships with some of them, I took part in demonstrations, commemorative events,7 tributes,8 discussion forums, and symposia. Talking to Israeli feminists actively involved in peace movements in Israel is of vital importance for any understanding of the phenomenon of selfcriticism and political analysis as practiced by the most radical feminist theories. But as has been made clear, the main body of writing about identity

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(especially Jewish) issues has come from American feminism. By juxtaposing these published works and my face-to-face talks, I was able to analyze a range of forms of contemporary Jewish identity from a feminist viewpoint, using analytical tools developed by feminist studies in recent years. On the basis of their experiences, memories, and dilemmas, there is no doubt that women who have some Jewish background are more likely to be able to respond to certain existential questions about the link between their feminism and their Jewishness. However, if looked at from a point of view that goes beyond the Jewish world, attitudes and points of view of nonJewish feminists are no less important when it comes to evaluating questions about Jewish otherness or alterity. Hence a differentiation must be made between the interests and dilemmas of feminist Jewish women vis-à-vis their own experiences and identities as women, and the stances of feminists (both Jewish and non-Jewish) in favor of causes concerning Jewish culture, religion, history, and current events. The contemporary Jewish “voices” cited in this work highlight diverse— and even contradictory—elements that make up Jewish identity, defined as a religion, a diasporic or national culture, or a historical memory bound up with antisemitism and the State of Israel. One of the questions that arise when feminism is chosen as a tool for analyzing multiple-component dilemmas in Jewish identity is, inter alia, to what extent is such an approach likely to enrich reflection by giving it new perspectives? The other question concerns the positions of feminists as a whole, in respect of issues of current relevance: is it possible to identify a particular tendency which is more in keeping with feminism than another? This refers in particular to debates of ideas about current events in the domains of politics and society with regard to the Jewish world: religion, history, memory, antisemitism, and Zionism. It goes without saying that we must take account of pluralism and diversity in both feminism and Jewishness: expressions of identity, as well as political, intellectual and ethical engagements. Hence the range of responses will be extremely wide and varied. N OTES 1. From the familiar saying by the sage Hillel, taken from Sayings of the Fathers, which concludes: “But if I am only for myself, what am I?” 2. Nelly Las, Jewish Women in a Changing World—A History of the International Council of Jewish Women 1899–1995 (Jerusalem: Avraham Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1996), 33–39. 3. Deprived of their rights and subjected to countless depredations, the majority

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of Russia and Eastern Europe’s Jews lived in great poverty. A bloody wave of pogroms broke out from 1903–1906, leaving an estimated 2,000 Jews dead and many more injured. Later, between 1918 and 1919, thousands of Jews were massacred in the Ukrainian and Byelorussian pogroms. 4. Elinor Lerner, “American Feminism and the Jewish Question,” in AntiSemitism in American History, ed. David A. Gerber (Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Press, 1986). 5. Liliane Kandel, ed., Féminisme et nazisme (Paris: Odile Jacob, 2003). 6. This subject will be addressed in greater detail in Chapters 5 and 6. 7. For example, the thirtieth anniversary (2004) of Simone Veil’s abortion law (1974). 8. Tribute to Rita Thalmann, Université de Paris VII (2005); tribute to Antoinette Fouque, international conference at the Sorbonne (October 2006).

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C HAPTER O NE

Differences and Identities: From Feminist Controversies to Current Jewish Dilemmas

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F EMINIST T HEORIES : T HINKING ABOUT I DENTITIES In order to facilitate an understanding of the issues discussed below, we have to provide some theoretical explanations concerning the basic concepts of feminism, which are often either poorly understood or distorted. We will focus on the notions of “difference” and “identity,” and their impact on thinking about Jewish identities. The issue of gender difference has been addressed in a number of contemporary philosophical texts. It is sometimes seen as a pivotal element in all thought, as well as the background to, and source of, all conceivable differences.1 This would make the masculine/ feminine opposition the archetype of all differences. These controversial theories show that it is an existential question, of interest to both feminist studies as well as to philosophical, sociological, and theological disciplines. However, we do not intend to equate the issue of the difference between the sexes and that of Jewish difference. We must nevertheless bear in mind that the principles which form the bedrock of both theories tend to merge and even overlap, irrespective of whether they have emerged from theories of universalism, differentialism, or indifference. Hence the question will be to what extent the various feminist theories can provide us with a tool for analyzing other identities. Our aim is not to discuss here the various meanings of feminism but to provide a basic definition on which we will then elaborate. We will go on to summarize a number of aspects of the debate about the difference between the sexes and its evolution from the beginning of the women’s movement to the postmodern era. Feminism in the Debate about Sexual Differences Defining feminism in its current state is a perilous exercise because of the state of flux of its theories, with their constantly diversifying goals and commitments.2 But if we adopt a historical perspective, it is clear that when fem-

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Differences and Identities

inism began, it was a social and political movement for the emancipation of women, something that emerged from the Enlightenment and the demand for equality of all human beings. The first wave of feminism, extending from the nineteenth to the early twentieth century, basically demanded women’s right to vote and right to education. The second wave, dating back to the 1960s, gave rise to a collective movement which developed a larger number of aims, as follows: first and foremost to fight for women’s rights and interests, to raise their consciousness, guarantee their sexual liberation, put an end to gender discrimination, question the power relations between the sexes and completely change the social structures on which they are based. From this point onwards, feminism is defined as both an intellectual commitment and a political movement, concerned with issues of power: power in the sense of dominant/subordinant relations, as well as in the sense of controlling the conditions of one’s own existence. Apart from these various shared goals, feminists disagree on many points: their perception of equality, marriage, motherhood, prostitution, homosexuality, and more generally, sexual difference. This is a pluralist movement which is not determined by a single outlook but covers a set of issues, questions that are posed rather than replies to them, which are often diverse and sometimes conflicting. Of the numerous questions raised, “difference” appeared in many feminist discussions of the 1970s, and it has made frequent reappearances from the 1990s to the present time. The “universalist” feminist approach is based on the declaration that all human beings are equal and that the difference between men and women is simply a power relationship: the specific nature of women is a social construct intended to justify their subordination as sex objects or as mothers, by relegating them to the domestic sphere and excluding them from the public sphere. Since the difference between the sexes is simply a hierarchy of the sexes, these differences must be neutralized as far as possible in order to achieve equality. The other approach—sometimes referred to as “differentialist” (or “naturalist”)—replies that to be equal does not mean to be identical, and that the political concept of gender equality is predicated on the difference between the sexes. Hence it must be stated that there are indeed “two sexes” within the same body of mankind, equal albeit not identical. 3 In order to go beyond masculine domination, it is not necessary to eliminate all differences between the sexes, to become like men, who do not have a monopoly on that which is universal. Women’s liberation is not just a question of remedying an injustice: it also involves demonstrating a different way of relating to the world and organizing human relationships. For universalist feminism, mo-

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Differences and Identities

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therhood is a source of women’s oppression and the primary expression of patriarchy, whereas the differentialist approach affirms the positive nature of women’s specificity, and of motherhood in particular, as a specific area of women’s experience and ability/knowledge. The retort to this argument is that speaking about qualities or attitudes specific to women is likely to justify all of the inequalities to which women have been subjected. Despite their conflicting concepts, the two approaches are based on the principle that over and above social divisions, women are the victims of a common oppression.4 In addition, they share a demand for equality: for some, equality in difference, for others equality means sameness (because for the latter, “difference” goes hand in hand with “hierarchies”). These two approaches, however, have as their paramount aim to defend the aggregate of women’s rights.

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At the Beginnings of the Feminist Movement: Solidarity between Women A crucial element in the feminism of the 1960s which cannot be ignored is the influence of the Marxist class-system model on conceptualizing the oppression of women.5 Most of the activists in the American and European women’s liberation movements came either from the “New Left” (United States), or from Trotskyite and Maoist groups and the May ’68 student uprisings (France).6 However, only by tearing themselves away from this ascendancy of revolutionary militants, for whom the cause of women was secondary to the class struggle, were women able to establish a movement of their own. An analysis of the oppression of women along the lines of a materialist model helped to consolidate their collective consciousness. The very use of the term “oppression,” when used instead of the “condition” of women, is predicated on the assumption that the subordination of women is not the result of an inescapable destiny, and by the same token can be combated. One of feminism’s major innovations is to have constituted a common political body and a political statement over and above the plurality of women. Despite their theoretical differences on the difference between the sexes, the origins of the exploitation of women, power relationships, or essentialism, the movement’s activists in the 1970s all retain fond memories of these “movement years,”7 which coincided with the years when they were young and rebellious, as one of them remembers: “Our involvement in the women’s movement was the most extraordinary experience of our lives. It changed the way we saw the world. It taught us solidarity between women.” 8 As the Americans used to chant, “We are one, we are woman!” This female solidarity (“sisterhood”) was to have priority over all other forms of

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solidarity, and to sweep away the divisions of class, race, and religion. This, it was said, is where its strength lay, as reflected in the 1970s American feminist expression: “Sisterhood is powerful.”9 This was the founding moment of a feminism based on women’s “togetherness.” Breakdown in Solidarity: Questioning the “Us” of Women This solidarity would be breached for the first time in 1979, when an international feminist conference took place in New York to mark the thirtieth anniversary of the publication of Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex. The black feminist Audre Lorde asked a seminal question directed at “white feminists”:

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If white American feminist theory need not deal with the differences between us, and the resulting difference in our oppression, then, how do you deal with the fact that the women who clean your houses and tend your children while you attend conferences on feminist theory are, for the most part, poor women and women of Color? What is the theory behind racist feminism?10 In this way Lorde reminded them that the problem of the men/women difference is not the only source of oppression, and that for many women, racism and poverty bring them closer to the community of oppression with which they feel solidarity. Hence women’s struggles cannot be based solely on women; rather, they must embrace a whole range of social movements relating to the Blacks, workers, homosexuals, and the handicapped. This is no longer a “we” of women, but a coalition of victims of a variety of oppressions. The universality of the female condition is replaced by a multiplicity of cross-identities; it is the marginal figure, the “colonized” individual, who is destabilized. At this point the focus shifts from the theme of gender differences to that of multiple differences, from the male/female dichotomy to the western/non-western dichotomy, black/white, homosexual/ heterosexual. The political status of the “woman” category, which is central in feminist identity and the object of its claims, becomes marginal in light of the multiple relations of domination such as class, gender, race, ethnicity, and nationality. Black feminism would have major impact on feminism, which was split and destabilized over the bedrock of its struggle, based as it was on a particular way of viewing female unity and solidarity. Liberation Ideal: Between “Difference” and “Sameness” The issue of difference is of course not unique to feminism. It can be tied in with differing ways of viewing the modern liberation ideal of discriminated

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social groups. One such view—the assimilationist approach—advocates eliminating differences between groups. This universal ideal, which ignores natural differences, has been of crucial importance in the historical development of struggles against exclusion and for equal moral standards for all. One of the important things it has done is to make a broad contribution toward the political emancipation of religious and ethnic minorities. The assimilationist strategy is often criticized on the grounds that the dominant, universal norm is defined and appropriated by the privileged. Minorities, which have no choice other than to fit in, are inevitably at a disadvantage. The republican French tradition is a perfect example of this. Elisabeth Badinter, a French philosopher, representative of this universalism, explained it in a discussion with the sociologist Alain Touraine as follows:

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For me, the (French) Republic is not an empty expression, and neither is universalism. . . . Every time our differences are stressed more than our similarities, we become caught up in a confrontational process. Unlike you, it is not the right to difference that I claim; it is the right to indifference.11 However, she goes on to say that the French Republic seeks not to eradicate differences, but rather to put them in their place, i.e., second. In contrast, another French philosopher, Étienne Balibar, makes a distinction between what he calls universalism by “hegemony” or by “the dominant,” and the universalism of “liberation” (the dominated). In an article published in the late 1980s in the United States, he even went so far as to use the term “neo-racism” to state that “the true ‘French ideology’. . .lies. . .in the idea that the culture of the ‘land of the Rights of Man’ has been entrusted with a universal mission to educate the human race.”12 Here we are confronted with the other conception of the liberation ideal: one which considers the more effective strategy to be the affirmation of a cultural identity and autonomous organization of the group. This policy of difference emerged in the United States, where racial and ethnic groups, followed in close succession by women, homosexuals, the handicapped, and other underprivileged minorities, have all asserted their own specificity. It has often led to a separatist trend, among Afro-Americans (“Black Power”) as well as among women. Separatism may be one of the stages as a group grows in strength, and it may heighten its sense of solidarity. But the politics of difference can also lead to categorizations and exclusions. Multiculturalism— one of its consequences—would, it is argued, result in sectarianism and ghettoization. “Respect for culture,” one of its elements, is highly controversial among feminists, many of whom see this as impacting negatively on women’s rights (female circumcision, polygamy, wearing the Islamic veil or

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burqa), while others insist on acknowledging cultural senses of identity as constituting these women’s fundamental liberty. 13 The culturalism controversy in feminism does not often tally with the controversy over sexual differences. In France, for example, a Beauvoirian feminist like Christine Delphy is one of the most radical opponents of legislation banning the Islamic veil in public schools, earning her vehement criticism from the universalist camp. In return, some French women who support the positivity of sexual differences tend to oppose the Islamic veil, which they view as a sign of women’s oppression.14 As of the mid-1980s, new theories offer an alternative to these two views of difference, each of which would eventually lead to exclusion in one form or the other. These theories suggest that rather than considering difference as otherness, it should be seen in the sense of specificity, variation, in the sense that not only the oppressed individual is considered to be different. Interaction takes place between social groups, but not in terms of their ethnic, cultural, or religious identity. The cement between these groups will take the form of “group affinities,” to use the expression of the postmodern feminist Donna Haraway. (“Coalitions based on affinity instead of identity”)15 It is at this point that the process of identity “deconstruction” begins.

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Deconstruction of Identity: From Difference to “Indifference” In the 1990s, the intense productivity of feminist thought in the Englishspeaking world—influenced inter alia by the interpretation of French poststructuralism—charted new paths in gender studies. Feminism, having also entered the age of “suspicion,” was subjected to new postmodern criticism of western universalism and the rationale of the Enlightenment or “logocentrism.” Thus the category of the subject as a rational and homogeneous entity is questioned. In the same vein, the category of “woman” as a political subject would lose its wholeness. Hence, criticism of essentialism, a mainspring of the universalist feminism of the 1970s, would be taken to its extreme, to the deconstruction of all identities, considered multiple, contingent, and temporary. This position rejects as illusory the “us” assumed to be universal by most humanistic discourse, including that of feminists. Jacques Derrida, like other French thinkers such as Foucault, Lacan, Deleuze, and Lyotard, has made a major contribution to the emergence of American postfeminism. This trend has been emulated recently in Europe and especially in France and Germany.16 The large number of concepts hammered out by Derrida and which mark his work would be used to develop new postfeminist trends challenging the duality of the sexes: “deconstruction,” “phallogocentrism,” “dissemination,” “differance/difference.” To avoid falling into the

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trap of an essentialism or what he calls a “metaphysics of the sexes,” Derrida uses the concept of “undecidability” in order to refer to sexual differences: “neither the one,” as asserted by the universalists, “nor the two” of the differentialists, because, as he says, it is impossible to define what makes a man and what a woman. In particular, he suggests to the feminists giving up the “feminine difference” for an “indifference,” the only way, in his view, to put an end to “phallogocentrism.”17 This postmodern view of difference/ differance (with an “a”) and of the disembodied woman, goes on to generate a different track in feminist thought, i.e., the deconstructionist approach. Advocating an “indifference of the sexes,” this challenges the duality of the sexes, instead proposing an “undecidability.”18 This theory of undecidability underpins American queer theory,19 which emerged from thinking about homosexuality and transsexuality. For undecidability theory, gender and sex are fictitious representations that do not necessarily overlap; hence someone can be male in sex yet feminine in gender or vice versa, without excluding other forms of sexuality. This is the culmination of the development of the meaning of the concept of “gender,” disconnected from anatomical “sex.” Indeed, some even use the term “emancipated from sex.” Queer sexuality is changeable and variable, and does not recognize the “hetero-centered” binary and hierarchical system of genders. It is not a question of reversing men/women categories, but rather of making “gender trouble”20 which results in everyone wondering whether s/he is indeed a man or a woman, and by the same token challenges the social and symbolic order. Female queer theoreticians start by calling into question the heterosexual norm, which they consider not just a sexual practice but also a political and economic system that is bound up with reproduction and imposes the category of “woman.” They lambast feminism for its heterocentered approach, the very thing that makes male domination possible. So, queer theory pursues a strategy of destabilizing identities and critiquing “heterocentered” identity-based feminism. The leading theoreticians of this school of thought include the Americans Judith Butler, Teresa de Lauretis,21 Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick,22 Donna Haraway,23 and Monique Wittig from France.24 This principle of the “indifference of the sexes” has two possible consequences. Some claim that this lack of sexual differentiation will lead to optimal women’s liberation: freed of male/female constraints, they will no longer have to suffer the drawbacks of the hierarchy of the sexes. Others will simply see these theories as auguring the end of feminism: if there is no longer a common “us” of women, if women’s reality is questioned, then it is no longer possible or necessary to build a social protest movement focused on “women.” In

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response to such critique, Judith Butler explains that to deconstruct “woman” as a subject does not mean doing negating the subject: To deconstruct the concept of matter or that of bodies is not to negate or refuse either term. To deconstruct these terms means, rather, to continue to use them, to repeat them, to repeat them subversively, and to displace them from the contexts in which they have been deployed as instruments of oppressive power.25 Identity and Exclusion

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These theories about the destabilizing of sexual identities coincide with postmodern criticism of essentialist conceptions of identity relative to other marginalized groups such as ethnic minorities and former colonized populations. A non-essentialist identity is an identity “in progress,” one that is “constructed in multiple ways, through discourse, practices and positions which are at cross-purposes and antagonistic.” So identity no longer relates to a fixed condition, a defined body of traits or characteristics which describes “who we are,” but rather is like a developing process, what we can become. The theories of collective or individual identity did not, however, wait for feminism: they were addressed in a variety of disciplines, including philosophy, sociology, anthropology, political science, or psychoanalysis. JamaicanBritish sociologist Stuart Hall, one of the field’s leading theoreticians, writes about the fluid nature and lack of stability of identities as follows: Cultural identity, in this second sense, is a matter of “becoming” as well as of “being.” It belongs to the future as much as to the past. It is not something which already exists, transcending place, time, history and culture. Cultural identities come from somewhere, have histories. But, like everything which is historical, they undergo constant transformation. Far from being eternally fixed in some essentialised past, they are subject to the continuous “play” of history, culture and power. Far from being grounded in a mere “recovery” of the past, which is waiting to be found, and which, when found, will secure our sense of ourselves into eternity, identities are the names we give to the different ways we are positioned by, and position ourselves within, the narratives of the past.26 To speak about identity in terms of becoming, of being made in many different ways, of discourse, practices, and antagonistic positions, makes identity fragile and unstable. But despite this instability, most postmodern theoreticians, including Stuart Hall, argue that identity “remains a necessary concept” in social and cultural discourse. Rather than getting rid of the term,

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they suggest that it be “rehabilitated.” These experiences, once limited to colonial populations, now affect more and more people—not just previously colonized or marginal populations—who are starting to think of their identities as mobile, multiple, and hybrid. The other major preoccupation of feminists and postcolonial criticism relates to the relationship between identity and power, between identity and exclusion. At the center of postfeminist theoretician Donna Haraway’s critique of identity is exclusion through naming (including the supposed unity of all women as “woman”).27 For Judith Butler, (gender) identities springing from repeated acts and gestures are fictitious, and she comments: To deconstruct the subject of feminism is not, then, to censure its usage, but, on the contrary, to release the term into a future of multiple significations, to emancipate it from the maternal or racialist ontologies to which it has been restricted, and to give it play as a site where unanticipated meanings come to bear.28 Nancy Fraser, in an analysis of the concept of “Difference” in the U.S. ongoing debates between multiculturalist and anti-essentialist feminists, explains how an extreme anti-essentialist approach, can lead to an exclusion of any collective identification (regarding the destabilization of gender difference or race/ethnic difference): Clearly, anti-essentialism rejects any politics—feminist or otherwise. . . . But some of its exponents go further still. Stressing that all collective identities are “fictional” because constructed, they regard all with a skeptical eye. From this perspective, politicized identity terms such as “women” must always necessarily be exclusionary; they can only be constructed through the repression of difference. Any collective identification, therefore, will be subject to critique from the standpoint of what it excludes.29

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Another passage by Stuart Hall highlights the ambiguities in postmodernist thought about the issue of difference—sexual, cultural, or ethnic: We must bear in mind postmodernism’s deep and ambivalent fascination with difference—sexual difference, cultural difference, racial difference, and above all, ethnic difference. Quite in opposition to the blindness and hostility that European high culture evidenced on the whole toward ethnic difference—its inability even to speak ethnicity when it was so manifestly registering its effects—there’s nothing that global postmodernism loves better than a certain kind of difference: a touch of ethnicity, a taste of the exotic, as we say in

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Differences and Identities England, “a bit of the other” (which in the United Kingdom has a sexual as well as an ethnic connotation).30 T HE C ONCEPT OF “D IFFERENCE ” IN J EWISH I DENTITY

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Jewish Difference and Visibility Some Jewish American researchers have recently started applying feminist theories of difference and identity to their thinking about Jewish identity questions. In this approach, there is no conflating or equating of sexual identity and Jewish identity. The identity of “woman”—even if its “cultural” aspects are taken into account—has a physiological basis and cannot be passed on (since a woman can give birth to a male or female baby), as well as visibility (whether imaginary or real, the way a woman looks is universally recognized). In contrast, Jewish identity is linked to a history, an ancestral past, a genealogical handing down and passing on in the absence of any biological specificity. What can be compared, however, is the way in which people refer to identities. We can find common ground between ways of thinking about sexual identity, misogyny, homosexuality, homophobia, and modes of analyzing Jewish identity, and more specifically judeophobia and antisemitism. One of the characteristics of homophobia, for example, is the fear of the homosexual’s invisibility. This irrational fear is linked to prejudices bound up with phenomena that are not and cannot be brought under control. The issue of “Jewish difference,” like that of “Jewish power,” was one of the standard grounds for antisemitism. While some criticize the Jews for their particularism, pointing at the Jew who identifies himself as a Jew—the “identity Jew”—others fear the erasing of this difference and hence the difficulty of identifying the Jewish difference. The harder it was to differentiate the Jew, the more frightening he became. He became the quintessential Other. In her study of representations of “the Jew” and “woman” in German antisemitism, the German historian Christina von Braun explains this phenomenon very clearly: The more the “assimilation” advanced, the more biological the stereotypes of the “Jew” became. That is a decisive difference from other forms of racism. In general, the hate of the foreign element recedes with the disappearance of difference; however, in the case of anti-Semitic racism, this only increased with the assimilation of the Jew. . . .

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Many stereotypes of Jewish “difference” touched upon this need: through them, the “assimilation” was to be rescinded, and the “Jew” was to again be made “visible.” The concept of a physical persecution of the “Jew”—which is already evidenced in a few texts at the end of the eighteenth century, concurrent to the first emancipation laws—was closely related with this phantasm of a “being made visible.” Via physical persecution, the anti-Semite hoped to transform the imagined “Eternal Jew” into a figure made of flesh and blood.31

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A few typical examples of Jewish invisibility in both prewar and postwar society are given in the first-hand accounts of feminists from a variety of backgrounds. In a famous discussion on racism and antisemitism in the American women’s movement, Minnie Bruce Pratt, a Christian white woman, recalls very clearly this Jewish invisibility, the source of an antisemitism in which she was herself involved, in a small town in the South during her childhood in the 1960s: Well-schooled by my past in how Jews (and Communists) were the source of “outsider trouble,” the old theory that if Jews are present and visible, they must be in control, I did not turn this teaching around to question if the significant participation of Jews in civil rights work might not have something to do with their own history of oppression. In fact, I didn’t think of Jews as being in the town, even though I drove past a large and modern synagogue on Morganton Road every time I went to grocery shop. Blacks were definitely Southern, and American, even though they’d come from Africa. . . . But a black woman had raised me, Black women and men came in and out of my kinfolks’ houses, cooking, cleaning; Black people worked for white people; I knew (I thought) what their place was. I had no place for Jews in the map of my thoughts, except that they had lived before Christ in an almost mythical Israel, and afterwards in Germany until they were killed, and that those in this country they were foreign, even if they were here: they were always foreign; their place was always somewhere else.32 This shows clearly what can make the difference between racism and antisemitism: the latter is often related to a fantasy, to an abstract idea of the Jew. As Betty Friedan, who grew up before the war in Peoria, Illinois, wrote: It has not always been easy to be Jewish in America, especially for those of us growing up in smaller cities—like Peoria—where you were very marginal as Jews. . . . There was some kind of an attempt to

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Differences and Identities distance yourself from that painful experience. People changed their names and did something to their noses, tried not to talk with their hands, sometimes even used canned peas, and denied the very richness, the warmth, the specialness, the good taste of their own background as Jews.33

A similar experience is related by the feminist historian Gerda Lerner, who at the same time lived in an assimilated middle-class Jewish family in Vienna, Austria, before the rise of Nazism. Describing her own family’s attitudes, she notes that “self-hatred” is actually a necessary component of assimilation: We spoke High German, not Yiddish; in appearance, clothing and education we were not to be distinguished from the gentiles, except for those inescapable physical characteristics that identified some of us immediately as Jews—the dark hair, a certain kind of nose, the intense, vivid gesture. Self-hatred was a necessary component of assimilation, a self-hatred so subtle we never admitted it, even to ourselves, but still it operated as a corrosive poison, setting family members against each other. We reinforced it by keeping distance from those not interested in assimilation—the orthodox, the Yiddish-speaking Jews. We were different from the gentiles, different from “those” Jews.34

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Another equally significant example comes from the non-Jewish side, from a German woman who experienced postwar Jewish invisibility in a Germany that had been emptied of its Jews. Here we have the account of the German feminist Katharina von Kellenbach,35 who describes what it was like the first time she came face to face with somebody Jewish. This happened when she was in an American university’s religious studies department. This was in the early 1980s when she had gone to Temple University, Philadelphia to complete the theology studies that she had begun at a Protestant seminary in Germany. I had never met a Jew. . . . I was completely unprepared for this encounter. My first Jew introduced herself after class at Temple University: “I am studying theology too. I’ll be a rabbi.” I was taken completely by surprise and burst out: “That’s impossible!” This was the first time in her life—she was 23 at the time—that she had ever met a Jew in the flesh. And the girl standing opposite her, contradicted all the prejudices of her “feminist, German, Lutheran” background. She goes on to say: “Meeting my Other was an intense experience. Nothing had prepared me for the possibility of meeting a living Jew. In my mind Jews were dead, victims of the Holocaust.”36 Katharina von Kellenbach, to whom we will

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return later, has since then focused all her efforts on fighting anti-Jewish prejudices and antisemitism in her own country, and particularly among her German feminist colleagues. So we find that the modern assimilated Jew, who looks like his non-Jewish neighbors, has not always erased anti-Jewish prejudices. It has even been demonstrated historically that it is precisely such Jews who have in part given rise to racial antisemitism. In turn, this antisemitism has given rise to the concept of hidden identity, whether deliberate or inadvertent. The feminist theoretician Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick uses the terms “closet identity” or “coming out of the closet,” which are well known among homosexuals living in homophobic society, as an epistemological metaphor for studying differences.37 The imagined contents of the Jewish closet were almost invariably inflected by the economic and the sexual, whether money dealings carried out in shady corners or inferred hidden sexual complexes. In her book she dwells at length on the tale of Queen Esther, which Racine recounts in his famous play, as a coming-out model.38 This is the point where Esther was to tell her husband, King Ahasuerus, who had just signed a decree for the extermination of the Jews, that she was Jewish. “If I perish, I perish,” says the traditional Hebrew text.39 Today, in enlightened democratic countries, one might think that there is no problem about revealing one’s Jewishness. And yet, reading the personal account of the French novelist Michèle Manceaux, we see that she had the same dilemmas over revealing her identity: before deciding to return to her Jewish identity, having been hidden by her mother since her childhood during the German occupation, she must muster all her courage: “I do dare, after all, today I am defining myself, I am Jewish. I nearly wrote: I am ‘giving myself away.’ As if there was something wrong with being Jewish.”40 The fact that she was able to hide this identity for so many years is, however, significant. If she had not chosen to reveal her Jewishness, there was no external “difference” to “give her away” (to use her own term) as being Jewish. Like the Manceaux, many French Jews preferred to change their Jewish-sounding family names after the Holocaust. Under Vichy, a Jewish name represented a mortal danger. In western countries where the Jews are integrated, the “Jewish difference” is often undetectable, apart from when they choose to display their difference by means of an external sign such as a kippa (skullcap) or black hat and sidelocks (peyot) for Orthodox Jewish men. Sometimes there are a number of specific ethnic attributes, but given the mixing of populations in a globalized world, it becomes very difficult to recognize them. In France, to avoid possible antisemitic attacks religious Jews may swap their skullcap for a cap or beret. Does this help to eliminate their Jewish visibility? Not

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necessarily. It must be remembered that antisemitism applies to the visible Jew as well as to his non-visible counterpart. One is a reminder of the other’s existence. French Jews had a bitter experience: during the German occupation, neither the “Statute on Jews” nor roundups made any distinction between foreign Jews and assimilated “French Israelites.” “Invisibility” and Modern Jewishness The principle of the Jewish Emancipation was to be Jewish in private and “ordinary” in the street, which some people considered a form of “marranism.”41 So what about the Jewish “difference”? As Daniel Itzkowitz observes about Jews in the American context: Their Jewishness kept slipping within and among the categories of race, nation, religion and culture, and the criteria of affiliation and disaffiliation (notwithstanding the religious law that defines as Jewish those individuals whose mother is Jewish), were very vulnerable to contestation. In other words, this is a difference that you cannot put your finger on, a kind of “sameness of difference.”42 Since Jews do not belong to what are known as “visible minorities,” which suffer from ethnic or racial segregation throughout the entire world, they will not be taken account of by certain antiracist associations. The latter will therefore tend to play down antisemitism, which does not prevent Jews from being socially successful. In France, this “invisibility” is, quite rightly, considered to be a guarantee of equality and supposed to avoid segregation. As historian Pierre Birnbaum explains:

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At the time of the French Revolution, the Jews enthusiastically accepted the Republican contract which limited the expression of things religious and cultural to private space only. In many respects, we can say that France’s Jews have invented a model of Jewish Diaspora life which goes hand in hand with the French model of a strong State based on the principle of universalism.43 This republican principle led to the passing in March 2004 of a law forbidding the wearing at French public schools of conspicuous religious signs, such as the hijab for Muslims and the kippa for Jews. The majority of French Jews supported this legislation. Alain Finkielkraut, one of its best known supporters, explained his reasoning to the Jewish magazine L’Arche as follows: I understand the problem that such a prohibition may constitute for the Jews. But to defend the Islamic veil in order to save the kipa would hasten the transformation of the French nation into a multicultural so-

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ciety. The Jews could lose everything as a result of such a metamorphosis. They are stakeholders of the Republic.44 But this does not prevent Alain Finkielkraut from trying to reconcile his universalism with a French and Jewish identity which he reiterates time and time again. This is what sets him off from Elisabeth Badinter, who takes her universalism to the extreme of rejecting any identity-based or cultural particularism which, in her view, might lead to sectarianism.45 In fact, multiculturalism never advantaged the Jews of France, who were always a tiny minority within the French population but one which wished to integrate fully. But neither did republican universalism prevent the waves of antisemitism, from Dreyfus to Vichy, that occurred when “French Israelites” were so desperate to melt away into French society. Historically, what is special about antisemitism is its cumulative nature: it assumes new forms without abandoning earlier ones.

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Questioning Jewish Identity The question of identity is intrinsically linked to the concept of difference or specificity (whether cultural, religious, ethnic, or national). In a world in a state of flux, all individuals try to define themselves, to clarify their own identity, to ask themselves: Who am I? What am I not? Related terms include: belonging, loyalties, authenticity, attachments, otherness, but also marranism, hybridity, perceived in a positive or negative sense depending on every individual’s position. These issues have given rise to a whole array of reflections and theories in the humanities and social sciences, which some researchers have applied in the field of Jewish studies. For Jews, the quest for identity is not a modern fad, but an existential questioning with a long history. It is a subject with which Jews have wrestled since the Emancipation, confronting them with new realities and dilemmas. In the ghetto, there was no asking “who is a Jew?” Secularization blunted the certainties of Jewish identity and made necessary new expressions to define it. Zionism then offered the Jews a secularized national identity. Paradoxically it was in Israel of all places that the “who is a Jew” question would be raised and discussed publicly in the context of the Law of Return.46 At a time when Jews are integrated among the nations, the concept of identity has become a major concern in current debates about Jewish life. People talk about assimilation and a “decline” in Jewish identity, perceiving fractured, mixed, and hybrid identities. Jewish institutions are worried. When the borders between groups are perceived as fluid and porous, and the spaces where identities are configured are thought of as being varied, open, and flexible, then group integrity is weakened, as are struggles to maintain it. The

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fact that people can assimilate proves that today Jewish identity is more a question of “choice” than destiny. But Jewish history has shown that assimilation does not always allow people to escape their origins. A chance encounter, an antisemitic insult or a visit to a synagogue can trigger a return to a person’s identity, a rediscovering of oneself. Traditional discourse on Jewish identity identifies some attitudes and beliefs as well as religious and cultural practices as being necessary or essential to Jewish identity. Despite Jewish diversity (religious/secular, living in Israel or the Diaspora, religious trends, the variety of Jewish subcultures), traditionally Jewish identity is based on the idea of a unity, a genuine Jewish “me,” shared by all Jews with a common history and roots. It presupposes timeless and stable reference points which can stand up to time and change. Jewish identity may take root in religion, with its various forms of expression, or may involve an emotional or political tie to the State of Israel. It may also be limited to a cultural affiliation bound up with family traditions, or may refer to the values of social justice and equality, bound up with the Jewish vocation to “set the world to rights” or “repair” the world (tikkun olam), as David Biale writes: “Universalism, it sometimes seems, is a peculiar symptom of Jewish particularism.”47 So there are two options: either to consider being Jewish to be a private fact of concern to oneself only; or as implying some responsibility vis-à-vis other Jews (Jewish solidarity) or vis-àvis the world (universalism). There are innumerable questions about reevaluating Jewish tradition, the many varied (and sometimes conflicting) ways of expressing Jewish identity, and more generally speaking, the complexity of defining Jewishness. For some, the Jewish community stands for homogeneity and Jewish solidarity; for others, the community is synonymous with exclusiveness and monolithism. If we examine the most common elements that make up Jewish identity today, we can identify a number of primary areas which vary from one individual to another, and from one group to another, to different degrees: diverse facets of religion (worship, cultural, historical), experience of antisemitism, and ties with the State of Israel. As the result of the process of secularization, religion and belief in the Jewish people’s specific destiny—formerly the bedrock of Jewish identity— have lost their monopoly. For most Jews, religious practice is limited to family reunions and celebrations, devoid of any link to religious faith or divine commandments. But like it or not, Jewish existence retains religious connotations: the non-observance of religious practices, even for those who say that they are atheists, does not mean that they are not Jewish. As the philosopher Jean-Michel Salanskis observed on this issue:

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In the western European world, dominated for many centuries by Christianity, Jewish existence is identified primarily as religious. . . . Jewishness is unimaginable without any reference to how it is expressed in what is called religion.48 There may be lingering Jewish overtones in many secular or atheist Jewish families who have retained Jewish cultural and family ties. As a French Jewish woman with a left-wing, feminist intellectual background explained: Nobody in my family keeps Shabbat, nobody eats kosher. Nobody has any ties with the Jewish religion. But I have passed on to my children a very definite and positive sense of “Jewishness” (a word that I greatly prefer to “Judaism”), because I have an emotional tie to this Jewishness. Although my children have married non-Jews, they have passed this on to the best of their ability to their own children. I think this has more or less worked. It’s like bending over backwards, but we don’t give in or give up, and we’re highly motivated.49 Even those who have turned their backs on the Jewish religion may continue to feel ties to the Jewish world. For example the feminist Starhawk, a neopagan priestess from an American Jewish family, still acknowledges her Jewishness:

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I am a Jew who has spent her adult life as a voice for a different religion, a blatant Pagan whose spirituality is attuned to the Goddess of regeneration, not the God of my fathers. To Orthodox Jews, I’m a heretic, which gives me a certain freedom to say what I think. I was born into, raised in and acculturated by the post-war Jewish community, but I have not been immersed in that world for many years. I speak from the margins of the Jewish community. But I am still a Jew, and the view from the edge can sometimes be clearer than that from the center.50 Antisemitism, and in particular Holocaust memory, have played a pivotal role in postwar thinking about Jewish identity. They have highlighted the issue of how far Jews can assimilate in other nations, and above all the impossibility of “escaping one’s Jewish destiny.” And if we refer to a shared destiny, then we also refer to solidarity and unity. The drama of the Holocaust has further reinforced among many Jews the feeling of a need for Jewish continuity, for Jewish survival. If Hitler did not manage to wipe out the entire Jewish people, then the Jewish people must not be allowed to disappear as a result of assimilation.51 And the State of Israel would appear to be the guarantor of Jewish survival: Israel, which since its establishment has taken in hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees, and which today is the

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largest Jewish community in the world, has become an undeniable identityshaping factor and a potential refuge. Visits to Israel and solidarity with the Jewish State help to consolidate the sense of Jewish identity. For many Jews, unconditional love for—or conversely, critical involvement with—Israel have become a way of expressing their identity. Feminist and other cultural critics’ new theories on identity developed during the 1990s run counter to traditional Jewish approaches. The latter are grounded in a bedrock of values and loyalties which have prevailed and persisted, despite the vagaries of history, and which have helped the Jewish people to survive. These theories offer alternative “non-essentialist” concepts which view identity as a process, “becoming” rather than being, to adopt Stuart Hall’s definition.52 In other words, we are never what we have been, because identity is only the sum of temporary positions offered by a social discourse at a given moment. This view refers to the situation in today’s globalized world with its cross-border population movements: wandering, diasporism, assimilation, as well as concern about maintaining identity. These traits, which have characterized the Jewish people for centuries, have become widespread, albeit without leading to a greater understanding of the Jewish condition and the history of the Jews. Instead, there is a form of competition among victims, the oppressed coming to be seen as the oppressors, with a concomitant obliteration of the historical Jewish origins of these concepts. In the context of identity politics, identity is only asserted positively for those who are considered to be oppressed. As David Biale points out: [At a time when most ethnic groups in America and, indeed, nations elsewhere—from the Baltics to Yugoslavia—are unselfconscious in asserting their identities—NL], progressive Jews are agonizing over whether the cultivation of Jewish identity somehow constitutes a threat to a true universalist politics. It is as if the assertion of identity is acceptable only on the part of those currently oppressed, while groups like the Jews, who have largely succeeded in attaining power in America, feel guilty about ethnic self-identification.”53 This is precisely the lament of his fellow American, T. Drorah Setel, at the time a student rabbi and coordinator of the Feminist Task Force of the New Agenda: “I am unseen as a feminist among Jews and unseen as a Jew among feminists. Had I been black or Latina, my commitment to my community of origin would have been acceptable and my attachment to my people would have been honored.”54 The Jews who are required to be universalist and are asked to avoid any “separateness,” also have a tradition of solidarity which is the oldest and most impressive in modern history. The Alliance Israélite Universelle, the first international humanitarian organization in history, was

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set up in Paris in 1860 by French Jews to help the Jews in countries where they suffered from poverty and oppression. American Jews went on to distinguish themselves by their large philanthropic and political networks which helped deprived people everywhere, not just Jews. They actively strive to maintain the cohesion and identity of their community and to help Jews throughout the world; in addition, they also engage in universal humanitarian actions.55 For this historical Jewish solidarity to be challenged and called a “Jewish prison” or “ghettoization,” while any attachment to the State of Israel by Diaspora Jews looks like sectarianism, speaks volumes about widespread ignorance regarding Jewish history. D ISSOLUTION OF I DENTITY : “F EMININE ” AND “J EWS ” AS M ETAPHORS

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“The Feminine” in Sexual Difference Discussions Various theories of universalist and postmodern feminism regarding women, make a distinction between the body (biological features) and social factors (to counter biological determinism or the view that biology is destiny). The universalist approach, as Enlightenment philosophy crossed with Marxism, identifies “difference” and “domination” in order to conceive of only abstract and equal individuals.56 Feminist theoreticians who consider the difference between the sexes to be solely a product of oppression, or others who hold that women make up “a class,” like the working class, conclude that the category of “woman/women” will disappear when domination-based relationships between the sexes disappear, as in Marxist teachings. They call “naturalists” or essentialists those who support the reality of a feminine specificity, of a feminine experience which cannot be reduced to its relationship with the male sex, of a difference between the sexes beyond domination. This “accusation” of essentialism is directed towards all those, male and female alike, who address the difference between the sexes. Luce Irigaray replies to her critics that her essentialism is merely a “strategy” which uses mimicry, the imitation of the patriarchal construction of femininity. She argues that materialist feminists believe that simply improving women’s practical conditions (which often requires playing masculine roles) will resolve their problems. Drawing on psychoanalysis, she believes that the symbolic order must be changed first, so that women can achieve subjectivity without getting lost in a lack of differentiation.57 Another tendency of “difference feminism” is to legitimate sexual difference as a foundational category of feminist thought while simultaneously emptying it of any normative or essentialist content. In an article entitled “The Doxa of Difference,”58 Rita Felski tries to clarify

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some theories of sexual difference, with a partiular stress on the relationship between identity and difference. She refers mainly to Rosi Braidotti (Netherlands), and Drucilla Cornell (Australia) as representing a “second generation” of feminist thought. We shall not cite the entire article (nor the responses to it published in the same journal), but only note some of the questions cited as examples. First, Rosi Braidotti: Can we formulate otherness, difference, without devaluing it? Can we think of the other not as other-than, but as a positively other entity?59 Drucilla Cornell, for her part, suggests doing away with the dramatic nature of the problematic of the difference between the sexes (in order to avoid the war of the sexes). She affirms the importance of the “feminine” while refusing to give it any substantive content. The feminine is that which resists definition, which embodies multiplicity and otherness. In other words: the feminine is simply the sign of a radical heterogeneity, the privileged marker of difference.60 Rita Felski concludes that all these theories of sexual difference result in an impasse:

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Either feminine difference is given a substantive definition and is thereby subject to charges of essentialism, or it is feted as an asocial principle of alterity and is thereby robbed of any meaningful political content, resulting in the creation of what Laura Donaldson dubs “The Woman without Qualities.”61 Here we can also recall the philosopher Emmanuel Levinas, who discussed at length the feminine as “absolute otherness,” but made it clear that this notion had nothing to do with real women.62 Catherine Chalier, a follower of Levinas, in Figures du féminin points out however that “there must be an end to the effacing of themselves (women) behind metaphors which they have not chosen. Too many women have no name, a name which, based on persistent metaphors, refers to greater agreement between language and life.”63 The notion of the feminine in its abstract form is also very much present in postmodern thought, particularly in queer theory which uses it, not to relate positively to difference, but rather “to put an end to difference.” The “feminine,” seen from this viewpoint as a category applicable to men and women alike, therefore rules out any identity or duality of the sexes. There is neither one sex, nor two, but something that is “undecidable.” The supporters of “difference” reject poststructuralist definitions of gender which state that there is no experience outside language. They also reject the notion of feminine in its metaphorical sense. This in-difference, they say, leads to a denial of women’s reality: since the “feminine” is an attribute that is common to the two sexes. In addition, the qualities attributed to this “feminine” are also reminiscent of an essentialist stigmatization of the female gender: vulnerability, receptivity, empathy (not so far from the notion of “passivity”).

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In this, feminists are not taken in: even if such traits are revalued and become “unisex,” they can only reinforce prejudices against real women, without toppling men’s supremacy. Without a common cause, without a community of interest, how then can one define the reasons for political action in favor of women? If the feminine is a metaphor, not to say a “parody” or imitation of a fantasized ideal (Butler), is it worthwhile for women to put a lot of effort into it? The American feminist Sonia Kruks criticizes this hyper-constructivism of postmodernism which, she says, may be so destructive as to do away with the category of women: The excessive constructionism implicit in post-modernism. . .threatens to transform female subjectivity into pure fiction and to destroy even the category of woman. . . . Because unless it is admitted that an “historical female reality” lives and dies, that women decide and act, and that they can be more or less oppressed or free, we risk becoming our own “grave diggers.”64 Martha Nussbaum also underscores the consequences of these theories on the “loss of involvement” in favor of oppressed women. 65 The term “gender,” used instead of “woman,” may contribute to the blurring of responsibilities. As the French feminist Marie-Victoire Louis argues, in the case of violence against women, to speak in terms of gender means that the sex of the victim or the oppressor is not known:

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How can one not see that speaking of gender and violence towards women, women victims of gender violence, domestic and gender violence, violence linked to gender violence, violence linked to gender discrimination, gender and violence towards women, gender violence, violence linked to gender, violence based on gender the gender of violence. . .evacuates the question of the sex of the authors of this violence? 66 As long ago as the early 1990s, the philosopher Françoise Collin identified a form of antifeminism in these post-metaphysical or deconstructionist theories. The use of the concept of feminine as a way of being in the world, she points out, can actually do without women: There is something to be said for this type of thinking, which can be productive. But using the notion of feminine, if only to distinguish it from traditional femininity, or even to reject it, creates the illusion of addressing the issue of women, women’s actual reality, even though this is far from the case—and in fact this is not the goal. Highlighting the feminine dimension, together with its cohort of connotations (distortion, receptivity, scattering, etc.) ignores the question of the actual relationships

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Differences and Identities between men and women in the same world. It leaves it in the shadows, while seemingly addressing it.67

She then adds: “By practicing suspicion, one can even ask whether attaching value to the feminine, which is instantly picked up by men, is not a new— unconscious—“ruse” in their act of appropriation. This adds to the advantages acquired by the masculine position those which might be asserted by women.”68 And hence she concludes: The thinker’s bisexuality or rather transsexuality (because bisexuality would further imply the existence of the Two) combines the advantages of the two genders and avoids their drawbacks. This is why I could refer to transvestite. I would add that all expressions such as “we are all women,” as well as “we are all Jews” or “we are all immigrants,” are still highly questionable, as they blend in the general a particular and nonshareable situation because it is indeed not shared.69

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Hence the question is: to what extent does abstraction, often written in quotation marks, lead to a denial of the subject’s reality? On the other hand, does not this construction of a feminine without any reality or unity prior to discourse lead to a weakening of pro-women struggles? This is the criticism that is directed at queer theorists, particularly Judith Butler, who states her views in an article about “feminism and the question of postmodernism.” She explains why she uses quotation marks for the terms “sex” and “violence” or “woman”: I place the term “violence” and “sex” under quotation marks: is this the sign of a certain deconstruction, the end to politics? Or am I underscoring the iterable structure of these terms. . . . I place them in quotation marks to show that they are under contest, up for grabs, to initiate the contest, to question their traditional deployment, and call for some other. The quotation marks do not place into question the urgency or credibility of sex or violence as political issues, but, rather, show that the way their very materiality is circumscribed is fully political The effect of the quotation marks is to denaturalize the terms, to designate these signs as sites of political debate.70 So according to Butler, the purpose of quotation marks is to denaturalize these terms, to use them differently, but without actually eliminating them. Thus Butler is responding to all those who consider that her theories lead to the end of feminist politics, a charge which she rejects categorically. Perhaps Judith Butler’s explanation can shed light on this strange tradition, one which continues to this day, of using both Jews and women as metaphors for otherness or as paradigms of a condition, of certain qualities and flaws

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which either valorize or stigmatize. Would “Jew” or “woman” as an abstraction lead to the identity dissolution? By wishing to de-essentialize, are we not running the risk of overlooking the realities of both?

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The “Jews” in Quotation Marks The origin of the allegorization of the Jews, as of women, is to be found in Paul’s famous Letter to the Galatians: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.”71 This is considered the source of Western universalism, of the Christian principle of the equality of all before God. But this verse from the Epistles of Paul, which would appear to be stating an ideal or messianic egalitarian principle, conflicts with the dualism of flesh and spirit. It leads to the downplaying of the bodily and carnal aspects in favor of things of the spirit.72 For different reasons women—a vestige of Paulinism or a western tradition of thought, like the Jews—share the “privilege” of being linked to the carnal, a sign of decadence. On the other hand they are frequently allegorized by common opinion and even by philosophers, who use certain stereotypes as abstract paradigms. In his essay Heidegger and “the jews” the philosopher Jean-François Lyotard, who uses the term “Jew” metaphorically,73 did not start out in a negative frame of mind. He had been favorably impressed by Emmanuel Levinas’ Talmudic Readings, and also intended to protest against the Holocaust denial fashionable in France in the early 1980s. Right at the beginning of his book, he explains that he puts the term “jew” in quotation marks in order “to avoid confusing these ‘jews’ with “real Jews.’” What is most real about real Jews, he says, is the succession of oppressions of which they have been victims in Europe: “Christians demand their conversion; monarchs expel them; republics assimilate them; Nazis exterminate them.” For their part, American commentators often compare Lyotard’s “jew” with Sartre’s in Anti-Semite and Jew: a pure product of oppression and antisemitism, rather than of history and an ancestral culture. For these philosophers, the reality of the Jews, their religious, historical, cultural, or memory-based identity seems to be of no interest whatsoever. Lyotard is interested only in “the jew” as a philosophic paradigm of otherness par excellence, the unrepresentable original difference, a kind of “abstract essence.” But he forgets to specify that their exclusion, marginalization and oppression are realities that were justified by concrete historical situations and contexts.74 The French philosopher Elisabeth de Fontenay, who wrote an entire book on Lyotard’s thinking about the Jews in his various writings, is highly critical of some of his biblical interpretations. In particular she demonstrates that interpretations which

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deviate from those passed down by Jewish tradition may distort its meaning.75 However, while both Lyotard’s and Sartre’s postwar writings generated a variety of reactions—some of them extremely positive—by Jews,76 an essay by another French philosopher, Alain Badiou, published in 2005, generated a strong response as a result of his interpretations of what he calls “The uses of the word “Jew” (Portées du mot “juif”).77 Here too “the jew,” which he deliberately writes in lower case and in quotation marks, is stripped of any meaning. It is considered the paradigm of the victim, the jew exterminated and wiped out by Hitler, after first defining him in accordance with his criteria. But since the real, bodily Jews have disappeared, the only thing that is left is the word “jew” rendered sacred, and (according to Badiou) endangered by the Jewish State.78 From here the name can be readily stood on its head, so that today, he argues, it is applicable to the Palestinians, the ultimate victim, “a symbol of the whole of mankind.”79 Through philosophical abstraction, flesh-and-blood Jews, in their national, religious, or secular cultural diversity, are one way or the other to disappear with the end of antisemitism. If Alain Badiou is to be believed, they have already started to disappear, to the benefit of other oppressed peoples. A possible explanation for Badiou’s reasoning and his way of considering the Jews in metaphorical terms, is to be found in his earlier essay entitled Saint Paul—The Foundation of Universalism.80 In this work he discusses both the Jews and women, and through them he analyzes the question of difference and its relationship to the universal. The reason why he took these two examples (Jews/women), he says, is because of “the charge of a moralizing bigotry” which has been leveled over and over again at Paul in respect of his attitude to both categories. What Badiou sets out to show is that in fact Paul had a positive view of Jewish particularity and did not seek to eliminate it. Unlike John, for example, Paul asserted “so all Israel shall be saved” (Rom 12:26), while hoping “to be kept safe from those in Judaea who have not put themselves under the rule of God” (Rom. 15:31). 81 But Paul’s contradictions do not bother Badiou. Rather, he uses them in order to show this apostle’s “progressive” attitude to women, while warning his readers that he should not be “made to appear before the court of modern feminism.” Badiou concludes his analysis of the paradoxes of differences and the universal with a quotation from Paul which uses the example of the sounds of musical instruments to explain the importance of differences: “If even lifeless instruments such as the flute or the harp do not give a distinct note, how will anyone know what is being played on the flute or harp? (I Cor. 14:7) In his prologue Badiou declared that his interest in Paul was literary only, and had

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nothing to do with faith and things religious. It is hard, though, not to see this tendency to consider woman and the Jew as metaphors empty of their concrete reality, a carryover from the Christian tradition which influences western culture, however secular it might be.82 This is also seen in the work of Lyotard, and even Sartre. But the practice of using “quotation marks” and metaphorical representations is not the only thing that is shared by Jews and women. They are bound up with each other, through analogies that pair them together like conceptual Siamese twins. “The Jews, like women” or “women, like the Jews” are expressions which to this day are used every time an explanation is sought for the oppression of both categories. What is the origin of this connection, which still exists despite all the developments that have taken place in the Jewish condition as well as the condition of women? Before mapping out both the historical background and topical examples of this state of affairs, let us briefly survey analogies and the association of ideas which some linguists consider to be the “fertilizer of thought.” An analogy involves finding similarities with familiar situations in order to make a phenomenon easier to understand. Analogies are widely used in the sciences, but they are also to be found in a variety of philosophical, literary, and religious writings. They are related to other mechanisms of thought and expression: models, paradigms, archetypes, metaphors, allegories.83 The philosopher Jacques Bouveresse, in his criticism of postmodern thinkers’ overuse of analogy and metaphor, makes the point that while analogies are useful, not to say indispensable, they constitute a stage of which a final thought “should bear no sign, just like a finished building is without any sign of the scaffolding used during the construction process.84 Jews/women analogies, on which not all feminists agree, do however have their advantages when it comes to reflecting on both the Jewish condition and the condition of women. A common strategy is to place side by side a variety of oppressions and minority conditions in order to shed light on certain shared characteristics or more aptly represent a fact or phenomenon. Without making any value judgment as to its use, I considered it important to demonstrate the origins and diverse expressions of the analogical procedure that we often find being used even by great philosophers. Whatever its advantages and disadvantages, if not of philosophical interest, it does at least represent a fair degree of historical interest. N OTES 1. Among the French philosophers who have addressed this subject are Emmanuel Levinas, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Pierre Bourdieu, Luce

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Irigaray, Elisabeth Badinter, and the anthropologist Françoise Héritier. 2. Denise Thompson, “Defining Feminism,” Australian Feminist Studies (Summer 1994): 171–92. 3. The best known French “differentialist feminists” include Antoinette Fouque, Luce Irigaray, Julia Kristeva, and Françoise Héritier. 4. Elisabeth Badinter, close to Simone de Beauvoir’s approach, criticizes “victimization of women by feminists.” Elisabeth Badinter, Fausse route (Paris: Odile Jacob, 2003). 5. Among historical references, we can quote the Socialist Friedrich Engels (1820–1895): “The first class opposition that appears in history coincides with the development of the antagonism between man and woman in monogamous marriage, and the first class oppression coincides with that of the female sex by the male,” in idem, Der Ursprung der Familie, des Privateigentums und des Staats (The origin of the family, private property, and the state (Hottingen-Zurich, 1884); Marx/Engels Selected Works, vol. 3, chapter II, 4, p. 35; Marx/Engels Internet Archive (marxists .org, 1993, 1999, 2000), http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/pdf/ origin_family.pdf. 6. Sara M. Evans, Personal Politics: The Roots of Women’s Liberation in the Civil Rights Movement and the New Left (New York: A. A. Knopf, 1979). 7. Françoise Picq, Libération des femmes: les années-mouvement (Paris: Seuil, 1993); Antoinette Fouque, Génération MLF: 1968–2008 (Paris: Des Femmes, 2008. 8. Interview with a French feminist activist (anonymous), Paris, 26 Nov. 2003. In similar words the American Jewish feminist Judith Plaskow related: “Being involved in the women’s movement has been one of the most important and exciting experiences of our lives,” in Judith Plaskow, The Coming of Lilith: Essays on Feminism, Judaism, and Sexual Ethics, 1972–2003, edited by Donna Berman and Judith Plaskow (Boston: Beacon Press, 2005), 35–36. 9. This expression became the title of the first American feminist anthology, edited by radical feminist Robin Morgan (founder of the New York Radical Women group. Robin Morgan, ed., Sisterhood is Powerful (New York: Random House, 1970). 10. Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider (Trumansburg, N.Y.: Crossing Press, 1984), 112. 11. “Qui menace la République?” (Who threatens the Republic?) Nouvel Observateur, 19 June 2003. 12. Étienne Balibar, “Is there a Neoracism?,” in Race, Nation, Class: Ambiguous Identities, by Étienne Balibar and Immanuel Wallerstein (New York: Verso, 1991). 13. Susan M. Okin, Is Multiculturalism Bad for Women? (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1999). 14. Julia Kristeva, Hélène Cixous, and Antoinette Fouque, conversations with Nelly Las, Paris, 2003–2008. 15. Donna Haraway, “A Cyborg Manifesto,” Socialist Review, 80 (1985): 65– 107. 16. Some essays of American post-feminists theoreticians have been translated into French in recent years. This thinking is actually analyzed and discussed in French gender studies courses. 17. The primacy of the “phallus” (symbol of the male genital organ) in Western thought structures (logos). 18. “Différance” is a French term coined by Jacques Derrida. The “a” of the

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word is a deliberate misspelling of “différence” although both have the same pronunciation, thus the difference articulated in the two terms is not apparent to the senses via sound. This highlights the fact that its written form is not heard, and serves to further subvert the traditional privileging of speech over writing, as well as the distinction between the sensible and the intelligible. Feminist critics have attempted to adapt the Derridean concept of “différance” to theorize the disruption of binary oppositions in a way that might enable political change. The term plays on the two meanings of the French verb differer—to differ and to defer. It approaches the logic of the binary by accounting for the inscription of difference within identity. “Undecidability” does not mean total elimination of sexual difference, but rather questioning the fixed duality of the sexes. Insofar as the difference is undecidable, it destabilizes the original decision that instituted the hierarchy. 19. The term queer (strange) is originally a homophobic insult expropriated as a positive label by homosexuals who transform stigmatization into pride (“Gay Pride.”). In its political meaning, this term has become very popular on American campuses since the 1990s. “Queer Studies” were added to Cultural Studies, Gender Studies, and Gay and Lesbian Studies. 20. Judith Butler is professor in the Rhetoric and Comparative Literature Department at the University of California, Berkeley. Her essay, Gender Trouble, Feminism and the Politics of Subversion (Routledge, 1990), was one of the triggers of Queer theory. 21. Teresa de Lauretis, “Queer Theory: Lesbian and Gay Sexualities, An Introduction,” Differences (Journal of Feminist and Cultural Studies) 3, no. 2, special issue (Summer 1991): iii. 22. Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Epistemology of the Closet (New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1990; rev. ed., Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 2008). This book is considered foundational to Queer Studies. 23. Donna Haraway is Professor in the History of Consciousness department at the University of California, Santa Cruz. 24. Monique Wittig (1935–2003), French author and feminist theorist. In the 1970s she was an activist lesbian separatist. At that time, she declared: “A lesbian is not a woman.” 25. Judith Butler, “Contingent Foundations: Feminism and the Question of Postmodernism,” in Feminists Theorize the Political, edited by J. Butler and Joan W. Scoat (New York: Routledge, 1992). 26. Stuart Hall, “Cultural Identity and Diaspora,” in Identity, Community, Culture, Difference, edited by J. Rutherford (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1998), 225. 27. Donna Haraway, A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and SocialistFeminism in the Late Twentieth Century, 1985. 28. Butler and Scott, Feminists Theorize the Political, 14–16. 29. Nancy Fraser, “Multiculturalism and Gender Equity: The US “Difference” Debates Revisited,” Constellations 3, no. 1 (1996): 68. 30. Stuart Hall, “What is this ‘black’ in black popular culture? (Rethinking Race),” Social Justice 20, nos. 1–2 (1993): 104. 31. Christina von Braun, “Sexual Images in Racist Anti-Semitism: Their Origin and Significance,” lecture in English, Stockholm, 2004. The original text was published in French: “‫ދ‬Le Juif’ et ‘la femme’: deux stéréotypes de ‘l’autre’ dans

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l’antisémitisme allemand du XIXe siècle,” Revue germanique internationale 5 (1996): 126, 138. 32. Elly Bulkin, Minnie Bruce Pratt, and Barbara Smith, Yours in Struggle— Three Feminist Perspectives on Anti-Semitism and Racism (Brooklyn, N.Y.: Long Haul Press, 1987), 31. 33. Betty Friedan, “Women and Jews, the Quest of Selfhood,” Congress Monthly (Feb.–Mar. 1985): 8. 34. Gerda Lerner, Why History Matters (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 6–7. 35. Katharina von Kellenbach is currently professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at St. Mary’s College, Maryland (USA). She specializes in feminist theology, especially in Jewish-Christian relations. 36. Katharina von Kellenbach, Anti-Judaism in Feminist Religious Writings (Atlanta, Ga.: Scholars Press, 1994), 3. 37. Kosofsky Sedgwick, Epistemology of the Closet, 75–87. 38. Janet R. Jacobson, “Queers Are Like Jews, Aren’t They? Analogy and Alliance Politics,” in Queer Theory and the Jewish Question, edited by Daniel Boyarin, Daniel Itzkowitz, and Ann Pellegrini (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003). 39. Book of Esther 16. 40. Michèle Manceaux, Histoire d’un adjectif (Paris: Stock, 2003). 41. Marranos were originally Jews living in the Iberian Peninsula who converted, or were forced to convert, to Christianity, some of whom may have continued to observe rabbinic Judaism in secret. Sometimes the term “marranism” is used for a people that hides its identity. 42. Daniel Itzkowitz, “Secret Temples,” in Jews and Other Differences, edited by Jonathan Boyarin and Daniel Boyarin (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997), 184. 43. Pierre Birnbaum, “Les mal-aimés de la République,” L’Arche 529 (Mar. 2002): 37. 44. Alain Finkielkraut, “Le foulard et l’espace sacré de l’école,” L’Arche, no. 544–545 (June–July 2003): 14. 45. Elisabeth Badinter had signed a petition together with Alain Finkielkraut and other French intellectuals against the wearing of the veil in schools, in the first “veil affair” in 1989. 46. The Law of Return was enacted by the Knesset, Israel’s Parliament, on July 5, 1950. It declares the right of Jews to come to Israel and be granted the rights of immigrants. The first major challenge to the law came in 1962 with the Brother Daniel case. Brother Daniel, born Oswald Rufeisen, was a Polish Jew who converted to Catholicism during the Holocaust. When he applied to immigrate to Israel under the Law of Return, a major debate in Israel about “who is a Jew?” took place. The Israeli Supreme Court ruled that the Law of Return does not include Jews who practice another religion. 47. David Biale, “Jewish Identity in the 1990s,” Tikkun 6, no. 6 (Nov.–Dec. 1991): 60. 48. Jean-Michel Salanskis, Extermination, Loi, Israël, Ethanalyse du fait juif (Paris: Les Belles lettres, 2003), 49. 49. Nelly Las and Danielle Bailly, email communication, July 2010.

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50. Starhawk, “Heresies in Pursuit of Peace: Thoughts on Israel/Palestine,” www.strhawk.org/activism-writings. On Starhawk’s theories, see Chapter four. 51. The Jewish philosopher Emil Fackenheim (1916–2003) used to say that continuing Jewish life (after the Holocaust) must be “the Jewish 614th law”—a reference to the 613 mitzvot (commandments) given to the Jews in the Torah. Emil Fackenheim, To Mend the World (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1994. 52. Stuart Hall, “Who Needs Identity?,” in Question of Cultural Identity, edited by S. Hall and P. du Gay (London: Sage, 1996 ), 1–17. 53. Biale, “Jewish Identities.” 54. Letty Cottin Pogrebin, “Anti-Semitism in the Women’s Movement,” Ms. (June 1982): 66. 55. The genocides in Rwanda and Darfur mobilized many American Jewish organizations. 56. Françoise Collin, Le différend des sexes (Nantes: Pleins Feux, 1999). 57. Luce Irigaray, Je, tu, nous—Toward a Culture of Difference, translated by Alison Martin (New York: Routledge, 2007). 58. Rita Felski, “The Doxa of Difference,” Signs 23, no. 1 (1997): 1–69. This article includes comments and a reply by Rosi Braidotti and Drucilla Cornell. Rita Felski is a prominent scholar in the fields of aesthetics and literary theory, feminist theory, modernity and post-modernity, and cultural studies. She is professor of English at the University of Virginia and editor of New Literary History. 59. Rosi Braidotti is a philosopher and feminist theoretician, Professor of Humanities at Utrecht University; quoted by Rita Felski, “Doxa of Difference,” 4–5. 60. Drucilla Cornell is professor of Women and Gender Studies and Political Sciences at Rutgers University (New Jersey, USA); quoted by Rita Felski, “Doxa of Difference,” 5–8. 61. Laura Donaldson, Decolonizing Feminism: Race, Gender and EmpireBuilding (Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 1992), 126; quoted by Rita Felski, “Doxa of Difference,” 8–9. 62. Emmanuel Levinas, Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority, translated by Alphonso Lingis (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1979). 63. Catherine Chalier, Figures du féminin (Paris: Des Femmes, 2006), 43. Catherine Chalier is a French scholar of Jewish philosophy and ethics from the perspective of Levinas. 64. Sonia Kruks, “Genre et subjectivité: Simone de Beauvoir et le féminisme contemporain,” Nouvelles Questions féministes 14 (1) (1993): 28. See also Joan Hoff, “Gender as a Postmodern Category of Paralysis,” Women’s History Review 3, no. 2 (1993): 149–68. 65. Martha Nussbaum, “The Professor of Parody. The Hip Defeatism of Judith Butler,” New Republic, 22 Feb. 1999. 66. Marie-Victoire Louis, “Dis-moi, le genre, ça veut dire quoi?,” Sisyphe, 23 May 2005; in English: “Tell me, what does ‘gender’ really mean?,” Sisyphe online, 10 Oct. 2005, http://sisyphe.org/spip.php?article2034. 67. Françoise Collin, Conference on the diverse forms of contemporary antifeminism, Centre Pompidou, Paris, December 1991; published online as “Le philosophe travesti our le féminin san les femmes” (The transvestite philosopher or the feminine without women), Multitudes, 24 Feb. 2004, http:// multitudes.samizdat .net/Le-philosophe-travesti-ou-le.html.

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68. Ibid. 69. Ibid. 70. J. Butler, “Contingent Foundations: Feminism and the Question of Postmodernism,” in Feminists Theorize the Political. 71. Letter to the Galatians 3:28. 72. Regarding Paul and the Jews, see Daniel Boyarin, A Radical Jew: Paul and the Politics of Identity (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1994); Shmuel Trigano, L’E(xc)lu—Entre Juifs et chrétiens (Paris: Denoël, 2003). 73. Jean-François Lyotard, Heidegger and the jews” (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1990). He uses lower case to indicate that he is not thinking of a nation. He makes it plural to signify that it is neither a figure nor a political (Zionism), religious (Judaism), or philosophical (Jewish philosophy) subject that he puts forward under this name. 74. Jonathan Judaken, “Bearing Witness to the ‘Différend’: Jean-François Lyotard, the Postmodern Intellectual, and ‘the Jews,’” Studies in Contemporary Jewry, edited by Jonathan Frankel, 16 (2000): 245–64; D. Boyarin and J. Boyarin, “Diasporas: Generation and the Ground of Jewish Identity,” Critical Inquiry 19 (1993): 693–725. 75. Elisabeth de Fontenay, Une toute autre histoire—Questions à Jean-François Lyotard (Paris: Fayard, 2006). 76. Jean-Paul Sartre’s essay, Réflexions sur la question juive (published in English as Anti-Semite and Jew) was applauded by many Jews when it was published in France in 1946. 77. Alain Badiou, Circonstances 3—Portées du mot “juif” (Paris, Editions Lignes, 2005), 23–26. 78. Ibid., 26. 79. Ibid., 82–83 (there were major polemics over this essay; see the response of Eric Marty, Une querelle avec Alain Badiou, philosophe (Paris: Gallimard, 2007). 80. Alain Badiou, Saint Paul: The Foundation of Universalism (Palo Alto, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2003). 81. Ibid., 102. 82. Ibid., 106, 1–2. Michel Weingrad, “Jews: Representations of Judaism, AntiSemitism, and the Holocaust in Postmodern French Thought-in Theory,” Judaism (Winter 1996); Lisa Lampert, Gender and Jewish Difference from Paul to Shakespeare (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004). 83. Ian G. Barbour, Myths, Models and Paradigms—A Comparative Study in Science & Religion (San Francisco: Harper, 1976). 84. Jacques Bouveresse, Prodiges et vertiges de l’analogie (Paris: Raisons d’Agir, 1999).

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The Use and Abuse of Jews/Women Analogies in Contradictory Arguments

A parallel between women and Jews, misogyny and antisemitism has often been drawn both by antisemites and philosemites in support of a variety of arguments, some of them contradictory. More recently, this topic has been addressed in sociological or historical studies about women and outsiders, or in gender-oriented antisemitism research.1 Reflections about the oppression or hatred experienced by the Jews throughout history often refer to the millennia-long oppression of women, and vice versa. Both the Jews and women were abhorred by the Church Fathers, for whom both were the incarnation of “the flesh” in other words “matter” as opposed to masculine spirituality. From the fourteenth-century theologian Alvaro Pelayo,2 proclaiming that “females are proud and unpredictable creatures, and in this they are similar to Jews,” to the burning at the stake of thousands of women accused of witchcraft, the parallel with the Jews is repeated in a whole range of forms. Satanic orgies were known as the Witches’ Sabbath or Sabbat, after the Jews’ holy day, while the term “synagogue” referred to the place where debauched gatherings of witches supposedly took place. A historical-theological explanation is provided by Lisa Lampert, who analyzed a number of famous texts in medieval English literature in which she compared the representations of Jews and women.3 She identifies a contradictory duality, with the biblical patriarchs being idealized as opposed to the portrayal of contemporary Jews as evil. Similarly, women appear as either virgins or prostitutes. She argues that this is the upshot of the Christian exegetical tradition in which the spiritual is bound up with things masculine/ Christian, while the flesh is bound up with the feminine and the Jews. Her conclusion is that this chiasmus is based on a fundamental theological principle: “Women and Jews are not simply the Other for the Christian exegetical tradition; they also represent sources of origin. One cannot conceive (of) men without women or (of) Christianity without Judaism. To accommodate these paradoxes, paradigms shift and splinter. These tensions with Christian self-definition are crucial to antisemitism on the one hand, to misogyny on the other, and to the entangled and conflicted relationship

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between them.”4 The question is why this medieval phenomenon has persisted down through the ages in one form or another. Thinkers and theorists of modernity have expressed these analogies in a variety of contexts, so as to defend or excoriate the Jews or women, and in particular to illustrate instances of self-hatred. They can be found after World War II, not to say today, in some studies of antisemitism or the condition of women, sometimes as commonplace references in different contexts and polemics. When speaking of men’s oppression of women over the ages, some feminists make the point that unfortunately, women do not have a “promised land” where they can find refuge. Many examples of such parallels between women and Jews exist: this is a time-honored discussion which crops up on a regular basis and is the result of perceptions of otherness, “difference” or identity, of both women and Jews. H ISTORICAL O RIGINS OF THE J EWS /W OMEN A NALOGY

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The Concept of Emancipation in the Enlightenment Context Modernity, embracing the Enlightenment ideal of equality between people, is the pivotal concept that connects the emancipation of the Jews and the emancipation of women, making them both symbols of western civilization. They therefore constitute the backdrop to everything to which this idea of modernity has led, including secularization, rationalism, and the idea of progress. They are often accused of having an adverse effect on such things as moral order, the family, and tradition. The “Jewish invention” of feminism is a leitmotif that is still very present today. A brochure from Saudi Arabia which has been translated into French “explains” that feminism and opposition to the Islamic scarf or veil are a Jewish plot: “The Jews are masters of the art of destroying communities by means of feminine wiles.”5 A tract published on a neo-Nazi Internet site makes a similar point in its “Brief introduction to feminism”: “We cannot overstress the fact that the very (feminist) movement was and still is greatly under the influence of the Jewish race.”6 These allegations, made by antisemitic and antifeminist extremists, have clearly identifiable historical and ideological sources which are part of the classical anti-Jewish arsenal. Although this topic has been addressed sporadically in a variety of articles and studies, it has not triggered any widespread consideration by feminist theorists. At the same time, those researchers into contemporary Judaism who address the issue generally go no further than the initial occurrences of the phenomenon, failing to tie them in with topical issues in feminism.

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“Woman” and “the Jew” as stereotypes of “the Other” was a very popular topic at the turn of the nineteenth century, especially in German-language writing. Shulamit Volkov has shown that by the end of the nineteenth century this association between the “feminine” (held in contempt) and “the Jew” as being “imbued with feminine qualities,” had become a cultural code.7 Julius Carlebach examined the origins of Jewish emancipation in conjunction with the beginnings of the movement for women’s emancipation.8 Both movements manifested themselves at about the same time (in the last quarter of the eighteenth century) and emerged out of the Enlightenment. Discussions about Jews and women have many points in common, such as the question of their natures or “essences,” whether or not they represent biological (sex-race) or social (role) categories. Emancipation for both was preceded by lengthy debates on how women and Jews should be educated. The histories of the two groups show many similarities with encouraging progress alternating with periods of regression and reaction, as well as their respective “destinies” and oppressions, along with the accusation of being a “state within the state.” Carlebach shows that opposition to the Jews and to women stems from calls for their emancipation. One of the first books to argue for and demonstrate the principle of equal rights for the Jews was written at the request of Moses Mendelssohn by his friend Christian Wilhelm von Döhm in a learned threevolume literary work entitled Concerning the Amelioration of the Civil Status of the Jews (1781).9 As for women, any change in their position would affect every home, every family, and it was therefore patently clear that any such demand would encounter vigorous opposition. But given the philosophy of the Enlightenment, it was just as clear that the question of women’s emancipation must be raised. In France the pioneers were Condorcet (On the Admission of Women to the Rights of Citizenship, 1790)10 and Marie Olympe de Gouges (Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Citizen, 1791).11 In England Mary Wollstonecraft published A Vindication of the Rights of Woman in 1792,12 and in Germany Theodor Gottlieb von Hippel wrote On Improving the Status of Women (1791).13 Reading von Hippel’s essay on the rights of women, Carlebach notes, makes the reader aware that he drew his inspiration from Döhm’s work on the emancipation of the Jews.14 All the arguments in favor of Jewish rights are adopted for women, who must be presented as human beings, with no addressing of sexual issues. Like Döhm in the case of the Jews, Hippel conceded that constant oppression had destroyed women’s sense of freedom and their faith in themselves, but argued this would last only as long as women continued to be oppressed. The emancipation question for women and Jews, inspired and initiated by the Enlightenment, was brought to an abrupt end by Romanticism. The French

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Civil Code of 1804 firmly restored the patriarchal father to his former glory. It was the German philosopher Fichte who would provide the justification for the exclusion of Jews and women from the body politic.

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Hatred of Women and Hatred of the Jews in German Thinking The Jews/women parallel, introduced at the end of the nineteenth century by German philosophers such as Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, enjoyed a fair degree of popularity in early twentieth-century European culture, particularly after the publication of Otto Weininger’s book Sex and Character.15 The nineteenth-century parallel between antisemitism and anti-feminism apparently stemmed from the development of modern nationalism, which was based on the praise of manliness. This is the reason, according to historian George Mosse, why German nationalists refused to consider either women or Jews as equal partners in the nascent nation-state. When the reverberations of the English women’s feminist struggles reached the Continent, the national community’s male exclusivity seemed to be jeopardized, triggering vehement reactions.16 Otto Weininger’s Sex and Character, published in 1893, uses metaphysical arguments to prove the moral inferiority and character deficiency of “the woman.” In his chapter on the Jewish question, he links femininity with Jewishness, arguing that “every human being is a combination of male and female substance,” adding that the Jew is “saturated with femininity.” He goes on to say: “An antisemite is somebody who wrestles with this Jewish feminine substance that is inside him and refuses to be put down. Combating the Jew and womanliness is the same thing.” In other words, every man (even a non-Jew) has within himself a certain measure of “feminine” and of “Jew” which he must overcome. When viewed from this point of view, women are in a worse situation than Jews. As he sees things, the Jew might under certain circumstances “overcome his Jewishness”: he might become a “Christian Jew” like Jesus. This would enable him to maintain a modicum (albeit inferior) of spirituality,” something of which woman has been entirely stripped.17 This book, which today appears utterly bizarre, nevertheless contributed to the debate taking place at the time. For years the German public had discussed the Jew’s immanent otherness, and not solely from the religious point of view. The French German-studies scholar Jacques le Rider, author of The Otto Weininger Case: Roots of Anti-feminism and Antisemitism,18 explains his subtitle: In the work of Weininger, as well as several other authors whom I study in this book, it is indeed possible to talk about common roots.

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What I try to do is to reconstruct this disquieting masculine/feminine/ Jew triangle, which can be understood as the result of unease in modernity. The change in roles assigned to men and women is a key dimension of modernization. And calling the Jew a harbinger of economic and cultural modernization has been one of the ingredients of antisemitism since the end of the eighteenth century.19 But rejecting femininity and theories about women’s inferiority was not an idea exclusive to Weininger’s pathological mind. Indeed, it was a popular topic in the late nineteenth century, and is addressed in a range of pseudoscientific and historical writings, especially in Germany and Austria.20 Echos of this distaste for the feminine can be found even among well-known figures such as the Jewish composer Arnold Schoenberg and the architect Adolph Loos. Both men expressed their fear of the feminine component in their personality and their distaste for what they considered their era’s “decadent” style: materialism and simplicity, attributes deemed to be feminine.21 The fact that Weininger’s Sex and Character was republished so many times (24 editions by 1926) was an indication that this book expressed popular ideas. At the end of the 1920s, its content was present in the thinking of German racist ideologists. By then it was standard practice to refer to the Weimar Republic’s final phase as an “era of feminization and degeneracy,” without any need to refer to Weininger, who had coined the expression.22 This topic is found in a small, unnoticed book entitled Weib, Frau, Dame (Woman, wife, lady) by the German Jewish essayist Theodor Lessing (1872– 1933). Written in 1910, it would appear to be a response to Weininger’s book, particularly in the Jews/women relationship, which he interprets in a more positive sense. He explains that what he considers to be “the moral and intellectual superiority of women and the Jews” is the outcome of women’s and Jews’ attempts to overcome the oppression of which they have been the victims, their sufferings, and their dependence over the centuries. It is in this process, he argues, that their shortcomings have also developed. In order to remedy this state of affairs, Lessing proposes two radical approaches: feminism (for women) and Zionism (for the Jews). Lessing had identified what was common to both these movements, each of which advocated developing self-worth and assuming control over their own destiny. His other essay, Jewish Self-hatred (Berlin, 1930),23 also advocated Zionism, which he saw as the remedy to the pathology of self-hatred and which, he argued, was a result of the assimilated Jew’s situation in the modern world.24 Even before the rise to power of the Nazi régime, which castigated women’s emancipation as “resulting from Jewish influence,”25 there was a widespread notion that women and Jews, as “enemies of human civilization,”

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were undermining the established order. Shulamit Volkov points out that of the two, women were at a greater disadvantage. Antisemitism was the ideology of the right, whereas in Imperial Germany anti-feminism and misogyny were to be found in all parties—conservatives, liberals, modernists and anti-modernists, socialists and anti-socialists, men and women. With the exception of a few minority democrats, everyone considered that women should never have access to public life, higher education, or political action. On the eve of World War I, the subject of antisemitism, albeit virulent and influential in Germany, was still limited to the nationalist right, while antifeminism was a dominant trend throughout the culture. The same tendency was present in a variety of forms in the whole of European society. At the time, feminism was a marginal phenomenon, with practically no footing in socio-political space; in contrast, the Jews were very much socially and culturally integrated in fin-de-siècle Germany, and although not much liked, their emancipation was viewed as an irreversible process. Their efforts to obtain equal rights, their economic success, their contribution to science, art, and public life were facts that could not be ignored. Subsequently, the Nazis managed to blot out these achievements, but at the time even antisemites could not have foreseen or imagined any such development.26 C ONTEMPORARY U SES OF THE J EWS /W OMEN A NALOGY Postwar to 1970s Feminism

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Despite the genocide to which hatred of the Jews had led, post–World War II analyses of antisemitism continue to use analogies between the oppression of the Jews and that of women. In theorizing about Nazism and antisemitism, some members of the Frankfurt School used some references to the question of women. Horkheimer and Adorno make the analogy between misogyny and antisemitism a number of times: The justification of hatred for woman that represents her as intellectually and physically inferior, and bearing the brand of domination of her forehead, is equally that of hatred for Jews. Women and Jews can be seen not to have ruled for thousands of years.27 In one of his letters to Adorno, Horkheimer makes the point that the antisemitic current present in American high society is expressed through the same obscene jokes and in the same settings as misogyny: on the walls of men’s bathrooms. He roughs out an analysis based on the identification of a similar oppression of women and the Jews alike, which for both has become a way of life. “They live, although they could be exterminated; and their fear

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and weakness, the great affinity to nature which perennial oppression produces in them is the very element which gives them life.”28 This view ties in with the comments of the psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung: The Jews have this peculiarity with women; being physically weaker, they have to aim at the chinks in the armour of their adversary, and thanks to this technique which has been forced on them through the centuries; the Jews themselves are best protected where others are most vulnerable.29 In today’s feminist movement, this comparison between the “condition” or “destiny” of women and the Jewish condition is repeated in a number of different contexts. It is cited in the discussion about identities, or in order to illustrate the significance of sexism and misogyny. Some thinkers also use it in their thinking about antisemitism. In his essay Réflexions sur la question juive (Anti-Semite and Jew) written just after World War II (and at the same time as the reflections on antisemitism by Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno), Jean-Paul Sartre uses the Jews/women analogy.30 But it is Simone de Beauvoir who uses it extensively in The Second Sex.31 She draws on the same philosophical grounds as Sartre in his analysis of the Jewish question in support of her arguments about women, “being-in-the-world,” a product of society (“One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman”). In her introduction, Beauvoir refers several times to the analogy between women and Jews. In order to reject a feminine essence she writes: The fact is that every human being is always a singular, a separate individual. To decline to accept such notions as the eternal feminine, the black soul, the Jewish character, is not to deny that Jews, Negroes, women exist today—this denial does not represent a liberation for those concerned, but rather a flight from reality.32

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Later she elaborates: The “eternal feminine” corresponds to “the black soul” and to the “Jewish character.” True, the Jewish problem is on the whole very different from the other two—to the anti-Semite the Jew is not so much an inferior as he is an enemy for whom there is to be granted no place on earth, for whom annihilation is the fate desired. But there are deep similarities between the situation of woman and that of the Negro. Both are being emancipated today from a like paternalism.33 She does make a distinction between the “oppression” of women and that of which the Jews or the Negroes are victims: “The bond that unites her to her oppressors is not comparable to any other. The division of the sexes is a

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biological fact, not an event in human history.”34 Whereas in Sartre, “the Other” is the Jew considered as an object by the antisemite, Beauvoir describes “otherness” or alterity as the condition of women. After many methodological considerations Christine Delphy, a theorist of French materialist feminism and a follower of Beauvoir, concludes that women’s situation is of a different order from that of the Jews or Negroes: I have set out to compare the situation of women to that of the Blacks, of the Jews, in other words to oppressions which today most people acknowledge were social constitutions that owed nothing to the physical constitution that made up these groups. . . . But the oppression of women is specific, not because of any specific nature of women but because this is a unique type of oppression. She then makes the point that every form of oppression has its own features, but what may be shared are the mechanisms through which the oppression is expressed. The oppression of women, for example, would be a particular instance of the general phenomenon of social domination. She concludes that the “dismantling” of this specific oppression may be useful for other dominated groups.35 Self-affirmed Jews/Self-affirmed Women

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In the feminist debate about difference, analogies are made with the Jews, especially in support of arguments about women’s specificity and feminine identity. Comparing Sartre’s analyses on the Jews and Beauvoir’s on women, Judith Friedlander notes that: Defending the right to be different with one hand, they take great pains to show how easily assimilable they are with the other. Given the chance, they could be just like anybody else, for (they claim) you are not born a Jew or a woman, you become one. . . . Both groups have two main choices: fight for the right to assimilate, thereby furthering the demise of what little specificity they might possess; or live by the male/gentile definition of their femaleness/Jewishness positively, in a state that has no autochthonous core.36 It should be noted, however, that in Anti-Semite and Jew, Sartre uses the comparison between the Jews and women specifically to explain a fundamental difference between the two with regard to assimilation. While he clearly advocates the (progressive and voluntary) assimilation of the Jews, he points out that nobody intends to ask women to undergo such a process: In societies where women vote, they are not asked to change their sex when they enter the voting booth; the vote of a woman is worth just as

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much as that of a man, but it is as a woman that she votes, with her womanly intuitions and concerns, in her full character of a woman. When it is a question of the legal rights, and of the more obscure but equally indispensable rights that are not inscribed in any code, he must enjoy those rights not as a potential Christian, but precisely as a French Jew. . . . And if that acceptance is total and sincere, the result will be first to make easier the Jew’s choice of authenticity, and bit by bit, to make possible, without violence and by the very course of history, that assimilation to which some would like to drive him by force.37 Judith Friedlander’s critique of Simone de Beauvoir’s Second Sex is part of a tendency by a number of American feminists in the early 1980s to focus on analyzing the book’s faults, while nevertheless recognizing its importance to women’s self-awareness in the 1950s and 1960s. For some, Beauvoir’s theory is ultimately patriarchal, since it somehow glorifies masculine values and disparages the feminine lifestyle.38 This gives the impression that women will be fulfilled when they abandon feminine values which have little to be said for them. It is in this sense that the term “assimilation” (to masculine values) is used.39 Antoinette Fouque, a sexual difference theorist and one of the leading figures of the French women’s liberation movement (MLF)40 follows Friedlander’s analysis. She holds that Simone de Beauvoir’s universalist arguments, based on the principle that “one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman,” are a call to women to “assimilate” with men, to repudiate their identities as women. Antoinette Fouque deliberately uses for women the notions of assimilation and marranism which are generally applied to the Jews. Just as there are self-affirmed Jews who are proud of their Jewish identity, unlike assimilated Jews who reject or hide theirs, there are also selfaffirmed women who assume their identity as woman. Fouque refers to the philosopher Emmanuel Levinas and “self-affirmed Jews,” for whom she has great admiration.41 To assume one’s Jewish identity, to assume one’s identity as a woman, is someone born Jewish, is somebody born a woman?—are these questions of the same order? Does this somehow imply essentialism? For the French Jewish feminist Jacqueline Feldman, you are born Jewish, but “you become” a woman: Paradoxically, when I consider Simone de Beauvoir’s famous saying, “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman,” I would say that I was born Jewish, but that I became a woman. I was born Jewish: a biological and cultural fact. The biological part comes from my par-

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The Use and Abuse of Jews/Women Analogies ents; acceptance of the jus sanguinis (“right of blood”), i.e., in other words heritage, is a cultural decision.42

In an essay published in Difficile Liberté (Difficult freedom), Levinas wrote, “You are born a Jew, You don’t become one.”43 He does not explicitly give an analogy, but it may be assumed that he was referring to Simone de Beauvoir’s famous statement on women. It was however important for him to state that this does not mean a Jewish “essence.” As he wrote in a discussion of Sartre’s Anti-Semite and Jew:

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He (Sartre) is perhaps right to dispute whether the Jew has a proper essence. But if Sartre allows the Jew, like all other mortals, a bare existence and with the freedom to make an essence for himself— either by fleeing, or by assuming the situation that is made for him— one is within one’s rights to wonder whether this bare existence admits of any differentiation. Is not Jewish “facticity” other than the “facticity” of a world that understands itself starting from the present?44 The term “facticity”45 is used in the philosophical sense of “fact,” (“factuality” of a concrete historical situation), the fact of Jewish existence. 46 According to Levinas, this Jewish “fact” has a content which is freely chosen, as shaped by a history, an ancestral culture which is always contemporary. It is not reduced, as Sartre thought, to “that which is perceived as Jewish by others.” To speak of Jewishness as a “fact” brings us to another discussion— between Hannah Arendt and the Jewish philosopher and scholar of Jewish mysticism Gershom Scholem47 following the publication of Eichmann in Jerusalem.48 In her reply to Scholem, who had criticized her for having no love for the Jewish people, while rejecting the concept of “love” for a people (Jewish or other), Arendt nevertheless states that this does not mean that she denies her Jewishness. She explains that for her, “To be a Jew is an indisputable fact of my life,” and she uses the analogy of another factual state of affairs, being a woman: I have never pretended to be anything else in any way other than I am, and I have never felt even tempted in that direction. It would have been like saying that I am a man and not a woman—that is to say, kind of insane. To be a Jew is an indisputable fact of my life. There is such a thing as a basic gratitude for everything that is as it is; for what has been given and not made; for what is physei and not nomo.49 Hannah Arendt and Levinas would at first sight appear to have nothing in common. However, in Arendt’s writing we find this “basic gratitude for

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everything that is as it is,” while Levinas goes even further than “gratitude” when he expresses this “unexpected turning of the curse into rapture” over Jewish existence.50 Confronted by the antisemitism of the Nazis, Levinas cannot but accept that it is impossible to escape the Jewish condition. Hence he will gladly accept it. The difference between these two philosophers is that for Arendt, the fact of being Jewish would appear to be a purely private matter (this being how she refers to it in her correspondence with Scholem),51 while for Levinas (as for Scholem), being Jewish refers to obligations, loyalty, and above all responsibility (first and foremost to the Jewish people). The use of the terms “gratitude” (Arendt) or rapture (Levinas) in referring to what is considered an inescapable Jewish condition (and also her condition as a woman, for Arendt) makes us think of the expression “real rapture.” These words were used at a different time, in a different context, but for similar reasons: they were used by Rahel Varnhagen (1771–1833), a German Jewish woman who had converted to Christianity, about whom Arendt had published a biography. On her deathbed, Varnhagen is said to have reconsidered “with real rapture” her Jewish origins, which she had rejected:52

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What a history! A fugitive from Egypt and Palestine, here I am and find help, love, fostering in you people. With real rapture I think of those origins of mine and this whole nexus of destiny, through which the oldest memories of the human race stand side by side with the latest developments. . . . The thing which all my life seemed to me the greatest shame, which was the misery and misfortune of my life— having been born a Jewess—this I should on no account now wish to have missed.53 This then is a form of happiness which a member of an oppressed or stigmatized community may feel in resolving to assume the identity which he always wanted to hide, forget, or reject. These examples clearly show that an identity is not necessarily bound up with an essence. Jewish “factuality” may be refused or defined in numerous ways. It is indeed possible to be Jewish in different ways: that of Levinas, Arendt, or Scholem. It is also possible to turn one’s back on and then decide to return to Jewishness, like Rahel Varnhagen. So there is an element of choice, but as in all choices, it is not made in a vacuum, but with reference to a family history, a cultural and social context. In the case of women, even if there can be no reference to an essence, the “cultural whole” must nevertheless take account of the biological given.54 Despite her best efforts, Hannah Arendt could not escape this parallel between the fact of being a woman and that of being Jewish. In a letter to her friend Kurt Blumenfeld

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after delivering a lecture at Princeton University’s Institute of Advanced Studies in the early 1950s, Arendt wrote that she was extremely annoyed by the “gentlemen professors” who took pride in having invited, “for the first time,” a woman lecturer. “I enlightened these dignified gentlemen about what an exception Jew is, and tried to make clear to them that I have necessarily found myself here an exception woman.” The historian Idith Zertal tries to explain Arendt’s refusal to play the role of the “exception woman”: Only somebody who knew what the concept of “exception Jew” and its representation in European history of the last two centuries meant for Arendt—namely the figure of the pet Jew for a mostly hostile society, the parvenu, privileged social climber who was accepted by the same society only after having renounced not only his own Jewish qualities but also political solidarity with his less fortunate fellow Jews—could grasp the full weight of her words to Blumenfeld. This definition might explain Arendt’s refusal (in her letter to Blumenfeld) to being considered an “exception woman.”55 As we have seen above, Hannah Arendt was not trying to escape two facts which she considered to be givens: a woman and Jewish. The feminists regretted that she did not reflect at greater length on “being a woman,” but several of them recognized in her a model of a feminist intellectual. She even played a notable role in shaping feminist political thinking in the United States, and sometimes in France as well.56

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Exaggerated Use of the Jews/Women Analogy More pragmatically, but sometimes much more controversially, as long ago as the 1960s American feminists used the comparison of the Jewish condition and that of women. The most contentious comparisons are those which were designed to shock, to dramatize, so as to draw attention to the problems and sometimes the “horrors” of the condition of women. This was a two-edged sword, since it could have the reverse effect, convincing people that feminist demands were over the top and stripping them of their credibility. Betty Friedan was the first person to use the analogy between women’s oppression and Jewish suffering, taking the Holocaust as a reference. In The Feminine Mystique she does not hesitate to compare the “infantilizing” situation of women “buried alive” in suburbia with concentration camps (!). She even writes a number of pages backing up this comparison, which strangely at the time did not trigger any outcry.57 Two decades later, following a long period during which she mulled over her dual identity as a woman and a Jew, she drew attention to the parallel timing of the Nazi regime’s antisemitic and misogynous decrees,58

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The very year that witnessed the first Nazi decrees, stripping the Jews of their citizenship and their humanity, also saw decrees against feminism and feminists and against all women, taking away their rights to vote, to hold office, to be in professions, and reducing women to Kinder und Kirche. The spirit of life, so basic to Jewish survival and also constituting the life force for women, is a threat to despotism, to authoritarianism. The enemies of evolving life are the enemies of Jews and the enemies of women—our enemies are one and the same.59 It goes without saying that the Nazis never tried to exterminate women, instead doing this to the Jews (men, women and children). Another sort of exaggeration comes from the pen of the American postChristian theologian Mary Daly, well known for her radical arguments. Daly uses the Holocaust to criticize medical treatments meted out to women today and their concomitant risks. She refers to the atrocities that the Nazis carried out in the death camps and to the atrocious experiments performed on Jews during the Holocaust. She notes that the doctors who ordered and performed the infamous medical experiments are rightly labeled “doctors of infamy.” She then draws a parallel between these experiments and the gynecological trials being conducted at the time on U.S. women in order to test the effects of the Pill, DES, estrogen replacement therapy, and various forms of gynecological surgery. “When the deadly effects of such treatment become too obvious, the situation is commonly covered by the jargon of fair gamesmanship, in which ‘risks’ are weighed against ‘benefits’ of the procedure.”60 Some time later, the American feminist Andrea Dworkin published a book using many analogies drawn from Israel’s history or then-current policies.61 In her article “Whose Country Is It Anyway?,” she describes the acts of violence perpetrated against women in the United States as a permanent “Crystal Night”—a reference to the 1938 Nazi pogrom against the Jews of Germany.62 Some American Jewish feminist activists would propose another type of Jews/women analogy, less overstated than earlier ones. The aim was to give concrete expression to the condition of women or that of Jews. Each of these women would draw on her own view of feminism and her own stereotypes regarding women and Jews. Phyllis Chesler, in an interview with the Jewish feminist periodical Lilith (1976), reported that the Jews and women shared “altruism” and empathy for other people’s needs, which she called qualities common to women and Jews alike because of the oppressions they had experienced. However, she considers women to be at a greater disadvantage at the present time:

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The Use and Abuse of Jews/Women Analogies Woman-as-Jew or Jew-as-Woman is a fruitful analogy but only up to a point. For example, unlike Jews, women do not live in enclosed ghettoes without men, nor do they have a religion or a preserved legacy of historical power. Unlike Jews, women have no rabbis, no bet dins (law courts), no financial empires; and no parachutists from feminist kibbutzim to drop behind the lines in Saudi Arabia or in Westchester to encourage fleeing to or funding a feminist refuge or Holy Land.63

In a survey of antisemitism in the women’s movement that appeared in the feminist magazine Ms. in 1982, the journalist Letty Cottin Pogrebin lists the similarities between the oppression of the Jews and that of women: “Time and again I heard the phrase ‘Jews are the women of the world,’ or its converse, ‘Women are the Jews of the world.’” Yet feminism had never systematically analyzed the similarities between antisemitism and sexism. She enumerates the common points between these two sorts of oppressions throughout history: The myth of “female power” (sexual or maternal omnipotence) which justifies discrimination against women; the myth of “Jewish power” which helps justify repression of the Jews. . . ; the existence of some leisured women and some affluent Jews is claimed a proof that all members of both groups are privileged. . . ; the fact that each group is hated because it demands “to be both equal and distinctive. . . .” And finally,

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both women and Jews have to struggle to have their oppression recognized, even by its victims, because neither misogyny nor antiSemitism always results in economic privations. Instead, these hatreds are their own weapons honed by age-old mystical fears.64 However, the sexism/antisemitism analogy mapped out by Letty Cottin Pogrebin is not something that has emerged from out of the blue. It comes from 1970s feminism which conceptualized the subject of the sexism/racism analogy. This was taken up by a number of historians and sociologists who refer to it when studying ethnic and social discrimination. T HE S EXISM / RACISM A NALOGY A PPLIED TO A NTISEMITISM In the late 1970s, the parallel between sexism and racism was one of the fundamental themes of the American feminist movement which emerged in the wake of the struggle for Black civil rights and then spread to other western countries. In the research field, many studies carried out in the

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United States were based on anti-Black racism and applied to dominant relations between the sexes. To what extent do race, gender, and class impact on each other in terms of the practicalities of experience, politics, and representation? The recent use of the term “intersectionality” refers to these forms of interactions between various axes of identity and multiple oppressions to which feminist theory is applied.65 The term “sexism” was coined to refer to a form of “racism against women” and pointed up the similarities between the two systems of oppression.66 The French publication Les Temps Modernes began publication in December 1973 of a new column by Simone de Beauvoir: “Chronicles of Everyday Sexism.”67 At the same time, the French League for Women’s Rights put forward an “anti-sexist” draft bill, modeled on the anti-racist law voted on by the National Assembly in 1972. It called for sex to be added to the list of forms of discrimination related to background, religion, or “race.” However, to this day, sex has not been included in any legislation along the same lines as the anti-racist law condemning “incitement to racial hatred” (in writing, speeches, and images).68 In 1990s France, a few small groups including “SOS Sexisme” or “Chiennes de garde” lambasted sexist comments about women politicians. These groups had limited influence, leading to some taunts in the media, but they did raise awareness of the issue in French society. Starting in the 1980s, feminist researchers and activists, including Colette Guillaumin,69 Rita Thalmann, Liliane Kandel, and Christine Delphy70 examined the issue more systematically. More recently, a new generation of French feminist theorists have tackled this issue, pursuing an approach close to the writings of American feminist queer theorists with a postcolonial slant.71 But while the sexism/racism comparison has been accepted by feminist circles, the comparison with antisemitism is increasingly challenged today, particularly by the postcolonial feminist school. For the latter, the issue of sex and race is part of the class system, and “white” middle-class Jews are viewed as part of the dominant class. In the last few years this reasoning, imported from the United States and Britain, has frequently been followed in France, especially as part of the controversy over wearing the Islamic veil. It is especially obvious in the new approach adopted by the French-language feminist journal Nouvelles Questions féministes under Christine Delphy’s editorship. In recent years Delphy, a radical universalist feminist, has focused on the postcolonial issue. The two issues on “sexism and racism” speak for themselves. They use terms such as “race/racism,” “ethnicity/ethnicization” or “domination” which belong more properly in the field of colonialism than that of relations between the sexes.72 Originally founded in 1977 and relaunched in 1981 with Simone de Beauvoir, this

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journal had often addressed topics which, either positively or negatively, related to Jews, as a subject of interest to the feminist discussion. It is from this review that we took the article below, “Sexism and Racism—Nothing Important, Just a Woman Drowning,” by way of illustrating the parallel between sexism and antisemitism.

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Sexism/Antisemitism:The Impact of Two Local Crime Items Published by Emmanuèle de Lesseps in Questions féministes, this article analyzes media reactions to two crimes, one sexist and the other antisemitic. This comparative analysis underscores one of the aspects of antisemitic pathology, close to sexual crime: objectification, dehumanization, and often sadism.73 Lesseps chooses as her example the murder of Pierre Goldman in Paris on September 20, 1979.74 The same day as this crime, which had antisemitic overtones, a girl called Isaure was found dead in the Buttes-Chaumont park. She had been tortured, raped, and repeatedly stabbed. Emmanuèle de Lesseps compares the descriptive terms used by the press in condemning both these crimes. The first murder—that of a woman—is called a sexual and sadistic crime, while the murder of Goldman (killed because he was a Jew) is considered a political and racist crime. In both cases, Lesseps says, the reports use the terms pathological and sadistic. Atrocities committed against the Jews, although they fall under the “political” heading, are bound up with sadism because the oppressors take pleasure in attacking the hated group and stripping its members of their human dignity. The desire to destroy the body of “the Other” (as a combination of “the Other” and “the inferior”) can be found in collective behavior such as lynches, pogroms, and witch hunts, as well as daily acts of racism and sexism, including curses, blows, rapes, and murders. Lesseps concludes that sexuality is present in racism. To put it another way, the body of the other (group) is related too, specifically in a way involving destruction and humiliation and which leaves room for “sadistic pleasure.” (“In the concentration camps Jewish men and women were sexually humiliated: forced nudity, which is a form of rape, as well as animalization and objectification of human beings treated like cattle, to the extent of being turned into consumer objects, such as lampshades and soaps of dreadful memory.”) At the same time, she opines, rape is a degree of murder, a degree of the objectification of a human being which at its extreme turns into murder. This leads her to justify the sexism/racism analogy, which is not widely accepted: When feminists compare racism and sexism, they are constantly told: “It’s not the same thing.” What does “not the same” mean here?. . .

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What we remember are the profound similarities between the two: debasement, manipulation, exploitation, dehumanization and both psychological and physical destruction.75 For Emmanuèle de Lesseps, the process of dehumanization that leads to racist murders has a status of a political fact, a fact of oppression. But the rapist, she notes, apparently is less “shocking” than the racist assailant. A woman’s murder may stir up far more passions that the murder of an Arab, but, she argues, it will not turn into a form of political morality. So attacks on women may be shocking but they will not be politicized. This analysis sheds a different light on the characteristics of and grounds for antisemitic aggression, through comparison with sexual aggression, as well as vice versa. The analogy with rape is addressed at length in Jean-Michel Chaumont’s study of Holocaust victims, La concurrence des victimes. His starting point is the expression “second death,” as used by Simone Veil in referring to the psychological state of racial deportees when confronted with silence on their return from the camps, “as if nothing had happened.”76 Chaumont also relates this to the “second rape” expression used by feminists to illustrate the impact that reactions of people in their circle have on the person who has been raped. As he explains, “This theme of the symbolic repetition of the crime is common not only to Holocaust literature but also, more generally, to the literature on traumatic events, especially rape.”77 When Holocaust survivors returned from the camps, he points out, they had to deal with the double stigma of the suspicions voiced by people in their circle: “Why did you let yourselves be killed without resisting?” or, conversely, “What did you do in order to stay alive?,” or “What did they do to trigger such hatred?” “What advantages did they gain?” This last question will only be plausible if the event was invented, i.e., the denial approach.78 This is the kind of suspicious attitude which is all too often experienced by rape victims, whether from the police, the legal authorities, or even their own family. It must be stated once again that the analogy with rape relates not to the factual level, where there is no comparison, but to the mechanism of non-acknowledgment following a traumatic event, as shown by Emmanuèle de Lesseps in the example above. Sexism/Antisemitism: Sociological Studies and Theological Thinking On the whole, all these comparisons between hatred for the Jews and sexism are the result of philosophical reflections or comparative historical studies. A two-phase nation-wide survey (1997 and 1998) studied Canadian Jewish women and their experiences of antisemitism and sexism, the similarities and differences between these two kinds of oppressive experiences, and the

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impact on their mental health.79 One of the most important findings of this study was that although the women who took part reported many more sexist experiences than antisemitic ones (approximately 10 times as many), the psychological impact of sexism appears to be less than that of antisemitism, at least in terms of depression. Possible explanations include the fact that antisemitism was experienced as a threat to physical survival, as opposed to sexism. To the respondents sexism was about being second-class, denigrated and exploited, but it did not generate the same level of fear as antisemitism. Several of them said that although antisemitism may happen less often than sexism, it frightens them more, in part at least because it is not openly discussed in Canadian society. The study was the first of its kind on antisemitism. Using the sociological method, as applied to different ethnic and social groups in North American gender studies departments, it examined the intersections of multiple oppressions. Most experiences of antisemitism and sexism are not, however, addressed quantitatively as in this Canadian study. Instead, they are reported in many articles, accounts, and reports by American feminists. The Franco-Israeli researcher Ilana Löwy adopts similar terms when she writes about antisemitism in Poland, where she grew up. In her essay L’emprise du genre (The impact of gender), she draws on her personal experiences in Communist Poland to compare antisemitism and sexism:

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The experiences of the Jews who grew up in Communist Poland have some similarities to those of women, and more generally of groups which are defined as “inferior. . . .” In an antisemitic society, the Jews, like women in a sexist society, are shaped—or rather warped—by the constant threat of aggression. Particularly because the coexistence of discriminatory attitudes and their denial (today, most people do not openly identify themselves as racist, sexist or homophobic) is a particularly oppressive mixture.80 In her work on Christian anti-Judaism, the Protestant theologian Katharina von Kellenbach identifies what she sees as similarities between antisemitism and sexism that are part of Church teaching. Both femininity and Jewishness, she argues, are “characterized by lack.” Antisemitism and sexism represent women and Jews as less than fully equipped human beings. Sexism contends that the male represents the norm of humanity while the female is derivative. “Many prominent theologians, such as Augustine and Thomas Aquinas discussed women’s lack of full humanity and doubted our endowment with a soul.” Women are incomplete compared to men, and in a way they are an “unfinished man.”81 Definitions of what it means to be a human being are derived from male standards, and measured against these, “women are found

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to be lacking and appear immature, incomplete and inferior. Freud’s theory of penis-envy is indicative of these androcentric assumptions.” Kellenbach observes further: In a similar vein, Christianity is taken as the normative center and Judaism is portrayed as lacking redemption, forgiveness of sins and transcendence. Jews are characterized as envious and jealous (Rom 11:11,13). In an androcentric and Christocentric culture, women are characterized by penis-envy and Jews by Christ-envy.”82 The upshot is the medieval stereotype of the Jewish man’s femininity, which reappears in the nineteenth century.83 Kellenbach herself links her empathy with the Jewish cause with her own experience as a woman:

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I became able to listen and to take in Jewish pain because I connected it to my own experience of hurt and anger as a woman. I tried to confront antisemitism as I would expect men to deal with sexism. Just as sexism is men’s problem because it is men who rape, hate, discriminate and beat women, so antisemitism is the problem of Gentiles. Or as Sartre, quoting Richard Wright, put it, “There is no Negro problem in the United States, there is only a White problem.” In the same vein he concludes: “Antisemitism” is not a Jewish problem: it is our problem.”84 These comparative studies undoubtedly offer much food for thought. They underscore the similarities between the Jewish condition and that of women, sexism and antisemitism, antisemitism and antifeminism, used in different ways and at different times in modern and contemporary history. They show that this topic is not something new and unfounded. It has historical, theological and psychological roots that are based on real phenomena as well as flights of fantasy. But the question as to the usefulness of these associations remains unanswered. In their analysis of comparisons between sexism and racism, the Americans Trina Grillo (Afro-Cuban) and Stephanie M. Wildman (Jewish, white) draw on their own experiences to illustrate the advantages and drawbacks of using analogies: Yet analogies are necessary tools to teach and to explain, so that we can better understand each other’s experiences and realities. We have no other way to understand others’ lives, except by making analogies to our own experiences. Thus the use of analogies provides both the key to greater comprehension and the danger of false understanding. On an individual and psychological level, the way we empathize with

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and understand others is by comparing their situations with some aspect of our own. . . . Yet comparing sexism to racism perpetuates patterns of racial domination by marginalizing and obscuring the different roles that race plays in the lives of people of color and of whites. The comparison minimizes the impact of racism, rendering it an insignificant phenomenon—one of the laundry list of oppressions that society must suffer.85 It is in this sense that the French philosopher Elisabeth Badinter, following Simone de Beauvoir, objects to the analogy between sexism and antisemitism. She maintains that this analogy “fails to distinguish between discriminatory racism and annihilatory racism, since there has never been a program to systematically eliminate all women.”86 One characteristic of the oppression of women distinguishes them from any ethnic or religious group: when they are oppressed, this is a “one by one” oppression, rather than an oppression of an aggregate of women (as opposed to antisemitism). 87 This is what we saw in the earlier example discussed by Emmanuèle de Lesseps who compared reactions to sexual crime with those triggered by antisemitic crime. This comparison can indeed be made. And it is precisely because the analogy is not applicable to two identical phenomena that it can point up their fundamental differences, if not their similarities. (On condition, however, as stated earlier that the reader does not relate solely to the similarities while forgetting the differences.) Thus we see how an analogy may itself be an antisemitic phenomenon: sexualization of race (feminization, sexual perversions) or “racialization” of the feminine sex (innate inferiority). Alternatively, it may be instrumental in analyzing the motives of these hatreds so as to combat them all the more effectively. When it comes to feminist action, analogies have certain methodological advantages, removing sexism from its humdrum social position and showing its dangers. To do so some opt for humor, caricatures and media gibes, while others prefer to use apocalyptic images to arouse imaginations and consciences.88 This tendency to compare sexism and antisemitism, which was the counterpart of the 1980s American feminist discussion of anti-Black racism, had unexpected consequences for American Jewish feminists. It contributed in part to the appearance of a “Jewish feminism” in which “Judaism” and “feminism” are compatible. This “Jewish” feminism was predominantly Anglo-American and as the next chapter will show, led to a real Jewish rebirth and an enriching of feminist thought.

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N OTES 1. Hans Mayer, Outsiders—A Study in Life and Letters (in German, 1975; Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1982). Lisa Lampert, Gender and Jewish Difference from Paul to Shakespeare (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004). 2. Franciscan Álvaro Pelayo (or Alvarus Pelagius), a Spanish canonist, was bishop of Silves (Portugal) from 1333 to 1346; Nicolas Lung, Un franciscain théologien du pouvoir pontifical au XIVe siècle, Alvaro Pelayo, évêque pénitencier de Jean XXII (Paris: J. Vrin, 1931). 3. Among these literary writings are Canterbury Tales (Chaucer, 14th century) and The Merchant of Venice (Shakespeare, 16th century). 4. Lisa Lampert, Gender and Jewish Difference, 2. 5. Sheikh Muhammad Ben Ahmad Ben Ismail, brochure, 39 pp., translated into French under the title: Le voile et la femme musulmane, pourquoi? (The veil and the Muslim woman, why?) (Riyadh: Daroussalam, 1998); quoted by Revue du CERF (Paris, 2003): 172. 6. Vanguard News Network, http://wsi.matriots.com/feminism/index.html. In his speech in Nuremberg on September 8, 1934, Hitler referred to the link between feminism and Jews, first by denouncing the New Woman as the “invention of Jewish intellectuals” and then by exhorting German women to reject the “unnatural” overlapping of the spheres of activity of the sexes as embodied in “Jewish intellectualism.” 7. Shulamit Volkov, “Antisemitism and Anti-feminism: Social Norm or Cultural Code?” (in Hebrew), Zemanim (Winter 1993): 46–47; “Antisemitism as a Cultural Code,” Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook 23 (1978): 25–46. 8. Julius Carlebach (1920–2001), “The Forgotten Connection: Women and Jews in the Conflict between Enlightenment and Romanticism,” Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook 24 (1979): 108–35. 9. Christian Wilhem von Dohm (1751–1820), Über die Bürgerliche Verbesserung der Juden (Berlin, 1781). 10. Nicolas de Condorcet (1743–1794), French philosopher, mathematician, and politician who in 1790 published the first essay on the political rights of women, “Sur l’admission des femmes aux droits de Cité” (On the admission of women to the rights of citizenship). 11. Marie Olympe de Gouges (1748–1793), French woman writer, republican; guillotined in 1793. 12. Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797) was a teacher, writer, philosopher, and advocate of women’s rights. Her best known work was A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792). 13. Theodor Gottlieb von Hippel (1741–1796), Über die Bürgerliche Verbesserung der Weiber (1792). 14. The titles of the two books (von Hippel and Dohm) are indeed symmetrical: Über die Bürgerliche Verbesserung der Juden (1781) and Über die Bürgerliche Verbesserung der Weiber (1792); almost twelve years lapsed between the publication of the two works. 15. Otto Weininger (1880–1903) was an Austrian philosopher, born to a Jewish family. His book, Geschlecht und Charakter (Sex and character), gained popularity after his suicide at the age of 23.

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16. George L. Mosse, Nationalism and Sexuality (New York: Howard Fertig, 1985). 17. Christine Buci-Glucksmann, “Culture de la crise et mythes du féminin: Weininger et les figures de l’Autre,” in Femmes et fascisme, edited by Rita Thalmann (Paris: Tierce, 1986), 28. 18. Jacques le Rider, Le cas Otto Weininger: Racines de l’antiféminisme et de l’antisémitisme (The Otto Weininger case: roots of anti-feminism and antisemitism) (Paris: Presses Universitaire de France, 1982). 19. Jacques Le Rider, “Décompositions de la ‘haine de soi juive’” (Decompositions of “Jewish self-hate”), Special edition on the “Jewish Qustion,” Penser/Rêver (Paris: Éditions de l’Olivier, Spring 2005): 66. 20. Among these anti-feminist writings, a pamphlet by German neurologist Paul Julius Moebius, On the Physiological Idiocy of Woman (Halle: Marhold, 1900). Moebius accused Weininger of plagiarism in a pamphlet entitled “Sex and Impudence”; see Jacques Le Rider, Le cas Otto Weininger, 77. 21. Shulamit Volkov, “Antisemitism and Anti-feminism.” 22. Eva Maria Ziege in Femmes, Nations, Europe, edited by Marie-Claire HookDemarle, Collection Cahiers du CEDREF, Hors-série 1, Paris 7 University (1995). 23. Theodore Lessing, Der jüdische Selbsthass (Berlin, 1930). 24. This essay, which describes some pathological cases of self-hating Jews (which often ended in suicide), was very controversial. 25. To this day, there are neo-Nazi websites stating that “feminism is a Jewish invention.” 26. Shulamit Volkov, “Antisemitism and Anti-feminism.” 27. Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno, Dialectic of Enlightenment (New York: Seabury Press, 1972), 112. 28. Max Horkheimer to Theodor Adorno, 11 Oct. 1945, quoted by Sonia DayanHerzbrun, “L’école de Francfort, la question des femmes et le nazisme,” in Féminismes et nazisme, edited by Liliane Kandel (Paris: Odile Jacob, 2004). 29. Carl Gustav Jung, The Collected Works of C. G. Jung (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1970), 10: 165. 30. Hans Mayer, in Outsiders, 388–89, observes that Sartre in Paris and Horkheimer and Adorno in California made the same remarks regarding the “Jewish Question” in 1944, each with his own interpretation. 31. Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, translated and edited by H. M. Parshley (London: J. Cape, 1953; originally published in French (Paris: Gallimard, 1949). 32. Ibid., 14. 33. Ibid., 22. 34. Ibid., 21. 35. Christine Delphy, L’ennemi principal (2) – Penser le genre (Paris: Syllepse, 2001), 46–48, 56–57. 36. Judith Friedlander, “The Anti-Semite and the Second Sex: A Cultural Reading of Sartre and Beauvoir,” in Women in Culture and Politics: A Century of Change, edited by Judith Friedlander, Blanche Wiesen Cook, Alice Kessler-Harris and Carroll Smith-Rosenberg (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1986), 85. 37. Jean-Paul Sartre, Réflexions sur la question juive (Reflections on the Jewish Question; published in English as Anti-Semite and Jew) (Paris: Gallimard, 1946),

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177–78. 38. Simone de Beauvoir’s American critics include Mary Evans, Simone de Beauvoir: A Feminist Mandarin (London: Tavistock, 1985); Judith Okely, Simone de Beauvoir, A Rereading (London: Virago Press, 1986). 39. It important to remember that Anti-Semite and Jew, applauded by many Jews at the time of its publication, later received very negative criticism; some accused Sartre of using a number of antisemitic stereotypes. 40. Antoinette Fouque founded the group Psychanalyse et Politique (Psychoanalysis and politics) in the French Women’s Liberation Movement (MLF), and created the first French women’s publishing house, “des femmes” (1973). In her writings, she defends the specificity of sexual difference. She currently uses the term “feminology” instead of gender or feminist studies. 41. Nelly Las, conversations with Antoinette Fouque, 2004–2008. 42. Jacqueline Feldman, “Être femme, être juive—Propos personnels pour une contribution à une sociologie de la domination,” (To be a woman, to be a Jew— Personal comments for a contribution to a sociology of domination), unpublished. 43. Emmanuel Levinas, Difficile liberté: Essais sur le judaïsme (Paris: Albin Michel, 1976); Difficult Freedom: Essays on Judaism, translated by Sean Hand (London: Athlone Press, 1990), 50. 44. Emmanuel Levinas, “Être juif” (To be a Jew), Confluences no. 15–17 (1947); reprinted in Cahiers d’Études Lévinassiennes, no 1 (2002): 99–106, Benny Lévy, “Commentaire,” ibid., 107–17. Lévy explained that “Jewish facticity” is the impossibility of escaping from being a Jew: “I cannot not be a Jew.” 45. In quotation marks in the text. 46. Lévy, “Commentaire,” 112. 47. Gershom Scholem (1897–1982), German-born Israeli Jewish philosopher and historian, regarded as the founder of the modern academic study of Kabbalah. 48. Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (New York: Viking Press, 1963). It first appeared as a series of articles in the New Yorker, which generated much controversy. 49. Hannah Arendt to Gershom Scholem; the exchange originally took place in private (Scholem’s letter is dated 23 June 1963 while Arendt’s is dated 20 July 1963). It was first published in Mitteilungsblatt, no. 33, 16 August 1963, and then reprinted in Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 20 Oct. 1963; and in Encounter (Jan. 1964). 50. Cahiers d’Etudes Lévinassiennes, no. 1 (2002): 103. 51. Arendt also considered the fact of being a woman to be a private fact. 52. Karl August Varnhagen von Ense reported these to have been the words of Rahel on her death bed. It seems that Hannah Arendt, who wrote a published thesis about Rahel Varnhagen, identified herself with her. Pierre Birnbaum, Geography of Hope: Exile, the Enlightenment, Disassimilation (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2008), ch. 5. Hannah Arendt: “Hannah and Rahel, ‘fugitives from Palestine.’” 53. Quoted by Hannah Arendt, Rahel Varnhagen: The Life of a Jewess, translated by Richard and Clara Winston (London: East and West Library, 1957). 54. Simone de Beauvoir was obviously aware of this biological aspect, Second Sex, 21. 55. Idith Zertal, “Hannah Arendt and the State of Israel: A Tale of Separation and Loss,” in Gender in Conflict: Palestine, Israel, Germany, edited by Ulrike Auga and Christina von Braun (Münster: Lit, 2006), 75–89.

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56. Françoise Collin admitted that Hannah Arendt had a very real influence on her feminist political thought; Nelly Las, conversations with Collin, May 2008. 57. Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique (New York: Dell Publishing Co., 1963), 271–98, ch 12, “Progressive Dehumanization: The Comfortable Concentration Camp.” 58. Betty Friedan’s positions will be analyzed in the following chapters. 59. Betty Friedan, “Women and Jews: the Quest for Selfhood,” Congress Monthly (Feb./Mar. 1985): 11. 60. Mary Daly, Gyn/Ecology, the Metaethics of Radical Feminism (Boston: Beacon Press, 1990): 293–312. 61. Andrea Dworkin, Scapegoat—The Jews, Israel and the Women’s Liberation (New York: Free Press, 2000). 62. Andrea Dworkin, “Whose Country Is It Anyway?” Ms. 1, no. 2 (Sept.–Oct. 1990); http://www.nostatusquo.com/ACLU/dworkin/Israeli.html. 63. Phyllis Chesler is an American psychologist, writer and feminist activist. 64. Letty Cottin Pogrebin, “Anti-Semitism in the Women’s Movement,” Ms. (June 1982): 46–47. 65. On the concept of “intersectionality,” see Kimberlé W. Crenshaw, “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color,” Stanford Law Review 43, no. 6 (July 1991): 1241–99. 66. The term “sexism” appeared for the first time in France around 1970. 67. Liliane Kandel and Marie-Jo Dhavernas, “Le sexisme comme réalité et comme représentation” (Sexism as a reality and as a representation), Les Temps Modernes (July 1983): 3–30. 68. “Sexism” (gender discrimination) is in the majority of cases used for discrimination against women, but can be applied for men also. The term “misogyny,” as its etymology shows, means the hatred or dislike of women or girls. 69. Colette Guillaumin, Sexe, race et pratique du pouvoir (Paris: Côté-Femmes, 1992). 70. While Rita Thalmann and Liliane Kandel worry about the question of antisemitism, Colette Guillaumin does not mention it in her essays, including it in her general analysis of “racism.” In recent years Christine Delphy has emphasized the question of “islamophobia” that she considers as the real “racism” in France. 71. Elsa Dorlin, La Matrice de la race. Généalogie sexuelle et coloniale de la Nation française (Paris: La Découverte, collection “Textes à l’appui/Genre et sexualité,” 2006). 72. Christine Delphy, “Antisexisme ou antiracisme? Un faux dilemme,” Nouvelles questions féministes 25, no. 1 (2006): 59–83. 73. Emmanuèle de Lesseps, “Sexisme et racisme—Ce n’est rien, c’est une femme qui se noie” (Sexism and racism—it’s nothing, it’s a woman who is drowning herself), Questions féministes, no. 7 (Feb. 1980): 95–102. 74. Pierre Goldman was a left-wing French intellectual (his father was a Jewish member of the Resistance who had immigrated to France from Poland). Accused of the murder of two pharmacists, Goldman was acquitted after five years in jail. He was then mysteriously murdered. 75. Emmanuèle de Lesseps, “Sexisme et racisme.” 76. Simone Veil, “Une difficile réflexion,” Pardès, no. 16 (1992): 271–82. 77. Jean-Michel Chaumont, La concurrence des victimes: génocide, identité,

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Reconnaissance (The competition of victims: genocide, identity, recognition) (Paris, La Découverte, 1997), 52–55. 78. bid., 243–48. 79. Nora Gold, “Sexism and Antisemitism as Experienced by Canadian Jewish Women: Results of a National Study,” Women’s Studies International Forum 27 (2004): 55–74. These interviews were all completed prior to September 2000—the beginning of the Second Intifada. Therefore, the responses in this study do not reflect the surge of antisemitism related to the crisis in the Middle East. 80. Ilana Löwy, L’emprise du genre (Paris: La dispute, 2006). 81. Influenced by Aristotle’s philosophy. 82. Katharina von Kellenbach, Anti-Judaism in Feminist Religious Writings (Atlanta, Ga.: Scholars Press, 1994), 19–22. 83. Some Spanish legends asserted that male Jews menstruated, a rumor which circulated in Germany in the 15th century); Sander L. Gilman, Difference and Pathology: Stereotypes of Sexuality, Race, and Madness (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1985). 84. Von Kellenbach, Anti-Judaism in Feminist Religious Writings, 3; she quotes Sartre, Anti-Semite and Jew, 183–84. 85. Trina Grillo and Stephanie M. Wildman, “Obscuring the Importance of Race: The Implication of Making Comparisons between Racism and Sexism (or Other Isms),” in Critical Race Feminism, a Reader, edited by Adrien Katherine Wing (New York: New York University Press, 1997). 86. Elisabeth Badinter, “Liliane Kandel, le IIIe Reich au féminin” (book review), Le Figaro, 4 Mar. 2000; Simone de Beauvoir, Second Sex, 1: 26–27. 87. Nelly Las, conversations with Françoise Collin. 88. In her article, Andrea Dworkin described the acts of violence perpetrated against women in the United States as a permanent “Crystal Night”: Andrea Dworkin, “Whose Country is It Anyway?,” Ms. 1, no. 2 (Sept.–Oct. 1990) Later, the feminist lawyer Catharine MacKinnon compared the daily murders of women in America to the September 11 victims: “The number of people who died on September 11th, from 2,800 to 3,000, is almost identical to the number of women who die at the hands of men every year in just one country, the same one in which September 11th happened.” Catharine MacKinnon, “Women’s September 11th: Rethinking the International Law of Conflict,” Harvard International Law Journal 47, no. 1 (Winter 2006): 4. Frédéric Fritscher, “L’oppression des femmes, une maladie sociale,” Le Figaro, 19 July 2005; in this interview with Catharine MacKinnon, she compares violence against women to Islamic terrorism. Categorically opposing such an analogy: L. Kandel, “Les discours de la confusion volontaire” (The discourses of voluntary confusion), Le Figaro, 20 Aug. 2005; and E. Badinter, “Le naufrage du féminisme américain” (The wreck of American feminism), Le Figaro, 20 Aug. 2005.

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C HAPTER T HREE

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Identity through the Feminist Lens American Responses

The link between feminism and Judaism can be best perceived in light of American feminism, where extensive thinking about Jewish identity has taken place since the 1970s. In France, second-wave feminism undeniably had its own special attributes, but at the same time it also borrowed a number of practices and ideas from its American counterpart. In both countries many Jewish women were and continue to be conspicuously active in different feminist movements, but whereas in the United States the connection between Jewishness and feminism became a feature of society as a whole, attracting much in-depth interest and research, in France it is still very much a private affair, expressed almost exclusively in private conversations. This state of affairs is linked to these two Jewish communities’ different characteristics, especially the way they relate to both Judaism and secularism. Here, our intention is to discuss interaction between feminism and Judaism through the prism of the differences between two divergent experiences of Jewishness and the various ways in which Jewish identity is expressed. Inevitably, the identity markers of the French and American Jewish communities have a number of issues in common involving the past, as well as a sense of a shared destiny, the result of centuries of oppression. But the differences between them are, in part, the result of America’s multiethnic and multicultural society, the concomitant role played in that society by American Jews and their attitudes to religion, as well many other factors. In these countries, as elsewhere, Jewish identities revolve round a number of iconic poles common to all post-Holocaust Jewish Diasporas: mainly religion, antisemitism, the memory of the Holocaust, and Israel. A variety of events has impacted on them in different ways thus helping to forge the specific character of each of them. American Jewish feminists have written extensively about their relationship with Judaism. Even a cursory examination of their writings reveals the astonishing synthesis that they manage to make between their feminist and Jewish beliefs. However, with French Jewish women, the picture is radically

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different. Only after hours of conversation and archival research does it become—just—possible to identify or deduce a few ambiguous and complex relationships between their militant feminism and their Jewishness. An analysis of this type—comparing and contrasting two such different Jewish and feminist experiences as those of the United States, where a widespread particular Jewish form of feminism has developed, and the French version, where the idea of “Jewish feminism” is practically unknown, not to say strange—requires a historical overview of the general context in which these two Jewish communities and two forms of feminism developed.

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American Jews in the 1960s: New Definitions of Identity The dynamics of identities in the American Jewish community dates back to the 1960s.1 The community became more homogeneous as Jews from Eastern Europe caught up economically and socially with those from Germany who had begun immigrating to the United States in the nineteenth century. The changes experienced by American society in the 1950s were widely shared by the Jews, too. Standards of living improved, with an accompanying move from inner cities to the suburbs. Suburban social life mainly revolved round religious institutions, both Catholic and Protestant. In this setting, even secular Jews felt the need to affiliate with their communities, whose institutions ensured that children would receive a Jewish education. Through their facilities, including such things as swimming pools, auditoriums, and libraries, they helped to meet collective and individual religious, social and cultural needs.2 Rather than being based solely on religion, these needs reflected the Jewish cultural heritage and symbolic practices.3 Judaism in this setting was more of a “social religion,” adapted to fit in with the American way of life. Whatever their beliefs or degree of Jewish observance, there is a distinct difference between the Jewish and Christian culture, the latter being dominant in American society.4 In a multiethnic country like the United States, the Jews stand out as a distinct ethnic group, defined by a set of factors that constitute its identity, comprising an inextricable blend of religion, customs, geographical backgrounds, and upholding the values of social justice. In part it was the ideal of justice that spurred Jewish involvement in the Civil Rights movement. In the 1960s, anti-segregation activities attracted large numbers of middle-class Jews, as well as young students,5 politicians, and official Jewish organizations.6 The movement included a number of young Jewish women who took part in mass demonstrations and solidarity actions, leading to an awareness of their own personal abilities. At the beginning of the 1950s, Bella Abzug, a Jewish lawyer, went to Mississippi to

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appear for the defense in the widely-publicized case of Willie McGee, an American black man accused of raping a white woman.7 In the following decade, a group of Jewish women activists made a similar journey to take part in an antiracist demonstration, memorably called the 1964 Mississippi Freedom Summer.8 Several would subsequently become active in the feminist movement. At the time they did not identify themselves as Jewish but, as they said later, they did have a sense of Jewish otherness and a heritage of family values that led them to actively engage in fighting for just causes.

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Historical Overview of Jewish American Women’s Feminism In order to understand where Jewish American women stand today, we must take into account the extensive tradition of their predecessors’ social and political action a century earlier.9 The organizations that they set up, such as the National Council of Jewish Women,10 founded in 1893, or the Zionist women’s organization, Hadassah (1912),11 are examples of the impressive success of women’s engagement in Jewish social causes. Some of these organizations had close ties with other American organizations committed to women’s rights generally. They then joined forces to fight for such causes as peace, anti-lynching legislation, the elimination of racial discrimination in education, and internationalism.12 At the same time, Jewish women were individually involved in women’s movements outside their own community. Some campaigned in labor unions in which Jews were heavily represented, such as the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union (ILGWU), and became famous because of their radical positions or spectacular actions. Others fought for women’s suffrage.13 Some of the best known were Ernestine Rose, Lillian Wald, Emma Goldman, Maud Nathan, and Rose Schneiderman. Very few remember the American Jewish community’s support for feminist issues at the beginning of the twentieth century, especially in New York City where the Jews were the bedrock of grassroots support for women’s suffrage.14 At the time, not only were suffrage organizations unwilling to acknowledge publicly the role played by Jewish women in obtaining the right to vote; they also did not concern themselves with specific problems which troubled their Jewish comrades, first and foremost antisemitism. 15 From this short historical overview we can trace the roots of American Jewish women’s campaigning activities within the Jewish community as well as in various movements which, beginning in the nineteenth century, sought to improve women’s lives. As we have already seen, in the wake of World War II the situation of American Jews improved markedly, while feminism assumed new forms and new dimensions from the late 1960s on. It was only

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much later, when Jewish American feminists started delving into their Jewish past, that they discovered what their courageous relatives had been up to in earlier days. Joyce Antler recounts her amazement when her aunt told her that her grandmother had been arrested and sent to jail during the 1909 New York strike of female garment workers. She admits that she was not entirely surprised to learn that her grandmother, the unchallenged matriarch of her family, had been involved in this way, even though she had known her only as a wife, mother, and grandmother. What she did not realize was that her grandmother had been a factory worker until she married, as well as after the birth of her first child in 1912. In fact, Antler suggests that this was probably the pattern common among most of her Jewish garment worker colleagues.16

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I N S EARCH OF R OOTS : T HE E MERGENCE OF A “J EWISH F EMINISM ” The American feminism of the 1960s soon attracted a large number of Jewish women, of whom the best-known across the spectrum include Betty Friedan, Shulamith Firestone, Robin Morgan, Bella Abzug, Gloria Steinem, Phyllis Chesler, Letty Cottin Pogrebin, Vivian Gornick, Meredith Tax, Andrea Dworkin, and many more. At first, most of these women did not connect their identity as Jews to their feminism. Feminists, whether Jews or Christians, viewed their patriarchal religions as a source of women’s oppression, and hence as something of minor importance in their lives. The same applied to the family, another patriarchal institution which “banished women to the kitchen and limited their freedom.” Confronted by these “henchmen of patriarchy” that dominated all areas of life, it was incumbent upon women to remain united instead of underscoring their differences. For many radical feminists, “hatred of women” or “misogyny” is the primary oppression, accounting for all other forms. Female solidarity should take precedence over all other forms of solidarity. It is this that confers power on it, as reflected in the 1960s feminist expression, “sisterhood is powerful.” 17 The very earliest writings of American feminists with Jewish backgrounds are marked by a universalist view of women’s status: there can and must be no differentiation or taking account of, or reference to, any Jewish particularism. What explanation can be advanced for the impressive number of Jewish women in the ranks of the American feminist movement, especially as leaders and highly productive theorists? Betty Friedan thought it was because most American Jewish women had gone on to further education but the roles to which they were consigned limited them to the narrow sphere of home and family.18 Anne Roiphe makes the point that in America

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Identity through the Feminist Lens the women’s movement was fueled by Jewish energies (that does not mean that everybody in it was Jewish, but there was a large proportion of Jewish women), primarily secular women, who felt a kind of pain and anguish with the image of themselves as Jewish women in America, and this caused an explosion.19

How did these women’s attitudes to their Jewish roots change? In the case of Betty Friedan, a pioneer in the women’s movement, we can talk of “reminiscing.” She shared some memories of the Women’s Strike for Equality that she organized on August 26, 1970 to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of women winning the vote in the States. “I led a march down Fifth Avenue to Bryant Park and the Public Library, 50,000 women and hundreds of men too.” It was in the speech she gave to the marchers that Friedan began to connect her feminism with her Jewishness. Without any forethought she heard herself saying, Down through the generations in history my ancestors prayed, “I thank Thee, Lord, I was not created a woman,” and from this day forward I trust that women all over the world will be able to say, “I thank Thee, Lord, I was created a woman.”20 Until then, Friedan had never referred in public to her Jewishness. However, as she goes on to explain,

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For some strange reason—strange because my own background was not religious and I cannot remember ever having heard the familiar prayer before—I found myself harking back to the religion of my ancestors, and giving voice to a variation of the prayer that religious men recite each morning. . . . The sense of somehow having broken through the feminine mystique to affirm my authentic full identity as a person, as a woman, brought me to confront my Jewish identity. 21 Because feminism insisted on making the personal political, her exploration of the personal inevitably had to become public, as shown by her speech in Bryant Park. The question is: what happened between the publication in 1963 of The Feminine Mystique and Betty Friedan’s first Jewish “coming out”? The answer is that Friedan (who, as she said later, had always “very strong feelings” about her Jewish identity) had developed her thinking in ways similar to American Jews generally and Jewish feminists in particular, in respect of antisemitism, the State of Israel, and their own personal experiences as Jewish women. From the late 1960s on, American Jews were affected by a number of events and developments. One was the radicalization of American Blacks, who chose to advocate separation rather than integration, and to assert their

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identity proudly, as indicated by the emblematic expression “Black is Beautiful.” They would be followed by other ethnic groups who made a point of referring to their origins. In parallel with this political and identity development of Blacks, there emerged a movement of youngsters from welloff families who became more and more radical as the United States became embroiled in the Vietnam war. Beginning at colleges and universities, this movement attracted many Jews who had already been actively involved in the civil rights movement. In this atmosphere of revolt against family and communal conformism, Israel and Judaism were of minor importance to these Jewish youngsters. However, like all Jews worldwide they would be profoundly shaken by the lead-up to the Six-Day War, when it looked as if the Arab armies would wipe Israel off the face of the earth. As a result, a fundamental change occurred: American Jews became aware of Israel’s vulnerability, understanding that they would inevitably be affected by what happened to Israel. The upshot was a redefinition of their Jewish identity and a return to Judaism, accompanied by a feeling of Jewish pride as a result of Israel’s stunning victory. This did not, however, eliminate the shadow of the Holocaust, something that had almost happened again and would henceforth loom large in their view of the world. The 1973 Yom Kippur war, followed by Israel’s isolation in the United Nations, symbolized by the 1975 statement equating Zionism with racism, confirmed the need for a new Jewish approach. An innovative attitude to Judaism, in the spirit of the 1960s rebellion of American Jewish youth, emerged in a variety of forms on university campuses, hinting at a Jewish renaissance. It gave rise to trends which attached new values to Jewish identity and religion in a counter-culture that corresponded to the spirit of the time but clashed with the institutionalized Jewish community.22 The cultural and identity affirmation in late 1970s on the part of many different ethnic groups in American society, viewed in a positive light as “ethnic pluralism,” enabled American Jews to overcome the “dual loyalty” charge and express their support for Israel without agonizing over their predicament. The following quotation from a speech given at the 1985 annual AIPAC conference23 represents this new Jewish American attitude: The specter of dual loyalty still haunts our community. . . . But here, in this country of ours, we ought not to be shy about our interest in Israel. This is a pluralistic society and our survival here is dependent upon that pluralism. . . . Our concern for Israel does not erase our concern for America’s domestic policies nor, in fact, does it mean that we do not have such concerns. . . . We care to the depths of our souls about what happens to both the United States and Israel—that caring

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Identity through the Feminist Lens is not inconsistent—it is not un-American—and it is not dual loyalty. It is part of democracy.24

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How did this change in Jewish American society affect the Jewish women involved in the feminist movement, itself abuzz and bursting with energy at the same time? In the ten years from 1980 to 1990, all walks of life in the American population were affected by this pride in belonging to a minority. Every ethnicity showed its hyphenated identity: Afro-American, AsianAmerican, Italo-Americans, Amerindians. American Black women were the first to challenge the women’s movement’s universalist feminism. These women, they would say, these white, secular, middle-class women tend to treat the experiences of women as one and the same, taking no account whatsoever of their cultural heritages and ethnic solidarities. They do not or are not willing to see that many women are oppressed more because they belong to an ethnic or religious group, a race or a class, than because of their sex. As the Black militant feminist, poet Audre Lorde, put it: “Refusing to recognize difference makes it impossible to see the different problems and pitfalls facing us as women.”25 This tendency would have a major effect on American feminism, which had until then focused all its efforts on universal solidarity between women. But when feminists started discussing specific forms of oppression generated by racial and class differences, they could not readily agree on including Jewishness as a legitimate difference, and concomitantly antisemitism as a form of oppression, as their Jewish fellow feminists wanted. Colored women retorted that in the case of people who are privileged because of their Whiteness, there could be no reference to oppression. It is this very invisibility of the Jews, this “non-difference,” that makes antisemitism different from racism.26 In discussions about this issue, some Jewish women in turn retorted that metaphorically they consider themselves “colored women,” (“troubling whiteness”) insofar as this term is bound up with a sense of otherness, stigmatization, and oppression. Reconciling Two Poles of Identity: Woman and Jewish What made it possible for this “Jewish” feminism to acquire its own voice? The short answer is: Women’s Lib. Beginning in the early 1970s, huge numbers of women became involved, and achieved many successes, attracting the attention of legislatures and the media.27 One of its strategies was to popularize its message with the largest possible number of women, and to impart to them self-assurance and self-esteem: a method inspired by introspective psychoanalytic practice. In the United States, feminist ideas were spread through “consciousnessraising” (CR) groups, which met regularly in private homes, or in such places

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as university campuses, offices, or church halls. Here women discussed personal topics related to the family, work, sex, health, education, and so on. In these groups, they discovered that their personal experiences were not unique, and that their day-to-day problems could be addressed collectively and placed on a political footing. In other words, they came to realize that in practice their individual problems or choices were determined by broader structural forces. This realization gave rise to the famous slogan: “the personal is political”—meaning that politics was no longer limited to the public sphere. Politics starts in the problems that we encounter in our private and personal lives. June Jordan, a Black activist, puts it like this: My life seems to be an increasing revelation of the intimate face of universal struggle. You begin with your family and the kids on the block, and next you open your eyes to what you call your people, and that leads you into land reform into Black English into Angola leads you back to your own bed where you lie by yourself, wondering if you deserve to be peaceful or trusted or desired or left to the freedom of your own unfaltering heart. . .everything comes back to you.28

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The introspection encouraged by consciousness-raising sometimes helped Jewish women discover or affirm their Jewish identity. But it was also the rebellion of Black women who claimed their own identity and spoke up about their specific experiences of oppression that inspired some Jewish feminists and made them think about their own sense of identity and antisemitism— things that they had previously kept secret. As has been said, for many Jewish feminists their path began in the civil rights movement. Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz, since 1992 at the helm of a Jewish antiracist organization, writes about how she moved from one form of engagement to another, and how this helped structure her Jewish identity and her identity as a woman: It was a cultural reflex, a family tradition of antiracism. I had been raised on stories of labor struggles, Sacco and Vanzetti, the Spanish Civil War. . . . When news of the contemporary Negro (we said then) struggle for equality reached me, I had been waiting for it all my life. I entered the movement as a seventeen-year-old. . . . So I could feel privilege (accurately and inaccurately) and could (generously, not selfishly) fight for justice—not for myself, but for them.29 She goes on to say: “It took twenty years before I understood that my rebellion had been enacted simultaneously by thousands of young Jews.” They lacked the words to express their identity. “In my pre-identity era, I didn’t think myself as a woman—at least politically. . . .” She did not think of herself as a woman until the emergence of the women’s liberation movement,

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in which she would become totally engaged. It was the black feminists, she says, who by opposing white hegemony, established a model and articulated a rhetoric which made Jews understand their exclusion.30 Melanie Kaye/ Kantrowitz would later return to her Jewish identity which she had “shamefully abandoned.” Feminism with Jewish leanings made a relatively early appearance in the American movement. This was mainly the upshot of changes that took place among American Jews, who in the late 1960s became more self-confident and demonstrated more Jewish pride. Not only individual but also collective experiences led many American Jewish women to delve into the sources of what they called their “Jewish feminism”: As Jewish women we are in the process of transforming our lives, trying to bring into closer alignment the two poles of our identities— woman and Jew. Since the late 1960s two consciousness-raising movements have carried us farther in this transformation than most of us could then have predicted: the women’s liberation movement, which gave us new self-respect as women, and the expansion of Jewish awareness among Diaspora Jews since the 1967 Six-Day War in Israel and the burgeoning of ethnic pride in the 1970s.31 Another woman explains how she was affected by the reflection group:

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As I began to explore what my family life had been, my socialization as a girl, I realized that the fact of my being Jewish was very important to me. Although my family was pretty assimilated (we celebrated Christmas each year with a big tree and a huge family party), I went to the local Reform Sunday school. Discussing my family background in my women’s group made me want to take a closer look at Judaism. I went to Israel. I began to look for alternative services and Jewish women’s groups. Then I began to attend various kinds of services on a regular basis, feeling an identification with some part of myself that had never really gotten expressed before. 32 As early as 1971, various accounts were published about the dilemmas and questioning of their Jewishness that were experienced by Jewish women in the feminist movement. In the first issue of Brooklyn Bridge, a self-styled “revolutionary Jewish newspaper,” they criticize their Jewish families’ expectations, pushing them to academic success at college which would lead to them making a “good marriage.” They also lambasted the well-known stereotypes of the “Jewish American princess” or the “castrating Jewish mother.”33 The next notable event was a series of articles about feminism and Judaism in a special issue of the Jewish review Davka.34 The same year saw

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the setting up of a group which was “perhaps the first group publicly committed to equality for women within Judaism,” 35 adopting the name Ezrat Nashim.36 In a ripple effect, these ideas generated an enormous field of thought about these issues. In 1973, two conferences took place, the first in New York and another in Wisconsin, bringing together hundreds of Jewish women in order to “explore their identities and define their specific needs as women and Jews.” The topics addressed were the specific positions and roles attributed to each of the two sexes in the Jewish community, and in particular women’s exclusion from studying advanced Jewish texts and holding positions of power. In the wake of a major conference, the short-lived Jewish Feminist Organization or JFO was set up.37 At this stage, Jewish feminism largely existed outside organizational structures, involving steps and initiatives which were the result of personal reflection. September 1976, when the JFO was dissolved, saw the publication of the first issue of the Jewish feminist magazine Lilith,38 whose mission statement was couched in the following terms: “As women, we are attracted too much by the ideology of the general women’s movement; as Jews, we recognize that we have particular concerns not always shared by other groups.”39 The synthesis between feminism and Judaism does not, however, mean that views on feminist and Jewish topics will necessarily coincide:

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When abortion rights are jeopardized by right-wing political forces, most Jewish feminists would probably respond as women first; on the other hand, when Israel’s security is threatened or antisemitism raises its ugly head, we respond first as Jews.40 But Jewish feminists are far from being ideologically homogeneous. They reflect the same patterns as those of the general American Jewish community, spanning the gamut from Orthodox to liberal, secular, atheist, Zionist, progressive, anti-Zionist, culturalist, and Communist outlooks. Reading what feminists in the United States have written over a number of years, the picture is one of great variety and complexity, with different blends and syntheses between their Jewish, American and feminine identities. American Jewish feminism therefore set its course by picking its way through various options, depending on the affiliation and experiences of its various members. To a great extent it started by posing questions relative to the Jewish religion and women’s status in it. If, according to new feminist theories, women’s inferiority is a social and cultural construction, then the first thing that women must do is to start by looking at their own culture. This means looking at women’s status in Jewish law, in the synagogue, in the Jewish community’s institutions. Hence Jewish feminism first requires a critical look at everything in Judaism that runs counter to feminism. This

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means identifying what is missing or wrong in women’s status as laid down in Jewish texts and precepts, and trying to correct all of this from within. But how, they ask, “can one reconcile the nonhierarchical and anti-patriarchal vision (ideology) of feminism with Judaism,” a male-centered religion based on hierarchical and differential systems, which distinguishes the holy from the profane, Shabbat from weekdays, men from women? In order to reply to this question, many women began to study Judaism in greater depth, in particular analyzing the role of women and the interpretations of texts about them. Some would come to redefine Judaism’s concepts by “feminizing” them,41 while others would opt for the bond with Israel, encouraging related feminist projects or peace movements. For a number of them, feminism can be equated with the Jewish ethical principle of social justice traditionally called “tikkun olam” or repairing the world. As Letty Cottin Pogrebin observes:

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There is no question in my mind that my 20-year involvement in Ms.—like my 35-year commitment to the women’s movement, both secular and Jewish—is rooted in faith and family. I grew up in a home where supporting social justice was as integral to Judaism as lighting Shabbat candles. My parents, both passionate Zionists, were active volunteers in our synagogue and the wider Jewish community. Having learned from them to stand up for my dignity as a Jew, I suppose it was natural for me to stand up for my dignity as a woman, which, after all, is what feminism is all about.42 Irrespective of their ideological differences, most women who identify themselves as Jewish feminists assert that this engagement played a vital role in their lives, made them rediscover their Judaism, and brought them closer to the Jewish community.43 For observers of the American Jewish community, at the same time this Jewish feminism fueled a renewal of Judaism in both the liberal and Orthodox communities. First of all, it pushed women into studying Judaism and delving deeper into it so that they could defend it more effectively and adapt it to their beliefs. Some women demanded the right to play roles and perform religious precepts that for two thousand years had been exclusive to Jewish men, particularly the possibility for women of being appointed rabbi, to “be called up to the Torah”44 and to wear a prayer shawl in synagogue. The fact that their rebellion relates to women’s marginalization in Judaism and their exclusion from religious commandments, rather than against the actual religion that lays down such exclusion, may come as a surprise. But while for some this rebellion involved rejection, for others it provided the opportunity to delve in greater depth into this controversial aspect of Judaism and to

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interpret it according to their own values. One feminist might have rebelled when she was excluded from reciting kaddish, the memorial prayer for the dead, after her mother’s death when she was fifteen,45 while another one could say that she would never return to Judaism until there was “a synagogue. . .that I could take my daughters to without subjecting them to insults.”46 A number of feminist activists actually stated that feminism had reconciled them with their Jewishness. As for patriarchy, Laura Geller, a woman rabbi in Los Angeles, stated very straightforwardly that Judaism has a profound sense of social justice, even if is based on a patriarchal system: she suggests stressing the former, while trying to minimize the latter. But religion is certainly not the sole identity marker of feminist militants calling for “Jewish feminism.” Jewish feminists could not turn their back on the Jewish past, finding validity in their own experience alone, “when the impress of the Jewish past on their very identity was so strong. . . . Their Jewish identity was rooted in Jewish historical experience and culture as much as in belief.”47 While being aware of the problems, they wished to act and bring about change from within, rather than giving up their different loyalties: on the one hand Judaism and its “patriarchal” culture, and on the other the American women’s movement, whose leftist political wing refused to acknowledge any legitimacy of Jewish specificity and demonstrated a degree of leniency towards antisemitism.48 Apart from religion, the other vehicles of Jewish identity include Jewish vulnerability through the prism of Holocaust memory and antisemitism. Not only is the latter still flourishing today: it can also be encountered in feminist circles. And as a backdrop to all of this we have the State of Israel, something that cannot be sidestepped or ignored, whether to defend or to attack it; this state which, by declaring that it is “Jewish,” includes even those Jews who wish to disassociate themselves from it. Israel’s image is one of strength, side by side with an undeniable vulnerability: and it is only too painfully clear that it has not been able to make good on its promise to wipe out antisemitism. Since the end of the 1960s up to today, these topics have provided food for Jewish questions and soul-searching in the Diaspora. Over the years, and especially at international women’s conferences and in response to Israel’s various wars, the issues of Zionism and antisemitism inevitably crop up in feminist discussions. As Letty Cottin Pogrebin admits, it was her first visit to Israel in the 1970s which began her Jewish engagement: It helped me start training the muscles of a different kind of Jewish identity—not the one that belongs to God, prayer, and synagogue, nor the sentimental kind associated with nostalgia, Yiddishisms, and

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chicken soup, but new political contours that were so robust and sinewy they made everything else in my wardrobe too small.49 In June 1982 Letty Cottin Pogrebin published a ground-breaking and controversial article in the feminist magazine Ms. about antisemitism in the women’s movement.50 The same year saw the publication of a multi-authored book which made a major impact on American Jewish feminist circles: Nice Jewish Girls: A Lesbian Anthology.51 In this volume, lesbian Jewish women speak openly about the complex nature of their identities, as well as about their disappointment at feminist movements’ indifference in the face of antisemitism: “We recognize that in the past we have often experienced a double or triple vulnerability and a sense of isolation—as lesbian among Jews, the only Jew among lesbians,” and as feminists in the Jewish community. The book’s success attracted full houses at readings in a number of American cities. There was also a major conference in San Francisco, attended by nearly a thousand mainly lesbian and Jewish feminists.52 Above all, it stood for the desire of lesbians and American Jewish gays to be officially accepted by the Jewish community. With the Jewish revival of the 1970s, Jewish lesbians no longer wanted to be forced to hide their sexual identity in the Jewish community or, as they put it, to be “exiled” from Judaism. When it came to their Jewish identity in society generally, and in the feminist movement in particular, they wanted to be responsible for shaping this themselves, so that they would no longer “be defined by others.”53 Asking questions about their own identity, having antisemitic remarks made to them, the stigma triggered by homosexuality, loyalty to a religion which does not always take on board her own desires—all of these subjects can be found in the experiences of Alice Bloch. Her story is characteristic of the classical “zigzags” that take place when on the quest for one’s self in Diaspora Jewish wanderings. Bloch was born in 1947 in Youngstown, Ohio, to Conservative Jewish parents. She experienced her first antisemitic remark when she was nine and a boy in her class called her a “dirty Jew.” This hurt her deeply, especially because her mother, who might have been able to comfort her, had died the same year. When she was twenty, she spent a year in Paris, where she rented a room in the apartment of an “antisemitic woman” who, when she found out that Bloch was Jewish, reassured her by saying that she was different from other Jews (who were crass, money-grubbing, lustful, and filthy) “because I didn’t go to synagogue.” In response, she began to attend an Orthodox synagogue in Paris. When she returned to the United States, she became part of the university Orthodox Jewish community, kept kosher, observed the Sabbath and went to synagogue. In 1969 she moved to

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Jerusalem, where she lived among Orthodox Jews and studied the Bible. Every Israeli she met wanted to know why she was not yet married. At this time (1971) she was becoming intensely aware of lesbian feelings and of the conflicts that this would entail in terms of the Orthodox Jewish community. When she went back to the United States she had problems following religious practices based on patriarchy and heterosexuality. She came out as a lesbian and rejected Jewish law and religion altogether, although she maintained a strong identity as a Jew. She takes pride in her Jewish heritage, and is tired of hearing women dismiss Jewish identity as “oppressive” and “patriarchal” without knowing anything about it. She is also tired, she says: of feminist books that sum up all Jewish thought in that one stupid prayer, “Blessed art Thou. . .who did not make me a woman,” that has probably been invoked more times in this decade by Christian women to condemn Judaism than by Jewish men to thank God. And I am tired of the popular belief in the women’s community that Jewish women have had no first-hand experience with racism. Anti-Semitism is a form of racism, and so is the assumption that everyone is Christian. I have encountered both of these forms of racism in the lesbian community as well as in the outside world. For Alice Bloch, Jewish identity is important “because being Jewish is an integral part of myself; it’s my inheritance, my roots.”54 Often, however, Jewish women talking about their antisemitic experiences and their Jewish identity feel that on the whole their non-Jewish peers have no understanding of their insights This lack of understanding is even more painful to them because they have always expressed solidarity with others over the injustices and oppressions suffered by them.

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O PPOSITION TO J EWISH F EMINISM : A LTERNATIVE A PPROACHES Despite the important ways in which this “Jewish feminism” evolved, as can be seen in numerous accounts and essays, it has not been taken on board by all Jewish feminists. Moreover, beginning in the early 1980s, the issue of Jewish identity or of “Jewish feminist identity” was hotly debated by many Jewish feminist theorists of all schools, in the United States as well as in Great Britain. Some spoke out to espouse it; others, to disassociate themselves from any such thing. Some writings attracted great attention and triggered discussions in the form of essays and articles. The statement that “the personal is political,” which in part constituted the basis of this Jewish feminism, was not unanimously viewed as a positive aspect in feminism’s

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development. Some feminists feared that exploring the personal might become an end in itself or, conversely, that the political would be reduced to the personal. Ultimately there was a danger that each individual would speak out from within her own oppression, thereby exacerbating separatist tendencies. British Jewish women were the first to call Jewish feminism into question. In an article that appeared in December 1984 in the new English Jewish feminist review Shifra, “Why I am not a Jewish feminist,” Dena Attar explains that although she is a feminist and Jewish, she does not recognize herself in what is called “Jewish feminism.”55 “I want to make it absolutely clear that I believe there are times when without doubt, it is useful for us to organize ourselves as Jewish women.” However, she sees no good reason for “Jewish feminism” as a separate movement or politics. Rather, she proposes to “leave the “barred room” where we are only among women like ourselves, and try to forge coalitions with other oppressed groups.” She makes the point that “oppression” is not the primary reason behind Jewish feminism: rather, the key factor is the search for a positive Jewish identity based on a shared culture and traditions. However, she harks back to the eternal question of “who is a Jew” and what does it mean “to be Jewish” for a person who is neither religious nor Zionist. This subject keeps cropping up in all the discussions and debates between Jewish feminists, irrespective of their willingness to establish a link between their feminism and their Jewishness. Another article which generated much debate in both English and American Jewish feminist circles was written by the English Jewish feminist Jenny Bourne, published in 1987 in Race & Class. Somewhat ironically, she sums up this “identity” phase of Anglo-American feminism as follows56: What is to be done has been replaced by who am I. Political culture has ceded to cultural politics. . . . The Blacks, the Women, the Gays have all searched themselves. And now, combining all their quests has arrived the quest for Jewish feminist identity. During the 1960s and 1970s Jews formed the backbone of the Women’s Movement—certainly in the USA and UK. But we were not there as Jews. We were feminists who just happened to be Jews. Our Jewishness was unarticulated and unsung. Undoubtedly, what brought us to a consciousness of oppression, and a commitment to fighting it, had its roots in our particular history. After all, it cannot be coincidental that so many of the white civil rights campaigners in the USA were Jews or that in the forefront of those who opposed the Vietnam war were Jews. . . . We came to anti-racist, anti-imperialist and anti-fascist work in the Women’s Movement because so many of us were already

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committed to a radical form of politics. Our histories of oppression as Jews had subliminally propelled us towards liberatory politics, and taught us to be vigilant, had put us on the side of all underdogs. We helped formulate and practice a liberatory socialist feminism which was outward-looking and connected our struggles as women with those of all oppressed and exploited peoples. . . .57 But even those Jewish feminists who do want to stay out of this “Jewish feminism” are sometimes “caught in the identity trap.” This is, for example, the dilemma facing the American Nancy K. Miller, a feminist critic and professor of comparative literature. In one of her widely-discussed autobiographical texts she relates how her Jewish identity, which she had always sidelined, forced itself upon her in an unexpected fashion.58 As the only Jew in the classroom she felt uncomfortable, even losing her voice, when she wanted her students to discuss an essay about identity and difference in which Jews are referred to.59 This experience is an illustration of how a sense of awkwardness about Jewish identity can be felt even by those who thought that they were immune. But Nancy Miller continues to express her skepticism about what might be meant by “speaking as a Jew.” She had tried, she concedes, to take a stand in terms of her identity but to no avail:

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Did being Jewish really mean I always wanted to speak “as a Jew” and be spoken of as one? The short answer is no, I have not found a way to assume that rhetoric of identity (although I am both, I cannot lay claim to “Jewish feminist”); it is not a ground of action for me in the world, nor the guarantee of my politics or writings. The fact, however, of being both Jewish and a feminist is a crucial, even constitutive piece of my self-consciousness as a writer; in that sense of course it is also at work—on occasion—in the style and figures of my autobiographic project.60 These observations were followed by many reactions, such as those of Laura Levitt, a professor of Jewish Studies and Women’s Studies at Temple University in Philadelphia. In her essay Jews and Feminism, Levitt applies postmodern theories of identity to analyze what Jewish feminists mean by “Jewish feminist identities.”61 She refers especially to the definitions of Stuart Hall, who uses the concept of cultural identities that are shaped by the interplay of history, culture, and power, and hence are constantly evolving. It is this approach which helps Levitt to define what she calls her “Jewish cultural identity.” To explain her position, she takes as an example the attitude of Nancy Miller, who admitted her (Miller’s) “inability to speak up as a Jew” before a non-Jewish audience.62 She replies that in order to speak of identity, an “I” is needed, even if only as a political strategy: it is

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important, she says, “to adopt a stance” as a Jewish woman or as a Jewish feminist through the prism of her own personal history, interpreted and reconstructed in light of its historical and cultural context, and political struggles, in order not to “lose their voice” like Nancy Miller. The point here is that this “Jewish feminism,” of which Miller knows just one aspect, is not a rigid or absolute concept.63 Hence it can be argued that in the context of both Jewish Studies and Feminist Studies, it is important for Jewish feminists “to claim both the specificity and complexity”—and perhaps the contradictions—“of their own identity/es so that we not lose our voices, but rather, honestly and responsibly claim subject positions not as absolute or secure but as occasioned.”64 But how can we define this kind of Jewishness which characterizes Miller and other intellectual women who do not repudiate their Jewishness but consider themselves to be assimilated and Diaspora Jews, attached to a form of Jewishness from which Israel is sometimes absent? They all nevertheless wonder whether it is actually possible nowadays to pay no attention whatsoever to Israel. Even Jenny Bourne who, as we saw earlier, is highly critical of Jewish feminism’s politics of identity, concludes that ultimately “all roads lead to Israel,” and that willy-nilly, it is just not possible to ignore the Jewish state.65 The American feminist Elly Bulkin makes the same point:

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What Israel does—and what is done in it—reverberates in my life. . . . As a Jew, I have a special relationship to Israel. That relationship will remain whether I embrace it or rage against it. Attempting to ignore it is like trying to ignore my Jewish identity: someone is bound to remind me of it, out of solidarity or hostility66 Ultimately, it is impossible to escape one’s own identity. Some, like Naomi Seidman, even see in the attitude of women who want to ignore their Jewish identity a quintessentially Jewish characteristic. Like many Jewish intellectuals, she says, some progressive feminists reject Jewish particularism and style themselves champions of the cause of other particularisms, other beings on the fringes of society. To illustrate her point, she comments on the work of Judith Butler, Nancy K. Miller and Eve Kosowsky Sedgwick: We do not have a vocabulary to describe the Jewishness of Butler, Miller, or Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick. Yet it seems to me that there is something about their similar positions in the multiculture that is particularly Jewish, not only in the passages where they discuss their Jewishness but even—perhaps especially—in their reluctance to do so. . . . It is nevertheless true that Miller’s stance can paradoxically be described as Jewish, exposing her “Jewishness” not only in repudia-

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tion of Jewish particularism but also in the adoption and championing of marginality. . . . Miller writes about third-world women’s literature, Judith Butler has analyzed the subversive potential of drag, 67 and Sedgwick’s most powerful work focuses on homosexual men. 68 In fact, they are all applying the Jewish tradition of universalism. In other words, Jews’ frequent involvement and in “other” peoples’ struggles cannot be explained solely in terms of the traditional altruism or sympathy that many Jews have for those who are marginalized. Rather, what we have here is what Hannah Arendt and Isaac Deutscher identified as a “hidden tradition” of secular Jewish experience: the “Jew as a pariah” who could never be quite at home in the world, the phenomenon of “the non-Jewish Jew,” who has no particular ties to the Jewish community or religion but could nonetheless be identified as a distinct product of Jewish history, as a Jewish “type.” Perhaps this is the secret behind the massive participation of American Jewish women, whether close to or remote from Judaism, in feminist action and theory in the last fifty years. Joyce Antler, professor of American Studies and Women’s and Gender Studies at Brandeis, gives us many examples of these women, especially Gerda Lerner, one of the pioneers in women’s history at American universities. For a long time Lerner did not (publicly at least) make the link between her research work and her experience as someone who had managed to escape Nazism. She suddenly started to acknowledge this link, which until then she had always wanted to conceal:

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I have sometimes been asked, “How has your being Jewish influenced your work in Women’s History?” The simplest way I can answer this question is, I am an historian because of my Jewish experience. She even adds that the reason she works on the history of women and marginal groups is that for a long time she has defined herself as an “outsider.”69 So it is from an outsider’s perspective that Joyce Antler reviews the impact that Jewishness has had on the most productive feminist theorists, even when their Jewish origins are not visible in their writings. Some of the women she considers are Carol Gilligan, Evelyn Fox Keller, Joan W. Scott, Nancy Cott, and Linda Kerber.70 This could apply to Judith Butler, whom she does not quote, but who is very much part of this generation of feminists who have left their imprint on feminist theory of the last twenty years. Although Butler’s philosophical writings do not relate to Judaism directly, she never misses an opportunity to speak of her origins, her traditional-minded Jewish family, her great-uncles and aunts who died in the Holocaust. She makes the point very clearly: “And the Jewish part is very important as well. It formed my ethical and political framework and it still does.”71 She goes on to explain that for her, Judaism is more of a cultural than a religious tradition: “I am not

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religious really. But I do practice some. And I want my son to learn it and continue it as a cultural tradition more than as a religious practice.” 72 She currently states her positions on the ethics and wisdom of Jewish tradition, whether referring to the tradition of public mourning in Judaism or to nonviolence.73 Butler’s theories on gender performativity, imitation, and repetition in the shaping of sexual identity, or the “power of words,” are used by some American researchers to analyze topical Jewish issues, such as antisemitism,74 the Diaspora, or Zionism.75 But for her too, if the State of Israel is somewhere in her identity, it is in a negative sense. Butler acknowledges “My agony and shame over the State of Israel is enormous.”76 She explains that this feeling is bound up with her antiracism, since she maintains that, like South Africa, Israel is “based on race.”77 It is, to put it mildly, distressing that a Jewish woman, who accepts her Jewishness and understands how complex it is, can state baldly that the State of Israel is based on a form of racism. As a Jewish feminist wrote in the early 1980s: To simply say that “Zionism is Racism” is to say that the motivation that drove the Jewish people in Palestine was their racism. If we know our history, and live in the aftermath of the Holocaust and the pogroms all over the world, we know the motivation of our people was our survival.78

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Butler is certainly not unaware of Jewish history and traditions; however, what she does is to take and use them to justify her rejection of Zionism and Israeli policies. To some extent her theories on sexual, cultural, or ethnic identities that presuppose that a form of “racism” is interwoven in all identities, reflect her positions on Jewish issues. In an interview published in the Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz, she explains that she simply cannot stand any form of separatism, whether Jewish, feminist, or lesbian. “Enough with the separatism!. . . .” It felt like the same kind of policing of the community. You only trust those who are absolutely like yourself, those who have signed a pledge of allegiance to this particular identity. Is that person really Jewish, maybe they’re not so Jewish. I don’t know if they’re really Jewish. Maybe they’re selfhating. Is that person lesbian? I think maybe they had a relationship with a man. What does that say about how true their identity was? I thought I can’t live in a world in which identity is being policed in this way.79 If this is the case, then one must ask what pushes these progressive Jewish intellectual women like Judith Butler and her colleagues to keep dwelling on

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the impact of their Jewishness (and in parallel harsh critical views of Israel), but who at the same time distance themselves from the very concept of identity. These and many other questions continue to crop up when we list the many aspects through which the Jewish identity of all these American feminist activists and theoreticians is expressed from the 1960s to the present. After noting their relationship with Jewishness—for some symbiotic, for others indifferent or hostile—the question that must be answered is whether this is something specifically Anglo-American, or a more general trend in contemporary forms of Jewishness and feminism.

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N OTES 1. Françoise S. Ouzan, Histoire des Américains juifs (A history of Jewish Americans) (Brussels: André Versaille, 2008) unfolds the convergence and interactions between contemporary Jewish identities in the United States and American identities. 2. New and modern Jewish community centers were created to serve the suburban populations. They offered a wide range of services to provide educational, cultural, social activities, synagogues, and recreational programs for people of all ages and backgrounds. 3. Manifestations of Judaism and Jewishness may take “forms of liking Yiddish jokes, supporting Israel, raising money, and preferring certain kinds of food”: Nathan Glazer, American Judaism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972), 144. 4. With the increase of intermarriages, separation between Jews and Christians decreases. More and more frequently a child has grandparents of different religions. 5. Two Jewish activists from New York, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, were murdered in 1964 by Ku Klux Klan members, as a result of their participation to the Freedom Summer demonstrations. 6. Among the Jewish organizations which supported the black struggle for freedom were the American Jewish Committee, American Jewish Congress, and the AntiDefamation League of B’nai B’rith. 7. Bella Abzug appealed the McGee case before the Supreme Court and achieved two stays of execution. But after the third trial and conviction, all appeals were denied. McGee was executed in 1951. 8. Freedom Summer (also known as the Mississippi Summer Project) was a campaign in the United States launched in June 1964 to attempt to register as many African American voters as possible in Mississippi, which had historically excluded most blacks from voting. 9. Deborah Grand Golomb, “The 1893 Congress of Jewish Women: Evolution or Revolution in America’s Jewish Women’s History?,” American Jewish History 70 (Sept. 1980): 55–56. 10. The National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW) was created following the 1893 World Parliament of Religions in Chicago. 11. Created in 1912 by Henrietta Szold, Hadassah became one of the largest

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American Jewish women’s organizations. 12. The National Council of Jewish Women was affiliated with the Women’s Joint Congressional Committee (WJCC), created in 1920, a large umbrella organization that unified and coordinated women’s lobbying efforts on behalf of social reform measures. 13. “Before World War I, Jewish working women often found their feminist political expression in Socialism. The New York Socialist party had several women’s groups in Jewish areas. After winning suffrage in New York, one-half of the Socialist Party registrations in many Jewish neighborhoods were female.” In Elinor Lerner, “American Feminism and the Jewish Question,” in Anti-Semitism in American History, edited by David A. Gerber (Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Press, 1986), 308. See also Gerald Sorin, “Socialism in the United States,” in A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia of the Jewish Women’s Archive, http://jwa.org/encyclopedia; Susan A. Glenn, Daughters of the Shtetl: Life and Labor in the Immigrant Generation (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1990). 14. Lerner, “American Feminism and the Jewish Question,” 308. 15. Ibid., 306. 16. Joyce Antler, The Journey Home (New York: Free Press, 1997), Introduction. Joyce Antler is the Samuel Lane Professor of American Jewish History and Culture and Women’s and Gender Studies at Brandeis University. 17. This expression served as title for an anthology of American feminists’ texts; Robin Morgan, ed., Sisterhood is Powerful: An Anthology of Writings from the Women’s Liberation Movement (New York: Random House, 1970). 18. Betty Friedan, “Jewish Roots: An Interview with Betty Friedan,” Tikkun 3, no. 1 (Jan.–Feb. 1988): 26. 19. Anne Roiphe, “Woman as Jew, Jew as Woman,” Congress Monthly 52, no. 2 (Feb.–Mar. 1985): 13. 20. Betty Friedan, “Women and Jews, the Quest of Selfhood,” Congress Monthly 52, no. 2 (Feb.–Mar. 1985): 7; see also Antler, Journey Home, 259–60. 21. Ibid. 22. Theodore Roszak, The Making of a Counter Culture (New York: Anchor Books, 1969). 23. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is the most important lobby advocating pro-Israel policies to the Congress and Executive Branch of the United States. 24. Peter Y. Medding, “Segmented Ethnicity and the New Jewish Politics,” Studies in Contemporary Jewry 3 (1987): 40. 25. Audre Lorde, “Age, Race, Class and Sex: Women Redefining Difference,” in Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde (Trumansburg, N.Y.: Crossing Press, 1984), 118. 26. See chapter 1. 27. Jo Freeman, The Politics of Women’s Liberation (London: Longman, 1975); see also Sara M. Evans, Born for Liberty—A History of Women in America (New York: Free Press, 1989). 28. June Jordan, Civil War (Boston: Beacon Press, 1981), quoted by Andrea Stuart, “Feminism Dead or Alive?,” in Identity: Community, Culture, Difference, edited by Jonathan Rutherford (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1998), 37. 29. Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz, “Jews in the Civil Right Movements and After,” in Narrow Bridge—Jewish Views on Multiculturalism, edited by Marla Brettschneider

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(Rutgers, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1996), 110–11. 30. Ibid. 31. Susan Weidman Schneider, Jewish and Female: Choices and Chances in our Lives Today (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1984), 19. 32. Quoted by Weidman Schneider, ibid., 24. 33. “Jewish Women: Life Force or a Culture?,” Brooklyn Bridge (Feb. 1971): 14. 34. Davka magazine styled itself “a counterculture publication.” Rachel Adler, “The Jew Who Wasn’t There: Halacha and the Jewish Woman,” Davka 1, no. 4, special issue on Jewish Women (Summer 1971), is considered one of the founding influences of the Jewish feminist movement. 35. Martha Ackelsberg, “Introduction,” Response (Summer 1973): 7. 36. Created in September 1971, Ezrat Nashim means literally in Hebrew “women’s aid.” It also refers to the area in the synagogue traditionally reserved for women. 37. This organization, which coordinated several regional committees, meetings and publications, lasted only two years, but local groups continued their activities for several years. 38. The magazine’s subversive name, Lilith, is derived from a midrash that Adam’s first wife was not Eve, but Lilith—the woman described in the first account of the creation (Genesis 1:27). Only after Lilith rebelled and abandoned Adam did God create Eve in the second account (Genesis 2:21–24) as a replacement. 39. “From the Editors,” Lilith 1, no. 1 (1976): 3. 40. Schneider, Jewish and Female, 20. 41. The Pesach Seder is a festive meal that commemorates the liberation of the Jews from Egypt. Some add experiences of women to the retelling of the Passover story. 42. Letty Cottin Pogrebin, Jewish Women’s Archive Encyclopedia, http:// jwa.org/feminism/_html/JWA058.htm. 43. Many personal narratives by Letty Cottin Pogrebin, Deborah, Golda and Me; Anne Roiphe, Generation Without Memory: A Jewish Journey in Christian America (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1981); Adrienne Rich, “A Split at the Root,” Nice Jewish Girls, 73–90. Rich was born to a mixed Christian/Jewish family and brought up unaware of her Jewishness. 44. In Orthodox synagogues, only men do the public reading of the Torah. 45. The Kaddish is recited in the daily synagogue services and by mourners after the death of a close relative. It requires a quorum of ten men (minyan), and in the Jewish Orthodox tradition, women may not be counted in forming a minyan. Many Jewish women have written about their exclusion from this important ritual. See, for example, Letty Cottin Pogrebin, Deborah, Golda and Me: Being Female and Jewish in America (New York: Crown, 1992), 55; Susannah Heschel, “Anti-Judaism in Christian Feminist Theology,” Tikkun 5, no. 3 (1990): 25; Sara Reguer, “Kaddish from the Wrong Side of the Mechitzah,” in On Being a Jewish Feminist: A Reader, edited by Susannah Heschel (New York: Schocken Books, 1983). 46. Anne Roiphe, Generation Without Memory, 203–4. 47. Judith Plaskow, Introduction: “It’s Feminist, But Is It Jewish?,” Standing Again at Sinai: Judaism from a Feminist Perspective (New York: Harper, 1991). 48. Paula E. Hyman, “Jewish Feminism Faces the American Women’s Move-

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ment” in American Jewish Women History, edited by Pamela S. Nadell (New York: New York University Press, 2003), 297–312. 49. Letty Cottin Pogrebin, “Anti-Semitism in the Women’s Movement,” Ms. (June 1982): 45–48, 62–72. 50. Ibid., “This article elicited an unprecedented volume of reader mail. . . . Out of nearly three hundred letters, about twenty were critical.” Only three of the critical letters were published. Letters Forum, “Anti-Semitism,” Ms. (Feb. 1983): 12, 14–17. 51. Evelyn Torton Beck, ed., Nice Jewish Girls, A Lesbian Anthology, 1st ed. (10,000 copies) (Watertown, Mass.: Persephone Press, 1982; 2nd ed., Boston: Beacon Press, 1989). 52. Marylou Hadditt, “A Thousand Jewish Feminists: Coming Out Jewish in San Francisco,” Jewish Current (Oct. 1982). 53. Lesly Frann Levy, (“No longer would we be defined by others”), quoted by JEB [Joan E. Biren], “That’s Funny, You Don’t Look Like a Jewish Lesbian,” Nice Jewish Girls, 148. 54. Alice Bloch, “Scenes from the Life of a Jewish Lesbian” in On Being a Jewish Feminist, A Reader, edited by Susannah Heschel (New York: Schocken Books, 1983), 171–76. 55. Dena Attar, “Why I am not a Jewish Feminist,” Shifra, no. 1 (Dec. 1984): 8– 11, quoting Bernice Reagon in “Coalition politics: Turning the Century,” a presentation at the West Coast Women’s Music Festival 1981, held at the Yosemite National Forest, California. 56. Jewish feminism in Great Britain had a similar development (with more tendencies to criticism) to its American counterpart. Given its dimensions, American Jewish feminism was clearly the most prolific and the most influential movement. 57. Jenny Bourne, “Homeland of the Minds: Jewish Feminism and Identity Politics,” Race & Class 29, no. 1 (Summer 1987): 1. 58. Nancy K. Miller, “Dancing, Dreaming and the Changing Locations of Feminist Criticism,” in Getting Personal: Feminist Occasions and Other Autobiographical Acts (New York: Routledge, 1991), chap. 6, 72–100 and particularly the segment, “Personal Histories, Autobiographical Locations,” 90–100. 59. Miller refers to Minnie Bruce Pratt’s chapter, “Identity,” in Yours in Struggle—Three Feminist Perspectives on Anti-Semitism and Racism by Elly Bulkin, Minnie Bruce Pratt, and Barbara Smith (Brooklyn, N.Y.: Long Haul Press, 1987). 60. Miller, Getting Personal, 96. 61. Laura Levitt, Jews and Feminism: The Ambivalent Search for Home (New York: Routledge, 1997), chap. 12, “Rethinking Jewish Feminist Identitiy/ies: What Difference Can Feminist Theory Make?,” 361–75. Laura Levitt also co edited with Miriam Peskowitz: Judaism Since Gender (New York: Routledge, 1997). 62. One of the members of the audience was Edward Said. 63. The only Jewish feminist position that Miller recognizes is that of Evelyn Torton Beck in Getting Personal, 96. 64. Laura Levitt insists in the title of her chapter on using the term identity/ies in the singular/plural showing the plurality and the complexity of Jewish identity. 65. Bourne, “Homeland of the Mind.” 66. Bulkin, Yours in Struggle, 154. 67. Judith Butler uses the example of the “drag queen”—a man who disguises himself as a woman in an exaggerated way, showing gender as a cultural code which

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relies on imitation and mimicry (parody, masquerade), at the base of any structure of identity. Judith Butler, Gender Trouble—Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (New York: Routledge, 1990) 31–33, 47, 122, 137–41, 142–50. 68. Naomi Seidman, “Fag-Hags and Bu-Jews—Towards a (Jewish) Politics of Vicarious Identity,” in Insider/Outsider—American Jews and Multiculturalism, edited by David Biale, Michael Galchinsky, and Susan Heschel (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 254–68. 69. Gerda Lerner, Why History Matters (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 5. 70. Antler, Journey Home, 287. 71. Judith Butler, “The Desire for Philosophy,” Interview by Regina Michalik, LOLA Press (May 2001), http://www.egs.edu/faculty/judith-butler/articles/the-desire -for-philosophy/ 72. Ibid. 73. Judith Butler, interview by Jill Stauffer, 22 Mar. 2003, San Francisco, http:// www.believermag.com/issues/200305/?read=interview_butler. 74. Vikki Bell, “Judith Butler and Anti-Semitism,” Theory, Culture, Society 16(2) (1999): 133–61. 75. Laurence J. Silberstein, “Cultural Criticism, Ideology, and the Interpretation of Zionism: Toward a Post-Zionist Discourse,” in Interpreting Judaism in a Postmodern Age, edited by Steven Kepnes (New York: New York University Press, 1996). About Diaspora, see Daniel Boyarin and Jonathan Boyarin, “Diaspora: Generation and the Ground Of Jewish Identity,” Critical Inquiry 19 (1993) 693–725. 76. Peter Osborne and Lynne Segal, “Gender as Performance: An Interview with Judith Butler,”Radical Philosophy 67 (Summer 1994); we will return in the last chapter to Butler’s position on Zionism. 77. Ibid. 78. Chaya Lehrer, “Polarization” (letter), Off our Backs (Oct. 1982): 30, quoted by Burkin, Yours in Struggle, 158. 79. Udi Aloni, “Judith Butler, ‘As a Jew, I was taught it was ethically imperative to speak up,’” Haaretz, 24 Feb. 2010.

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Being Jewish and Feminist in France

To what extent are the expressions of Jewish cultural identity which we have observed among American feminists to be found in France? Although there are many similarities over dilemmas and identity factors, their specific forms are naturally shaped by each country’s political culture. In France, there is a sharper differentiation between the private and the public than in the United States. The French public domain must be neutral, and so, as far as possible, religious, ethnic, or cultural identities are banished to the private domain. Theoretically, the majority of France’s Jews have long since followed this “republican contract.”1 One of the resulting distinctive features relates to outward expressions of “Jewish difference” in the two different forms of feminism. Unlike French Jewish women, their American counterparts have written extensively about their identity dilemmas. American universities’ numerous Jewish studies and women’s studies departments have undoubtedly contributed to the vast amount of thinking and great intellectual output in these fields. In France, in contrast, there is very little Jewish/ feminist thought and writing in the public domain. As a result, personal interviews were required, in addition to tracking down the small number of Jewish feminists’ writings held in personal archives. When approached, French feminists with Jewish backgrounds willingly answered questions about how they relate to their Jewishness, to religion, to issues concerning Israel, antisemitism, or cultural identity. Often the way that they perceive Jewish identity coincides with American perceptions, but French women rarely make a connection with their feminism. The “Jewish feminism” which basically developed in the United States, and then spread to Great Britain, Canada, Australia, and Israel has no equivalent in France, even though many Jewish women there have played an active role and continue to take part in feminist struggles. However, there is very little openly expressed Jewish involvement. If it does exist, then it is mainly in the private, not to say subconscious and unspoken spheres. On the whole, the common practice is to rule out any attempt to compare French and American social phenomena because of the very real and fundamental differences between these two societies and their underlying princi-

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ples. One major area is attitude to religion, which in the United States is an important socio-cultural factor, as opposed to France’s anticlerical secularism, while the other involves differing stances on identity politics. But although the French are determined to show how different they are from the Americans, they often finish up agreeing with them in the short or long run. In the case of a social trend like the 1970s French women’s liberation movement, certain facts and actions can be seen to have come about as a result of two-way influences, but—as is only natural—with the stress being placed on certain features characteristic of each society. 2 More recently, France has seen much academic discussion of identity politics and postcolonial theories imported from the United States. However, such debates normally refrain from including Jewish identity, which therefore remains isolated, for the most part explored by Jews only. One of the shared features of French and American Jewry is participation in radical and revolutionary movements in both countries.3 There is also a similar relationship to Holocaust memory and the State of Israel, in terms of how Jewish identity developed after the Holocaust, the major impact of the Six-Day War, or the resulting bond with Israel. However, the geographical closeness between France and Israel has resulted in more contacts and exchanges, resulting in a quasi-symbiotic relationship. Hence despite the obvious differences between Anglo-American and French Jewish communities, the fundamental mainsprings that influence and shape identity, based on memory and history, have developed in a similar fashion over the last fifty years. France, of course, has its own traditions of secularism and integrating all its different populations, who are expected to give up some of their external expressions of identity and meld into the French nation. The country also has its own history, including the Vichy regime, its colonial past, the Algerian War followed by the massive arrival of a repatriated French population, including large numbers of Jews. While intensely Jewish, the latter wanted nothing more than to adapt as quickly as possible to their new lives, at the same time maintaining their family traditions. In parallel, the French feminist movement did not in the 1970s or even the 1980s go through an “identity” phase, nor did it experience a rebellion by underprivileged women against their pampered counterparts similar to that of Black women in American feminism. There would be such a phase, but it would come about later, particularly in the furore about wearing the Islamic veil that started in the late 1980s, and especially from the 2000s on with the advent of the group called Ni Putes Ni Soumises (Neither whores nor submissive).4

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P OSTWAR R EFLECTIONS ON J EWISH I DENTITY IN F RANCE Jews in France did not wait for the emergence of new trends in identity to develop their own original form of Jewish thought. In many historical, sociological, and philosophical writings, as well as annual symposia of Jewish intellectuals, France occupies a distinguished position regarding the development and dissemination of Jewish thinking. Beginning in the 1930s, this reached new heights in the postwar period. In the wake of World War II French Jewry was revitalized by initiatives taken by charismatic Jewish intellectuals who were unflagging in their determination to contribute to the emergence of future leaders in a traumatized, battered Jewish community. The School of Young Jewish Leadership in Orsay (near Paris), the Jewish high school ENIO in Paris, or the academic Hebrew studies set up by André Neher in Strasbourg, offered young Jewish men and women the opportunity to undertake Jewish studies on a coeducational basis.5 What was taught was a form of Judaism which, although strictly observant, was in line with modern times, universal and academic, as opposed to American-style Reform tendencies. This traditional approach might explain why Jewish women in France at this time seldom advanced egalitarian demands, whether over Jewish ritual practices or rabbinical functions, such as in the United States.6 However, the status of Jewish women was discussed to a limited extent. By way of illustration, the 1972 Annual Conference of French Jewish Intellectuals chose to focus on relationships between men and women in Judaism. Although the choice of subject was undoubtedly influenced by the vibrant feminist movement at that time, it followed very traditional lines in terms of the husband-wife relationship.7 The next event took place in December 1976 with an issue of the Jewish journal Les Nouveaux cahiers dedicated to Jewish women, entitled Voix d’Elles.”8 A later editorial acknowledged the exceptional nature of this issue: “Was this not a truly rare event where Jewish women spoke up?” 9 A number of Jewish women talked about their multifaceted identities and the place of women in Jewish history and the Bible. There are interviews with intellectual Jewish women such as Elisabeth de Fontenay, Clara Malraux, and Hélène Cixous. The stated aim was to continue and delve further into these matters. However, for a long time this kind of public debate among Jews focusing on the issue of women would remain an exception to the rule. France has seen the publication of a number of very important works on the dilemmas of Jewish identity.10 Although it has become common practice to speak about a person’s identity as a Jew, it is still very difficult to refer to what may make up a woman’s identity, let alone that of a “Jewish woman,” except in special circumstances such as those referred to above or in spe-

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cialized women’s journals. Often unintentionally, and more like a slip of the pen, somehow “the universal” forgets to include women. Whether by chance or intent, when the Figaro-Magazine published a special report in 1989 on the topic of “being Jewish,” seven Jewish intellectuals—all men—were approached to contribute their thoughts, but not a single Jewish woman, as if this was a strictly male preserve. The issue is not one of “parity” or “equality.” But it is, to put it mildly, somewhat surprising that in such a discussion, there was no Jewish woman’s voice.11 If, conversely, only seven women had been invited to take part in such a discussion, the conclusion would have been that this was a women’s discussion, and the topics would probably have focused on women’s subjects. This may by why so few French Jewish feminists have publicly raised the question of Jewish identity. It is not because they are indifferent to it; rather, their “universalism” often prevents them from publicly highlighting a Jewish particularism or sense of identity, especially in conjunction with that of women. Here we can see the major difference between French Jewish women and their American counterparts, for many of whom this is a favorite topic. However, while Jewish identity has not always been the focus of their public discussions, it is not completely absent from the thinking of French Jewish feminists, as we will see below.

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D ISCUSSING “J EWISHNESS ” IN THE F RENCH F EMINIST M OVEMENT The French feminist movement that emerged in the wake of the May 1968 events included many Jewish activists in all kinds of groups representing a range of tendencies.12 Compared, however, to the paramount position of Jewish men in French revolutionary far-left groups,13 or that of Jewish women in the American Second Wave feminism, few of these women had become prominent leaders.14 Some of them did, however, go on to become wellknown as a result of what they did and what they wrote. For example, Jacqueline Feldman co-founded one of the first feminist groups prior to May 1968.15 The lawyer Gisèle Halimi became famous as a result of her fight to legalize abortion,16 a goal pursued doggedly by the Trotskyite activist Maya Surdut.17 Two feminist activists, Liliane Kandel and Cathy Bernheim, were heavily involved in compiling the “Everyday Sexism” column published by Les Temps modernes under Simone de Beauvoir. Nadja Ringart attracted attention through her involvement in revolutionary groups that predated her feminist engagement. At the time, “Jewishness” was completely off the women’s movement radar. As one Jewish activist put it, “They didn’t talk about it openly, seemed to have forgotten it, or had joined the MLF with the express aim of forgetting

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it.”18 Nevertheless, a number of Jewish women’s groups were set up, either spontaneously as a result of personal initiatives, or as part of feminist “consciousness-raising.” They got together to discuss their identities as women and Jews. As the feminist activist Jacqueline Feldman observed later:

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The May ’68 movement had sparked a search for roots, as an ongoing part of the quest for identity. This was a spinoff from a broader social movement known as “psy culture.” It was only natural that we began to work on discovering our Jewishness among women. . . . Rather than highbrow theories, we preferred to draw on our own individual experiences. Talking about experiences, things we had gone through—it was all so similar and, at the same time, different.19 These years when the French women’s movement was positively ebullient overlapped with a time when Jewish memory in France and recollections of the Occupation surfaced in domestic French political debate. Hence it should come as no surprise that the “return of the repressed,” as the historian Henry Rousso calls it, should affect the young activists in the French women’s movement at the time, especially the Jewish ones.20 Some were the daughters of Holocaust survivors, who were born before or after the Shoah, whose parents wanted to hide or even wipe out their Jewish background in order to protect their children. One factor was the fear of antisemitism, but it was accompanied by some people’s hope that Communism would provide a solution to the Jewish question. Indeed, the handing down of socialist values sometimes overshadowed Jewish values. As a result, particularly in the movement’s earliest years, there was only a faint Jewish voice. It could be heard speaking in hushed tones in just a few consciousness-raising groups. In her book on the French women’s liberation movement, Françoise Picq describes how these consciousness-raising groups evolved in France. Although they drew on the American model, their Gallic version was less formal. Women met with each other in order to recount their experiences, to talk, listen, and be listened to, in a kind of “feminist group psychotherapy.” She underscores their spontaneous and fleeting nature: “Groups come into being and vanish, change topics, last for the briefest of times or a year, write short pieces or a book.”21 This is the background against which a small number of women decided to meet and discuss their “Jewishness.” The idea was to search out the positive aspects of their Jewish identity and at the same time enhance their self-image as women. Reports on meetings, written by group members, give us an idea of what these young Jewish activists felt, the things they wondered about, and their dilemmas.22 Régine Dhoquois describes these meetings in a lighthearted, nostalgic account: the young women were frank and outspoken, but

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at the same time cared deeply about ideals such as justice, equality, having both pride and shame in their origins: “There were four or five of us who got together to talk about things like “Jewishness, marginality, difference,” and we would come up with short pieces along the lines of: “I was Jewish before I was a woman, I was zero years old, I have no memory but I do have suffering. After the evils committed against the Jews, no labels: Arabs/Jews: to be universalist.”23 Some passages from the transcripts of these spontaneous statements will enable us to see how similar and at the same time how different young French and American Jewish women were, particularly in how they related to Jewish identity, Jewish pride/shame, and sometimes also the link between feminism and Judaism. We will quote at some length because, as we have already said, there are very few publications on this topic.24 These admissions by a small number of young Jewish feminists definitely do not represent the sum total of feminists with Jewish backgrounds. On the other hand, it may be assumed that the women who decided to join this group had a personal interest in the subject area. In the following passage, Marthe Coppel underscores the issue of Jewish diversity: So let’s try and analyze what happened in the Jewishness group: there’s a reference to Israel and a Jewishness group gets set up, and as if by chance only Jews come to it. So there we are, just women, just Jews, and in addition we’re all intellectuals and left-wingers. So it looks as if finally things are just right for us to finally discover the truth about our Jewishness, the crux of what makes us what we are. Well, actually, it doesn’t work like that. I felt a complete outsider. There are women from North Africa, whereas my family is from Romania. There’s a woman who was brought up in a religious family, whereas it wasn’t until I was 14 that I discovered there were Jews who believed in God. And above all there are women for whom being Jewish was a dangerous secret, perhaps something to be ashamed of, and who feel the need to lay claim to this Jewishness out loud. . . . For me, being Jewish has always been so easy—maybe too easy. A way of climbing up the social ladder. Even in leftist groups. At that point, the great handicap was to be a woman, a girl in a Maoist group is a girl who keeps her mouth shut. And then, at the end of the meeting, a discussion about Jewishness established a wonderful closeness between me and this little Maoist kingpin for whom I didn’t exist ten minutes ago. Being Jewish filled this vacuum of being a woman. For me, becoming aware of my existence as a woman is not what enables me to say I’m Jewish. On the contrary: because I’ve now come to

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Being Jewish and Feminist in France terms with being a woman, I no longer have to brandish this phallic “Jewishness.”25

Extracts from two other pieces dating back to May 1974 show how feminist and revolutionary ideas applied to thinking about Jewish identity. Here too we must bear in mind how the awareness of leftism has developed, together with how people relate to Jewish identity and the State of Israel:

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It began with things political: the Yom Kippur war in the Middle East. Then what I’d always hidden and even denied—especially as I picked my way through the leftist camp—came to the surface. Things didn’t look so clear any more, like they did when there was black and white, right and wrong, fighting the good fight against the imperialists. And from the depths of what I had repressed I dragged up this idea that I thought/wanted to have got past, reprehensible, shameful, reactionary: my Jewishness, while continuing to declare that I was an atheist, a non-Zionist, that I wanted revolution. . . . And all this time, there was this question: if I said at the same time that I was a woman and Jewish, what could this mean?. . . If you tried to look a bit closer at the religious system in order to shed light on the sociopolitical mechanisms that had codified this servitude of Jewish women, it boiled down to this: monotheism, hence uniqueness of Thought, of Authority, of Absolute Domination, due to ONE God, Male, the Father, who is supposed to watch over, guide, reward and punish the “Chosen People,” a male chosen people from whom the “Jews’ Jews”—Jewish women—were excluded. . . . So wasn’t there something “rotten” in how we as women question our Jewishness? And could this asserted Jewishness not look like “an additional phallus?. . . .” Was asserting one’s difference “reactionary”?26 The next passage, which may take us aback today, reflects the self-hatred or terror of the self of stigmatized groups. In the 1970s there came to the fore an awareness of the horrors committed against the Jews. Many French Jews had chosen to change Jewish-sounding names, and some of them even preferred to entirely obliterate their Jewish origins and not reveal them to their children: There was my loathing for being a woman, and just as deep-rooted my fear of being Jewish, both almost unbearable. My family is “antisemitic.” And our names, like our faces, make us Jewish to practically everybody. “They” don’t want to know (my parents), above all I didn’t want to know. The revolution that I thought of in naïve terms enabled me to erase: the body of a woman, the face of a Jewish

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woman. What the outside world sees as an obvious feature, and because very often it uses it to reduce me to a category that is denied by the dominant culture, this I denied means of idealistic universalist speech. . . .27 Could these unpublished pieces, had they appeared as they were intended to, have triggered a discussion about Jewish identity in the feminist movement? Not necessarily. As these texts show, people were speaking in a closed setting, with just Jews there, about experiences which could not be of interest to others, who do not share the same problems, the same dilemmas. There was also the embarrassment about the issue of “identity” (l’identitaire), something that has always had negative connotations in France. And these women make the point time and time again: “We didn’t want to appear identitaire, we were universalists.” On the other hand, it must be remembered that in the women’s movement’s discussions there was a light-hearted atmosphere, with jokes and teasing and challenges, an atmosphere that quite naturally revolved round the topic of the domination and oppression of women. The Jewish girls who were activists had no desire to bring up the Jewish questions that were hidden deep down inside them, questions that were of no interest to their nonJewish counterparts. Another very important point is that several of them were born to parents who had escaped the Germans’ roundups of Jews in France, girls whose very being was based on a terror of antisemitism. In France today, some forty years later, feminist rhetoric about how to relate to Jewishness has undoubtedly moved on, but this “identity” fear is still very much there. This is one of the possible reasons for the absence of public discussions of the topic. The inevitable upshot is the dearth of written material. Hence thinking about identity, based on conversations with a number of French Jewish feminists is, as we have seen, far less wide-ranging than in the United States. In conversations with French women, each of them underscored a particular event which helped make her aware of the Jewish part of her identity. These salient events included Holocaust denial, antisemitism, the memory of the Holocaust, Yiddish culture, the Israeli-Arab conflict, and for some the discovery of Judaism’s outstanding works. Below we will relate to some accounts of what triggered an awareness of Jewish identity. Jacqueline Feldman, Danielle Bailly, and Redith Estenne set up their “Jewish women’s group” as a result of becoming more aware of the “unknown treasures of Jewish sources.”28 The group met for something like three years, making it more stable than the MLF’s “consciousness-raising” groups.29 These eight women got together as a result of two factors: the feminist movement, and the fact that at the same time, in the wake of the May 1968 events, a number of leading leftist figures became interested in Jewish

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studies. Danielle Bailly shared with them her “feminist” and “identity” journey that picked its way through this blend of feminism, leftism, and Judaism: My “encounter” with the feminist movement took place post-68, perhaps in 1969–70. I immediately found this strength—and this rage, this revolt, both of which made me feel really good—in the MLF, and they made me stand on my own two feet and become my own person. . . . I was never in charge of anything, I just took part in meetings and demos, and I belonged to several women’s groups, including the one we set up with Jacqueline Feldman on “Jews and Women” which lasted a few years. I found all of this very helpful, and it gave me strength, courage. Our “Jewish women” group (as an injoke we called ourselves “the “Kalmuck women,” because we were so somehow alike physically, in other words we “looked” so Jewish) was separate from Régine Dhoquois’s group. If I’m not mistaken, there were about eight of us, and we must have met regularly for about three years, once a week or once every two weeks. We didn’t write anything collectively (I wrote things for myself, just notes, “things I felt” that I jotted down).30

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Danielle Bailly, encouraged to be more independent as a woman, had another experience with her feminist friends: studying Jewish sources. This helped shape her Jewish identity, not in a religious sense, but in the sense of becoming proud of her origins and Judaism’s cultural treasures: I was part of this leftist-feminist wave, which comprised all sorts of people but included a number of “stalwart” feminists who began to study Jewish sources. This happened under the intellectual “leadership” of Jean Zacklad. Following in my husband’s footsteps, for about three years I attended these working sessions on biblical texts (interpretation of the rationalist kabbalah, the Vilna Gaon approach, 18th century). These sessions had the most extraordinary impression on me, this intellectual input, and for everyone who attended them they were very very important and enriching. Zacklad himself was an outstanding, fascinating character.31 But later I left Zacklad’s lessons. The reason was a purely feminist one: I could not accept the subordinate role of women that was presented in this approach. If I’m not mistaken, Jacqueline did the same thing. And so did other girls. 32 What gave rise to this return to Jewish sources? Pre-1968, were there any indications? Earlier we referred to this new religious and intellectual spirit that imbued postwar French Jewry.33 Danielle Bailly describes the more

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secular and Diaspora-centered revival that she took part in, a revival that had Yiddish culture at its center. This was a cultural Jewish development, one which has lasted to this day among those from Central and Eastern Europe:

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Jewish identity: in ’68—but it had been out there somewhere for a number of years—at the same time as a number of forerunner movements that preceded and contributed to ’68, without being aware of it, there were regional “revival” movements in France (Corsicans, Basques, Bretons, etc.). And we, the Jews, had also set up groups that focused on Jewishness in the Diaspora, our Jewish experience, historically, culturally, memorially. For example, I was part of the “Crémieux Group,” I belonged to the Medem Association (people whose relatives had been members of the Bund), the Yiddish Culture House, “Freedom of Judaism,” and so on. For me, this whole aspect of Jewish identity is something that I feel very deeply. Culturally, and as something that I’m very sensitive to, Yiddish, the memory of the Holocaust, klezmer music and dance, Central Europe—these all play a really central role for me. I relate to Israel in an intense, deeply involved way, but above all emotionally.34 In the 1970s some feminist activists became interested and engaged in Jewish issues as a result of the appearance in France of Holocaust denial theories published by the ultra-left La Vieille Taupe bookshop in Paris. It was at this time that Robert Faurisson wrote a letter to Le Monde claiming that the gas chambers and genocide were “a Jewish fabrication that has made possible an enormous political and financial swindle which benefits the State of Israel above all.”35 The stunning effect of these charges was made even greater, according to Liliane Kandel, by the fact that some of her friends thought that Faurisson was asking “some very pertinent questions.”36 This attitude to Holocaust denial resulted in her thinking more analytically about antisemitism. She came to develop a special interest in the roles played by women in Fascism and Nazism. She went on to study these topics in greater depth in a seminar given by her friend Rita Thalmann. Meetings and symposia led to the publication of work on these subjects.37 Kandel observes that before this, the feminist movement had not addressed such issues as women in the Resistance, women deportees, and women under the Vichy government. F EMINIST A CTIVISTS R AISE THE I SSUE OF A NTISEMITISM It was not until 1997 that ANEF, the Association nationale des études feministes, organized a one-day symposium on “Feminists in the Face of

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Antisemitism and Racism.” Liliane Kandel spoke forcefully about the “silence” in the women’s movement concerning the Nazi period:

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This movement has existed for more than twenty-five years—a quarter of a century. For years, the argument is or has been that people were “speaking about themselves” (the version of the 1970s consciousness-raising groups) or, alternatively, that “people began as themselves” (a slightly more sophisticated version in the 1980s). This implies that the 1930s or ’40s, a period that some of us (or our fathers or grandmothers) lived through, have nothing to do with such feminist “selves. . . .”38 Liliane Kandel may well be critical of the French feminist movement for its silence about antisemitism, the Holocaust and both right- and left-wing revisionism. However, she makes the point that her goal is definitely not to further any form of “feminist multiculturalism,” which would take account of “ethnic differences” and juxtapose them with a “hypocritical respect for differences.” Liliane Kandel did not take part in “Jewish women’s” groups in the movement’s early years. At that time, together with her fellow feminists she was involved in compiling the Everyday Sexism column published regularly by Les Temps modernes with Simone de Beauvoir’s support. Hence it was not the identity (gender or otherwise) aspect that led her to participate in the ANEF meeting. Rather, as she put it, “I am only trying to understand why we stopped ourselves from thinking about events like Nazism, the concentration camps, the Shoah as long as they did not primarily concern women.”39 Placing the identity aspect in parentheses is one of the characteristics of Beauvoirian universalism espoused by Liliane Kandel. For her, Simone de Beauvoir’s famous statement, “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman,” is not limited to gender: it applies just as well to other aspects or ways of being.40 Unexpectedly, this call to speak out led a number of Jewish women attending this symposium to talk about their roots. It was as if these Jewish or Jewish-background feminists had been waiting for this signal to “unpack” their innermost thoughts about a Jewishness that had been hidden; suddenly a kind of Jewish “coming out” took place. Françoise Basch,41 the granddaughter of the famous Victor Basch,42 who was murdered during the Occupation by the Lyon French militia, recalls her childhood in an assimilated French Jewish family: When I was a child, my French-born parents seemed to me to be mute about their Jewish background. So because of the way that I was brought up, I was severed from all roots: no historical references, no mention of the festivals (not even Yom Kippur). . . . But it was in the

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United States that I discovered a visible Jewish reality: stores closed on Saturday, friends who identified as Jewish, and it was there that for the first time I set foot in a synagogue, for Yom Kippur, of all things. . . . So? What does this Jewish identity represent? First of all, facts to do with the war. My cousin and my uncle—one of them Jewish, the other not—were deported to Buchenwald. . . . My grandparents’ murder was undoubtedly what triggered my awareness, but what was the murderers’ primary reason: to exterminate an antifascist, or a Jew?. . . . My path to a slightly more solid and less anguished Jewish identity involved some unconscious but powerful force that led me to write the biography of Victor Basch.43 Encouraged by the fact that Françoise Basch had spoken out, Jacqueline Feldman used the opportunity to express her own feelings, which she shared publicly with her friends and colleagues in the women’s movement:

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When I was very young, I felt—I found out that there were two things that would make things especially difficult for me in society: I was Jewish, and I was a female. So for me, these two have always gone hand in hand, even if I didn’t think about them in the same way and at the same time. . . . With women I thought about what it meant to be a woman in a man’s society. And it was with other Jewish women that we thought about what it meant to be Jewish women in a non-Jewish society. . . . I was a girl during the war, I will not elaborate. . . . When I started thinking about my Jewish identity, which had been pretty well erased by my parents, who wanted to be secular through and through, I realized that being Jewish amounted to an incredible degree of obstinacy and determination in history. You’re a woman, you remain a woman. But when it comes to being Jewish, it’s a choice, you can change names.44 In part, the discussions at the ANEF symposium unintentionally focused on the issue of what Jewishness meant for some of the participants with Jewish backgrounds. But they were the upshot of a central question that was common to all the women attending this event: the silence in the feminist movement about antisemitism, the Holocaust, and revisionism. This “silence,” however, had different implications for non-Jews and for Jews. For the former, not opening up a discussion about this area meant shying away from thinking about a past charged with issues to do with responsibility, accountability. For the Jews, it can also mean the difficulty, not to say impossibility of speaking out, particularly for Holocaust survivors. Speaking out may in this case mean soul-searching, inescapably having to

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100 Being Jewish and Feminist in France think about what “being Jewish” means for that person, as happened at this feminist gathering.45 There are countless forms of expression of such an experience, including religion, culture, memory or ties with Israel. For Jewish feminists, including even those furthest from Jewish culture and identity, their own experiences of antisemitism, what they lived through in the Holocaust or Holocaust memory, cannot but provide a bitter reminder of their Jewish roots. Antisemitism is a shadow which is always hovering in the background, and can suddenly appear out of the blue. Jewish women often say things like: “I don’t say I’m Jewish at work, but I think they know.” This run-of-the-mill antisemitism can be found everywhere, including in women’s movement groups. Caroline Kunstenaar, an activist since Day 1, describes her painful experience in a feminist publication.46 Writing about various blunders, she tells the story of an activist colleague who counted the number of Jewish women in a women’s group, and thought there were “a lot” of them; or another tale about her “feminist” friend who at a European Parliament conference on prostitution came out point blank with the following: “I feel the same way as you do, it’s a terrible job (prostitution), just think, you’ve got to put up with them all, Arabs and even Jews.” Her friend knew perfectly well that she was Jewish, but forgot it for a split second. As described earlier, in the 1980s there were many articles and conferences about this antisemitism in feminist movements in the United States. But in France it is becoming ever harder today to speak openly about this subject because of the reactions to which it gives rise. Widespread terms—used by Jews as well as non-Jews—include “victimization,” “Jewish paranoia,” the “delusion of antisemitism,” or instrumentalization. The upshot is often silence, mixing with Jews only, and traditional Jewish discretion. Whether justified or not, the fear of antisemitism undoubtedly remains one of the dominant factors in Jewish identity in the Diaspora.

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V OICES OF R EMEMBRANCE AND S ILENCES OF M EMORY Women who lived through the German Occupation and deportation do not always need to mull over the dilemmas of their Jewish identity. This was hurled at them with the utmost force, not to say brutality, erupting into what might have been a humdrum existence. Historian Rita Thalmann is one of those who did not need to be spurred into rediscovering their Jewish identity. Born into an Orthodox Jewish family in Nuremberg, as a child she lived through the rise of Nazism in Germany. Together with her parents she experienced being “undesirable Jewish émigrés” in France and Switzerland, during the darkest period in Jewish history.47 As an orphan, she graduated

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Being Jewish and Feminist in France 101 after the war and went on to do research about Nazi Germany. Her earlier works include many books about Nazism, Jews and women. It was at this time that she began to focus on women’s roles in history. As she admits, she came to feminism as a result of her experience of antisemitism, rather than the other way round, as is the case for most American feminists.48 Between 1985 and 1996 Rita Thalmann gave a seminar at the University of Paris VII that has become renowned. Its subject matter included the extreme right, racism, and different forms of exclusion affecting women and ethnic minorities.49 Many of her students went on to become engaged in feminism as well as in combating racism and antisemitism. Only after retiring from academe did she take the time to publish her own history—the story of her family— which she called Tout commença à Nuremberg (It all began in Nuremberg”), referring to the city of her birth. One cannot but compare her experiences with those of the American historian Gerda Lerner described above: this specialist in women’s history acknowledges that her Jewish experience, especially as a refugee from Nazism, instinctively led her to work on the history of women and marginal groups, laying the foundations for her career as an outstanding historian. “After the Holocaust, history was not something outside me. . . . Those of us who had survived were responsible for keeping memory alive, so as to stand up against the complete annihilation of our people. History became an obligation.”50 Working on historical research and analysis can lead to thinking about oneself, one’s own past and the oppression that has been suffered. The result may trigger many forms of commitment, with potentially therapeutic effects. This has certainly been the case for people like Thalmann, Lerner, Kandel, Basch, and many others. The French politician Simone Veil, who survived Auschwitz, cannot forget this “wall of silence” which greeted the Holocaust survivors when they returned to France: “They ran into a wall of silence, a leaden weight. It took years for the Holocaust to become part of our country’s historical reality.”51 In the early 2000s she became the president of the Fondation pour la Mémoire de la Shoah (FMS). She took every opportunity to underscore the role of the historian and the importance of the historical discipline: “The memory of the past and the awareness of the lessons to be derived from them must help politicians, intellectuals and citizens to regain and reclaim the values of tolerance and fellowship.”52 In the 2004 annual FMS Report, Simone Veil emphasizes the valuable contribution of writers who excoriate the horrors of Nazism in works of literature. Literary or artistic work leads us to a disappropriation of genocide and then to a “beneficial distanciation.” 53 For some the wound will remain, buried in the depth of the self. This is similar to the question asked by the French philosopher Sarah Kofman on

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reading Robert Antelme’s work The Human Race: “How can one tell that which cannot, without delusion, be ‘communicated’”? That for which there are no words.” 5 4 She goes on, however, to add: “If no story is possible after Auschwitz, there remains, nonetheless, a duty to speak, to speak endlessly for those who could not speak because to the very end they wanted to safeguard true speech against betrayal.”55 At the time, she was unaware of the enormous innermost strength needed to open such wounds. After a writing a major philosophical work, she decided to undertake the telling of this tale of her childhood, an account that she had never managed to write. In the introduction to this short book—about one hundred pages—she admits that this work is an essential part of her entire body of writing: “My many books were perhaps paths that I had to follow in order to manage to tell this.”56 Soon afterward, she took her own life. The philosopher’s last work had a cathartic effect on her, was a “cry,” as Françoise Collin put it at a symposium held in tribute to Kofmann: “The act of narration is the transitional space between the naught of the cry and the act of speech.”57 This expression echoes the title of Henri Raczymow’s Un cri sans voix (“A cry without voice”). In this fact-based work of fiction, the author tries to get his head round the suffering of Esther, who was born in Paris in 1943 to parents who managed to avoid deportation. What could have been the cause of the suicide, at the age of 32, of this apparently untroubled young woman? He had something of an idea because of the photo of Jewish women fighters in the Warsaw Ghetto which was on the wall in her room: her obsession with the war, the Warsaw Ghetto, the death camps which she did not actually live through but which inflicted an incurable wound on her. 58 Sadly, such tragic and extreme examples are far from the exception.59 As Simone Veil observed on the basis of the example of Primo Levi, who also chose to fall forever silent: I think that the silence chosen by Primo Levi, when he killed himself after writing his outstanding work, expresses our fundamental and paradoxical inability to communicate. We wish to bear witness, but at the same time this causes us unbearable pain.60 In her book Le silence de la mémoire Nicole Lapierre also refers to the “eloquence of silence” after the Holocaust: Speech is impossible, but forgetting is unbearable. This painful and haunted in-betweenness is the only thing transmitted. From one generation to the other, the pain is perceived. For a long time, my Jewish consciousness was restricted to the knowledge of that pain. A pain that I did not experience directly, like the remembrance of a fictitious wound.61

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Being Jewish and Feminist in France 103 All Jews have been consciously or unconsciously branded by the Shoah, irrespective of whether they were directly affected by it. They know that they were all targeted by Nazism. In France, the Vichy regime’s collaboration with the Nazis remains a shadow that continues to loom large over the relationship between Jews and non-Jews. This collaboration will continue to make the issue of antisemitism a highly sensitive topic which cannot readily be addressed to this very day.

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T HE S TATE OF I SRAEL : I DENTITY - BASED I NVOLVEMENT Israel is another identity-related issue. Like it or not, this is a part of Jewish identity that cannot be denied. Some of the French feminists with whom we spoke admitted that they became aware of their Jewish identity through their in activities for peace in the Middle East, whether pro-Israel or pro-Palestinian. Régine Dhoquois-Cohen says that her involvement in the Committee of Jewish Intellectuals against the War in Lebanon in 1982 had a marked effect on her attitude to her Jewishness. It was also at this time that she decided to take the name Cohen again: after the war, her father had changed the family name in order to escape the stigma of being visibly Jewish.62 She then joined Amiratz (which supported the Israeli left-wing Ratz party),63 observing: “We didn’t deny our Jewish identity, but at the same time we were universalists.” Later she would be one of the earliest members of the Paris “Women in Black” group,64 from which she would later resign.65 This is just one example of left-wing feminist activists who put a great deal of effort into peace movements at different stages in the Israeli-Arab conflict. For some of them who no longer had any Jewish ties, paradoxically this—even when it opposed Israeli policies—was a springboard for acknowledging and coming to terms with their Jewishness. It was her way of reconciling her left-wing leanings with a sense of Jewish belonging that until then had been sidelined. The same holds true for many members of left-wing groups who were in the Committee of Jewish Intellectuals against the War in Lebanon in 1982, just as Jewish students, especially members of Trotskyite and Maoist groups, had continued to play a major role since the May ‘68 events. Régine Dhoquois has her own way of explaining the reasons for this left-wing Jewish—something in which she took part: Many of these young Jews, who had a historically long memory but were also very sensitive to exclusion, began a struggle to systematically defend those who were oppressed—the underdogs. This explains why there were so many Jews in extreme-left groups, and also

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104 Being Jewish and Feminist in France in pro-Palestinian groups, for example. They “specialized” in “oppression.” Antisemitism took a back seat. . . . They made their “science of exclusion” available to others who were excluded. In times of crisis they sometimes came out as Jews. One of the Committee members came out with a witticism, calling them “eclipse-style Jews.”66 Corinne Welger, a feminist activist who shared this revolutionary background, refers to this trend at the time, but goes on to admit that today, she sees things differently: In revolutionary milieus (of the 1960s) we were almost all Jewish and pro-Palestinian. We claimed to follow the Bund. For us, Zionism was the “other branch” which had no reason to exist. Most of us were the children of deported Jews or of survivors, or children of parents who had been Communists. So there was no longer a Jewish question, we were “universalists.” We were not enemies of Israel, but we did consider it to be an aberration. Even today, this anti-Israeli view is held by part of the left-wing and the extreme left-wing. . . . Today, I see things quite differently: the irreversibility of the Jewish State, the necessity for its creation, for a state apparatus to defend itself, especially after the Holocaust; in short, the understanding that Israel is part of our overall mechanism as Jews.67

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Danielle Bailly, who by her own admission has “intense and committed” ties with Israel, nevertheless makes the point that for her, the Diaspora is “central to her existence” in combination with Yiddish culture. She considers it a “mission” for Diaspora Jews to keep this culture alive in the countries in which they live. Hence she defines her ties with the State of Israel in terms of “emotion”: My relationship with Israel is perhaps more emotional than anything else, because for Diaspora Jews, it is the only country in the world where we will never be addressed as a “dirty Jew” or a kike. In particular I had a “romantic” love for the socialist approach of the kibbutzim, but sadly, today they have become so marginal! I was proud of the values pursued by the Israel of the time, a more secular and more egalitarian country. Today what I feel for Israel is a “disappointed love.” This doesn’t stop me from feeling some pride when I think of Israel, for example of its technological or scientific achievements, its vitality and so on, but I do not recognize as Jewish its pseudo-values of might, American-style liberalism, and territorial nationalism.68

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Being Jewish and Feminist in France 105 Other women opted to live in Israel in order to express their Jewishness. However, people like Danielle Storper-Perez and, later, Caroline Kunstenaar did not give up their activism after their move to Israel.69 After the Six-Day War, quite a few Jewish intellectuals went to Israel. One was the philosopher and psychoanalyst Éliane Amado Lévy-Valensi, who gave up a brilliant university career in France to take up a position at an Israeli university. In a short text which she wrote for the Jewish Agency on being a woman and a Jew, she stated her position on this dual factuality: Yes, I am a woman and I’m Jewish. This is not something to which I lay claim, nor a passive acceptance. It is part of an objective state of affairs, the discovery of a landscape of which more and more can be see, depending on where you stand, along a certain route.

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She says that in France, some Christian thinkers had compared her with Simone Weil and Edith Stein, both of whom died in the war.70 She notes that however brilliant they were, these two philosophers, who had chosen Christianity, “didn’t want to be women, nor Jewish.” 71 She added: “I made my way with my face uncovered, decidedly Jewish, decidedly a woman, and did I create a scandal!”72 Éliane Amado Lévy-Valensi opted to pursue her intellectual path and her Jewishness in Israel. To come and live in Israel is tantamount to accepting all her Jewish identities, however complex, “without creating a scandal.” On the other side of the coin, there are people for whom Israel stirs up no emotion or empathy. An example is Gisèle Halimi, who fights tooth and nail for women’s rights and prefers to place her Jewish background very firmly in parentheses. In an interview with an online magazine, she was asked how she felt about the conflict in the Middle East: I have never defined myself as Jewish. First of all, being Jewish is a religion, ritual practices. I have no religion or ritual practices. I would go so far as to say that I have Jewish antecedents, but what does that have to do with my choice of being a left-winger, or my choice of being a feminist? Nothing whatsoever. I have never identified people around me by their religion.”73 For Gisèle Halimi, religion seems to be a decisive, not to say exclusive, token of Jewish identity. However, in her autobiographical books, her cultural and family bond with Judaism is very clear, if only in her painful search for the love of her mother.74 Does this Jewish mother not symbolize her own ties with Jewishness? If we disregard these private thoughts, which fall under the heading of psychoanalysis, why should Jewishness be limited to religious observance? She knows full well that worldwide a majority of Jews identify

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106 Being Jewish and Feminist in France themselves as Jews without following any ritual practices. The very fact that she distinguishes and disassociates herself from this kind of Jewishness before replying to a question on the Middle East conflict proves that she does acknowledge another factor in Jewish identity, from which she similarly disassociates herself. She makes the point very adamantly that her harsh criticism of Israel, like her other positions, has nothing to do with her Jewish background. This makes her stance very remote from the classical position of many Jews who call themselves progressive, in the United States and in France alike. Such people tend to claim that their very Jewishness, some idea of Jewish ethics, has led to their revolutionary engagement and sometimes even their criticism of Israel. The stance of Sonia Dayan-Herzbrun, a French academic who specializes in gender and Arab world studies, is very close to that of Gisèle Halimi. This should not necessarily rule out any interest whatsoever in Judaism, in which her family has its roots. However for her, antisemitism is “a problem of the past.” As a result, she prefers to devote herself, to the problems currently facing France, and specifically to immigrants from the Maghreb and their children. These days in France people have to pick sides, as if it is impossible to be concerned about Jews and immigrants at one and the same time. Above all, Sonia Dayan-Herzbrun does not want to hear about the problem of Jews nowadays, which she considers irrelevant. When asked how she herself feels about Jewishness, she replies, “I am a human being,” and hence a universalist above all. After giving the matter some thought, she admits that she has something of a link to Judaism, if it is “open, free of dogmatism, and definitely not Zionist.” Born into a religious Jewish family, she does keep a few traditions, such as wanting “to be buried in the Jewish way.” Her passionate interest in the Muslim world makes her indifferent to Jewish problems, to judge by appearances at least. According to her terms, she is more concerned by Islamophobia than by antisemitism. A Jewish trait is to want “to be in the other person’s shoes.” In one of her articles, Naomi Seidman refers to American movies which have illustrated this phenomenon in a comical fashion: Woody Allen in Zelig (1983) describes a Jewish man who “is able to transform himself into a Negro or an Indian.” Anthony Drazan’s film Zebrahead (1992) is the story of a Jewish adolescent in the role of “would-be African American.” Anything but Jewish. Taken to the extreme, this altruism is already part of contemporary Jewish history.75 Another example of this phenomenon is Ania Francos, a Polish-born French-Jewish journalist who is a Holocaust survivor. Just before the SixDay War, she visited Egypt, Syria, and Jordan where she heard calls to murder Jews (Adbah el Yehoud, “slit the Jews’ throats”). This did not stop her

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Being Jewish and Feminist in France 107 from identifying with the Palestinians, as she recounts in her book The Palestinians. In 1970, the book was turned into a film still being shown in Algeria. She expressed her feelings very simply in a 1979 interview in the feminist magazine Histoire d’Elles: Lastly, what does being Jewish mean to me, someone who is neither religious nor Zionist?. . . It means that everything affects me. I am personally moved by the Vietnamese. My anxieties, my fears are nurtured by everything. There’s a positive side to this: constant, neverending doubt. Speaking out, wondering, questioning. It is not by chance that there are so many Jews in revolutionary movements.76 So this brings us back to the same phenomenon that we saw earlier with some American progressive Jewish feminists: the way that they will fight tooth and nail when it comes to all other forms of “oppression,” with the notable exception of those suffered by the Jews. As quoted above by way of illustration of this attitude: “I could (generously, not selfishly) fight for justice—not for myself, but for them.”77 There is, however, a difference between American and French progressive Jews: the latter never use the Jewish concept of tikkun olam to define their altruistic positions. They prefer to disconnect their attitude from Jewish values and to focus on universalism.

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A MBIGUITIES OF F RENCH J EWISH I DENTITY IN “F EMININE W RITING ” Universalism, particularism, differentialism are all concepts discussed in feminist theories and often used to study Jewish difference and specificity. Among the French Jewish feminists who enable us to analyze the ambiguities of Jewish identity, Hélène Cixous appears to be closest to American Jewish feminists. As a specialist of “feminine writings,” Cixous asks women to “think differently” about their histories, not simply in the sense of origins but in terms of language too. Drawing on the “resources of the imaginary, mining its depths,” women must invent another history, one which is outside the narratives of power, inequality, and oppression. Cixous never defined herself as a “feminist” and even less as a “Jewish feminist.” But she has no problem when it comes to expressing her Jewishness as her feminine identity. A prolific writer (fiction, theatre, essays), she includes in her texts many autobiographical elements which describe her Jewish family milieu in Algeria where she grew up.78 With a rich style full of puns and metaphors, she is greatly appreciated by American feminists who consider her a leading representative of “French feminism,” and the theoretician who developed the concept of “feminine writings.” In an article which introduced her to readers outside France, “The Laugh of the Medusa,” she

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108 Being Jewish and Feminist in France urges women to write, an act which, as she puts it, “will stand for woman’s speaking out and hence her sensational come back into History.” In France her voice is heard less in feminist circles, drowned out by the dominant universalist tendency. While she is indisputably part of the intellectual world and French feminism, what she has to say can help to develop and expand discussions of Jewish identity. Cixous can readily switch from pondering the difference between the sexes to thinking about the Jewish difference. When she is asked about her Jewishness, she is happy to discuss the topic, with which she is familiar “in every respect.” She makes the point that she feels closer to a cultural form of Judaism, not Judaism as a religion.79 She shares her main reflections about her Jewishness with the philosopher Jacques Derrida, who like her was from Algeria. Derrida was her close friend, her alter ego, for more than forty years. When she writes essays on Derrida’s Jewishness, she expresses her own Jewish identity: “When I speak of how he relates to Jewishness, suddenly I find myself talking about how I relate to Jewishness.”80 So those who wish to familiarize themselves with her positions on Judaism should read her essays about him: Portrait of Jacques Derrida as a Young Jewish Saint, Veils, Insister of Jacques Derrida, and “Ce corps Étranjuif.” To illustrate our point, we will briefly review a few ideas taken from “Ce corps Étranjuif” (On the foreign body), published in the proceedings of a symposium in honor of Derrida which had a very meaningful title: “Jewishness—Some questions for Jacques Derrida.”81 In this text she takes, in no particular order, a number of Jewish themes from Derrida’s works, and blends them with events from her own life. To do so she uses puns and metaphors which are typical of Derrida’s philosophical writings: “circonfession,” mourning, the “talit,” the exclusion of schools under Vichy, and the word “Jew”: “This word ‘Jew,’ the French word ‘juif,’ this heavy and at the same time volatile word, he is not afraid of it. . . .”82 One of the terms she adopted for example is Derrida’s concept of “marranos” (“the desire to be marranos”),83 a status to which Derrida liked to lay claim. Marranos or “secret Jews” were Jews living in the Iberian Peninsula, who were forced to convert to Catholicism and then practiced Judaism in secret. At the present time, the term “marranism” is sometimes invoked to describe the status of Jews after the Emancipation: to be a Jew at home, but like a “Christian” outside. It is reminiscent of some aspects of the French traditions of integration and universalism, refraining from exhibiting ethnic identities in public. In addition, this phenomenon is perhaps the major difference between French and American Jews. Today’s American Jews live their private lives in a manner quite similar to that of their Christian fellow citizens. They have

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Being Jewish and Feminist in France 109 “come out of the closet” and they and their Jewishness are no longer in hiding.84 Today, however, traditional French “marranism” is balanced out by a goodly number of French Jews who make a point of asserting their Jewishness through ties with Israel, as well as the Jewish religion and culture, and Jewish memory. However, when it comes to writing, in France Jewish women still do not make the link between their feminism and their Jewish identity. Unlike the United States where feminism and Jewishness have become topics that go hand in hand and have become intermingled, sometimes even overlapping, in France both sides often mistrust each other. To quote the philosopher Elisabeth de Fontenay in a 1976 interview that appeared in a special edition of Nouveaux Cahiers on Jewish women:

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If I do not help myself, who will help me? And if I only help myself, what am I? This is the path, this is the question: we are living in a time marked simultaneously by the struggle of women and the survival of the Jews. This dual affinity divides us ad infinitum and makes us hesitate as to which is the ultimate authority. To be a woman or to be a Jew. Such questions may be so conflicting that a Jewish woman may be prevented from being unreservedly involved in militant actions.85 This illustrates an emblematic French Jewish dilemma: the potential tension between Jewish engagement and feminism. In the United States, even though there are often instances of backlash against women’s movements and conservatism frequently surfaces, feminism has become a fact of life, even among the working class. In contrast, in France it is still frowned upon, frequently bound up as it is with the war of the sexes, subversion, and antimotherhood. Women who are involved in Jewish communities, including Jewish women’s organizations, are also wary of the “feminist” label, which in the 1970s was identified with the internationalist left wing that was hostile to Jewish particularism and the State of Israel. Like many French women, they “do feminism” but refrain from using the term. A few final remarks about the path taken by French and American Jewish women relative to identity and feminist issues from the late 1960s on: One of the areas analyzed addresses the reasons that led many Jewish women to switch from their feminist activity to that for Jewish causes. Also analyzed is how Jewish identity adapted to feminism, especially among American Jewish feminists. Comparing French and American feminists, we find that although the identity spectrum is similar, their way of analyzing and thinking about issues is very different. The American feminist tradition involves a narrative that begins with the individual telling her tale, and the outward expression of Jewishness. This finishes with triggering an open,

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110 Being Jewish and Feminist in France relaxed debate, unencumbered by hang-ups, on both Judaism and feminism. The specter of identity issues or the essentialism of French universalist feminism, sometimes tied in with a degree of fear of antisemitism, means that the debate in France is far more limited. However, in English-speaking countries too, it is not an easy thing for feminists to speak out about Jewish subjects or as Jews, because they may run into “politically correct” issues or risk being sidelined. In an article entitled “The Politics of Jewish Invisibility,” the American feminist Evelyn Torton Beck describes the difficulties of including themes whose subject matter specifically addresses the cultures and histories of Jewish women in academic settings, including at feminist conferences. Increasingly, Jewish themes are being systematically excluded from women’s studies texts.86 This means that the “universalist” option can be found on both sides of the Atlantic. To sum up: we have outlined the history of a symbiosis—or an attempt at symbiosis—between feminist activism and Jewish engagement, and sometimes even between a woman’s identity and Jewish identity. Factors that categorically oppose such a link have also been reviewed, for France as well as English-speaking countries. Having examined Jewish women’s identity issues, we will now go further and look at how feminism relates to religions, and to Judaism in particular.

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N OTES 1. In 1905 the separation of church and state under the French Third Republic was applauded by Jews who enthusiastically supported laïcité (a term usually translated as secularism), considered as a protective “contract” with the French Republic, especially against antisemitism. 2. Radical and separatist feminism seems to have been imported from America, whereas American feminists were influenced by the universalist feminism of Simone de Beauvoir. 3. Percy S. Cohen, Jewish Radicals and Radical Jews (London: Academic Press, 1980). 4. The first Islamic veil affair occurred in 1989. “Ni Putes Ni Soumises” (Neither whores nor submissive) was created in March 2003 by Fadela Amara, following the “March of the women of the neighborhoods against ghettoes and for equality.” 5. This spiritual and intellectual movement, which arose in Orsay, and later around the Annual French Jewish Intellectuals Conferences, is called the Paris School of Jewish Thought; Shmuel Trigano, “L’école de pensée juive de Paris,” Pardès 23 (1997). 6. In 1972, Sallie Priesand was ordained the first woman rabbi by Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion, in Cincinnati, Ohio, the seminary for the Reform movement in the United States. 7. Thirteenth Conference of Jewish Intellectuals of France (Oct. 1972),

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Being Jewish and Feminist in France 111 “‫ދ‬L’autre’ dans la conscience juive, le sacré et le couple” (The “other” in the Jewish consciousness, the sacred and the couple) (Paris: PUF, 1973). 8. Les Nouveaux cahiers, no. 46 (Autumn 1976), special issue, Voix d’Elles; and an appendix in Les Nouveaux cahiers, no. 47 (Winter 1977). 9. Les Nouveaux cahiers, no. 47 (Winter 1977): 1. 10. Alain Finkielkraut, Le Juif imaginaire (The imaginary Jew) (Paris: Seuil, 1981) was well received because it expressed clearly and intelligibly the dilemmas of post-Holocaust Jewish identity in France. It was preceded in the 1960s by Albert Memmi (born in Tunisia in 1920), who invented French terms to express diverse forms of Judaism and Jewishness (“judéité,” “judaïté,” “judaïcité”). See idem, Portrait d’un Juif (Paris: Gallimard, 1962); La libération du Juif (Paris: Payot, 1966). 11. Patrice de Plunkett and Louis Pauwels, “Être juif—des intellectuels s’interrogent,” Figaro Magazine, 28 April 1989. 12. Women who participated massively in the May 1968 protest had seen the feminine claim relegated to the back row of social issues. They became aware of the necessity of an independent political and more radical women’s movement. 13. All currents of the far left, anarchist, Trotskyist, and Maoists, had Jews among their primary leadership: Daniel Cohn-Bendit, Alain Geismar, Alain Krivine, Pierre Victor (Benny Lévy), André Glucksmann, and many others. 14. The founding leaders of the French women’s movement were not Jewish: Monique Wittig, Antoinette Fouque, Christine Delphy, Anne Zelenski, Françoise Picq, Claudie Lesselier. 15. In 1967 Jacqueline Feldman together with Anne Zélensky set up a small feminist group of men and women called “Féminin, Masculin, Avenir” (F.M.A). After the 1968 events these initials became: “féminisme, marxisme, action” (Feminism, Marxism, Action). They later joined the Women’s Liberation movement. 16. Gisèle Halimi became famous as a result of her media-coverage defense of a female minor who had an abortion following a rape (Trial of Bobigny, 1972). At that time abortion was strictly forbidden in France. 17. Maya Surdut (“class struggle” feminist trend) is general secretary of CADAC (Coordination des associations pour le droit à l’avortement et à la contraception), a cooperative body created in 1990 to defend women’s rights, particularly rights of abortion and contraception. 18. Nelly Las, conversations with a 1970s French Jewish feminist activist, Paris, 12 May 2004. 19. Jacqueline Feldman, “Être femme, être juive—Propos personnels pour une contribution à une sociologie de la domination” (To be a woman, to be a Jew— Personal comments for a contribution to a sociology of domination), unpublished. 20. Henry Rousso, The Vichy Syndrome: History and Memory in France since 1944 translated by Arthur Goldhammer (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,1991), 10, 127. 21. Françoise Picq, Libération des femmes: les années-mouvement (Paris: Seuil, 1993), 121–23. 22. This group was one of the so-called “groupes du jeudi” (Thursday groups). The feminist publication Le Torchon brûle was to publish reports of the “Jewishness group” discussions but failed to do so. 23. Régine Dhoquois-Cohen, interview by Nelly Las, Paris, 15 May 2004. 24. Jacqueline Feldman, “Être femme, être juive” (unpublished, 1997), was an

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112 Being Jewish and Feminist in France exception. 25. Marthe Coppel’s complete text was published after her death as “Hommage à Marthe Coppel-Batsch—Vivre sa judéité au MLF en 1974,” in the Jewish journal Diasporiques, no. 44 (Dec. 2007) by her friend Régine Dhoquois-Cohen. 26. Anonymous, personal archives (Régine Dhoquois-Cohen). 27. Ibid. 28. At the time, Redith Estenne-Geismar was married to Alain Geismar, one of the foremost leaders of the French left-wing trend of the May 1968 revolt. 29. The members of this group met in July 2010, to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the French “Women’s Lib” Movement (MLF), and since then, have resumed working together. 30. Correspondence, Nelly Las with Danielle Bailly, July 2010. 31. Jean Zacklad (1929–1990) was a French Jewish philosopher whose work focused on Tanakh commentary and Jewish mysticism. From the 1970s, he held a weekly study group in his home on rue de Dieu. Among his students were Redith (wife of the leftist activist Alain Geismar), Francis and Danièlle Bailly, and Léo and Benny Lévy who later adopted an Orthodox Jewish lifestyle and emigrated to Israel. Zacklad’s books included Les deux modèles de la religion (Paris: Bibliophane, 1988) and Pour une éthique (Lagrase: Verdier, 1979). 32. Danielle Bailly, ed., The Hidden Children of France (1940–1945) Stories of Survival, translated by Betty Becker-Theye (Albany: SUNY, 2010); a collection of testimonies of Jewish children hidden during the Holocaust. Her husband, Francis Bailly, was elected general secretary of the Scientific Researchers Union (1968– 1971). He followed Zacklad’s teaching for six years and then continued studying Jewish texts by himself. He published two books on “Rationalist Kabbalah”: Mosaïsme et société: de la tradition à la révolution (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2003); Pouvoir et société: le regard du mosaïsme (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2005). 33. From the 1980s on, an Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox trend has been dominant in the French Jewish community. 34. Nelly Las, correspondence with Danielle Bailly, July 2010. 35. Robert Faurisson, “Le problème des chambres à gaz ou la rumeur d’Auschwitz” (The problem of the gas chambers—the rumor of Auschwitz), Letter to the newspaper Le Monde, 16 Jan. 1979. 36. Liliane Kandel, interviewed by Nelly Las. Liliane Kandel is a sociologist, member of the Editorial Committee of the journal Les Temps modernes (created by Jean-Paul Sartre in 1945). She was in charge of the Research Center of Feminist Studies at the Paris VII University (Centre d’Énseignement, de documentation et de recherches pour les études féministes (CEDREF). 37. Liliane Kandel, ed. Féminisme et nazisme (Paris: Odile Jacob, 2004); idem, “Feminism and Anti-Semitism,” in Thinking Differently. A European Women’s Studies Reader, edited by Gabriele Griffin and Rosi Braidotti (London: Zed Books, 2002). 38. Liliane Kandel, “Une analyse “féministe de la Shoah?,” Supplement of the ANEF bulletin, no. 26 (Spring/Summer 1998): 25. 39. Ibid., 43. 40. Ibid. 41. Françoise Basch is professor emerita at the Paris VII University. In 1975 she co-founded the first feminist studies group in France.

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Being Jewish and Feminist in France 113 42. Victor Basch (1863–1944), French philosopher and politician, founder of the Rennes branch of the League of Human Rights (1898). In 1944, he was arrested with his wife Ilona and assassinated by the French militia under the Vichy regime. 43. Françoise Basch, recorded in ANEF Bulletin 26 (Spring–Summer, 1998), 69. Françoise Basch published a biography of her grandfather under the title: Victor Basch, de l’Affaire Dreyfus au crime de la Milice (Paris: Plon 1994). 44. Jacqueline Feldman, recorded in ANEF Bulletin 26 (Spring–Summer 1998) 74–75. 45. It was the first time that such a subject was officially raised in a feminist debate in France. There has been no repetition. 46. Caroline Kunstenaar, “Sois juive et tais-toi” (Be Jewish and keep silent), Paris Féministe bulletin (1980): 11. 47. Rita Thalmann, Tout commença à Nuremberg (Paris: Berg International, 2004). 48. Rita Thalmann, “Le racisme est-il soluble dans l’oppression de genre?,” ANEF Bulletin 26 (Spring–Summer 1998) 15. 49. Articles written by researchers and students in Rita Thalmann’s seminar “Sexe et Race” were published in the CEDREF series Colloques et travaux. 50. G. Lerner, Why History Matters, 3–17. 51. Simone Veil, Speech at the Groupe d’action international pour la mémoire de la Shoah (GAIS) conference of GAIS, May 2003. 52. Simone Veil, “Letter of the President,” FMS Report (2003). 53. Simone Veil, “Letter of the President,” FMS Report (2004). 54. Sarah Kofman, Paroles suffoquées (Smothered words), translated from French by Madeleine Dobie (Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1988), 38. Antelme’s story of his experiences in concentration camps—his only book—put an indelible mark on an entire generation. Robert Antelme, The Human Race, translated by Jeffrey Haight and Annie Mahler (Marlboro, Vt.: Marlboro Press, 1992). 55. Ibid., 37. 56. Sarah Kofman, Rue Ordener, rue Labat, translated by Ann Smock (Lincoln, Neb.: University of Nebraska Press, 1996). is a moving memoir which opens with the horrifying moment in July 1942 when the author’s father, the rabbi of a small synagogue, was dragged by police from the family home on Rue Ordener in Paris, then transported to Auschwitz. 57. Françoise Collin, “L’impossible diététique—Philosophie et récit,” Les cahiers du Grif, Hommage à Sarah Kofman (Paris: Descartes & Cie, 1997). 58. Henri Raczymow, Un cri sans voix (A cry without voice) (Paris: Gallimard, 1985). 59. Odette Abadi, Terre de détresse: Birkenau–Bergen-Belsen (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1995); the author committed suicide shortly after writing her book, in which she recounted her experience of concentration camps. 60. Simone Veil, “Letter of the president,” FMS Report (2004). 61. Nicole Lapierre, Le silence de la mémoire (Paris: Stock, 1990), 16. 62. Régine Dhoquois-Cohen, interview by Nelly Las, Paris, 15 May 2004. 63. Ratz is the previous name of the Israeli left-wing party Meretz. 64. Wearing black clothes, the “Women in Black” protest against war and particularly against Israel’s occupation of the territories. See Chapter 5. 65. Régine Dhoquois-Cohen: “When we decided in 2001 to create a Women-in

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114 Being Jewish and Feminist in France Black group in Paris, we were four friends, all Jewish. Our slogan was the same as the Jerusalem Women in Black: ‘No to colonization, yes to two states for two peoples.’ We didn’t want leaders and structures, and little by little our group grew, gathering women with various affiliations. But without our noticing, pro-Palestinian women practiced a kind of entryism. They took the group over and hijacked the meaning of our action: there was much shouting, tears, anger. For me and some others, the only solution was to resign, because we did not want to give up our own positions.” 66. Régine Dhoquois, Appartenance et exclusion (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1989), 187. 67. Corinne Welger teaches art history at the Sorbonne. Interview by Nelly Las, Paris, 26 June 2003. 68. Correspondence, Nelly Las with Danielle Bailly, July 2010. 69. The two pursued their commitment for peace in Jerusalem. Danielle StorperPerez began to study biblical and Talmudic texts. 70. Eliane Amado-Levy-Valensi (1919–2006) was very active in JudeoChristian dialogue in France before her emigration to Israel in 1968, where she became professor of philosophy at Bar-Ilan University. 71. The negative positions of the philosopher Simone Weil (1909–1943) regarding Judaism and Jewish people are well known. Less known is her position on women’s issues. It seems that she considered the fact being a woman as a “bad luck.” She used to sign her letters to her parents, “Your son” and sometimes “Your son Simon.” As for Edith Stein (1891–1942), she was involved in her youth in Germany for women’s right to vote, before losing interest in it. Unlike Weil, Stein, who came from an observant Jewish family and converted to Christianity, was not critical of Judaism and the Old Testament; she was deported to Auschwitz and murdered on Aug. 9, 1942. 72. Éliane Amado-Levy Valensi, Oui, je suis femme et juive (“Yes, I am a woman and a Jew”) (Jerusalem: WZO, Department for Torah Education and Culture in the Diaspora, 1975). 73. Gisèle Halimi, interview by Delphine Descaves and Muriel Bemardin, L’Oeil Electrique, no. 16 (2000), http://oeil.electrique.free.fr/article.php?numero=16& articleid=52. 74. Gisèle Halimi, Fritna (Paris: Plon, 2000). 75. Seidman, “Fag-Hags and Bu-Jews,” 256. 76. Ruth Stegassy,“Être juive ici et maintenant, entretien avec Ania Francos” (To be Jewish here and now, interview with Ania Francos), Histoires d’Elles (Jan. 1979): 12. 77. Kaye/Kantrowitz, “Jews in the Civil Right Movements and After,” 105. 78. Part of her maternal family, of German-Austrian origin perished under the Nazi regime. 79. Hélène Cixous, interview by Nelly Las, Paris, 12 Apr. 2005. 80. Ibid. 81. Joseph Cohen and Raphael Zagury-Orly, eds., Judéités—Portrait of Jacques Derrida as a young Jewish Saint, translated by Beverley Bie Brahic (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005); Veils (autobiographic texts by Hélène Cixous and Jacques Derrida), translated by Geoffrey Bennington (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2001); Hélène Cixous, Insister of Jacques Derrida, translated by Peggy Kamuf (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2001); idem, “Ce corps

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Being Jewish and Feminist in France 115

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Étranjuif,” in Judéités, 59–75. 82. Ibid., 64. 83. Ibid., 63. 84. In the United States, even assimilated Jews may put a menorah in their windows for Chanukah, which often coincides with Christmas (some may also have a Christmas tree inside their homes). 85. Elisabeth de Fontenay, “Divisées à l’infini,” Nouveaux Cahiers (Autumn 1976). 86. Evelyn Torton Beck, “The Politics of Jewish Invisibility,” NWSA Journal 1, no. 1 (1988): 93–102.

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C HAPTER F IVE

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From Confrontation to Dialogue: Jewish Women Face Christian Theologies

Despite the secularization process which has shaped modern societies, religion is far from becoming extinct, even in societies whose aim is to eliminate it. Religious themes are firmly rooted in the cultures of the most secular countries: indeed, sometimes they are an inseparable part of their historical, cultural, or national identity. With the new millennium, religion is even making a comeback, and all kinds of extremism are on the rise. Although they are sometimes assigned a secondary or even degrading position within institutions, religions are still highly attractive to women, who willingly ensure that traditions are perpetuated.1 The religious sphere is of a different order than social struggles, although these two share certain similarities and to some extent overlap. In both domains, women are frequently praised, while at the same time they are sidelined or even oppressed. When dubbed “queens of the home,” this may be to exclude them more effectively from the public domain reserved for males exclusively. In churches, synagogues, or mosques, they have for the most part been compelled to be silent in the public sphere. Over the centuries, however, women have developed a range of strategies to defend themselves against the flagrant injustices to which they have been subject in their respective religions, without, however, rejecting or distancing themselves from them. Post-Enlightenment modernity, for all that it spread the ideas of equality and emancipation, did not lead rapidly to real change in the role and place imposed on women in the home or public space, nor in religion. Paradoxically, however, religion indirectly brought about conditions that favored women’s emancipation. During the nineteenth century, although men continued to control religious institutions, upper and middle class women were encouraged to engage in voluntary social and charitable actions. These were considered a moral and religious duty compatible with their “feminine vocation.” Such engagement by women in the name of religious duty enabled them to become familiar with the functioning of institutions. In this way they were able to step outside the private sphere, without challenging religious values and the institutions that represent them.

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From Confrontation to Dialogue 117 In the next century, the picture changed drastically with the demands made by the women’s liberation movement focused on the call for new rights for women, in particular the end of social control of female sexuality. In the late 1960s feminism was characterized by challenges to the religious legitimacy of the fundamental patriarchal order, based primarily on the family and the distribution and assignment of masculine and feminine roles. This inflicted the most devastating blow on all religions, which had already been interfered with and thwarted by rationalism and the diverse theoreticians of the “disenchantment of the world” which exercised great influence over this century.2 At the same time it was at this point that intense reflection began on how women related to religion. This occurred in the emerging setting of women’s studies at universities. Initially, criticism of religions took place on a political, not to say militant level. Feminists asserted that religious institutions were instrumental in maintaining inequality between the sexes, and were the most effective means of controlling women and keeping them in a subordinate place. Some of them began to study the intellectual and historical origins of religion, leading to an entire field of theoretical reflection and biblical criticism in the spirit of new ways of thinking. Religion, they soon realized, had positive aspects for women, and if it could address the female experience more effectively, it could become a constructive force. Hence the secular feminist movement of the 1970s had repercussions for the religious domain, odd though this may sound. It contributed to the emergence of a feminist theology which emerged in the United States with the early publications of two Christians, Mary Daly and Rosemary Radford Ruether.3 Subsequent European discussions would add to the impact on all religions.

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T HE B IRTH AND D EVELOPMENT OF A F EMINIST T HEOLOGY A feminist theology had put in a timid appearance towards the end of the 19th century in reaction to the masculine and androcentric theological approach. Today, however, it has become an academic discipline in its own right, embracing biblical research and hermeneutics, as well as history, systematic theology, and theological ethics. Biblical texts are reread and interpreted in order to identify and isolate those aspects that take account of feminine experiences. The number of women studying theology in American universities would triple in ten years.4 One of the liveliest discussions in this area addresses the real possibilities of pro-women change in the religious field, and in particular the possibility of freeing the Bible of its “patriarchal excesses.”

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118 From Confrontation to Dialogue There are various approaches in feminist exegesis. The most radical is “rejection,” while another is “faithfulness,” believing that the Bible comes from God and hence cannot possibly be oppressive. There is also “revisionist” exegesis, which accepts the patriarchal mold of the Biblical corpus, and at the same time stresses that this is not intrinsic, but rather the effect of historical and social factors. As a result, it can be adapted to the present time. For Mary Daly, a pioneer of feminist theology, in existing religions women are dominated in every sense, and are subject to the ascendancy of religious groups and the Church alike.5 The androcentrism emblematic of historical religions is intrinsic, and hence immutable. It is the source of women’s subordination to men, and has provided legitimacy for this state of affairs. The attitude to women is the result of deeply entrenched symbols: of God perceived as “Father”; and a moral doctrine, created by men, that is fundamentally patriarchal. She coined the famous aphorism: “If God is male, then male is God.” Daly, who came to the conclusion that women cannot expect anything from the monotheistic religions, turned her back on her original Catholicism and adopted a post-Christian radical form of feminism. For others, such as Elizabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, the problem with institutional religions is that they have been appropriated by men. In order for women to find their place in them, it is necessary to seek out the traditions and foundations that are inherent in religions.6 Rosemary Radford Ruether also sought to interpret the Bible from a feminist perspective.7 However, the crucial problem as identified by feminist theologians is the “totalitarian power” of God “the Father.” Some consider that not only God’s masculinity is problematic, but also his transcendence, his omnipotence. In order to overcome the oppression of women and other categories of oppressed persons, a different understanding of God is required: an immanent rather than a transcendent God, a brother or sister rather than a father. This God will be responsible for mankind, active in human affairs, and close to human beings: a God who calls for responsibilities to be shouldered in addressing social and ecological problems. It is for this reason that some feminists (from Christian, Jewish, or other traditions) who do not wish to give up religion entirely seek out models of spirituality in pagan or Greco-Roman traditions, such as Wicca, the worship of the Great Goddess.8 In one sense this is cast as a return to prebiblical times, when “women had the power of wisdom and practiced the worship of nature, the Earth Mother”; and in another sense, it is a tribute to the thousands of women accused of witchcraft and persecuted as heretics by the Christian Church between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries. One representative of this movement is Starhawk, born Miriam Simos, an American theorist and priestess of this neo-paganism, which connects symbols of the

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From Confrontation to Dialogue 119 “Goddess” to human liberation, antimilitarism, and ecofeminism.9 The Goddess of Nature is among us, she says; her symbol is the moon, representing the cycles in women’s lives.10 Other women follow the new dream-based quasi-religious movement advocated by the psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung, who maintained that fantasies make possible a live, immediate relationship with God, in contrast to the rigid dogmas of institutional religions.11 In the context of all these theological reflections by women seeking to understand and perhaps get round the sources of Christianity’s “androcentrism,” Judaism is discussed as the founding religion which bequeathed to Christianity the most oppressive principles relative to women. Such attacks on Judaism, which have become a cliché in the feminist critique of religions, do not emanate solely from Christian feminists who wish to remove the burden of responsibility from Christianity, so as to make it into a “feminist” religion; they also form part of the arguments put forward by secular feminists who oppose all religions. How does Christian feminist theology, via anti-Judaism, merge with freethinking, both secular and atheist? Is this a new form of antisemitism lurking in feminist thinking, or is it nothing more than a point of view, an academic analysis free of any prejudice, that has nothing to do with classical Christian anti-Judaism? These issues are not discussed widely in France. A number of historical and theological concepts must be understood in order to follow discussions on this subject among certain American and European feminist strands. We will in particular identify a number of ideological sources drawn on by the new theological-feminist critique, and will show how this overlaps with traditional Christian anti-Judaism. The next chapter will address at some length a number of special French aspects, and in particular what French feminism has brought to American feminist theology. To start with, in order to see if and how much things have remained the same or changed over time, we will give a brief overview of the place of religion in the earliest women’s movements in France and in the United States at the turn of the 19th century, and how they related to Judaism. Anti-Judaism in the First Feminist Wave in France and the United States At the beginning of the twentieth century, what is known in France as “secularity” or “secularism” (also sometimes rendered in English as “laicity” or “laicism”) was considered the only possible framework within which women’s emancipation could take place. Among French activists for women’s rights, there were two attitudes toward secularism: one which ruled out

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120 From Confrontation to Dialogue any religion, and another which advocated neutrality in the public sphere. At the time, French feminism was dominated by freethought, Freemasonry, and anticlericalism. The feminist daily newspaper La Fronde, set up in 1895 by Marguerite Durand (1864–1936), saw religion as an enemy to women’s freedom. The most vehement pronouncements were directed at Catholicism, but neither Protestantism nor Judaism were spared. As a symbol of tolerance, however, La Fronde printed on its front page the date according to the Republican, Orthodox, Protestant, and Hebrew calendars. The paper took a pro-Dreyfus stance during the Affair, but was not effective in modifying general attitudes toward Jews and Judaism. In both left and right-wing feminist circles, Jewish activists continued to be the target of privately expressed antisemitic sentiments. Gabrielle Moyse has left us a moving account of her experience of antisemitism, but also of her Jewish pride and deeply-held attachment to Judaism’s practices and values. In a letter dated April 24, 1914, she takes up the cudgels over an activist’s anti-Jewish remarks—“These women who do not practice their country’s religion and hence are foreign (?!) have the nerve to tell feminists what they should do”—directed against feminist leader Cécile Brunschvicg, who was not present.12 Gabrielle Moyse, from a long-established French family and whose parents and grandparents had served France loyally, noted bitterly that because they were Jewish, the two activists were considered to be “foreign” elements at a feminist meeting, and none of those present spoke out to defend them.13 A prominent figure in early 20th-century French feminism, Cécile Brunschvicg led the reformist, republican, and secular trend in which many Jewish activists were involved. Unlike Protestant and Catholic activists, Jewish women tended to remain neutral over religion, in order to maintain a greater degree of solidarity between women, but certainly also out of fear of antisemitism.14 However, apart from the anti-Judaism of private circles, there was also an antisemitism openly displayed in the Catholic and nationalist right. The journalist and novelist Gyp published her vitriolic articles in the antisemitic journal La France juive put out by her friend Edouard Drumont as well as in other nationalist papers.15 The year 1896 saw the founding of a small Catholic feminist movement, the Society of Christian Feminism, headed for several years by Marie Maugeret (1844–1928), a teacher who became a journalist and printer. The mission statement of her periodical Le Féminisme chrétien was “to spread feminist ideas in Christian circles—and Christian ideas in feminist circles.”16 During the Dreyfus Affair, she was firmly in the nationalist, xenophobic, and antisemitic camp. It was thus in order to fight against the “Jewish peril” that in 1898, together with Marie Duclos, she set up the Union nationaliste des femmes françaises

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From Confrontation to Dialogue 121 (Nationalist union of French women).17 By the end of the nineteenth century religiously-inspired anti-Jewish prejudices were to be found not only in French and European Christian milieus, but in the most secular circles, in whom willy-nilly the values of nationalist and Christian religious culture— from the outset based on the rejection of the Jews—had been instilled. The same state of affairs can also exist in a country known for its religious tolerance such as the United States, where religion has always played an important social role. Here the first serious attempt was made to adapt religion to feminism, and here too anti-Judaism served as a theoretical veneer for the criticism of religion prevalent in suffragist movements at the end of the nineteenth century. One of the first feminists to enter the masculine preserve of Christian theology was the American Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902).18 At the age of seventy, having been an activist for more than forty years in the struggle for the abolition of slavery and women’s suffrage, she decided to study Biblical interpretations. These she considered the final obstacle to changing the condition of woman, from “the degrading position assigned to her in the religion of all countries, where she is identified as being at the origin of Sin and cursed by God, condemned to give birth in pain and subservient to man.” Following a visit to France, Stanton became interested in Auguste Comte’s positivist thought, especially his “religion of humanity” and his “positivist catechism.”19 These strengthened her in the idea, which she had harbored for a number of years, of reflecting on the place of women in the Bible. Instead of resting on the laurels of her reputation as a pioneer in the struggle for women’s rights, Stanton developed an audacious project for “The Woman’s Bible,” which she submitted in 1885 at the annual convention of the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA), of which she was honorary president. At the time, such criticism of Christian theology was considered to be too daring, and likely to kindle the ire of the Church and to shock activists, most of whom were Christian. The final declaration, as accepted by the Association, targeted Judaism, which was held to be responsible for women’s secondarity and subordination: The dogmas incorporated in religious creeds derived from Judaism. . . are an invidious poison, sapping the vitality of our civilization, blighting woman and through her paralyzing humanity. . . . In the Christian religion there is neither male nor female, bond or free, but all are one in Jesus Christ.20 Ten years later (1895), Elizabeth Cady Stanton published The Woman’s Bible, the first volume of her feminist corpus of biblical commentaries.21 She was helped by a number of educated women who were not Bible scholars but

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122 From Confrontation to Dialogue were interested in biblical interpretation. These interpretations, based on a literal reading of the Hebrew Bible, accused Judaism of being the source of women’s inferiority worldwide. As a result, Stanton was labeled by Jewish circles as “a Jew Hater,” an appellation that she vigorously denied.22 A group of Jewish women visited her to convey in person their dismay at her distortion of their religious traditions and “said that Jewish women”— particularly mothers and wives—“were reverenced in their religion.”23 Later, Stanton ironically commented on their visit in a letter to Elizabeth Smith Miller, in which she revealed her ignorance of Jewish practices:

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Why then, if they really do consider them so exalted, do they say in their synagogues every Sunday “I thank thee, O Lord, that I was not born a woman!. . .” If the church does not approve of it why is not expunged?24 Stanton was convinced that the patriarchal culture of the Hebrew Bible was responsible for the flawed state of contemporary gender relations, and any attempt to show the positive aspects seemed intolerable to her. Her criticism of Judaism was on a par with the convictions of the free thought movement, which had enthusiastically welcomed her Woman’s Bible, unlike the suffragist militants, most of whom were believing Christians who rejected her interpretations of the New Testament. Stanton held that ancient Israelite history was the origin of women’s subjection within Christianity, rather than interpretations of the Bible by male Christian theologians and preachers. Freethinkers, who attacked all religions without unrestraint, used extremely hostile expressions in their publications when criticizing Judaism, which they saw as the precursor of Christendom. 25 Any attack on Christianity had necessarily to first go through the stage of a scathing, not to say virulent, attack on Judaism. Criticism of the Hebrew Bible is obviously not antisemitic in and of itself, but in a society full of anti-Jewish prejudice, it could only fuel and impart legitimacy to this tendency. A striking example of Stanton’s “naïve” shift from criticism of Judaism to a justification of antisemitism is found in her commentary on Matthew 27:25 (“his blood be on us and our children”), a verse historically associated with the condemnation of the Jews for the death of Christ: It is a common opinion among Christians that the persecution of the Jews in all periods and latitudes is a punishment on them for their crucifixion of Jesus, and that this defiant acceptance of responsibility is being fully justified.26

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From Confrontation to Dialogue 123 It was probably Stanton’s Christian upbringing, rather than her positivist rationalism, that was speaking and did not challenge the persecution of the Jews. Forgotten for more than half a century, The Woman’s Bible was reissued by feminists in the 1970s. Despite its shortcomings, they found a certain degree of inspiration in the work. What appears clear is that the controversy over The Woman’s Bible reflects feminism’s first attempt to consider and discuss the relationship between religion and the feminine condition. It also marked the beginnings of a new Christian feminist theology, with a new anti-Judaism, which may seem anachronistic, having appeared a century before the second wave of feminism in the 1970s and the trend towards secularism. The new—basically secular—feminist movement has not led to the disappearance or demise of religion. Indeed, in certain cases, religion has tried to adapt to feminism. The religious revival of the late twentieth century contributed to the expansion of a “religious feminism,” even within the conservative trends of the three monotheistic religions. In parallel with the development of a feminist approach to religion, there also evolved an emphasis on “patriarchal” values applied more strictly than in the past. We will not go into the myriad of analyses that today try to explain this phenomenon. But paradox lies at the heart of all religious faith. What is disturbing here is the persistence of antiJudaism, irrespective of time and context. As must be borne in mind, the fact is that Judaism predates the other monotheistic religions, and so Islam and Christianity are not mentioned in Jewish sources. The latter warn their believers against the influences of paganism and of the idolatrous peoples living nearby. In contrast, the New Testament and Quran refer extensively to figures from the Hebrew Bible, taking them over and adapting them to their own religious messages. In the process, Judaism, and the historical Jews who refused to adopt their new religions were denigrated and mercilessly vilified. In this chapter, we will mainly address Christian theology as a western heritage within which the feminist movements of Europe and the United States developed. Islamic feminist theology is currently in its gestation period, and was not part of the women’s movement in the 1970s. It may well develop its own anti-Judaism, based on readings of the Quran and presentday political hostility toward Israel. Come what may, this Muslim antiJudaism will not be the same as that of Christian women theologians, because of the fundamental differences between the two religions and their respective ways of relating to Judaism. Hence it will mainly be Christianity that we will address in our analysis of religion-related forms of anti-Judaism. Subsequently we will discuss the reactions of Jewish women theologians.

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124 From Confrontation to Dialogue A brief overview of some aspects of the development of Christian antiJudaism following the Nazi genocide will help us to identify the positions of present-day feminist theologians. From Christian Anti-Judaism to Genocidal Antisemitism: A Historical Overview The anti-Judaism that has been a prominent feature of Christianity’s history since its very beginnings has been an ever present thread associated with a myriad of persecutions of the Jews throughout the centuries. Even the racial, economic, and political antisemitism that developed in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, often called “non-religious hatred” included elements of historic anti-Judaism.27 In the twentieth century, this was used by Nazi propaganda. However, although this continuity between Christian anti-Judaism and modern antisemitism is widely recognized, opinions differ about the direct link between Christian teachings and the Nazi antisemitism which led to the attempt to exterminate the Jews. In a symposium on the genocide of the Jews held in New York in 1974, Christian theologian Rosemary R. Ruether acknowledged the Christian origins of antisemitism, which is both the continuation and transformation of the medieval theological and economic scapegoating of the Jews: It was Christian theology which developed the thesis of the eternal reprobate status of the Jew in history, and laid the foundation for the demonic view of the Jews which fanned the flames of popular hatred. . . .28 To this the American Jewish historian Josef Hayim Yerushalmi responded:

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From Rosemary Ruether we gather that genocide against the Jews was an inexorable consequence of theological teaching. I do not think that is quite the case. If it were, genocide should have come upon the Jews in the Middle Ages. The Jews had to continue to exist and through their very fall to bear witness to a triumphant Christianity. Yerushalmi concludes: My bill of particulars concerning Pius XII does not postulate a continuum to his medieval predecessors. On the contrary, my private J’accuse is based on the fact that he broke, in essence, with the tradition of the medieval popes. Despite the reprobate status that it conferred on the Jews, Christian tradition opposed any state-organized massacre of the Jews.29

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From Confrontation to Dialogue 125 Christian thinkers saw in the Holocaust a catastrophe for which the Christian “teaching of contempt” for Jews and Judaism over the centuries had laid the ground.30 The Second Vatican Council (1962–1965), brought sweeping changes to the Catholic world, including a reexamination of its relations with other branches of Christianity and with non-Christian religions. Even before the Council, Pope John XXIII had initiated small but significant changes in the Good Friday liturgy, removing the offensive phrase “perfidious Jews” from its intercessory prayers. The Council document “Nostra aetate” (1965) in its segment regarding Judaism spoke of the historical and spiritual ties between Christianity and Judaism.31 In the years following its publication, a broad dialogue between Catholic and Jewish religious leaders began, emphasizing common Judeo-Christian values.32 This change in the thinking and teaching of a major branch of Christianity (and echoed in mainstream Protestant denominations as well) might have been expected to sound the death knell for Christian anti-Judaism in our now largely rationalist and secular age, particularly given the post-Holocaust awareness of its potential consequences. However, this would be to discount the “creativity” and even unbridled flights of fantasy associated with antiJudaism and antisemitism. Unexpectedly, these were to be found in the development of a new and specifically feminist Christian theology which has been the subject of discussion over the last few decades in the United States and in a number of European countries. F ROM A NTI -J UDAISM TO I NTERRELIGIOUS D IALOGUE

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The Origins of Patriarchy and the Advent of a Male Divinity The new feminist Christian theology first developed in the 1970s in the United States and Germany. It then expanded into the rest of Europe, developing arguments in response to secular radical feminists’ attacks on religion. While maintaining a critical view of the androcentrism to be found in biblical history and traditions, this feminist theology seeks to interpret the message of the Gospels in new ways, closer to women’s liberation and more in keeping with the principles of feminism.33 Feminist theologians advanced explanations for women’s manifest inferiority in Christianity, blaming the Old Testament, with its “vengeful God” and the Judaic laws perceived as the font of this abasement of the female sex. Some also claim that although Jesus tried to reestablish egalitarianism, his approach was thwarted by Paul the Apostle, who was imbued with “Jewish misogyny.” Such assertions are based on the fashionable myth of the Goddess among some feminist circles, both

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126 From Confrontation to Dialogue secular and religious. The argument runs that there was a prebiblical nonviolent matriarchy, worshipping a female divinity. The ancient Israelites came on the scene with their “jealous,” “exclusive,” and monotheist God the Father deposing and eliminating the Goddess, accompanied by the introduction of violence and war, patriarchy and exploitation. This myth was propounded in the nineteenth century by the Basel historian and jurist Johann Jakob Bachofen (1815–1887) in his essay Das Mutterrecht (Mother right, 1861).34 Bachofen based himself on an analysis of a number of Greek tragedies and historical texts, particularly those of Herodotus on the Lycians, which attested to the matrilineal nature of succession to be found among various peoples; on that basis he hypothesized the existence of an early “matriarchy.” What he called a “gynocracy” would have been characterized by a moral organization based on maternal love and family feelings.35 There would have been a peaceful mindset, in which harsh repression would have been used only to punish violent crimes. The development of Dionysiac worship would come to triumph over the gynecocratic system, sometimes leading to its degeneration into amazonism.36 Bachofen’s theories were used by Engels, for whom the advent of patriarchy marked the “world historic defeat of the female sex.”37 The most prominent criticism of Bachofen’s ideas came from the ethnologist Claude Levi-Strauss, who used the same analytical methods as Bachofen, but challenged his claim of a universal primitive matriarchy. LeviStrauss stated that “public or social authority has always belonged to men.”38 The controversy over this issue would be taken up again by the feminists in the 1970s, as in the example of sculptor and art historian Merlin Stone, who specialized in ancient history and archeology. In When God was a Woman, she tries to demonstrate that the ancient worship of the Goddess flourished in the Near and Middle East for thousands of years before the arrival of the Patriarch Abraham, “the first prophet of the male divinity.” 39 She subsequently found support for her arguments in The Hebrew Goddess (1967) by the American Jewish anthropologist Raphael Patai, for whom she offered to write the preface for the third edition of his book in 1990.40 Basing himself on archeological sources and textual interpretation, Patai denies the purity of Jewish monotheism, noting that the Jewish religion was influenced by the surrounding polytheisms, particularly goddess worship. Among these Hebrew “goddesses” he lists Asherah, Anath, Astarte, Ashima, and also the Matronit (Shechina), the “Queen of the Heavens” and the personification of the Sabbath as a bride.41 American scholars who specialize in women’s history such as Nel Noddings and Gerda Lerner maintain that the religion of the ancient Hebrews was primarily “an attack on the widespread cults of the

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From Confrontation to Dialogue 127 various fertility goddesses.” The formation of the ancient Hebrew religion, symbolized by the Mosaic covenant, represents, according to Lerner, “the historic moment of the death of the Mother-Goddess.”42 Goddess worship in biblical and prebiblical periods has left too much evidence to be ignored. What is generally unclear is how these signs are to be interpreted. Are they indicative of a society characterized by tranquility and concern for welfare, or by orgiastic sexual customs and child sacrifice? For some feminists, what counts is the significance of this historical period and its consequences for the present-day status of women. The very fact that the worship of a Goddess might have existed in the past would confirm the accidental nature of patriarchy, and undermine the argument that patriarchy has biological roots. If patriarchy is a historical phenomenon, then it is not inevitable and can be overcome as history progresses. Some take account of the psychological and symbolic contribution of a female god. The authority of fathers and sons in social institutions, they argue, is derived from God-theFather’s tenacious roots in structures of thought, even for those who maintain that they have no ties to religion. Hence the existence of a female divinity would make it possible to give up this intellectual pattern. The upshot would be the removal of women from their state of dependence on men and hence their empowerment.43 Sometimes such thinking is called “thealogy,” as opposed to classical theology.44

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The Criticism of Judaism in Contemporary Feminist Theology The diverse theses about the origin of patriarchy would not have so many consequences were it not for the fact that some Christian and secular feminist theorists are inclined to accuse Judaism—and even Jews—of eradicating the Mother Goddess. Strangely, the ancient anti-Judaic charge of “deicide” appears in feminist writings, even the most secular, which are no less virulent. It is not so much Christ who is of concern to them, nor the Expulsion from the Garden of Eden, but rather the postulated “primitive matriarchy.” At this point, it is no longer a question of myth: rather, we now find ourselves in the realms of historical pseudo-reality. Although the Garden of Eden is considered a myth, not a historical reality, the new theodicy, which accuses the Jews of being the source of patriarchy, and hence of the suffering of women and the very existence of violence, is presented as a historical reality in which the (very real) Jews are caught up. Another ground that underpins Christianity’s moral superiority over Judaism is to be found in a 1971 article published in an American Catholic review, with the eye-catching title “Jesus Was a Feminist.” In it, Leonard Swidler asserted that Jesus’ attitude to women was exceptional relative to the

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128 From Confrontation to Dialogue misogynous and patriarchal Jewish society in which he lived and preached. 45 The argument thus ran that Judaism, the religion of the Torah (law), should be called “masculine,” while Christianity, the religion of love, should be called “feminine” and hence “feminist.” Jesus’ teachings, it is often claimed, emphasize the sensitivity, care, and concern for one’s neighbor which characterize “feminine ethics.”46 It may therefore be deduced that Christianity has already liberated women. Being a good Christian makes one by definition a “feminist.” Swidler’s article acknowledges that Jesus was a Pharisaic Jew—Torah-observant in the rabbinical tradition. However he seemingly has no idea that when Jesus helped women in distress, he was actually applying the Torah’s commandments concerning the duty to care for widows and orphans. Despite Jesus’ own positive attitude to women, the earliest Christian writings were ambivalent on the subject. Some refer to Paul’s Letter to the Galatians, placing men and women as spiritual equals after baptism (Gal. 3:28). In contrast, there is the hierarchical and conservative approach, based on the First Epistle to the Corinthians, where Paul states, “The head of the woman is man” (I Cor. 11:13), and orders women “to keep silent” in church (I Cor. 14:34). His attitude is explained as emerging from the “misogynous” Jewish society of the first century. If Paul seems to denigrate women, then he is “Paul the Jew,” but when he speaks positively, he suddenly becomes “Paul the Christian.” The statement that “Jesus is a feminist” is problematic only to the extent that it is based on a negation of Judaism, which is considered fundamentally “sexist.” In order to impart credibility to their arguments, Christian theologians have tended to highlight the most unfavorable statements about women that they can find in Jewish sources, deducing that first-century Jewish society, from which Jesus himself came, was marked by the worst possible misogyny, whereas in fact it was pluralistic. In their efforts to examine their heritage, some Christian feminists have all too often incorporated the antiJudaic prejudices of Christian male theologians of the past. As a result, they have fallen prey to the ancient masculine trap of triumphalism.47 There is no doubt that the origins of the sexism to be found in Christianity predominantly derive from its neo-Platonic heritage (with its body/mind dualism), which exercised far more influence on the Christian attitude to women and sexuality than did its Jewish heritage.48 This feminist anti-Judaism cannot be fully understood without reference to the writings of German female theologians described and analyzed by Katharina von Kellenbach.49 Her time at American universities made her familiar with the way that feminist theologies stigmatized Judaism. She was

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From Confrontation to Dialogue 129 shocked to discover that in 1980s Germany, fashionable feminist theories described Judaism as a virulently sexist religion that legitimated violence and was responsible for eradicating matriarchal cultures and killing the Goddess. An example is Gerda Weiler’s book, Ich verwerfe im Lande die Kriege (I denounce the violence of the land) which became a best-seller among German feminists.50 Kellenbach was completely taken aback by the swell of indignation triggered by her article in which she highlighted the antisemitic Jewish stereotypes found in Weiler’s book.51 The reaction attested to the great emotional weight associated with anti-Judaism and antisemitism in Germany after the Holocaust. This insight jolted the German feminist community into the realization that antisemitism had not ceased in 1945, “as we had been led to believe.”52 Two other books that appeared at the same time bear mentioning. Elga Sorge’s book, Religion und Frau (Religion and woman, 1985) states inter alia that the God of Christianity (whom Jesus addressed by the Aramaic term Abba, indicative of a close relationship rather than one of authority) is incompatible with the “nationalist” and “chauvinist” God of the Old Testament. She therefore suggests rejecting the Old Testament, synonymous with patriarchy.53 The other book, Jesus, The Savior of Women (1987) by Christa Mulack, absurdly proposed a parallel between Jewish Law and that of the Nazis:

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Under patriarchy, nobody is responsible for his acts, because he is subject to the orders of his superior. They wash their hands in all innocence. These men would have done exactly the same thing as Pilate or Rudolf Hess or Adolf Eichmann, pleading “not guilty” because ultimately all they did was to follow the Führer’s orders. And if the Führer asked them to kill, they would kill.54 In Mulack’s reasoning, Nazism stands for the domination of Jewish (patriarchal) morality over Christian (feminine and liberating) morality. In this bizarre twist, Jews become victims of their own patriarchal religion. In Nazi propaganda, the Jew was too “feminine”—a negative image, but Mulack now projects onto the Jew the current negative of male and patriarchal.55 Von Kellenbach was the first writer in Germany to identify the seriousness of the anti-Judaism embodied in arguments popular among her feminist compatriots. After a period of denial, debates in the press and interreligious meetings did lead to greater awareness and heightened vigilance of this danger.56 Having lived in both the United States and Germany, Kellenbach explained that—unlike the United States, where women encounter a living Jewish community—in Germany there was nobody to identify the antisemitic

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130 From Confrontation to Dialogue aspect of the feminist assertions. She also believes that they are inevitably influenced by German anti-Judaism “which is so much a part of their cultural heritage that it cannot be identified as such.” On the other hand, she does not see any real differences between the anti-Judaism in the writings of female American theologians and that of their German counterparts, other than in terms of the tone and quantity of publications. In American and German religious feminist writings, she concludes, “negative depiction and evaluation of Judaism. . .transcends cultural and ethnic boundaries.”57 The anti-Judaic arguments in fact echo the 2nd-century heretical movement of Marcion, which taught that the Old Testament God was harsh and fearful, while Jesus came to preach love and free men from the Law. He was excommunicated and his teachings condemned in 144. The feminist innovation is to ascribe the masculine qualities to the “Old Testament” God, and the feminine to the New Testament Christ, but the principle idea is the same.

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J EWISH F EMALE T HEOLOGIANS R EPLY TO F EMINIST T HEOLOGIES Jewish women in religious studies at American universities soon reacted to the anti-Judaism of Christian and post-Christian feminist theologians.58 Devoting themselves to a field in which Jewish women historically had had little access, they found themselves facing Christian fellow students who based their biblical exegesis on a rejection of the Hebrew Bible. As we have already seen, in-depth theological studies, even for Christian women, had been very restricted and sometimes even inaccessible to women. The American scholar Mary Daly had to leave the United States to continue her doctoral studies in sacred theology in Fribourg, Switzerland. Jewish women who entered this field took the same courses as their Christian colleagues but placed their emphasis on Jewish sources. It was only natural that they, too, would question women’s secondary role in the Jewish religion, in the synagogue, and in community institutions. However, at the same time they quickly found themselves incensed by the anti-Judaic interpretations of the new Christian theologies with a feminist bent. The first to react was Judith Plaskow, whose provocative article, “Christian Feminism and Anti-Judaism,” appeared in Cross-Currents (1978).59 In it she challenged the new myths about the status of women in biblical scriptures that came from her Christian colleagues, who were simply perpetuating the negative image of Judaism in the Christian tradition. On the whole, by asserting that Christianity’s sexist attitudes are nothing more than remnants of Judaism, Christian women give credit to Christianity which is presented as

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having nevertheless made a positive contribution to women’s status. Plaskow did not mince words: “The consequence of this myth is that feminism is turned into another weapon in the Christian anti-Judaic arsenal of Christianity.”60 Susannah Heschel subsequently published articles in a similar spirit. She pointed out that for Christians, blaming Judaism provided a convenient explanation for patriarchy, together with a prescription for its cure: “Just get rid of the Jewish influences and Christianity will be rescued, in all the pristine feminist glory of Jesus.”61 As for the death of the Goddess, she added that the charge echoed the accusation that Jews had murdered Jesus. At the Harvard Divinity School where Heschel studied, Jewish responsibility for patriarchy had become an accepted dogma among feminists. Even those who had rejected certain themes of traditional Christian theology and called themselves post-Christian clung to the classical anti-Judaic “new theodicy that blames the Jews for the suffering of women and the existence of violence.”62 She observed that this charge that the Hebrew Bible introduced violence into the world was just as absurd as the assertions by Christian theologians who concluded that Jesus came on the scene and introduced love. It is obvious, she says, that historically violence and patriarchy preceded the Bible, and coexisted with a pantheon of goddesses—and gods—who were often terribly cruel.63 Annette Daum listed some ten works of Christian feminist theology published in the 1970s, noting particularly two anthologies of articles by Jewish and Christian women theologians.64 She pointed out the lack of familiarity with Judaism in the writings of her post-Christian colleagues Merlin Stone and Carol Ochs.65 Some consider the myth of Adam and Eve to be an attack on Goddess worship, and the basis of women’s inferiority. Others claim that the sacrifice of Isaac (Akedah) represents the ultimate patriarchal expression of religion. Carol Ochs, in Behind the Sex of God, assumes that the Akedah has the same meaning in Judaism as in Christianity and also represents the ultimate patriarchal expression of religion: The meaning of the test is that Abraham must prove his allegiance under the new patriarchal system. In order to prove that Abraham is not rooted in the older [matriarchal] tradition, God demands that he renounce the most fundamental tenet of the matriarchal religion and kill his own child.66 Neither Stone nor Ochs considers the significance of God’s dramatic intervention to prevent the sacrifice of Isaac. According to Jewish tradition, the crucial moral truth revealed is God’s opposition to human sacrifice. This contrasts with the Christian theological focus which depicts Christ as the

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132 From Confrontation to Dialogue “Lamb of God” whose sacrifice is required. The information Stone provides about Judaism is selectively judgmental. Judith Plaskow calls herself both a feminist and a “feminist Jew,” who seeks to reconcile her Judaism with her feminism. She states that feminism’s relationship with religion must be not rejection, but rather a “program” for transformation, for reconstruction. This means a continuous reinterpretation of the Torah, to try to remove some of its patriarchalism, and to emphasize women’s experience—something that has been much neglected. This is what her Christian colleagues call a “hermeneutics of suspicion.” For example, for the theologian Phyllis Trible “the women’s movement errs when it dismisses the Bible as inconsequential or condemns it as enslaving.”67 In rejecting Scripture, women ironically accept male chauvinistic interpretations and thereby capitulate to the very view they are protesting. “But there is another way: to reread (not to rewrite) the Bible without the blinders of Israelite men or of Paul, Barth, Bonhoeffer and a host of others.” The hermeneutical challenge is to translate Biblical faith without sexism. As the creator of the universe, God includes and transcends the sexes. The Garden of Eden myth in no way legitimizes the oppression of women. “It reveals the goodness yet frailty of both creatures; their solidarity in sin and suffering; and their shared need of redemption.” The Song of Songs (also called Canticles) shows woman and man “in mutual harmony after the Fall. . . . Love excludes oppression and exploitation.” Like Genesis 2, Canticles affirms mutuality of the sexes. There is no male dominance, no female subordination, and no stereotyping of either sex. “The woman is independent, fully the equal of the man.”68 Through such hermeneutical examples Phyllis Trible shows us the best way, as she puts it, of “depatriarchalizing” biblical interpretation without repudiating it. The biblical God is not on the side of patriarchy, and the myth of the Fall does not “blame all this world’s discomfort on the female.” Indeed, this myth negates patriarchy in crucial ways; it does not legitimate the oppression of women. “It reveals the goodness yet frailty of both creatures; their solidarity in sin and suffering; and their shared need of redemption.” The Exodus speaks forcefully to women’s liberation. In Egypt, women nurture the revolution. Miriam disobeys Pharaoh’s order to kill newborn males. His own daughter thwarts him, and her maidens assist. “If Pharaoh had realized the power of these women, he might have reversed his decree (Exod. 1:16, 22) and had females killed rather than males!”69 This plan of “depatriarchalizing” the Jewish and Christian bibles—something that could have been undertaken jointly by all the feminists involved in theology—came up against ignorance of Judaism, as well as a form of “competition” when it came to seeking the origins of patriarchy and sexism.

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From Confrontation to Dialogue 133 Believing that women from all religions have a great deal to do in order to “deconstruct patriarchy” Jewish women objected energetically to attacks that primarily targeted Judaism. This new feminist theology, they think, is once again a reflection of the old Christian antisemitism. In turn this may well be perpetuated by being studied and handed down in this way. Hence both sides must work in this field, through dialogue and collaboration, not through partial disparagement and denigration.

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C HRISTIAN F EMINISTS D ENOUNCE A NTI -J UDAISM Jewish women theologians were not alone in protesting Christian anti-Judaism. A number of Christian feminist theologians spoke out against this scourge, which blights both feminism and Christianity. The Catholic theologian Rosemary Radford Ruether in 1974 published Faith and Fratricide on antisemitism’s theological roots.70 In a public debate in that same year with Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi (to which we referred above), she exhorted Christianity to “repent collectively.”71 Yerushalmi, moved by her good will, answered that he did not expect so much from the Christian world. He even went as far as to call her a “righteous among the nations” as a result of her engagement in fighting both past and present Christian anti-Judaism.72 The other Christian feminist who deserves to be cited again is the German Lutheran Katharina von Kellenbach, a robust adversary of anti-Judaism. In her book Anti-Judaism in Feminist Religious Writings, she gives an account of her own path: “Because I am a feminist, I chose to identify with my antiSemitic heritage and to commit myself to study it.”73 Such an undertaking, she notes, is extraordinarily difficult for German families ruled by a “conspiracy of silence” about the Nazi period. She has thrown herself wholeheartedly into fighting Christian anti-Judaism, particularly among feminist circles in her country of origin. Her brutally frank accounts help us to understand the atmosphere that surrounded the post-Holocaust generation in Germany. Later she also criticized American colleagues whose anti-Zionism comes close to antisemitism, even in the case of somebody like Rosemary Radford Ruether, who had vehemently opposed Christian anti-Judaism.74 Congresses and interreligious dialogue meetings in Europe began to provide an opportunity for feminist theologians from a variety of countries to exchange viewpoints about how to avoid anti-Judaic excesses. The question that constantly recurs is, to what extent is theological anti-Judaism antisemitic? Catholic theologian Mary C. Boys, who specializes in Judeo-Christian dialogue, has a succinct explanation:

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134 From Confrontation to Dialogue It is important to distinguish anti-Judaism as a theological viewpoint and antisemitism as a socio-cultural phenomenon. By anti-Judaism I mean attitudes, arguments, polemics and actions that distort and disparage Judaism in order to support claims of superiority. This is a complicated distinction, since understandings of Christianity resting on anti-Jewish perspectives can—and do—all too readily “slide over” into anti-Semitism, that is, into hatred of and hostility toward Jews.75

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T HE F EMINIZATION OF THE D IVINE One of the questions brought up by most feminists interested in the religious sphere is the violence which they claim is characteristic of God in some biblical passages. Jewish feminists acknowledge the patriarchal nature of traditional Jewish discourse about the God of Abraham, firmly rooted in its liturgical tradition. They do, however, point out that this is metaphorical language, since God is neither masculine nor feminine. They base themselves on a number of Talmudic or Kabbalistic interpretations indicating that the divine includes both masculine and feminine aspects. The most popular feminine image for God is the Shekhinah, often used in feminized blessings (“Blessed be the Shekhinah”).76 Two other terms used to call on God in the feminine are Hokhma (wisdom), or HaRahaman (the compassionate), whose root is rehem (meaning womb or uterus), and so on.77 Theologians of Reform Judaism have tried to reinterpret traditional images of God by drawing on the meanings of these metaphors. Most American Jewish feminists involved in feminist Judeo-Christian dialogue are affiliated with the Reform wing of Judaism, to which most American Jews belong. Unlike Orthodox Judaism, Reform Judaism is very flexible when it comes to the rabbinical commandments, and hence has no difficulty with modifying religious practices which are thought to result from inequality between the sexes—separation of men and women in the synagogue, equal participation in the liturgical Torah readings; and wearing the kippa and prayer shawl. The Reform movement in the United States was the first to ordain a woman rabbi, Sally Priesand, in 1972. The most striking feature of American liberal Judaism in the early twenty-first century is the feminization of worship, something that is occurring at the same time as men are withdrawing from religion. The position of rabbi is valued more highly by women, who throw themselves heart and soul into the religious domain. A recent study by the American sociologist Sylvia Barack Fishman and Daniel Parmer of Brandeis University clearly shows the massive extent to which American Jewish women are engaged in Jewish religious life and their interest in Judaism and Jewish

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From Confrontation to Dialogue 135 continuity from a feminist viewpoint.78 This is a phenomenon characteristic of the American Jewish community, greater in scope than even the historical role of women in Protestantism. This feminization can be seen in the changes made to Jewish prayers. For example, every time mention is made of the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, they systematically add the matriarchs Sarah, Rebecca, Leah, and Rachel. The role of the prophetess Miriam, sister of Moses, is highlighted in the Passover Haggadah reading of the epic of the Exodus from Egypt. A glass of wine in her honor (“Miriam’s Cup”) is sometimes placed on the table, following the example of the glass of wine in honor of the prophet Elijah (Elijah’s Cup”). Some women rephrase the blessings so that they are less hierarchical and more impersonal. They leave out the parts of prayers which disadvantage women.79 The most radical ones go so far as to address God as “Queen of the universe” instead of “King,” while for others it is enough to use a neutral term for the gender of the divinity. Modern Orthodox Jewish women who are no less desirous of some changes to tradition, prefer to fight for greater equality within the framework of Jewish law (halakha). The very term halakha comes from the Hebrew “to walk” or “to walk on.” Hence this implies the possibility of adapting to the spirit of the times and surrounding society, just as Judaism has done over the ages. However, they are cautious in their “feminist” approach, which from the point of view of Orthodox Judaism is just as revolutionary. Their first step has been to steep themselves in studying Jewish texts, including Talmudic discussions, enabling them to enter the historically male preserve of determining religious law and biblical hermeneutics. In addition, they have organized women’s prayer groups, but unlike their Reform counterparts they did not demand to hold the same positions as men in the synagogue. Some were critical of the ultra-liberal feminist tendency of their American coreligionists. The Jewish writer Blu Greenberg considers that the Torah or Jewish law is of divine origin, and hence cannot be changed at random, outside the framework of halakha.80 She does state that Jewish laws can be reinterpreted, in order to achieve greater equality and recognition for women without, however, doing away with the system as a whole. The American novelist Cynthia Ozick protested the feminization of God which some feminists assert is intended “to restore the dignity of Jewish women.” Millennia after the cleansing purity of Abraham’s vision of the One Creator, to address one’s prayers to the “Queen of the Universe” and to return to worshiping the goddesses Astarte, Hera, or Venus—the ancient idolatry accompanied by human sacrifice—is without question incompatible with the very foundations of Judaism. Is this, she asks, the new vision intended to “restore dignity” to Jewish women? It has no connection with the Shekhinah, the

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female shadow or emanation of the Godhead, whom we encounter in Kabbalah. “Like God, she is without form. . . .”81 Cynthia Ozick reminds us that “the nature of divinity” is a theological question, and traditionally Jews have no formal theology. In any case, she adds, the status of women is, in any Jewish context, by no means a “theological” question. It is a sociological fact.82 Catherine Madsen opposed those female theologians who attribute the origins of violence to God’s masculinity, assuming that the feminine is by contrast, compassionate and nurturing. Madsen, drawn to feminine spirituality, nevertheless protested the sexualization of the divine. In a 1989 article in the Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, she criticized the “niceness” of God in feminist theology, arguing that once God becomes Goddess or acquires female characteristics, she is connected too exclusively with the “female virtues” of nurturing, healing, and caretaking, and is therefore cordoned off from the savagery of the world. A “nice” female God does not take us sufficiently beyond traditional images, any more than a “Queen of the Universe” undoes the hierarchical nature of traditional male imagery.83 On this point, Judith Plaskow believes that the ambiguity of the God of the Bible has not received sufficient attention in feminist discourse. Unless the God who speaks to the feminist experiences of empowerment and connection can also speak to “the frightening, destructive, and divisive aspects of our lives,” a whole side of existence will be severed from the feminist account of the sacred.84 This issue of a feminine divinity is, however, very controversial in both Judaism and Christianity. As the French theoretician Luce Irigaray points out with regard to Christianity: Our theological tradition presents some difficulty as far as God in the feminine gender is concerned. There is no woman God, no female trinity: mother, daughter, spirit. This paralyzes the infinite of becoming a woman since she is fixed in her role of mother through whom the son of God is made flesh. The most influential representation of God in our culture over the last two thousand years has been a male trinitary God and a virgin mother: a mother of the son of God whose alliance with the father is given little consideration. Is she the wife? By what mediation?85 In a Jewish context, the philosopher Emmanuel Levinas categorically rejected the possibility of a feminine divinity: The feminine will never take on the aspect of the Divine, neither the Virgin Mary nor even Beatrice. The dimension of intimacy, not the dimension of loftiness, is opened up by woman. Doubtless the myster-

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From Confrontation to Dialogue 137 ious interiority of feminine existence will be used by experience, like a betrothed, the Sabbath, the Torah itself; and sometimes the divine Presence in the nearness of men, the shekhinah. The images do not in any way become feminine figures. Amorous relations in Scripture are interpreted symbolically and denote mystical relations.86 Which leads us to ask about the content of this kind of feminist theological debate in France. Or, more generally, how has the issue of religions been expressed in the French feminist movement in the last forty years?

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N OTES 1. “Recent studies suggest that women of all ages are more likely than men to describe themselves as religious, to be church-affiliated, to pray frequently, to feel close to God. . . .”: Elizabeth Weiss Ozorak, “The Power, but not the Glory: How Women Empower Themselves through Religion,” Journal of the Scientific Study of Religion 35, no. 1 (1996): 177–229. 2. German sociologist Max Weber (1864–1920) used the expression disenchantment of the world for the historical process by which the natural world and all areas of human experience are experienced and understood as less mysterious; defined—in principle at least—as knowable, predictable, and manipulable by human beings. French historian Marcel Gauchet used it for his interpretations of the history of religions in The Disenchantment of the World: A Political History of Religion (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1999; French version, Paris: Gallimard, 1985). 3. Mary Daly (1928–2010) was an American radical feminist philosopher and theologian; she taught at Boston College, a Jesuit institution, for 33 years. Rosemary Radford Ruether (Catholic) is an American feminist scholar and theologian, professor emeritus at Pacific School of Religion (Berkeley, California). She has also been viewed as a pioneer of feminist theology in North America. 4. In 1972 there were 3,358 women in theological studies; by 1983 the figure had increased to 13,451, equivalent to 24.4% of the entire student body. M. Taylor, “Trends in Seminary Enrollment 1977–83,” in Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches, edited by C. H. Jacquet (Nashville: Abingdon, 1984). 5. Mary Daly, The Church and the Second Sex (New York: Harper & Row, 1968); this was her first book. 6. Elizabeth Schüssler Fiorenza (Catholic), professor of theology at Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, co-founder and co-editor of the Journal of Feminist Studies on Religion, and a founding co-editor of the feminist issues of Concilium. 7. Rosemary Radford Ruether, Religion and Sexism (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1974); idem, Sexism and God-Talk: Toward a Feminist Theology (London: SCM Press, 1983). 8. Wicca is a modern neo-pagan religion centered on the idea of gender polarity and the worship of a Moon Goddess and a Horned God. Its practice incorporates witchcraft, using “cosmic energy” present in each of us. 9. Starhawk was the first leader of the “Covenant of the Goddess” church.

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138 From Confrontation to Dialogue Starhawk, The Spiral Dance, a Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1979); idem, Dreaming the Dark. Magic, Sex and Politics (Boston: Beacon Press, 1982, 1988, 1997). 10. Starhawk, “Witchcraft and Women’s Culture,” in Womanspirit Rising, A Feminist Reader in Religion, edited by Carol P. Christ and Judith Plaskow (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1979), 259–68. 11. Naomi R. Goldenberg, “A Feminist Critique of Jung,” Signs 2, no. 2 (1976): 443–49; idem, “Dreams and Fantasies as Sources of Revelation: Feminist Appropriation of Jung,” in Womanspirit Rising, 219–27. 12. Marguerite Durand Library, Paris, Gabrielle Moyse file. Gabrielle MoyseLipman was one of the founders of the Fédération des femmes radicales et radicalessocialistes. In her letter that she wrote that she would be prepared to attend the feminist meetings only if they did not take place on Friday afternoons or Saturdays, because of the Jewish Sabbath. 13. Ibid. 14. “Cécile Brunschvicg, femme, féministe et juive, face aux défis de l’intégration et de la neutralité religieuse” (Cécile Brunschvicg, woman, feminist and Jewish, facing the challenges of religious neutrality), Bulletin des Archives du féminisme no. 9 (Dec. 2005). 15. Gyp (1849–1932), is the pseudonym of Sybille-Gabrielle Marie-Antoinette de Riquetti de Mirabeau, Comtesse de Martel de Janville, a French novelist and journalist. During the Dreyfus Affair, she became a spokesperson for the nationalistic antisemites. She also hated women, identifying with her authoritarian grandfather and rejecting her own femininity, although she married and had three children. 16. Le Féminisme chrétien, semi-monthly journal founded in February 1896 by Marie Maugeret and Marie Duclos. 17. Laurence Klejman and Florence Rochefort, L’égalité en marche, Le féminisme sous la Troisième République (Paris: des Femmes, 1989). Anne Cova, Au service de l’Église, de la famille et de la patrie. Femmes catholiques et maternité sous la IIIe République (Paris, L’Harmattan, 2000), 45–46. 18. Elizabeth Cady Stanton was one of the organizers of the first Women’s Rights Convention held in 1848 at Seneca Falls, New York. 19. Auguste Comte’s theory of positivism consists in giving a scientific explanation to social and religious phenomena, on the basis of the cult of reason and progress. 20. Quoted in Deborah Grand Golomb, “The 1893 Congress of Jewish Women: Evolution or Revolution in America’s Jewish Women’s History,” American Jewish History 70 (Sept. 1980): 55–56. 21. The Woman’s Bible was published in two volumes. The first book deals with the Pentateuch, while the second, published in 1898, addresses the rest of the Old Testament and the New Testament. 22. Kathi Kern, Ms. Stanton’s Bible (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2001). 23. Ibid., 208–9; Elizabeth Cady Stanton to Elizabeth Smith Miller, 19 April 1897, Elizabeth Cady Stanton Papers, DLC; Theodore Stanton and Harriot Stanton Blatch, eds., Elizabeth Stanton: As Revealed in Her Letters, Diary and Reminiscenses, 2 vols. (New York: Harper, 1922), 2: 312–13. Elisabeth Smith Miller (1822–1911) was an advocate and supporter of women’s rights movement. Together with Elizabeth

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From Confrontation to Dialogue 139 Cady Stantion and Susan B. Anthony, she was a founder of the National Woman Suffrage Association. 24. Kern, Ms. Stanton’s Bible, 209 notes “Stanton’s tone, her cultural insensitivity in assuming a Sunday Sabbath, her use of the Christian term ‘the Church’. . . .” 25. “Bigotry and the Woman’s Bible,” Free Thought Magazine 16 (1898): 433, quoted by Kern, ibid. 26. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, The Original Attack on the Bible (The Woman’s Bible) (New York: Arno Press, 1974), 127; see also Deborah McCauley and Annette Daum, “Jewish-Christian Feminist Dialogue: A Wholistic Vision,” Union Seminary Quarterly Review 38, no. 2 (1983): 175. 27. The term “antisemitism” was first used in 1879 by the German agitator and publicist Wilhem Marr. 28. Rosemary Radford Ruether, “Anti-Semitism and Christian Theology” (paper presented at the symposium on the Holocaust, Cathedral of St. John the Divine, New York, 1973); published in Auschwitz: Beginning of a New Era? Reflections on the Holocaust, 1974, edited by Eva Fleischner (New York: Ktav, 1977), 79. In her conclusion R. Radford Ruether suggests a “massive repentant acceptance of responsibility by the Christian church, and a dramatic shift in the spirituality which it teaches” (p. 92). 29. Josef Hayim Yerushalmi, “Response to Rosemary Ruether,” ibid., 97–107. Pius XII (Eugenio Pacelli [1876–1958]) was pope from 1939 to 1958. Some years after his death, Pius XII was depicted in German playwright Rolf Hochhuth’s The Deputy (1963) as indifferent to the Nazi genocide, generating much controversy over his leadership of the Catholic Church during World War II. 30. The term was used by the French historian Jules Isaac (1877–1963), who was an active member of Amitiés judéo-chrétiennes. 31. A look at current progress in Catholic-Jewish dialogue in the United States can be found on the website of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, http://www.usccb.org/beliefs-and-teachings/ecumenical-and-interreligious/jewish/ind ex.cfm; a selection of documents, guidelines, and news releases, http://www.usccb. org/beliefs-and-teachings/ecumenical-and-interreligious/jewish/catholic-jewish-docu ments-and-news-releases.cfm#CP_JUMP_106975; official Church documents concerning Judaism can be read at the Vatican website, http://www.vati can.va/phome_en.htm; also available there is an online edition of the complete Catechism of the Catholic Church (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1992; English ed. 1994; 2nd ed., 1997). The Catechism is a guide for lay people containing an in-depth explanation of essential Catholic teaching, including the Church’s position on Jews and Judaism. 32. The term “Judeo-Christian” is controversial, with some objecting to the linkage between Christianity and Judaism, while excluding Islam. 33. There is a feminist interpretation of Christian faith through the suffering of the poor, their struggle and hope. This “liberation theology” which has grown into an international and inter-denominational movement, began as a movement within the Catholic Church in Latin America in the 1950s–1960s. 34. Peter Davies, “Myth and Maternalism in the Work of Johann Jakob Bachofen,” German Studies Review, 28, no. 3 (Oct. 2005): 501–18; Cynthia Eller, The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory (Boston: Beacon Press, 2000).

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140 From Confrontation to Dialogue 35. The term “gynocracy” (rule by women) exists in Ancient Greek literature; the term “matriarchy”(mother-centered societies) dates from the 19th century. 36. The same year (1861) the British comparative jurist and historian Henry de Maine (1822–1888) published Ancient Law in which he states that all ancient societies were based on patriarchy. Henry de Maine, Ancient Law: Its Connection with the Early History of Society, and Its Relation to Modern Ideas (London: John Murray, 1861). 37. Engels did not consider patriarchy to be a positive evolution, stating that it was the origin of private property and division of labor between sexes. 38. Françoise Héritier, Masculin/féminin, la pensée de la différence (Paris: Odile Jacob, 1996). Héritier is a French anthropologist and a follower of Levi-Strauss. Simone de Beauvoir, Second Sex, 96–97, refers to Levi-Strauss in rejecting Bachofen’s theories. 39. Merlin Stone, When God was a Woman (London: Virago, 1976). 40. Raphael Patai, The Hebrew Goddess (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1967; 3rd ed. 1990), preface by Merlin Stone. 41. Contrary to Merlin Stone, who thinks that the Patriarch Abraham eliminated only female divinity, Patai states that Abraham broke all the idols, male and female. 42. Gerda Lerner, The Creation of Patriarchy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), 9; see also Nel Noddings, Women and Evil (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989). 43. Carol P. Christ, “Why Women Need the Goddess: Phenomenological, Psychological and Political Reflection,” in Womenspirit Rising, edited by Carol P. Christ and Judith Plaskow (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1979), 278. 44. Theology means “study of God”; theo being a masculine form, some feminists prefer to use the feminine form thea, hence “thealogy.” 45. Leonard Swidler, “Jesus was a Feminist,” Catholic World (Jan. 1971): 171– 83. 46. On the “ethic of care,” Nancy Chodorow, The Reproduction of Mothering: Psychoanalysis and the Sociology of Gender (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999); and Carol Gilligan, In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Development (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1993). 47. Deborah McCauley and Annette Daum, “Jewish-Christian Feminist Dialogue: A Wholistic Vision,” Union Seminary Quarterly Review 38, no. 2 (1983): 176. 48. Ibid. 49. Katharina von Kellenbach is Professor of Religious Studies and former Chair of the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at St. Mary’s College of Maryland. Her areas of expertise are interreligious dialogue and Jewish-Christian relations, Holocaust Studies, and feminist theology and ethics. 50. Gerda Weiler, Ich verwerfe im Lande die Kriege (Munich: Frauenoffensive, 1984). 51. Katharina von Kellenbach, Anti-Judaism in Feminist Religious Writings (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1994), 8–9. 52. Ibid. 53. Elga Sorge, Religion und Frau (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer Verlag, 1985). 54. Christa Mulack, Jesus der Gesalbte der Frauen (Stuttgart, 1987). Quoted by Leonore Siegele-Wenschkewitz, “Tendances de la théologie féministe au sein des

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From Confrontation to Dialogue 141 églises protestantes d’Allemagne,” in Féminisme et nazisme (Paris: Odile Jacob, 2003), 235–49. 55. See Chapter 2, above. 56. Gerda Weiler later modified her approach. See Gerda Weiler, Das Matriarchat im Alten Israel (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1989). 57. Kellenbach, Anti-Judaism in Feminist Religious Writings, 36. 58. Ibid., 9. Post-Christian feminists consider that all monotheist religions are irremediably misogynist. Some adopt prebiblical religions (paganism or Goddess worship). Lisa Isherwood and Kathleen McPhillips, eds., Post-Christian Feminisms— A Critical Approach (England/USA: Ashgate, 2008). 59. Judith Plaskow is professor of Religious Studies at Manhattan College; her works include: Standing Again at Sinai: Judaism from a Feminist Perspective (San Francisco: Harper, 1990); The Coming of Lilith, Essays on Feminism, Judaism and Sexual Ethics (1972–2003) (Boston: Beacon Press, 2005); she is co-editor of the Journal for Feminist Studies in Religion. 60. On this subject, see Judith Plaskow, “Blaming the Jews for the Birth of Patriarchy,” Lilith 7 (1980): 11–12, and in Nice Jewish Girls, A Lesbian Anthology, edited by Evelyn Torton Beck (Watertown, Mass.: Persephone Press, 1982; 2nd ed., Boston: Beacon Press, 1989), 298–302. 61. Susannah Heschel, daughter of the famous American Jewish theologian Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907–1972), is professor in the Department of Religious Studies at Dartmouth College. “Anti-Judaism in Christian Theology,” Tikkun 5, no. 3 (1990): 25–28, 95–92; “Feminism and Jewish-Christian Dialogue,” in Introduction to Jewish-Christian Relations, edited by Michael Shermis and Arthur E. Zannoni (Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist Press, 1991), 227–46. 62. Heschel, “Anti-Judaism,” 26. 63. Heschel, “Feminism and Jewish-Christian Dialogue,” 235. 64. Annette Daum (1926–1988), was coordinator of interreligious affairs for the Union of American Hebrew Congregations. With Deborah Mccauley, she coordinated a task force on Jewish-Christian feminist dialogue sponsored by the Feminist Theological Institute. She was editor of the journal Interreligious Currents. Annette Daum, “Blaming the Jews for the Death of the Goddess,” Lilith 7 (1980): 12–13; reprinted in Nice Jewish Girls, 303–15. The two anthologies are Rosemary R. Ruether and Leonor McLaughlin, eds., Women of Spirit: Female Leadership in the Jewish and Christian Tradition(Eugene, Ore.: Wipf & Stock, 1998); and Judith Plaskow and Carol Christ, eds., Womenspirit Rising: A Feminist Reader (San Francisco: Harper, 1998). 65. Stone, When God was a Woman; Carol Ochs, Behind the Sex of God: Towards a New Consciousness—Transcending Matriarchy and Patriarchy (Boston: Beacon Press, 1977). 66. Ibid. 67. Phyllis Trible, “Depatriarchalizing in Biblical Interpretation”, in: The Jewish Woman, edited by Elizabeth Koltun, Shocken Books, New York, 1976, pp. 217–40. 68. Ibid., 232. 69. Ibid., 221. 70. Rosemary Radford Ruether, Faith and Fratricide: The Theoretical Roots of Anti-Semitism (New York, Seabury Press, 1974). 71. See the discussion quoted earlier in this chapter, pp. 123–24.

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142 From Confrontation to Dialogue 72. The term “Righteous among the Nations” (Hasidei Umot HaOlam) was taken from the literature of the Jewish Sages. One explanation for the term refers to non-Jews who came to the aid of the Jewish people in times of danger. Some fifteen years later, Radford Ruether’s defense of Jews turned to a similarly ardent defense of Palestinians. In a book co-authored with her husband, Herman J. Ruether, The Wrath of Jonah: The Crisis of Religious Nationalism in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (New York, Harper and Row, 1989), we find her a harsh critic of Israel and Zionism. 73. Kellenbach, Anti-Judaism in Feminist Religious Writings, 4. 74. Kellenbach (ibid., 135) warns us of the danger of trivializing anti-Judaism, by comparing it to seemingly more urgent problems as racism, poverty, genocide, or the environment. On the Ruethers’ Wrath of Jonah, p. 221, she says they “dismiss Jewish fears as belonging more to the realm of Jewish subjective feelings than objective realities” and as a consequence, “feel free to make their case against Israel and to indict Zionism as an ideology that was ‘bred in the sick world of Western antisemitism, racial nationalism and imperialist colonialism in the Middle-East.’” 75. Mary C. Boys, “Patriarchal Judaism, Liberating Jesus: A Feminist Misrepresentation,” Union Seminary Quarterly Review 56, nos. 1–2 (2002): 49. 76. In classic Jewish thought, Shekhinah refers to a dwelling or settling in a special sense, a dwelling or settling of the divine presence. It is held by some to represent the feminine attributes of the presence of God (shekhinah being a feminine word in Hebrew), based especially on readings of the Talmud. Some Christian theologians have connected the concept of Shekhinah to the Greek term “Parousia”, “presence” “arrival,” which is used in the New Testament in a similar way for “Divine Presence”. 77. Hokhmah is the Hebrew word for “wisdom.” For some it is the personification of Israel as a woman. Cf. David Pechansky, “Is Hokhmah an Israelite Goddess, and What Should We Do about it?” in Postmodern Interpretations of the Bible—A Reader, edited by A. K. M. Adam (St. Louis, Mo.: Chalice Press, 2001). 78. Sylvia Barack Fishman and Daniel Parmer, “Policy Implications of the Gender Imbalance among America’s Jews,” Jewish Political Studies Review 20, nos. 3–4 (Fall 2008). 79. Ellen Umansky and Dale Ashtony, eds., Four Centuries of Jewish Women’s Spirituality: A Source Book (Boston: Beacon Press, 1992), 242. 80. Blu Greenberg, On Women in Judaism: A View from Tradition (Philadephia: Jewish Publication Society, 1981). 81. Cynthia Ozick, “Note toward Finding the Right Question,” in On Being a Jewish Feminist, edited by Susannah Heschel (New York: Schocken, 1983), 121. 82. Ibid., 123. 83. Catherine Madsen, “If God is God, She is not Nice,” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 5, no. 1 (Spring 1989). A bibliographer at the Yiddish Book Center, Madsen described how she first became exposed to Jewish thought while writing a book of Pagan rituals; she eventually converted to Judaism. 84. Judith Plaskow, “Facing the Ambiguity of God,” Tikkun 6, no. 5 (1991). 85. Luce Irigaray, Sexes and Genealogies, translated by Gillian C. Gill (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), 62. 86. Emmanuel Levinas, Difficult Freedom: Essays on Judaism, translated by Sean Hand (London: Athlone Press, 1990), 133.

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C HAPTER S IX

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Feminism, Secularism, and Religion in France

The 1970s wave of feminism in France was—as it remains to this day— either indifferent or hostile to religion. The issue of religious affiliation was simply wiped off the slate as the result of a combination of factors. These included the prevalent Marxist influence, the impact of analytical theories, the sexual revolution that runs counter to Judeo-Christian moral standards, and last but certainly not least, the French anticlerical tradition. As the philosopher Françoise Collin puts it: “It would appear that God remains silent and at feminist meetings there is hardly any announcement of his death, whether past or forthcoming.”1 Notwithstanding, in 1975 as managing editor Collin devoted an entire issue of the Les cahiers du Grif journal to this topic.2 Like all feminist discourse of the period, it had a provocative title: “Women accuse the Church.”3 This feminist critique of how religions relate to and treat women failed to spark any issue-focused debate within French feminism. Although religious feminism in the United States began developing within mainstream religious bodies in the 1970s, in France, it was not until 1989 that the stormy debate over secularism, Islam, and the Islamic veil brought the discussion of religion to a broader public. Despite this late appearance, some French theorists of feminism indisputably contributed to the debate about the role of religion in relations between the sexes, triggering further intense debate of the topic among American feminist theologians. American feminist theologians often acknowledge the impact of Simone de Beauvoir’s book, The Second Sex on their awareness of the role of patriarchy in shaping women’s inferior status in many religions, including within the Christian Church.4 Mary Daly, for example, published The Church and the Second Sex in 1968, its title a reflection of the earlier book.5 Daly was struck by the parallel drawn by Beauvoir between the Virgin Mary and the ancient goddess Ishtar or Astarte, who had noted that Mary was glorified only by accepting the subordinate role assigned to her: that of a “domesticated” goddess who declares herself “the servant of the Lord.”6 Some might be tempted to consider the high honor given to Mary to signify Christianity’s rehabilitation of woman. “For the first time in the history of mankind,” writes

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Beauvoir, “a mother kneels before her son and acknowledges, of her own free will, her inferiority.” And she concludes: “The supreme victory of masculinity is consummated in the cult of the Virgin: it signifies the rehabilitation of woman through the completeness of her defeat.” 7 Simone de Beauvoir asserted that in the Christian Church it was through Paul that the savagely anti-feminist Jewish tradition was affirmed: the wife’s subordination to her husband.8 To demonstrate the universality of this subordination she cites the famous Jewish morning prayer in which men thank God for not having made them women, adding that Plato did the same, invoking the Greek gods. The first among the blessings for which Plato thanked the gods was that he had been created free, not enslaved; the second, a man, not a woman.9 In Christianity, “a religion that holds the flesh accursed,” Beauvoir notes that “woman becomes the devil’s most fearsome worst temptation.”10 Such observations and interpretations (although not based on any in-depth study of theology) undoubtedly helped to fuel the feminist consciousness of a number of the early female Christian theologians. From the 1980s the emphasis has been on other French feminist theorists who have distinguished themselves through their thoughts about religion, often inspired by psychoanalysis. Although they identify themselves as nonbelievers or even atheists, all use biblical references—Christian or Jewish—to explain or analyze human behavior, especially regarding relationships between the sexes. Much of their thinking is inspired by the writings of Freud and the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. Freud considered psychoanalysis to be a science of interpretation applicable to all discourse, even textual. Hence it is possible to “listen to a text the same way as one listens to an analysand.”11 Beginning in the 1960s, this approach was taken in reading biblical texts. Lacan even thought that the “original sin of psychoanalysis” lay in the fact that as a Jew, Freud never delved into his relationship with Judaism and, as if to remedy this, Lacan devoted a number of his texts to psychoanalytical interpretations of biblical texts.12 S OME T HEOLOGICAL A PPROACHES WITHIN F RENCH F EMINISM “French feminism,” as it is called on the other side of the Atlantic, is characterized by the fact that it does not reject religion en bloc like an outmoded relic, but seeks to analyze its psycho-cultural functions.13 The best known French feminism theorists who refer to religion in their writings are Antoinette Fouque, Luce Irigaray, Hélène Cixous, Julia Kristeva, and more recently, Sylviane Agacinski.14

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Feminism, Secularism, and Religion in France 145 Although intellectually fascinated by Judaism, Antoinette Fouque nevertheless categorizes it together with all the monotheisms that exclude women and appropriate their abilities to procreate. “God the patriarchal invention,” she says, is an imitation of women’s abilities: But God, in the fantasy of those who imagine him, does not wish to renounce His mastery of gestation. The Bible is absolutely full of examples of His delusion of mastery: having drawn Eve from Adam’s rib (a reverse genesis which does not surprise many), and hence having granted the woman only a “derived identity,” not an identity of her own, He opens and closes the matriarchs’ wombs as He pleases.15 In the Catholicism in which Antoinette Fouque was brought up, the predominance of patriarchy is just as obvious: [T]he spiritual trinity is the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Although the Virgin Mary was later elevated to the position of saint, she does not have the status of a divinity; only man is God, unique, in the father and the son.”16 Luce Irigaray thinks that it is illusory to imagine that religion can be done away with:

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Many of us are under the impression that all we have to do is not to enter a church, refuse to practice the sacraments, and never read the sacred texts in order to be free from the influence of religion on our lives. In our countries, we have—at least in theory—a system that separates church from state, enabling us to maintain this illusion. . . . Nonetheless, this does not solve the problem of how significant is the influence upon culture.17 According to Irigaray, then, the reality of the religious phenomenon must be taken into account, in an attempt to control its potential violent excesses. On the other hand, as we have seen, she acknowledges that a feminine divinity is unacceptable in Judeo-Christian beliefs. Metaphorically, however, the possibility of a “She-God” or “Goddess” (Dieue) as she calls her, would be an ideal, a model of perfection with whom women could identify.18 Hélène Cixous uses biblical themes from both the Old and New Testaments: Job: the Song of Songs, Jacob’s ladder, King David, but also Christ. For her, this does not always tie in with Jewish or other religious beliefs. Figures from the Scriptures enable her to illustrate and enrich her own literary themes.19 Sylviane Agacinski has recently looked at the history of the sexes in the major Christian myths. With a curiosity that is both scientific and feminist, she delves into the masculine (androcentric) view of the foundational texts of both Greek philosophy and Christian theology. She does not, however, go

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146 Feminism, Secularism, and Religion in France into questions related to Judaism, to which she refers only through contrastive quotations and in contexts that tie into Christian texts. These texts, she acknowledges modestly, are included solely for their stunning and wondrous poetical aspects.20 This is perhaps why, unlike her philosopher friends who came to the field earlier, she shies away from expressing personal theories and interpretations. We wish to lay particular emphasis on the analyses of the psychoanalytic theorist Julia Kristeva, who has taken Jewish and Christian biblical themes and made them into a reading in keeping with the methods of structuralism and semiology.21 Of Christian background but a non-believer, for her, religion is not a mere illusion. In it she sees a manifestation of man’s desire for transcendence, an innately human capacity to create meaning. As she explains:

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I should specify that I am an atheist and yet convinced that psychoanalysis has the formidable privilege of being able to lend its attention to the religious sphere whose “clashes” aggravate, when they do not condition, civilization’s discontents at the beginning of the third millennium. Whether we are believers or non-believers, we are all affected by the cultural-religious environment in which we move.22 Kristeva’s treatment of Judaism in Powers of Horror offers a psychological analysis of antisemitism through the concept of “abjection,” for which she deems a discussion of the history of religions essential. 23 Referring to the work of the English anthropologist Mary Douglas, the French historian Jean Soler, and the American academic scholar of Judaism, Jacob Neusner, she examines the diverse rites of purification as well as the dietary prohibitions.24 In her view, Judaism tries to neutralize the “abject” by a “logic of separation” as evident in the Hebrew Bible: separation of the pure and impure, and of the profane and the sacred, tied in with the dietary prohibitions. She concludes that the dietary prohibitions, like the Levitical abominations are “based on the prohibition of incest.” Inter alia she perceives that to separate the mother, to push her away, “to abject her”. . .constitutes a movement that has to be made in the biblical text as it combats the maternal and sacrificial cults of earlier and surrounding paganism.25 She considers this “logic of separation” to be the origin of moral standards and the limitation of sacral violence. Thus she sees the message of the Gospels as a continuation of the biblical message, particularly in Jesus’ words: “What goes into someone’s mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles” (Matthew 15:11). In Christianity Kristeva

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discerns an intrapsychic movement through which abjection and defilement are “interiorized,” displaced in the speech, the symbolic and the relation to the other. Hence Christianity marks the “reconciliation with the maternal principle.” The evolution of Jewish religion plays an important role in Kristeva’s narrative because in her view traditional Jewish observance is rooted in the male fantasy of separation from “the phantasmatic power of the mother.” Jewish law, she explains, involves the transfer of the “impurity and defilement” attached to food that did not conform to the taxonomy of sacred Law to “the mother and to women in general.” This inscribes the logic of dietary abominations within that of a limit, a boundary, a border between the sexes: a separation between feminine and masculine as foundation for the organization of that which is “clean and proper.”26 Examining how the biblical text “interiorizes” abjection so as to turn it into ethical law, Kristeva refers to the Gospels and analyzes how Christianity goes more deeply into this interiority. Some Jewish readers will see in Kristeva’s parallel between Jewish and Christian attitudes facing (or vis-à-vis) the “abject,” a form of Christian triumphalism or more specifically, a “regurgitation of a Hegelian narrative.”27 When discussing this issue, she was asked if she did not in fact tend to reassert the value of Christian ethics relative to Judaism. Her reply was that it was precisely the opposite. “It is not a parallel,” she stated, “but continuity,” and she did not conceal her admiration for the Jewish religion: Judaism is the first moral religion, the beginnings of ethics. I see Judaism basically as knowledge of the complex nature of the erotic experience, both carnal and spiritual. The sexual experience is approached in its complex nature, not only as a physiological drive, but as a spiritual tie to someone else. (I pay great attention to what must be called the “bisexuality” of the person—male or female—who listens to the Unnameable). The people is God’s spouse. A secular man cannot understand this “feminine” side without blaming or diabolizing it. There is also this warlike, implacable side of the Bible’s high moral standards, but its greatness is to be found in the simultaneous coexistence of the two. This femininity is not to be reduced to slavery, submission. On the contrary: the remarkable tenderness of the Jewish people draws from it an unquenchable ethic. This Christianity inherited from Judaism, and developed it as grace, at the same time minimizing the importance of the Law. In Judaism, the law and grace exist side by side. St. Paul continues to underscore this copresence of the Law and grace. I share the position of the philo-

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sopher Giorgio Agamben, who sees in Judaism the two scales of love: choice = affection, goes hand in hand with a high moral standard (which is also a sign of love). Election is merited through trials. We are part of a two-headed philosophical body: Jewish and Christian. Secularization must transvalue both.28 This inextricable link between Judaism and Christianity, this theological continuum to which Kristeva refers, is far from being accepted unanimously, especially by the Orthodox Jewish world. The Jewish philosopher Amado Lévy-Valensi, who in the 1960s was involved in Jewish-Christian dialogue, prefers to refer to Judaism as “stopping short of Christianity,” stating that the two do not meet.29 But Kristeva is not one of those who aspire to a Verus Israel. What she is seeking in Judaism and Christianity is more symbolic than religious. She continues to use the biblical themes of the Old Testament to illustrate her analyses of love, strangeness, depression. Special attention must be paid to the tale of Ruth the Moabite,30 and more recently to the Song of Songs.31 While her approach to the Levitical prohibitions in Les Pouvoirs de l’horreur (Powers of horror) may have seemed hostile to Judaism, this is because, as she puts it, she has not been understood. Jewish or Christian believers are often opposed to these secular psychoanalytical interpretations of the Bible that go beyond religious traditions. Kristeva herself acknowledges as much when she says: “Let us reread the Bible. To interpret it, and also to unfurl in it our fantasies and our interpretative delusions.”32 Today, a whole host of postmodern or anthropological psychoanalytical interpretations of biblical passages are common currency. In particular, they enable feminists to rehabilitate women in the Scriptures or to study metaphors about feminine aspects of the divine.33 For example, in the commentaries about Abraham obeying God’s command to sacrifice his son Isaac, there is a sudden realization that a crucial element has been hidden: the mother, Sarah, is completely left out of the picture. It appears that she did not know what her husband was up to until he returned from Mount Moriah. Jewish tradition (the midrash) tells us that when she realized that her only son had almost been sacrificed, she died. In the biblical tale of Esther, Vashti, the wife of King Ahasuerus who was repudiated as a result of her disobedience, is rehabilitated: rightly, she will be admired for her courage, whereas Esther is depicted as the submissive woman.34 In the story of Ruth the Moabite, the emphasis is on the heartfelt friendship between two women, Ruth and Naomi. In contrast, Lilith, who preceded Eve in the history of the Creation and who is said to have been expelled from Eden because she was unwilling to lie beneath Adam, symbolizes the spirit of rebellion.

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T HE “F EMININE ” IN F RENCH J EWISH T HOUGHT A number of French Jewish thinkers have studied and given their own interpretations of Jewish texts, both biblical and kabbalistic, which stress the concept of “feminine” in traditional Jewish thought, as Emmanuel Levinas did in his philosophical writings. To illustrate the concept of vulnerability, Levinas in Humanism of the Other, uses the picturesque French expression “gémissement d’entrailles” (literally: moaning of the entrails), followed by the term “mercy.” In the footnote referring to this, he reminds the reader of the conjunction of the Hebrew rehem, the matrix or uterus, related to the biblical term rahamim (mercy).35 In her review of the book, Elisabeth de Fontenay took note of this discreet reference by Levinas, which might well have gone unnoticed, and she discusses the profound implications of this Hebrew root. 36 The same metaphor of maternity appears in Otherwise than Being as a paradigm for an ethical relationship, that of sensible proximity. 37 On this, Levinas in Totality and Infinity relates to the “alterity of the feminine” and associates the woman with “hospitable welcome and dwelling place,” concepts which some feminists classify as androcentric. However, Levinas was careful to point out that the concepts addressed by him have metaphorical or even metaphysical content, and do not relate to empirical, biological women. Nevertheless, metaphor does refer to reality, and the term feminine was not chosen at random. Hence it is hard for us not to make the link with real women.38 Here we can add a reflection of our own in regard to Jewish tradition which relates the concept of “dwelling” or place to transcendence. “The Place”—HaMakom in Hebrew—is one of the names of God. If the feminine, associated by Levinas with “hospitable welcome and dwelling place,” can be considered a divine attribute, it can hardly be “debasing.”39 The link between dwelling and the divine exists in other mythologies as well. Luce Irigaray discovered this topic in a text by the French philosopher Jean-Joseph Goux, who referred to Heidegger. She continues her reading, commenting on it on the basis of her own theories: The French philosopher Jean-Joseph Goux explains that the term Being is often identified with the term dwelling in Heidegger’s philosophy and that the coincidence of the two grows more marked as his thought progresses. To show this, Jean-Joseph Goux uses the IndoEuropean roots of these words. Now, these very same roots— signifying Being and dwelling—are related to the name of Hestia, the female divinity who guarded the flame of the domestic hearth. The

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150 Feminism, Secularism, and Religion in France divine is therefore watched over by women at home. It is transmitted from mother to daughter.40 From this Irigaray concludes that respect for these female filiations and qualities attests to the sacred character of the home. The loss of the dimensions of earthly inhabitance goes hand in hand with the neglect of Hestia in favor of the male gods, defined as celestial by philosophy from Plato onwards. The “feminine” is indeed a concept found in various Jewish sources, especially the Kabbalah. This topic has been examined by a number of specialists in Jewish thought, basing themselves on traditional Jewish texts and personal interpretations. In Le récit de la disparue—Essai sur l’identité juive (1977), Shmuel Trigano discusses the feminine in the divine. His point of departure is also the Hebrew term rahamim, compassion or mercy, a divine attribute, derived from rehem (womb, whereas in Greek the uterus is hyster, from which comes the term “hysteria”). Drawing on an erudite analysis of the roots of Hebrew words, he leads us into the realm of Jewish discourse, which he calls “dialogic discourse.”41 One of his demonstrations concerns the “feminine aspect” of God the Creator. To refuse the idea of a “feminine principle” in the divinity, as “soiling it” with sexuality, he says, is to

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become aware of the unbearable nature of a conception that reduces the divinity to the father, the masculine, to the masculine sex, to become aware of a conception that reduces gender to sex. Feminine and masculine stand for types of movements, actions, and not for natures, states. . . . Anatomy is not destiny. . . . That man should be capable of conceiving a feminine world, this is what is at stake in the human vocation.42 More recently, Trigano has revisited this biblical root which he has made the pivotal point of his metaphysical thinking. He does, however, make the point that the use of sexual metaphors when reflecting on the Divine can be explained by the fact that “the Torah speaks the language of human beings,” as the Talmud puts it. So Trigano proposed an interpretation of Psalm 103:4 (ke-rahem av al banim), God is “like a père matriciel,” where the adjective matriciel is derived from matrice, another word for uterus, echoing the Hebrew term for compassion (rahamim), from the Hebrew rehem, womb or uterus.43 In Le sexe des âmes—Aléas de la différence sexuelle dans la Cabale, Charles Mopsik also dwells at some length on God’s feminine aspects in the Kabbalah.44 He states, however, that this has nothing to do with goddesses.

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Feminism, Secularism, and Religion in France 151 On the contrary: “If many kabbalistic writings emphasized the feminine dimension of the divinity, this is almost only to avoid confusing him with a goddess, an autonomous paredros of God.”45 He goes on to state that ultimately, “there is not the slightest doubt that the feminine is a more active and more historically effective divine aspect than the masculine aspect.”46 There is no doubt that the “feminine” aspect of God, to which Trigano and Mopsik refer, demonstrates the compassionate and even “maternal” side of God in the Hebrew Bible. These two Jewish thinkers, whose intellectual journey began in the 1970s, were probably influenced by the women’s movement, which led them to examine aspects of Judaism compatible with feminism. However, managing to show God’s feminine features is unlikely to change the antireligious convictions of most French feminists, secular and atheist alike. Most reject the essentialist concept of “feminine,” bound up with the stereotypical qualities ascribed to women: sensitivity, fragility, and its consequential passivity. As for the link between the Hebrew root of the term “compassion” and “uterus,” Antoinette Fouque, a “feminology” theorist, saw it as an apt illustration of her theories about the French “matriciel” and what she calls “the ethics of procreation.”47 She remains extremely skeptical about the Trigano’s expression “père matriciel,” which she interprets as the appropriation by men of maternity.48 Fouque also uses the Derridian and Levinassian concepts of hospitality, the “absolute welcoming one,” to express the experience of pregnancy which is exclusive to women. She follows the philosophical position of Levinas who uses the metaphor of maternity as a paradigmatic of an ethical relationship, that of sensible proximity.49 These many philosophical and theological examples which, drawing on Jewish and Christian myths and traditions, seek to analyze women’s human condition, in its universality and its singularity, are very different from American theological-feminist debates. Jewish French philosophers such as Levinas and Derrida discussed topics with which Christian theologians can readily identify.50 As a result, we may refer to reciprocal influences rather than competition. This is probably the reason why so-called French Theory, which includes French feminism, is held in such high esteem on the other side of the Atlantic. J EWISH I DENTITY IN THE C ONTEXT OF S ECULAR F RENCH F EMINISM As we saw in the previous chapters, “Jewish feminism”—alive and well in the United States—has not developed to the same extent in France. This is particularly true of its religious aspects.51 Most of the first French Jewish

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152 Feminism, Secularism, and Religion in France feminist activists were from secular circles, and were either indifferent or hostile to religion. In particular, they feared religion’s influence on society, thinking it might have a detrimental effect on women’s freedom. This approach ties in also with the radical nature of secularism in France. We can understand that in France, secular Jewish feminists were not going to fight for equality in synagogues (which they didn’t attend), nor for less patriarchal biblical interpretation (an area of which they had very sketchy knowledge, if any). Some opted to join various groups which were in favor of a “secular,” “humanist,” “diasporic” form of Judaism. One of the earliest of such groups is the Cercle Gaston Crémieux, set up in 1967 by a number of Jewish intellectuals, including Richard Marienstras and Pierre-Vidal Naquet, who put out a publication called Diasporiques. Their stance was: Unconcerned about religion, not interested in emigrating to Israel, feel 100% citizens of their country (France), wish to restate that they are Jews despite the diversity of their options. French-style secularism has many followers among French Jews. Some go so far as to make a hobbyhorse of it, convinced that it guarantees liberty for all. As Elisabeth Badinter, who objects to all forms of sectarianism, says over and over again:

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I am sure that a majority of the French population, irrespective of their backgrounds, is in favor of secularism, as protecting every individual’s liberty. On the other hand, for the last ten years plus I have seen the rise of religious fundamentalism, among the Muslims and the Jews alike. . . . In France, we are greatly influenced by this Anglo-Saxon concept of liberty. Upshot: sectarianism is gaining ground. 52 However, in French the term “secularism” does not necessarily mean giving up religious practices and observances; they are simply relegated to the private domain. Some of the feminist activists who were closely involved in the May 1968 events have even “returned” to Judaism in the religious sense, whether liberal Judaism or something more Orthodox.53 Jacqueline Feldman recalls her happy “find” of a Jewish universe “which had only existed for her as something negative”: When I moved on from the women’s lib movement to Judaism, I had a very strong impression, of jumping backwards in time, an amazing jump. When I was an activist, I got used to projecting myself forward, into the future. We had to make a revolution, construct a new society. Above all we had to be “progressive,” in other words to go in what seemed to be the direction of history.54

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Feminism, Secularism, and Religion in France 153 What led her to make this “backwards jump?” She took part in the famous course given by the Jewish Talmud scholar Jean Zacklad, in which a number of ’68 “graduates” gained an understanding of Judaism. 55 It was in this context that, Feldman had the feeling that she was “flip-flopping from the 21st century to the third millennium BC,” and she then opted for a liberal and open form of Judaism, in which she could “find her way.”56 Her friend Danielle Bailly, who also took Jean Zacklad’s course, discovered a wealth of Jewish sources of which she had been completely unaware. This experience gave meaning to what she calls a “passionate” relationship with her Jewishness. A Jewishness without religion, diasporabased, which she hopes to pass on to her children and grandchildren. It is a blend of the Yiddish language, klezmer music, dance, and a distant but intense and emotional bond with Israel. Nobody in my family keeps Shabbat, nobody eats kosher. Nobody has any ties with the Jewish religion. But I have passed on to my children a very definite and positive sense of “Jewishness” (a word that I greatly prefer to “Judaism”), because I have an emotional tie to this Jewishness. Although my children have married non-Jews, they have passed this on to the best of their ability to their own children. I think this has more or less worked. It’s like bending over backwards, but we don’t give in or give up, and we’re highly motivated.57

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A few activists have adopted a strictly Orthodox lifestyle. Catherine Garson, for example, says that when she switched from the feminist movement to Orthodox Judaism, she did not sense “any contradiction.” Her feminism taught her to express her independence as a woman, at the same time as having five children. When asked about the impact of her period as a left-wing feminist, she replied: When it comes to feminism, the fact that I’d got used to being among women in the feminist movement prepared me for the mechitsa, the separation between men and women in synagogue.58 I have no desire whatsoever to be on the other side of the mechitza. I’d been well “trained” at being among women, and so this isn’t something that I demand. The second thing that it taught me is to be sure of myself, to speak, to take responsibility for myself. And the third thing is consciousness-raising groups: a small number of women would get together, and talk about themselves, the things they fantasized about.59 Pro-secularism devotees cannot understand that religion, even if from the outside appears repressive for women, may be considered by the women who adopt and practice it as empowering them. Some would go so far as to say

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154 Feminism, Secularism, and Religion in France that it is a meaningful and rewarding lifestyle, compatible with feminism or being a “feminist.”60 One of the most interesting “journeys” is the path followed by Léo Lévy, the wife of Benny Lévy, who was the charismatic leader of the “Gauche prolétarienne” (GP, Proletarian Left). The 1973 “self-dissolution” of this Maoist movement was initiated by Benny Lévy. The amazing path that he took subsequently, known as “from Mao to Moses,”61 continues to intrigue observers of the French intellectual world to this day. What possible explanation can be advanced for this development that led a revolutionary radical who was entirely untouched by any religion to observe the strictest rules of Judaism? Léo, who had been an active militant in the GP, is a woman with a very strong personality who does not give the impression that she followed passively in her husband’s footsteps, or that she allowed herself to be dragged into an “adventure” against her better judgment. What was it like for her to experience this “return” to Judaism, what part did she play along the way? After the dissolution of the GP, she recalls, “it was so empty, everything looked false to them.” Together with a few comrades from the leftist group, they sought a new path for putting their revolutionary ideal into practice. While Benny organized his “Socratic circle,” Léo became interested in nonMarxist socialist theories, but she came up against xenophobia and antisemitism which led to her decision to turn her back on this setting. She then went to a meeting of the French women’s liberation movement (MLF), where she saw power struggles that made her lose any desire to go back to this world. Jean Zacklad’s seminar was her first “rediscovery” of her Jewish heritage. She had in fact never been estranged from her Jewish roots. How could she have been? Her father, whom she did not know, died before her birth when he was deported to Auschwitz. Her mother, who lived through the Occupation on her own, having to hide her five children, learned after the war that her own mother had been beaten to death by the Nazis at the age of 80. Unlike Benny, Léo did not need to learn the Hebrew alphabet because she had been taught it as a child, in Thursday classes. Even before her husband reached this stage, Léo applied the Jewish rules governing food (kashrut, eating kosher). She had the feeling that she was yet another link in the chain of valiant women who had struggled in a world where being Jewish had become a mortal danger, and who remained faithful to their Judaism. When the entire Lévy family—parents and children alike—decided in 1995 to come and live in Jerusalem, there was yet another challenge to deal with. Benny found outstanding teachers of Talmud, and at the same time he trained a number of followers among French-speaking Israelis. Following his sudden death in 2003, Léo stayed in touch with his former students and with the help

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Feminism, Secularism, and Religion in France 155 of a number of them, she published the many seminars that he had given over the years.62

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T HE S TATUS OF W OMEN IN THE F RENCH J EWISH C OMMUNITY Among French Orthodox Jewish women, instances of activist “Jewish feminism” are relatively rare. Few of them protest about women’s exclusion from Jewish studies or from becoming rabbis. French Orthodox Judaism is still very conservative in its view of women’s role in the religious sphere, especially regarding advanced Talmudic studies. In France, women’s study groups come and go. One such is led by the French Talmudic scholar Liliane Vana who, while respecting the Orthodox tradition, gives feminist interpretations of halachic texts.63 In 2004 an important symposium on “feminism and Judaism” took place in the Jewish Museum, Paris at the initiative of the sociologist Sonia Sarah Lipsyc, who also co-edited a special issue of the Jewish journal Pardès under the title “When Women Read the Bible.”64 A series of conferences and symposia on this topic was held at the Alliance Israélite Universelle Institute of Jewish Studies and the Jewish Community Center in Paris.65 However, these events remain an exception to the rule and have definitely not become institutionalized.66 The fact that since the 1990s four women have been elected to the Consistoire israélite de Paris—sparking controversy in the local Jewish community—has made not the slightest difference to women’s status in the French Jewish community’s religious bodies.67 The old-established Consistoire du Bas-Rhin (Lower Rhine) was more recalcitrant than its Paris counterpart. It was not until December 2006, after a group of Jewish women threatened to take it to court, that it agreed— reluctantly—that women could run for office.68 It might be thought that these faltering early steps would lead to the birth of American-style feminism. However, given the current state of French Judaism, headed mainly by the ultra-Orthodox rabbinate, it is unlikely that such a development will take place. We can see it in a recent example that took place on the festival of Simhat Torah in 2012. Liliane Vana, joined by one hundred other women, did an unusual feat of daring with the agreement of the local rabbi, reading from the Torah scroll in the formal public ceremony. This initiative met with strong objections from Chief Rabbi Michel Gugenheim, along with the President of the Paris Consistoire, Joël Merguy.69 A further attempt on the following festival of Purim also met with a strong rebuke. The women argued that Orthodox authorities had permitted such readings in Israel, England, Canada, and the United States. They were dismayed that the Paris Consistoire only offered the usual traditional objec-

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156 Feminism, Secularism, and Religion in France tions.70 They continued to organize these readings despite the opposition of the rabbis. Beyond this, the most important issue for the French Jewish community is the problem of Jewish divorce, in which husbands will refuse to grant a get (document of divorce) to their wives. Such examples hold true of the Orthodox community in particular, there being less variety in it than in modern American or Israeli Modern Orthodox communities. Within the Jewish community one finds both out-and-out hostility to religion and allegiance to a Jewish religious Orthodox way of life. Many maintain off-and-on ties with their religious traditions. A way of life specific to the North African Jewish population (who make up the majority of French Jews since the 1960s) that seeks to maintain strong ties to traditional culture. Other French Jews are joining the liberal movements, which are more egalitarian when it comes to religious services. This trend, comprising various levels of religious practice (Liberals, “Masorti” [Conservative or Traditional], and ultra-Liberals), has strengthened in recent years, under the influence of the “Anglo-Saxon” model. This is the setting for the first—and for a long time, the only—woman rabbi, Pauline Bebe, who is still atypical in the French Jewish community.71 She provides a glimpse of American-style Jewish feminism, as reflected in her Dictionary of Women and Judaism.72 In this book she notes the mythologies of goddess worship said to have preceded the Hebrew patriarchy, the “sexist language” of religious texts, and other topics with feminist connotations with which the lexicon of French Judaism is generally unfamiliar. She was followed by two other women, Célia Surjet and Delphine Horvilleur, both of whom were appointed rabbis in the Liberal Jewish Movement of France (MJLF) after studying in Englishspeaking countries.73 This show the yawning gap between France and America which has had impressive developments in Jewish feminism, and above all, increasing women’s role in the synagogue. One possible explanation for the difference is the religious conservatism that characterizes religion in France. Another, as we have already mentioned, is the indifference of the secular and anti-clerical ideology of the French republic, which, however, expresses sympathy to liberal Judaism. In order for there to be a “religious feminism,” what is needed, in addition to a firm belief in feminism, is a profound interest in the religion that individuals hope to interpret and adapt. In the United States the setting is more favorable to this kind of adaptation. This is the result of the secular religious identity which shapes society, as well as the place in the United States of feminism, both as it exists and what it strives to be and do. In France, even in the officially secular Jewish community, few women manage to rise to positions of authority. In the early 1980s, Nicole Goldman was elected as CRIF (Conseil Représentitif

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Feminism, Secularism, and Religion in France 157 des Institutions juives de France) vice-president, although her career was cut short when she emigrated to Israel.74 Might she have advanced and become the first woman to head this masculine bastion? In light of the “power politics” and the setup of the French Jewish community this is unlikely. It should be noted that there is no principle that limits how far Jewish women can go in secular French Jewish institutions. However, most of them are active members of women’s organizations, such as “Coopération féminine,” WIZO (Women’s International Zionist Organization), or Hadassah. Despite their sizable membership, these organizations focus on a limited sector. They are represented in the CRIF, and they take part in decisions and joint actions. However, they do not seek to join forces in a powerful women’s lobby like that of their American coreligionists. Neither have they ever had any “feminist” demands, let alone demanding parity following the French political setting. The president of La Coopération féminine, Evelyne Berdugo, makes a point of emphasizing that her organization does not define itself as feminist, “despite the fields in which it is involved, which often involve the rights of women and children.”75 This statement, again, reflects the conservative nature of French Jewry, for which feminism retains something of a subversive connotation, seen as a threat to family stability, and often perceived as hostile to Israel. J EWISH -C HRISTIAN D IALOGUE IN F RENCH T HOUGHT

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Interestingly, the French Jewish community’s religious conformism is also evident among French Christians. In most European countries, feminist theology is progressing, influenced by the American experience In France it firmly dissociates itself from feminism, as the German theologian Monika Jacobs explains: While in the German-speaking countries and in the Netherlands feminist theology is understood as an indispensable element of Christian theology in general, . . . in countries like France or Spain, this concept (feminist theology) meets with extraordinary skepticism and women theologians are afraid to call themselves feminists. Undoubtedly this conceals the fear of being understood as separatist and unfeminine. Consequently, the “Femmes et hommes en Église” Association, that is open equally to men appears as an important voice in feminist theology in France. The key word is “partnership.”76 Concerning Jewish-Christian relations, there are Jewish women who are members of the Amitiés judéo-chretiennes de France (AJCF), and some of them speak out, whether in writing or orally, but these contributions have

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158 Feminism, Secularism, and Religion in France limited impact. Protestant and Catholic Christian feminist reflection has developed in some French denominational associations, but they lack the impact on the public of American and German Christian theologists.77 Nor have they triggered any interest among feminists with a Jewish background. As a result, French Jewish scholars generally do not analyze Christian texts in order to identify any anti-Judaic trends. The writings of the French philosopher Simone Weil (not to be confused with the politician Simone Veil) were not discussed by feminists in the country from which she came: just a few who specialized in philosophy did so. Some of the subjects that she raised, such as prostitution, the working class, or colonialism, as well as her extraordinary intellectual independence, could certainly have given rise to some feminist reflection. One reason for the lack of interest in her writings is simply that Simone Weil herself never expressed any interest in women’s issues, and in fact, even considered it a great misfortune to be born female. Another factor is that her mysticism, of no interest to her secularist and antireligious feminist compatriots, was more likely to meet bewilderment rather than admiration.78 However, the most sensitive topic in her works was her anti-Judaism. Among the many who commented on this was Emmanuel Levinas, in an article that appeared in a journal in 1952. 79 At this time the drama of this Jewish woman’s life—one who “hated” the Old Testament— deeply moved the French intellectual world. The 2009 centenary of Weil’s birth triggered a new discussion of this somewhat forgotten special philosopher, whose “self-disgust” is reminiscent of another anti-Jewish thinker of the very beginning of the twentieth century, Otto Weininger. 80 The point of interest to us here is Weil’s literal reading of the Old Testament. She viewed the Jewish Bible as glorifying war and political domination, and the God of Abraham and Moses as cruel and “imperialistic.” Inevitably we can see similarities between Simone Weil’s gnostic type of anti-Judaism and some of the Christian and post-Christian feminist theologies—both American and German—analyzed above. Obviously Simone Weil does not associate these with feminism or the feminine, but she has the same yearning for the God of goodness, this God of gentleness and the compassion of Christianity, as opposed to the “wicked” God of Israel. Levinas’ Jewish response to Simone Weil relates to both of these figures: Does divine goodness consist in treating man with an infinite pity that lies within this supernatural compassion that moves Simone Weil, or in admitting him into His society, and treating him with respect? To love one’s neighbor can mean already to glimpse his misery and rottenness, but it can also mean to see his face, his mastery over us, and the dignity he has as someone who is associated with God, and has

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rights over us. God’s supernatural love, in Simone Weil’s Christianity, if it goes beyond a compassion for a creature’s misery, can signify only love of evil itself. God loved evil; this is perhaps—we say it with infinite respect—the most fearful vision of this Christianity and the whole metaphysics of Passion. But our respect is mingled with a strong sense of dread. Our path lies elsewhere.81 However, with very few exceptions, none of these theological questions attracted the interest of French feminists. There is unanimous concern among feminist activists, irrespective of their religious background, about the Vatican’s position on contraception, abortion, homosexuality, and the antiAIDS battle, and the positions of the Catholic Far Right, which is close to the National Front party. This is why French feminism, with its solid footing in secularism, does not have anything similar to the English-speaking countries’ new interpretations of Christian theology, nor postmodern biblical exegesis, nor the new post-Christian or Jungian religions which are popular in the United States. The writings of Julia Kristeva, Hélène Cixous, and Luce Irigaray which have theological connotations are read and studied more widely outside France than in France. Their “universalist” French colleagues object to the designation “French Feminism” as given by American scholars to a single trend within feminism in France.82 Another explanation is that French universities rarely offer religious studies, let alone Jewish studies. A few initiatives have tried to fill this gap, for example the journal CLIO, Histoire, Femmes et Sociétés planned from the very beginning a special issue on “women and religions,”83 and it continues to keep its readers abreast of new publications in the field. We also noted the Jewish journal Pardès, which produced a special issue containing articles by women in Jewish studies.84 The Institut européen en sciences des religions (European Institute for Religious Studies), at the École pratique des hautes études, set up in Paris in 2002 by Régis Debray, will undoubtedly play a major role in interesting women in theology.85 The topic of religion only came to the fore in France when the secular mainstream became aware of the dangers embodied in the growing phenomenon of Islamic fundamentalism. Discussions began in 1989 with what was known as the “first Islamic veil affair.” At the beginning of the new millennium, further controversy was sparked by the parliamentary bill on secularism which sought to ban the wearing in class of any “conspicuous religious symbols.” A profound divide in feminist circles separated women who wanted the Islamic veil as a symbol of women’s submission to be banned, and those who advocated women’s freedom to choose and respect for other cultures.

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160 Feminism, Secularism, and Religion in France

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I SLAM , J UDAISM , C HRISTIANITY : S TRIKING A B ALANCE In France, the debate about religion has developed recently not in a theological context, but rather in the context of multiculturalism, the right to be different, and antiracism. Postcolonial thinking makes Islam the religion of colonized peoples, the downtrodden, and oppressed. Hence it is no longer a question of banning a patriarchal religion, or even wearing the veil as a symbol of male domination. Given this way of thinking, some far left French intellectuals, including a number of feminists who call themselves “atheists,” have spoken out in defense of Islam. In so doing they have tried to excuse and sometimes to justify Islamist fundamentalism. Criticism of the latter means the critic is Islamophobic.86 Among French feminists, Christine Delphy, a radical feminist who became one of the most outspoken opponents of the law banning the Islamic veil in school, against the position taken by many other feminists. She defends girls who insist on wearing the veil as if they were preaching and practicing a new form of feminism. In the early 2000s Islamist/anti-Jewish tensions were heightened as a result of deteriorating Israeli-Palestinian relations.87 The Islamic veil issue became caught up in the rivalry between the people fighting “Islamophobia” and those who censured “Judeophobia.”88 As a result, at demonstrations against banning the wearing of the veil in school, French feminists could be seen marching side by side with fundamentalist imams, whose openly antisemitic speeches and slogans they neither protested nor disowned publicly.89 For the sake of the record, it must be stated that some left-wing women—even some on the far left—did make a point of robustly dissociating themselves from these demonstrations, where the Star of David was displayed side by side with the swastika.90 The most conservative (“fundamentalist”) forms of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, had come to be seen as equivalent: sexist and prompting blind obediance to divine laws. One of the goals of this charge was to show that Islam is not alone in its excesses. Yet different conclusions are drawn, depending on the observer’s position; some consider Islamism to be more dangerous, and express concerns about the antisemitism to which it leads. Others, while acknowledging some Islamist excesses, still minimize criticism of Islam, and remain highly suspicious of the Jews.91 One of these views is represented by two feminist activists, Caroline Fourest and Fiametta Venner.92 They established the periodical Prochoix, whose mission statement reflects their stance “against all bad choices”: racism, xenophobia, antisemitism, sexism, homophobia, and in particular, all forms of fundamentalism. This is the background against which they published Tirs croisés, la laïcité à l’épreuve des intégrismes juif, chrétien et

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Feminism, Secularism, and Religion in France 161 musulman (Crossfire: Secularism facing Jewish Christian and Muslim Fundamentalism, 2003). They laid no claim to being exegetes, but provided selected passages from the Bible and the Quran.93 The problem is that to take a literal reading of “misogynist” passages from the Bible without referring to the oral traditions which are so important in Judaism—and doubtless the same applies to Islam and Christianity—results in a compilation of distortions which twist these scriptures so that they look ridiculous. Our two authors, however, seek to show that with regard to many aspects (women’s rights, sexuality, cultural intolerance, violence and more), the Islamist fundamentalists’ world view is just like those of Jewish and Christian fundamentalists. Hence there is no “clash of civilizations,” since their basic principles are convergent. However, when it comes to levels of violence, Islamism is in a class of its own: it approves of suicide attacks, calls for jihad, and hates Jews. In September 2001, Caroline Fourest and Fiametta Venner attended the United Nations World Conference against Racism in Durban. Horrified by the Islamic antisemitism rampant at the event, in their book they wrote briefly about what they call the “federative strength of anti-Jewish hatred,” which is fed by neo-Nazi and revisionist propaganda common in the Arab countries.94 They still maintain that there is always the potential for violence present in all faiths’ religious extremisms, and the ability to kill in the name of God. Here they cite Claude Lévi-Strauss, who said: “there is nothing more dangerous to mankind than the monotheistic religions.” The example that recurs throughout the book as a demonstration of Jewish fundamentalism’s potential for violence is the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin by Yigal Amir. This event traumatized all Israelis, who have not recovered from it to this day. It enables us to show what can happen when religion and politics meet. In the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it is painfully clear that the religious element is one of the factors that generate unrest. Jewish and Muslim holy places which are either shared or on the same site in Jerusalem and Hebron may lead to frequent violent events, such as those that resulted in the Al-Aqsa Intifada, named after the famous mosque on the Temple Mount. It is when religious extremism is politicized that things get totally out of hand. The second tendency, which runs counter to Crossfire, is that of some French intellectuals calling themselves atheists who abhor all religions, but are attracted—and sometimes even fascinated—by Islam, which they bend over backwards to explain and excuse. The postcolonial factor, in which any criticism of Islam is equated with racist prejudice, is pivotal in their stance. However, when it comes to Judaism or Jews who assert their Jewishness, these intellectuals are not so indulgent. Indeed, Jewish bonds with the State

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162 Feminism, Secularism, and Religion in France of Israel annoy them and arouse their suspicions. They often accuse them of “inventing” the antisemitic threat and thereby pushing for the “clash of civilizations.”95 As a striking example of this tendency we have taken some passages from a book by novelist and essayist Danièle Sallenave, entitled Dieu.com.96 We have chosen this work, published in 2004, because it provides a clear illustration of the strange combination of atheism, feminism, and defense of Islam.97 Sallenave’s book, which concludes by praising atheism, also seeks to show that the three monotheistic religions are equally hotbeds of obscurantism. However, from her very first pages the author does her utmost to defend Islam relative to Christianity and Judaism. She does, prudently, admit that Islam fails to respect gender equality. She hastens to add that among the Jews, and in particular in Israel, things are similar if not worse; she bases her statement on the fictional film Kadosh.98 Another source is the text of a rabbi praising women’s modesty. There is nothing original in this, since no one denies that for conservative religions, modesty is a virtue. What is surprising is that in arguing this point she uses a famous quote by the philosopher Emmanual Levinas, of whose metaphorical and philosophical significance she must be aware: “The woman is the condition for recollection, the interiority of the home, and inhabitation.”99 Taken from Totality and Infinity, Sallenave holds that Levinas’s view is comparable to the Islamist Hani Ramadan (director of the Geneva Islamic Center and brother of the Muslim scholar, Tariq Ramadan), who “publicly justifies the stoning of an adulterous woman.” Ramadan had said “The woman is a pearl. She is the treasure of the home.”100 This, she considers similar to Levinas, who associates the feminine with “hospitable welcome and the dwelling place.” In order to treat Jewish and Islamic forms of obscurantism “equally,” Sallenave chooses Emmanuel Levinas, the famous Jewish philosopher of ethics and alterity.101 This trend of blending different religions so that they are all “equal” is used several times in her work, in order to discredit the religious fact. However, she directs the majority of her disparagement at the Jewish religion. Her mistrust is not limited to the sphere of religion when she comes to the Jews. When Jewish women or men object to the Islamic veil in the name of women’s rights, their approach is called “manipulative” and “instrumentalized,” and connected to their ties with the State of Israel. 102 In contrast, the fear of Islamism in the wake of 9/11 is simply compared with the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, as if the vast number of killings perpetrated in the name of Islam were a fiction, not to say a fabrication, like the Protocols.103 Daniele Sallenave says over and over again that she abhors antisemitism, she loathes religions, including Islam, whose major shortcomings she does not deny. But strangely she is ready to forgive Islam

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Feminism, Secularism, and Religion in France 163 because of Orientalism, or for political reasons connected to the Israeli-Arab conflict, or simply because she cannot stand Israel and those who defend it.104 These “comparative religion” exercises, whether undertaken by religious or secular figures, are often based on slight familiarity with these faiths, sometimes mixed with preconceived ideas. This is quite different from the feminist theological argument of their fellow Americans. One possible result is that people keep a close watch for anti-Jewish excesses. It is just as likely, however, as in Danièle Sallenave’s book, to lead to the Jews being stigmatized in a political sense, and not only as a “religion,” as her primary approach and defined by her. In both instances there is the same risk of certain principles which are fundamental to Judaism being distorted or misrepresented. These principles are viewed through literature which cannot but be succinct and incomplete, not to say influenced by the observer’s own culture and prejudices. Hence this is a double-edged sword: it can be used to either defend each religion or castigate it on its own ground. Her critique of Levinas derives from what she considers the influence of his Jewish religion on his conception of the woman as “hospitable welcome” and the “dwelling place.” The philosopher Jacques Derrida, in his homage to Levinas, has suggested

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to listen again to the definition by Levinas of the “hospitable welcome par excellence,” “the welcoming one par excellence,” welcoming it in itself,” that is, “the feminine being.” He saw another approach of this description, far from classic androcentrism, which “might even, on the contrary, make of this text a sort of feminist manifesto.” For this text defines the welcome par excellence. . .absolutely originary, or even pre-originary hospitality, nothing less than the pre-ethical origin of ethics, on the basis of femininity. . . . The welcome, the anarchic origin of ethics, belongs to the “dimension of femininity” and not to the empirical presence of a human being of the “feminine sex.”105 Julia Kristeva, who has also been criticized for some of her biblical interpretations, is at least familiar with the specific nature of the Judaic tradition of discussion and questioning: Unlike Islam, Judaism constructs a powerful counterweight to the legalistic temptation: a counterweight which is both subtle and uncompromising. I am thinking of the wealth of the Talmud, all of these interpretations, all of these schools, this vibrant thought that underlies the posing of questions.106 This tradition of posing questions and Talmudic “pilpul” must be borne in mind. In this setting, the most misogynous citations are not “the word of

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164 Feminism, Secularism, and Religion in France God,” but rather are ideas subject to discussion, where some are accepted by one side and refuted by the other. This does not prevent anybody from concluding that the monotheisms are androcentric, and from criticizing the sexist practices of various religions. 107 The total rejection of religions as such does not require any in-depth study of complex, not to say esoteric texts, thereby running the risk of getting caught in the trap of interpretation. Indeed, it is those who make such issues topical and relate them to political contexts who fuel “clash of civilizations” arguments. Religion is a long way from disappearing from feminist reflection. While some consider religion to be the enemy of women, others view it as increasing their empowerment. However, feminist interpretations of religious texts lead to a whole range of conclusions, often contradictory and sometimes even fanciful. Unexpectedly, feminism has forced its way into most religions: “religious feminism” is exuberantly alive in the three monotheistic religions and is even contributing to a religious revival. This involves changes and adaptations which do not always find favor in the eyes of the conservative spiritual elites. The anti-Judaism that can be identified in a particular form of Christian feminism is undoubtedly disturbing, but it remains closed off in a minority debate. In addition, it is robustly criticized by some female Jewish theologians who defend Judaism’s honor in their publications and presentations. They were the leading figures in drawing attention to this new type of anti-Judaism. However, they are also aware of the “sexist” and “oppressive” aspects of traditional Judaism, to which they nevertheless feel bound by very strong ties. Those who refuse to give up their religion will bend over backwards to adapt it to their feminism. Today, however, the danger is not so much this Christian feminist antiJudaism, which is confined to academic polemics in a small number of theological academies. Rather, it is much more present in the anti-Judaism tendency of Islamism, whose sources lie in the Quran. This takes on a radical political form in the context of the conflict in the Middle East. This politicization cascades down through all walks of life in today’s Europe, becoming part of social frustrations. The upshot is that the Jews are significantly affected by this phenomenon. This is without doubt a new stage in their European history. Henceforth, the Jewish religion is presented as the competitor of Islam rather than of Christianity, as in the past. The IsraeliPalestinian conflict, which turned it into a political subject, definitely played its part in greatly heightening the tensions between the two religions. And when religion becomes entwined with politics, we are only too aware that this opens the door wide to fanaticism of all kinds.

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Feminism, Secularism, and Religion in France 165 There can be no denying that the feminist criticism of religion is not separate from matters of this world. It is based on a firm belief that the symbolic, metaphorical and dialectical spheres of religions are bound up with social and political realities. Hence feminist theology is political theology, adapted to the principles of women’s liberation movements. As the Dutch feminist theologian, Hedwig Meyer-Wilmes, in her book, whose title resumes the status theology today, Rebellion on the Borders, said:

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Feminist theology operates on the borderline between scholarship and political activism. “Border crossings are virtually constitutive of it, which poses an obstacle to its being seriously classified as a science.108 It can readily be seen that female Christian theologians—who for example contrast “Christ, the God of love” with the “vengeful God” of the Old Testament—will have no problem whatsoever when it comes to updating their theories and transposing them to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. At the beginning of the Second Intifada, at the beginning of the new millennium, the Italian newspaper La Stampa published a cartoon showing the infant Jesus threatened by Israeli tanks, begging them: “Don’t tell me that you’re going to kill me once again.”109 Religious anti-Judaism has always found new resources and eventually become part of political antisemitism.110 So, the antipathy for Judaism expressed by an atheist like Danièle Sallenave is directly related also to her vision of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. We have touched upon a number of factors related to the issue of feminism and its impact on Jewish thinking. Within Jewish communities worldwide today, the main concerns are Jewish continuity, assimilation, and intermarriage. Another crucial problem is the security and international image of the State of Israel. Bound up with religion, whether directly or indirectly, are overlapping concerns about anti-Judaism and anti-Zionism, which have reappeared in several places in the world. These are questions which cannot be ignored in the day-to-day existence of all Jews, whether they identify with or dissociate themselves from them. They give rise to anguish, passions and hatreds, which no one can overlook. N OTES 1. Proceedings of the conference “Où va Dieu ?” (Where is God going?), Revue de l’Université de Bruxelles 1999/1 (Brussels: Editions Complexes, 2000); Florence Rochefort, “Contrecarrer ou interroger les religions” (Thwarting or asking religions), in Le siècle des féminismes, edited by E. Gubin, C. Jacques, F. Rochefort, B. Struder, F. Thebaud, M. Zacarini-Fournel (Paris: Éditions de l’Atelier, 2004), 347. 2. Les Cahiers du Grif (Groupe de réflexion et d’information féministe) is a

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166 Feminism, Secularism, and Religion in France feminist French-Belgian journal founded in 1973 by Françoise Collin. 3. Cahiers du Grif 8, no. 1 (Sept. 1975). 4. Simone de Beauvoir, Le Deuxième sexe (The second sex) (Paris: Gallimard, 1949); translated into English by H. M. Parshley (London: J. Cape, 1953; reprinted 1989); new translation by Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier (New York: Vintage, 2011). 5. Mary Daly, The Church and the Second Sex (1968). 6. De Beauvoir, Second Sex (1953 edition), 188. 7. Ibid., 188. 8. Ibid., 120. 9. Ibid., 21. 10. De Beauvoir quotes Tertullian: “Woman, you are the devil’s doorway. You have led astray one whom the devil would not dare attack directly. It was your fault if the Son of God had to die; you should always go in mourning and in rags.” Ibid., 113, 232. 11. Elian Cuvillier, “Bible et psychanalyse—quelques éléments de réflexion,” Études théologiques et religieuses, no. 2 (2007): 159–77. 12. Gerard Haddad, Le péché originel de la psychanalyse (Paris: Seuil, 2007). 13. Kathleen O’Grady and Judith L Poxon, eds., Religion in French Feminist Thought—Critical Perspectives (London: Routledge, 2003). 14. Sylviane Agacinski, Métaphysique des sexes—Masculin/féminin aux sources du christianisme (Paris: Seuil, 2005). 15. Antoinette Fouque, Il y a deux sexes (Paris: Gallimard, 1995), 63. 16. Ibid., 184. 17. Luce Irigaray, Je, tu, nous—Toward a Culture of Difference, translated from the French by Alison Martin (New York: Routledge, 2007). 18. Ibid., 9.; Luce Irigaray, Sexes and Genealogies, 62–65. 19. Hugh S. Pyper, “Job the Dog: Hélène Cixous on Wounds, Scars and the Biblical Text,” in Biblical Interpretation, A Journal of Contemporary Approaches, 11, nos. 3–4 (2003): 438–48. 20. Sylviane Agacinski, La Métaphysique des sexes, 311. 21. Julia Kristeva, a Bulgarian-French philosopher, psychoanalyst and sociologist, holds an important place in post-structuralist thought. 22. Julia Kristeva, “A Father is Beaten to Death,” http://www.kristeva.fr /father.html. 23. Julia Kristeva, Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection, translated by Leon S. Roudiez (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982) 31. 24. Mary Douglas, “Pollution,” in International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, edited by David L. Sills and Tobert K. Merton (New York, Macmillan and Free Press, 1968); Jean Soler, “Sémiotique de la nourriture dans la Bible,” Annales (July–Aug. 1973), 93; Jacob Neusner, The Idea of Purity in Ancient Judaism (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1973). 25. Julia Kristeva, New Maladies of the Soul, translated by Ross Guberman (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995), 116–20. 26. Kristeva, Powers of Horror, 100. 27. Michael Weingrad, “Jews (in Theory): Representations of Judaism, AntiSemitism, and the Holocaust in Postmodern French Thought,” in Judaism (Dec. 1996): 79–98.

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Feminism, Secularism, and Religion in France 167 28. J. Kristeva, interview with Nelly Las, Paris, May 2007. 29. Éliane Amado-Levy Valensi, Oui, je suis femme et juive (Yes, I am a woman and a Jew) (Jerusalem: WZO, Department for Torah Education and Culture in the Diaspora, 1975). 10. 30. J. Kristeva, Strangers to Ourselves (New York: Columbia University Press,1991). 31. J. Kristeva, “Cantique des Cantiques” Pardès 32–33 (2002): 65–78. 32. Kristeva, New Maladies, 189. 33. David Pechansky, “Is Hokhmah an Israelite Goddess, and What Should We Do about it?” in Postmodern Interpretations of the Bible—A Reader, edited by A. K. M. Adam (St. Louis, Mo.: Chalice Press, 2001). 34. Mary Gendler, “The Restoration of Vashti,” in The Jewish Woman—New Perspectives, edited by Elizabeth Koltun (New York: Schocken Books, 1976). 35. Emmanuel Levinas, Humanism of the Other, translated by Nidra Poller (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2003), 75, n. 6. “The groaning of the wounded entrails” in idem, Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence, translated by Alphonso Lingis (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2010), 75. 36. Elisabeth de Fontenay, “L’inactuelle considération d’Emmanuel Levinas,” Les Nouveaux Cahiers, no. 32 (Spring 1973): 63–64. 37. Levinas, Otherwise than Being, 75. 38. Emmanuel Levinas, Totality and Infinity, translated by Alphonso Lingis (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1969), 157–58: “Need one add that there is no question here of defying ridicule by maintaining the empirical truth or countertruth that every home in fact presupposes a woman?. . . .” (emphasis in the original). 39. Kathryn Bevis, “‫ދ‬Better than Metaphors’? Dwelling and the Maternal Body in Emmanuel Levinas,” Literature and Theology 1, no. 3 (Sept. 2007): 322–23. Bevis calls our attention to Levinas’s allusion to Genesis 1:1–2, “when the spirit of God was moving over the face of the earth” (brooding; in Hebrew merahefet): “It implies that the interiority of the dwelling can be compared to the earth before creation, as one yet without form, “dark,” and the condition of ethical encounter.” In other words, “Levinas attempts to show that there is something about the ethical relation which precedes being.” 40. Luce Irigaray, “How can we Dwell on Earth without Goddess?,” in Je, tu, nous, 10–11. 41. Shmuel Trigano, Le récit de la disparue—Essai sur l’identité juive (Paris: Gallimard, Paris, 1977), 16. 42. Ibid., 66. 43. Shmuel Trigano, “La différence des sexes dans l’égarement contemporain,” Tenth Symposium at the Jewish College of the Alliance israélite universelle, Mar. 1999. 44. Charles Mopsik (1956–2003) was a prolific French Jewish philosopher, specialist in Jewish mysticism and Kabbalah. Charles Mopsik, Le sexe des âmes— Aléas de la différence sexuelle dans la Cabale (Paris-Tel Aviv: éditions de l’éclat, 2003), 46; the book was published posthumously. 45. Ibid., 46. 46. Ibid. 47. Fouque, Il y a deux sexes, 76; see also idem, Gravidanzza, Féminologie II (Paris: des femmes, 2007).

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168 Feminism, Secularism, and Religion in France 48. Antoinette Fouque, conversations with Nelly Las, Paris, Mar. 2004. 49. Emmanuel Levinas, Otherwise than Being, or Beyond Essence (The Hague, Nijhoff, 1981). 50. Among the admirers of Levinas’s thought was Pope John Paul II, who praised and quoted his thought on the ethical responsibility “for the other.” Nigel. K. Zimmermann, “Karol Vojtyla and Emmanuel Levinas on the Embodied Self: The Forming of the Other as Moral Self-disclosure,” Heythrop Journal (2009): 982–95, http://www.academia.edu/192929/Karol_Wojtyla_and_Emmanuel_Levinas_on_the_E mbodied_Self_The_Forming_of_the_Other_as_Moral_Self-Disclosure. 51. See above, chapter 3. 52. Extract, interview of Elisabeth Badinter, Macité (2003); quoted on the website Bibliomonde, http://www.bibliomonde.com/auteur/elisabeth-badinter-1064. html. 53. The term “return” (Heb., teshuva), has historically referred to a Jew who has not kept Jewish practices but after a process of introspection, has returned to Jewish observance. 54. Jacqueline Feldman, “Être femme, être juive—Propos personnels pour une contribution à une sociologie de la domination,” (To be a woman, to be a Jew— Personal comments for a contribution to a sociology of domination), unpublished. 55. See chapter 4, note 31. 56. Feldman, “Être femme, être juive,” 6. 57. Correspondence with Danielle Bailly, July 2010, (quotation which appears above, in Chapter 1). 58. Mechitza (Hebrew, partition, division), denotes the separate seating of men and women during prayer in Orthodox synagogues, often divided by a curtain. 59. Catherine Garson, interview by Nelly Las, Paris, Aug. 2004. 60. Elizabeth Weiss Ozorak, “The Power, but not the Glory: How Women Empower Themselves through Religion,” Journal of the Scientific Study of Religion 35, no. 1 (1996): 177–229. 61. Benny Lévy did not like this formula as he specified: “This formula is a deeply significant slip of the tongue. I never said ‘from Mao to Moses’ but ‘from Moses to Mao. . . ,’” extract from the text, Benny Lévy, “Itinéraire” (“Itinerary”), Cahiers d’Études Lévinassiennes, Special issue (2005): 9. 62. Benny Lévy, Être juif (Paris: Éditions Verdier, 2003); La confusion des temps (Paris: Éditions Verdier, 2004); Levinas: Dieu et la philosophie (Paris: Éditions Verdier, 2009). Leo Lévy, A la vie (Paris: Verdier, 2013). 63. Liliane Vana, Ph.D. is a specialist in Jewish Law, Talmudic studies, and Semitic philology. She is highly committed to resolving problems relating to Jewish divorce (get), and the status of women in Orthodox Judaism, especially among French-speaking Western European Jewish communities. Nevertheless, she insists that “she is not a feminist.” L. Vana, “Le get et les formulaires du get en droit rabbinique,” in: Trois millénaires de formulaires juridiques (Geneva: Droz, 2010) 357– 389. See also Sonia Sarah Lipsyc, Annie Dreyfus, and Janine Elkouby, eds., Le Guide du Divorce Réligieux (guet) en France (Paris: WIZO, 2008). 64. Proceedings of this symposium were published in a book:, Sonia Sarah Lipsyc, Femmes et judaïsme aujourd’hui (Paris: In Press Publishers, 2008); “Quand les femmes lisent la Bible” (Women’s readings of the Bible), edited by Janine Elkouby and Sonia Sarah Lipsyc, special issue, Pardès, no. 43 (2007). See also

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Feminism, Secularism, and Religion in France 169 Lipsyc, Dreyfus, and Elkouby, Guide du Divorce. 65. This Jewish studies institute was directed by Shmuel Trigano from 1986 to 2013. 66. Sonia Sarah Lipsyc had to “go into exile” to Montreal to find an interesting job in her field (Jewish and feminist studies). 67. The Central Consistory of Jews of France was created in 1808 by Napoleon to administer Jewish worship in France, on the model of the other two official religions (Catholic and Protestant). Formally it remains the representative institution of the Jewish religion in France. 68. On the struggle for the right of women to be elected to the Lower Rhine Consistory, see Sonia S. Lipsyc, “Le combat emblématique de l’éligibilité des femmes au Consistoire Israélite du Bas-Rhin (November 2005–January 2007)” Les Cahiers du Judaïsme (Paris, 2008), 62–76. The Bas-Rhin is one of the two departments of the Alsace region. Subsequently, in 2007 Francis Levy, the new president, appointed Janine Elkouby, one of the two women elected, vice-president of the Lower Rhine Consistory. 69. Joël Merguy, in addition to being president of the Paris Consistoire, was also elected president of the Central Consistoire of France. 70. Communiqué officiel du comité “Lecture Sefer” qui organise cette lecture, “Lettre au sujet de la Lecture de la Torah par des femmes orthodoxes - Simchat Torah 5774,” http://www./modernorthodox.fr/lettrelecturefemme/. Liliane Vana, “Les femmes Juives dans les courants orthodoxes en France (1970–2011), Avancées ? et Résistances!” and “Annexe à l’article de Liliane Vana Une avancée en France?” in Le féminisme face aux dilemmes juifs contemporains, edited by Nelly Las (Sèvres: Les Rosiers, 2013). 71. Pauline Bebe is rabbi of the Liberal Jewish Community of Paris (CJL) since the 1990s. 72. Pauline Bebe, Dictionnaire des femmes et du judaïsme-Ishah (Paris: Calmann Levy, 2001). 73. To this day the Union libérale israélite de France (rue Copernic), created in 1906, does not permit the ordination of women. 74. CRIF: Conseil Représentatif des Institutions juives de France (Representative Council of French Jewish Institutions) is an umbrella organization. Its Executive Board from 2006 now includes fourteen men and one woman (who is in charge of women’s issues). Nicole Goldman continued her activity in Israel as a lay representative of French Jewry on the Jewish Agency’s Board of Governors for a number of years. 75. Evelyne Berdugo, interview by Marc Knobel, 7 Feb. 2006, http://www. crif.org/fr/actualites/Evelyne-Berdugo-presidente-de-la-Cooperation-feminine-Il-estpolitiquement-incorrect-d-ignorer-la-problematique-femme-mais-la-place-des-femmes -reste-tres-faible-dans-de-trop-nombreuses-instances-6384. 76. Monika Jacobs, “Feminist Theology in Europe: Between Movement and Academic Institutionalization,” Concilium 1 (1996), 35–44. 77. Bruno Dumons, “Histoire des femmes et histoire religieuse de la France contemporaine: de l’ignorance mutuelle à l’ouverture,” CLIO, Histoire, Femmes et Sociétés 15 (2002). 78. Simone Weil (1909–1943) was a French philosopher, Christian mystic, and social activist. Born into a secular Jewish family, she was attracted to the Christian

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170 Feminism, Secularism, and Religion in France faith from 1935 on. During World War II, Weil managed to be assigned to the office of the Free French in London, where she demonstrated her compassion for the suffering of Europe by refusing to eat normally. Collapsing in April 1943, Weil was diagnosed with tuberculosis and sent to a sanatorium to recover. She ignored recommendations to eat and rest, essentially dying of starvation that August. 79. Emmanuel Levinas, “Simone Weil contre la Bible,” Evidences no. 2 (1952); reprinted in Difficile Liberté (Paris: Albin Michel, 1963); Difficult Freedom: Essays on Judaism, translated by Sean Hand (London: Athlone Press, 1990). 80. About Weininger, see Chapter 2. 81. Levinas, “Simone Weil against the Bible”; 133. 82. Christine Delphy: “The Invention of French Feminism: An Essential Move,” Yale French Studies, Special Issue: “Another Look, Another Woman: Retranslations of French Feminism” 87 (1995): 190–221. 83. Agnès Fine and Claudine Leduc, “Femmes et religions,” CLIO, Histoire, Femmes et Sociétés, 2 (1995): 5. 84. “Quand les femmes lisent la Bible” (Women’s readings of the Bible), edited by Janine Elkouby and Sonia Sarah Lipsyc, special issue, Pardès, no. 43 (2007). 85. Régis Debray is a French philosopher and journalist, noted for his association with Che Guevara. Debray had been sentenced to thirty years in prison for his part in Guevara’s activities, but was released in 1970 following an international outcry. In 1981 he became an advisor on foreign affairs under President François Mitterand, and served in various official posts in France until the mid-1990s. Debray supported the 2003 French law on secularity and the ban on religious symbols in schools, but thought that it is important to include the teaching of religions as an aspect of general knowledge. 86. Alain Gresh, L’islam, la République et le monde (Paris: Fayard, 2004). 87. A 2005 study by the Cevipof (“Sciences Po” Political Research Center) among Muslim immigrants in France, shows that Muslim religious practices often led to antisemitic prejudices. Le Figaro, 7 Dec. 2005 “Sondage: la religion musulmane rend antisemite,” report by Vincent Tiberj: 46% of practicing Muslims express antisemitic feeling against 28% without. Non-practicing Muslim showed only 38% expressed antisemitism. 80% had a positive opinion of Christianity. 88. Pierre-André Taguieff, La nouvelle judéophobie (Paris: Mille et une nuits, 2002). 89. Antisemitic speech by Mohamed Latreche, January 2004, in Paris. “Latrèche, l’infréquentable avocat du voile” Liberation, 15 Jan. 2004, 90. Claudie Lessellier, Maya Surdut, and Nadja Ringart, interviews by Nelly Las, Paris, 2004–2005. 91. Nelly Las, “Secularism, Feminism and Antisemitism: The Islamic Veil in France,” Posen Papers in Contemporary Antisemitism, no. 11 (Jerusalem: Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2010). 92. Caroline Fourest, La tentation obscurantiste (Paris: Grasset, 2005), idem, Frère Tariq (Paris: Grasset, 2004); Fiametta Venner, OPA sur l’islam en France, les ambitions de l’UOIF (Paris: Calmann Lévy, 2005); idem and Claudie Lessellier, eds., L’extrême Droite et les femmes (Villeurbanne: Golias, 1997). 93. Caroline Fourest and Fiametta Venner, Tirs croisés, la laïcité à l’épreuve des intégrismes juif, chrétien et musulman (Crossfire: Secularism facing Jewish,

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Feminism, Secularism, and Religion in France 171 Christian, and Muslim fundamentalism) (Paris: Calmann-Lévy, 2003). Fourest, well known in the French media, has experienced negative consequences, following her criticism of Islamism. 94. Ibid., 487–91. This attitude has negative consequences for Caroline Fourest (who is very well known in French media) Muslims consider her Islamophobic because of her criticism of Islamism. 95. Alain Gresh, L’islam, la République et le monde (Paris: Fayard, 2004). 96. Danièle Sallenave, Dieu.com, (Paris: Gallimard, 2004); Danièle Sallenave later published a biography of Simone de Beauvoir (Castor de guerre [Paris: Gallimard, 2008]). 97. We find similar positions by Christine Delphy quoted above. 98. Many critics of Judaism think that Amos Gitai’s film Kadosh depicts an actual event in Orthodox Jewish life. 99. Emmanuel Levinas, Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority, translated by Alphonso Lingis (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1979), 154–55. 100. Sallenave, Dieu.com, 197–98. 101. A comment on this Levinas quotation, in this chapter, p. 148. 102. Sallenave, Dieu.com, 66. 103. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is an antisemitic hoax purporting to describe a Jewish plan for global domination, first published in Russia in 1903, then translated into many languages, and circulated internationally from the early part of the twentieth century. 104. After visiting Gaza and Transjordan, Sallenave published a book entitled: Carnet de route en Palestine occupée: Gaza-Cisjordanie, novembre 1997 (Paris: Stock, 1998). 105. Jacques Derrida, Adieu to Emmanuel Levinas, translated by Pascale-Anne Brault and Michael Naas (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1999), 44. 106. Julia Kristeva, interview by Nelly Las, Paris, 9 Mar. 2004. 107. Thomas Römer, “L'éviction du féminin dans la construction du monothéisme,” Études théologiques et religieuses (2003/2): 167–80. 108. Hedwig Meyer-Wilmes, Rebellion on the Borders, translated by Irene SmithBourman (Kampen: Kok Pharos, 1995). She lectures on feminist theology in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at Katholiek Universiteit Nijmegen. 109. Mark Strauss, “Antiglobalism’s Jewish Problem,” Foreign Policy (Nov.– Dec. 2003), http://www.foreignpolicy.com/node/68741. 110. Shulamit Volkov, “Antisemitism as a Cultural Code,” Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook 23 (1978): 25–46.

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C HAPTER S EVEN

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Feminism and Zionism: Conflictual Narratives

Before considering how Zionism relates to women and feminism, we must first briefly discuss Zionism itself. Bound up with the history, religion, identity, and current political affairs of the Jewish world, Zionism encompasses all the topics already analyzed above. Of all the ideologies to have emerged in the last two centuries, Zionism has had the greatest impact on the shaping of Jewish identity, culture, and history. By reformulating narratives of the past, it has sought to replace religious Jewish identity with a secularized—Hebraic and national—identity, which continues to embrace Judaism’s cultural aspects and historical heritage. It has generated myths, symbols, and rites that have enabled Israelis and Diaspora Jews alike to express their Jewishness in new forms. Zionism is, however, not limited to the political sphere: it has redefined broad areas of Jewish social and cultural life, including the moral values of solidarity and collective identity. The constant to-ing and fro-ing between rejection and fascination aroused by the State of Israel, as well as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict’s central position worldwide, make this an extremely important subject. It embraces a hotchpotch of aspects, including history, mythologies, sociology, political current affairs, justification, and stigmatization. There is no way that Diaspora Jews can sidestep the question of Israel, which interests and sometimes even obsesses those around them. Whether directly or indirectly, they are always held to account for whatever Israel does. The State of Israel was set up as a Jewish state, and hence every single Jew is forced to adopt a stance over Zionism as a concept as well as a political reality. As the American feminist Elly Bulkin puts it: What Israel does—and what is done to it—reverberates in my life. . . . As a Jew, I have a special relationship to Israel. That relationship will remain whether I embrace it or rage against it. Attempting to ignore it is like trying to ignore my Jewish identity: someone is bound to remind me of it, out of solidarity or hostility.1 But whereas the State of Israel, as a political, social, and cultural fact is constantly present in current affairs coverage, at the same time representing a family and emotional experience for many Jews, there is often little or no

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Feminism and Zionism 173 knowledge of the ideology of Zionism which forms its bedrock. Some people are familiar only with the distorted, stigmatized form in which Israel is often presented in international opinion. For over half a century, the underlying concept of Zionism has been weighed down by this millstone, so it is important to observe the complex nature of this subject. To start with, we should examine some of the issues related to “Zionism.” The primary goal is self-determination for the Jewish people, desirous of a state that will protect them, guaranteeing their physical and cultural survival. For the earliest Zionists, however, the establishment of a Jewish state was never an end in itself. Implementation of this goal drew on the desire to bring about a model nation, to revolutionize Jewish life and to construct an ideal society. This would take many forms: socialist, territorial, cultural, whether secular or religious. But reality rarely coincides with ideals, and the political and social situation evolved in unexpected directions following the establishment of the State of Israel. The permanent conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, the economic situation in the globalized age, as well as a democratic electoral system in which the left-wing parties lag behind—all of these as well as other factors have hindered and hampered the realization of the egalitarian ideals of Israel’s founders. These are the emphases on which we will focus in this chapter, which will seek to present Zionism as it relates to feminism. This analysis will help to impart a better understanding of the meaning of Zionism and its fundamentals. In addition, it will reveal some novel aspects with regard to feminist theories. D EFINING Z IONISM THROUGH THE F EMINIST L OOKING G LASS

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Zionism as a Concept: Some Explanations Zionism is first and foremost an internal question in the Jewish world with regard to the future and the very definition of the term “Jew.” Its basic premise is that the Jews are a nation, not just a religion. For some, its initial goal was to find a sanctuary for persecuted Jews (territorial nationalism), while others wished to prevent Jewish identity from vanishing as a result of assimilation (cultural nationalism). The proposed solution for “normalizing” the Jewish condition is predicated on national sovereignty, giving Jews selfemancipation along the same lines as Europe’s nation states.2 Many different tendencies are present in this ideology, which has drawn on Jews’ ancestral history and ties with memory to reconstitute its national culture. One of its greatest successes, apart from the establishment and impressive development of the State of Israel, has been the revival of Hebrew, the language of biblical

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174 Feminism and Zionism texts, prayer, and vast stores of Jewish religious studies, as the country’s national language. Zionism and the establishment of the State of Israel are undeniably historical phenomena that dominate contemporary Jewish history and have changed the Jewish condition worldwide out of all recognition. The idealism of the pioneers of Zionism, their ideas and original achievements, such as the kibbutz, the value attached to physical labor and sexual liberation, are things of which Diaspora Jews were justly proud. After a period of reticence and concern, they gradually came to adopt the Zionist analysis of the Jewish condition. Henceforth, for most of them this analysis has come to be viewed as a natural development of Jewish history, in keeping with historical reality. This is particularly true since antisemitism has not disappeared, and the existence of a haven for the Jews continues to be a necessity. In Jewish awareness, the shadow of the Holocaust continues to loom large over “the miracle” of Israel’s rebirth. This notion of “miracle,” as Tamar Mayer points out in her article on Jewish nationalism, can be found in all the myths of modern Jewish nationalism, particularly in the mythology of the Jewish military hero who wins battles although outnumbered.3 However, like all miracles, there is the terror that it might vanish at any point. Israel lies between two contrasting poles, based on a long and painful historical experience. On the one hand, vulnerability, and on the other, recently acquired military power. Between these two lie the ever-present possibility of both extermination, and lightning military victory, as in 1967.4 The terror that results from this situation is reflected in Diaspora Jews’ attitude every time that Israel is threatened, and even every time it is mishandled by the media. The developments in the conflict with the Palestinians, especially since the Israeli victory in June 1967, followed by the occupation of the disputed territories, soon tarnished the attractive image of the Israeli pioneer in world opinion. Once they were no longer in the position of victims, sympathy for Israeli Jews, suddenly shifted to the simplistic view of Israel as a new “colonizing” power oppressing the Palestinian people, the new “ultimate victim.” Israel is no longer entitled to any leeway allowances, in particular because its critics always find highly reliable allies among some Israeli intellectuals who were the first to call Zionism’s values into question. The most moderate of these individuals find fault with Zionism for its contradictions, its ambiguous ties with Judaism, as well as its ties with religious laws. At the end of the list we have the realities which have emerged from this egalitarian dream of a socialist Zionism: social inequalities, conflicts between the various sectors of Israeli society, and above all the country’s permanent state of war with its harmful results. For these commentators, all

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Feminism and Zionism 175 the evils that plague Israeli society are the upshot of these realities. These criticisms of Zionism can be voiced on behalf of Zionism itself, of this dream, this ideal, which no longer fits the facts on the ground, but still remains the best and most legitimate option for the Jewish people. Hence this criticism is not voiced in a vacuum, but is bound up with a political and social engagement which might improve the situation. The most radical critics challenge the very foundations of Zionism, the justification for and legitimacy of the Jewish State. Some focus on the “original sin” of the establishment of Israel and the expulsion of the Arabs. 5 For some, calling the State of Israel “Jewish” is itself anti-democratic. Others focus their criticism on the use of the Holocaust in the shaping and consolidation of national identity.6 This post-Zionism, which is often a form of anti-Zionism, fuels and is an integral part of the most virulent criticism of Israel abroad. It contains no positive options whatsoever that would allow the State of Israel to continue to exist as a Jewish State, but only the potential option of a binational state. Such a solution would be predicated on idyllic ties between the two peoples—something far from being the case. Hence for the moment it must be filed in the logbook of utopias for “messianic times.”

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Zionism and Feminism: Some Points of Convergence Among those who criticize Zionism as well as those who defend it there can be found a specifically feminist polemic about Israel: its policies, its foundations, and its legitimacy. This polemic can be heard and seen in a slew of contexts and times. Israel is without doubt one of the few countries that is scrutinized so intently in this connection. Yet it cannot be claimed that women’s rights are especially trampled on there, compared with other western countries, not to mention, Middle Eastern countries. On the contrary, from its very beginnings Zionism was sufficiently enlightened to advocate gender equality. As of the Second Zionist Congress (1898) women had the right to vote in the movement’s assemblies, at a time when women’s suffrage was far from the norm.7 Another important point relates to girls’ education in emancipated Jewish circles. As soon as higher education was opened more generally to women at the beginning of the twentieth century, the Jews were among the first to send their daughters to university. For example, in France the first female lawyers were Jewish, and in fin-de-siècle Vienna, a considerable proportion of female university students were Jewish. So it should come as no surprise that so many young women from Jewish families are to be found among the early female philosophers, physicians and other professionals, and activists including such distinguished figures as Edith Stein, Hannah Arendt, and the revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg.8 The same

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176 Feminism and Zionism explanation can also be advanced for the fact that the spouses or partners of the great French intellectuals (Malraux, Lacan, Bataille, Jacques Maritain) were brilliant Jewish women from Central and Eastern Europe. The female pioneers of Zionism came from such backgrounds, and sought to create an egalitarian society in the country of their ancestors. It was therefore only natural that in 1948, Israel’s Declaration of Independence stated the principle of equality between men and women, ratified by legislation in 1951. This did not, however, automatically turn Israel into a paradise for women. In fact, religious control over personal status issues, combined with a mainly male army, continued to impede gender equality. 9 It is, however, undeniable that the issue of gender equality occupies an important place in the idea of Zionism and the State of Israel. In Zionist thinking there are some similarities with feminist strategies for women’s liberation, beginning with sexual liberation or what the American historian David Biale calls the “erotic revolution,” such as the promise of gender equality, whether in Utopia or the Zionist myth.10 And above all there is the idea of autonomy, self-realization, self-determination, or the need for a degree of separatism in order to confront and deal with oppression—the foundations of the Zionist credo. On the other hand, the means of realizing Zionism’s goals may appear to run counter to feminism, because in order to determine their own fate, the Jews have opted for a nation state. Is the use of military might as a means of defense necessarily anti-feminist? Does feminism advocate “pacifism at any price”? And conversely, is nationalism by definition militarist? A whole slew of opinions can be voiced in response to these questions. On the one hand, as the historian Lois West points out in her introduction to Feminist Nationalism, if nationalism’s cultural and identity aspects—not only its militarist component—are taken into account, its impact on feminism can be readily observed. In addition, she says, feminism and nationalism may have something in common, because both are movements fighting to free themselves from oppression. However, here this feminist leniency toward nationalism relates to the Third World form, not to Zionism, to which the book does not refer.11 As is the case in general studies of nationalism, feminist thinking about this subject tends to ignore Jewish nationalism, or alternatively to refer to it only in order to stigmatize it.12 Some researchers use postmodern and post-identity theories of feminism to question the legitimacy—or rather, the self-evident nature—of the Zionist solution. Rejecting so-called “essentialist” models, they offer “antiessentialist” conceptions, historically contingent on the nation and nationalism, to be applied to Zionism. The starting point is the idea that nations are not static entities, established once and for all. Rather, they are the

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Feminism and Zionism 177 result of a long-term process of “mobilization and inclusion, territorialization, politicization and autarchy,” which is never final, but is redefined in every generation. These approaches refer in particular to theoreticians of nationalism such as Anthony D. Smith, who considers that the constituent elements of the nation are constructed socially and culturally, and hence can be changed; or Benedict Anderson who speaks of the imagined or “invented” community.13 In other words, the nation constructs or “invents” the identities of those who belong to it, by means of myths, symbols, historical memories, and certain values. American scholar Laurence J. Silberstein proposes a nonessentialist model of the concept of nation for an enhanced understanding of Jewish culture and identity issues, in particular Zionism and anti-Zionism. Rather than depicting Zionism as “a contested ideological discourse built upon socially constructed, contingent categories,” he suggests treating Zionism as “providing a lucid description of political, social and cultural realities” and the “best” or truest solution to the Jewish problem. He makes the point that insufficient attention is paid to the “internal power struggles that characterize Zionism’s achievement of hegemony and its effort to maintain this hegemony.”14 He knows that many Jews will view his analysis as an attempt to undermine the stability and continuity of Zionism and consequently of the Jewish people. These charges he rebuts by quoting the feminist theoretician Judith Butler who argued for the positive character of the deconstructive process (“To deconstruct the subject is not to negate or throw away the concept; on the contrary”).15 Silberstein concludes that the approach of “deconstructing” classical Zionist discourse may trigger a positive process that can shed light on Jewish identity and culture, expressing them more adequately.16 These post-modern perspectives, when not distorted and tendentious, might indeed contribute to an alternative understanding of Zionism and Israeli realities, as long as their primary goal is not to systematically discredit them. In this case, Zionism’s various aspects, particularly when observed through the prism of certain theories, such as nationalism or feminism, might well generate and enrich thinking on the subject. Zionism, the Nation State, and Theories of “Virility” Theorists of modern nationalism have tended to overlook Zionism, which is considered a special case that does not fit the general models of national movements. This is in part the reason why Zionism has been restricted to the internal Jewish debate, and has been studied primarily within the framework of Jewish history.

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178 Feminism and Zionism Ironically, it is the new conceptions of what are known as “diasporic nations,” in other words Indian, Chinese, Greek, and Armenian nations living outside their territories, which have made it possible to include the Jews in the typology of nationalisms in the broadest sense of the term.17 However, the Jews, who are by definition a diasporic nation and for whom the term “Diaspora” was invented, were often ambivalent on this issue. Since the Emancipation, many of them have disassociated themselves from the concept of a “Jewish nation,” and integrated into the nations in which they live. In so doing they develop a kind of ideology which defines Judaism as a cosmopolitan universalism, at the same time minimizing the importance of their Jewish origins.18 Interestingly, the most eminent scholars of nationalism are to be found among Jews originally from Central and Eastern Europe, such as Hans Kohn, Eric Hobsbawm, and Liah Greenfeld. Having suffered from the narrow nationalism of their countries of origin, it comes as no surprise that almost all of their theories demonstrate great distrust of nationalisms.19 Paradoxically, it was a Christian British historian, Adrian Hastings, who regretted that studies of nationalism paid little attention to the Jews, who have all the characteristics of nationhood. In his view, the People of Israel from biblical times have possessed all the aspects of what it means to be a nation: a unity of people, language, religion, territory, and government.20 The first Zionist thinkers indeed attached great importance to the Bible. In Zeev Sternhell’s words, “In the Zionist context, the religious element was reinforced by a supremely important factor: for the founders, the Bible was not only a tool to cement the inner unity of society but an indispensable weapon in the struggle for the land.”21 However, most of these theorists of nationalism have also ignored the role played by women in the construction of nations and states, concentrating instead on power struggles between men, in particular armed conflicts. Starting in the late 1980s, a number of studies have underscored the importance for an understanding of the concepts of state, nation, and nationalism of such matters as gender interactions, the processes of constructing hierarchies between the sexes, masculine brotherhood, homo-sociability, and sexuality. Such studies emphasize the key role that women play in nationbuilding and maintaining national identity. Their contribution to the reproduction of nations, biologically, culturally, and symbolically is just as great as that of men. Woman as a national symbol is considered the guardian of the continuity and immutability of the nation. It is not necessary, however, to prove that men and women play different roles in “nation-building.” Notwithstanding a certain egalitarian discourse, historically speaking “the

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Feminism and Zionism 179 nation” was always a men’s affair in which women were marginalized, not to say sometimes effaced or invisible. The historian George L. Mosse has written at length about the “virile” qualities required by modern nationalism: physical strength, courage, a sense of honor, dignity, and fraternity, as opposed to their “opposites”: nervous, uptight pariahs, homosexuals, gypsies, and Jews.22 He shows how in the nineteenth century, this image spread through such settings as schools, the army, student societies, and workers’ organizations. Such stereotypes made it possible to exclude women from public affairs as a result of comparisons with “femininity,” which was characterized by “weakness and an inability to control their feelings.” The upshot was that in England, as in France or Germany, great emphasis was laid on physical exercise as a way of achieving mens sana in corpore sano, as well as scouting and gymnastics, all of which helped forge the image of the modern soldier. Mosse’s studies contain interesting references to Jews in his analyses of virility in modern nationalism and its implication in the reconstitution of Jewish nationalism. As a national liberation movement, it was Zionism’s task to imbue the Jewish people with these “virile” virtues that had been lost in the Diaspora, by adopting a number of emblems and ideals that characterized European nationalism at the end of the nineteenth century. It was in this spirit that the Zionist leader Max Nordau addressed the Second Zionist Congress in Basle in 1898.23 He called upon the representatives of the Jewish people to recreate a “muscular Judaism (Muskeljudentum).24 To “recreate” because, as he put it later, the Jews had a long history which was not always characterized by passivity. Going back many centuries there were Jewish heroes such as the Maccabees and later Bar Kokhba, the Jewish warrior who resisted the Roman invader and made the ultimate sacrifice.25 Symbolically, these are the names that were chosen for the first Jewish gymnastics clubs in Berlin. The encouragement for their establishment came from Nordau, who helped to found the Jüdische Turnzeitung (Jewish gymnastics newspaper), for which he often wrote articles.26 In these, Nordau, a doctor specializing in psychiatry, argued for the importance of gymnastics for Jews, emphasizing the influence that physical strength had on character and self-assurance.27 Although his emphasis was on masculinity in his idea of a “muscular Jew,” some of the paper’s contributors recognized the necessity of “female gymnastics.” They highlighted the heroic tradition of female Jewish figures in history, who by developing their own physique, could also help to resolve the “Jewish Question.” What these advocates of female gymnastics were advancing was not so much women’s

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180 Feminism and Zionism liberation, but rather their physical and mental health, the social role of women being limited at the time “to healthy reproduction and motherhood.” 28 Many Zionist writings or critiques have dwelled on myriad interpretations of the Zionist ideal of the “New Jew” and “muscular Judaism,” virile values which are in sharp contrast with the “passivity” of the Diaspora. Some have even seen here an internalization of the flaws and shortcomings for which the Jews were lambasted by antisemites. The early Zionists took very seriously the Jewish people’s loss of dignity, and were profoundly humiliated by the nicknames and terms of opprobrium used for Jews, such as “wandering Jew,” weak, physically ugly, passive and cowardly. Changing this image was part of their goals.29 The aim was to show that this Jewish weakness was not inherent in the Jewish “race,” as claimed by the antisemites. Rather, it was the outcome of socio-historical factors which are subject to change. Whatever the case, they said, the root of such shortcomings must be looked for in diasporic pathology. The Jews were capable, in a new setting, of reconstituting their nation and building a state, taking some of their glorious ancestors as a historical model. Ironically, the same argument had been raised by those who defended the emancipation of the Jews. They exhorted the Jews to “correct themselves” as a condition for integrating in the nation which accepted or welcomed them.30 However, Zionism remained very ambivalent in its conception of the “robust and muscular” New Jew. This external hardness did not entirely do away with the Jew’s original weakness. The “sabra”—the name for Israelis born in Israel—means “prickly pear” or “Indian fig,” a fruit that is sweet inside but prickly on the outside. This is the paradox that makes up the State of Israel: military might on the one hand, and a sense of vulnerability on the other. This past and present vulnerability is the reason for a defense force which is constantly on the alert. In building up the nation for the Jews, this historical vulnerability must be addressed by developing defense capabilities together with a willingness to die in defending the homeland. Such an attitude reflects the actions of heroic figures of the past, such as Bar Kokhba,31 chosen by the Zionists as a paradigmatic symbol, with the tragic epic of Masada being added later. 32 This conception of nation was criticized by the “cultural” stream of Zionism represented by Ahad Ha’Am, who retorted that the secret of the Jewish people’s survival lay not in its physical prowess, since far mightier peoples have disappeared from the face of the earth, but in its spiritual strength, as in the teachings of the prophets.33 After the destruction of the Temple, the Pharisees had understood that in order to ensure the survival of the Jewish people, it was better to save the Torah, even if this meant leaving Jerusalem

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Feminism and Zionism 181 for Yavne. This is the point of view adopted by the American Jewish scholars Daniel and Jonathan Boyarin who specialize in postmodern interpretations of Judaism. They adopt this view of Jewish history in opposing Zionism, “territorialist nation-statism” to “the powers of diaspora” which have enabled Jewish communities to survive the vicissitudes of history, with a “homeland” which is bound up with nothing more than memory. The passivity of the Diaspora condemned by the Zionists, they say, is a deliberate choice made by the Jewish sages, who opted for Torah study and rejected the virile and belligerent values of the Roman Empire.34 Instead, the Zionists opted for the virile Roman ethos, adopting the version of the history of Masada recounted by Flavius Josephus. According to the latter, the Jewish warriors preferred collective suicide to becoming slaves. Rabbinical Judaism did not wish to make Masada a model for Jewish behavior. In fact, it even refused to keep it part of Jewish memory, because “suicide rather than surrender” is a Roman attitude that conflicts with Judaism. In other words:

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Modern Jewish culture (not only Zionist) has assimilated the macho male ethos of Western civilization. The result is the creation of the “muscle Jew” (Nordau), which divorces Jewish men from their emphasis on study, prayer and gentleness. Ironically, in an effort to counter the anti-Semitic image of the so-called Jewish wimp, Jewish men have abetted a process of internal colonization of Jewish culture by mainstream Christian culture. . . . Zionist ideology completely absorbed this “Roman” value system.35 These theories of the Boyarin brothers are undeniably interpretations which are based on their own—controversial—versions of Jewish history in the Roman era. On the other hand, these procedures which analyze Zionism through dichotomies such as Diaspora/Zionism, passive/active, feminine/ masculine, pacifist/warmongering, draw on very ancient stereotypes which are firmly grounded in public opinion. Pacifism, tolerance, and compromise are normally associated with the feminine, while violence, competition, and intransigence go hand in hand with the masculine. This essentialism is rejected by many feminists, basing themselves on research which has shown that the distinction is not as clear-cut as might be thought, and that the difference between men’s and women’s attitudes to war is not so great. 36 In particular, they oppose the tendency in cultural or identity feminism which maintains that women, as a result of their experiences as mothers, are better at conflict resolution, even on the international level, and at contributing to an elimination of violence in human relationships. In Three Guineas, published just before World War II, the feminist novelist Virginia Woolf asked herself the same questions, about war, the

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182 Feminism and Zionism instinct to fight, and the virile excitement which often lead men to fight. How, she wonders, can women support nationalist causes and wars when they are not fully emancipated as citizens? It is here that she presents her feminist credo succinctly, in a statement that has become famous: “As a woman I have no country. As a woman I want no country. As a woman, my country is the whole world.”37 But, she says, neither can women completely ignore nationalism, because they also love their country, their people, their homes. True, men and women relate differently to nationalism and war, whether for social or other reasons. For men, she says, “War is a profession, a source of happiness and excitement.”38 However, acknowledging that opposition to war is not exclusive to one sex or the other, she cites a passage from the writings of Wilfred Owen, an English pacifist poet killed in World War I who saw the inhumanity and unbearable nature of war:39

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Already I have comprehended a light which never will filter into the dogma of any national church: namely, that one of Christ’s essential commands was: Passivity at any price! Suffer dishonour and disgrace, but never resort to arms. Be bullied, be outraged, be killed; but do not kill. . . . Thus you see how pure Christianity will not fit in with pure patriotism.40 Owen’s interpretation highlights certain Christian preaching of nonviolence, love for one’s enemies, and “turning the other cheek.”41 This can be compared with Daniel and Jonathan Boyarin’s interpretation of the “antivirilist” rabbinical Jewish attitude in the Roman era, preferring the passive method to combat in order to save the Torah. Does this mean that the patriarchal religions, once their ties with nationalism are severed, will tend more to non-violence and pacifism? This would appear to remain within the realm of interpretation, as well as stereotypes. The connections between nationalism and feminism may also be highly conflictual. As Gisela Kaplan argues, “feminism and nationalism are almost always incompatible ideological positions within the European context.” 42 She adds that European feminism has never felt at ease within the confines of the nation-state and rather than embracing nationalism, it has “stood in defiance of it.”43 Nor does nationalism generally like feminism. This is because in order to forge an identity, emphasis must be laid on traditional conservative values which sometimes confirm the patriarchal status quo. Since women are considered the guardians of national tradition and culture, the reforms for which they call may constitute a threat to the “national project.” In some cases, however, nationalism temporarily joins with feminism in order to realize its goals of self-determination and liberation. When in the struggle for national rights there is a contradiction between feminist

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Feminism and Zionism 183 and national goals, on the whole solidarity between women will be subordinate to the interests of the national community. Some feminist analyses of Zionism consider the concept of the “muscle Jew” to be a paradigm of the close relationship between masculinity and Zionism, resulting in “the invisibility of women in Zionism.”44 However, notwithstanding the masculine domination of its thinking, from its earliest beginnings the Zionist project also had feminist leanings. Compared with the late nineteenth-century European national liberation movements, it gives an unprecedented position to women’s equality. The concept of the “New Jew” applied to women, too, since they were to be men’s partners in putting the Zionist project into practice—partners with no airs or graces, as reflected in the nostalgic song by the popular Israeli singer Yehoram Gaon: “Ah, where are those girls of old, with the ponytail and the sarafan [sleeveless shirt], with the hoe, and the dagger, why do we no longer see them?!” 45 This nostalgia for the rosy past of Zionist pioneers laments the femininity and frivolity of today’s Israeli women. For women—real women—are the ones who fought like men, bold horsewomen, members of the Hashomer defense groups, “with a grenade underneath their shirts.” Hence all the “virilist” Zionist symbolism applies to this mythological woman as well. These days, however, Israeli feminist researchers retort that this ideal and egalitarian image does not correspond to the actual conditions of women in the Yishuv . On the whole, they were relegated to service jobs, and rarely had an opportunity to demonstrate their heroism. This assertion is distorted by an anachronistic view that starts with the present-day development of the feminine condition, for it must be borne in mind that Zionist development was taking place at the very beginning of the twentieth century. Thus, compared with other national movements of the time, the Zionist project stood out thanks to its unyielding emphasis on improving women’s status. Of the earliest pioneers who arrived in the Land of Israel in 1904, more than a third were girls in their late teens who had left their Russian homeland with a socialist vision of equality and justice, in order to found a new society, far from the lifestyle of their traditional families, and far from the permanent risk of pogroms. Some were even among those who set up the famous collective farms or kibbutzim, and founded their own workers’ movement.46 Trying to find analogies and contradictions between feminism and Zionism is nothing new. Feminist theories have often been used to defend or excoriate Zionism and the State of Israel’s policies. Diverse metaphors and analogies of varying degrees of harshness, frequently used by radical Israeli women, convey a negative and “macho” image of the Jewish state. In more academic studies, publications have addressed a number of subjects,

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184 Feminism and Zionism particularly in the framework of thinking about “gender and nation,” women and pacifism, women and power, masculinity and militarism, to name just a few. A number of studies have also been undertaken on the Zionist movement’s attitude to women, particularly in its early stages, and also on the subsequent development of a feminist movement in Israel. There are numerous accounts about feminists’ attitudes and positions on Zionism over the years, in the context of the Israel-Arab conflict and the internationalization of feminism. Some are categorically opposed to Zionism and the State of Israel, while others are more aware of the complex nature of the problem and try to come up with a balanced point of view. Lastly, there are those who unreservedly identify with the Israeli cause. To what extent are these stances linked to feminism? To what extent do postmodernism, post-feminism, and post-Zionism refer to the same intellectual principles and are therefore on the same wavelength? F ACING THE R EALITY OF I SRAEL : W OMEN ’ S I NVOLVEMENT

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The Concept of Heroism in the State of Israel In what ways has the establishment of the State of Israel transformed the situation of the Jews worldwide? Moving from a minority status devoid of power, from a position of vulnerability, to that of a sovereign state endowed with an armed force entrusted with guaranteeing its survival, is incontrovertibly a profound, not to say revolutionary change. From the Zionist viewpoint, before this momentous event Jewish history was the history of a people with no control over its fate, constantly searching for strategies to survive poverty, penury, pogroms, and even genocide. So Zionism looked in historical memory for heroic tales of the Jews’ liberation by arms—the Maccabeans, Masada, Trumpeldor—in order to consolidate the national imagination, enhance solidarity, and enable sacrifices.47 Military service as a civic duty was the reflection of ethnic solidarity and group loyalty. However, the Zionist dream did not envisage the army being of such vital importance as it became.48 The threat of destruction (whether real or imagined) that has loomed over Israel since its establishment has helped make Israelis dependent on their country’s physical, economic, and military strength. Embroiled in a conflict whose outcome nobody is able to envisage, they have had to deal with a series of wars and military operations whose consequences have sometimes been disastrous in terms of domestic politics and international opinion. Do women have any place in this situation in which the country’s security is paramount, together with the duty to defend Israel and its culture of courageousness and heroism? What is their place in Zionist achievements

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Feminism and Zionism 185 from which they appear to be excluded, symbolically at least? As we have seen, women undoubtedly took part in the Zionist project. They were pioneers (halutzot) and contributed to the construction of the kibbutzim, to the shaping of the nation, and ultimately to the success of Zionism. To date there has been very little historical study of the enormous investment made by the women of the Yishuv, helped by Jewish women’s organizations in the Diaspora. Their contribution to improving the medical, hygienic, and dietary conditions of children and infants in Palestine in the 1920s and 1930s slashed infant mortality to the level of the most developed countries. And, as pointed out by a number of researchers, it is these babies, the first “sabras,” reaching adulthood when the State of Israel was established in 1948, who would construct, develop, and ultimately lead the country.49 However, notwithstanding efforts to include women in all of the new state’s economic, military, and political spheres, the tasks of national defense were primarily given to men. War remained very much a man’s affair, despite the fact that women had to do military service and could be elected to any political post. In the Israeli defense forces, the elite units are made up of men, who risk their lives for their homeland. This does not, however, mean that women are unaffected by wars. As the Israeli scholar Yaron Ezrahi points out, women— the mothers, sisters, fiancées, or wives of the men who go off to fight—are vital parts of this entire system. He also points out that women are among the losers of wars:

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For even when the war is won and the victory is spectacular like that of the Six Day War (1967), the woman is among the losers, and not just because of the men who died. She loses because when force speaks it is History and History-making is usually not for women. . . . There is a machismo code in military values which must repress the woman-individual voice within: “Be a man!” “Do not act as a woman. . . .”50 As Tamar Mayer reminds us, “It seems clear that in all arenas of national mythology the hero is always a male, and that the act of heroism is always associated with military might and masculinity.” The Hebrew language clarifies her statement, because the root of the words gibor (hero) and gvura (heroism) is gever—male.51 Hebrew-speakers often use roots in their argument. This is a tradition of biblical and Talmudical hermeneutics which can be used to search for certain terms in the “unconscious.” It must be noted that the link between masculinity and heroism in combat is not specific to the Israeli army. In all civilizations, men are responsible for defending their countries by force of arms. Obligatory military service for girls, introduced immediately after the establishment of the State of Israel, was not intended to

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186 Feminism and Zionism “militarize” them. It was part of the egalitarian project of the Zionist pioneers. Some will retort that girl soldiers do not have the same roles as their male counterparts, and most of them have subordinate duties. However, an egalitarian and empowering message is conveyed by the very fact that Israeli females have the same national duties as their male peers. They can also opt to serve in combat units if they so wish and qualify. Another important point is that despite the “militarist” image conveyed by the international media, the Israeli army, most of whom are prepared to put their lives on the line to defend the country, has lost much of its “warlike calling.” Recent wars have shown this very clearly: on the whole, the “heroic” phase of Israel’s earliest years has declined. As an army spokesperson recently acknowledged—with regret—we are now in the “post-heroic” era. It is no longer such a “disgrace” to be exempted from army service, not even on ideological grounds: purely self-centered reasons may suffice. Many performers, including some teen “idols,” who are supposed to set their young fans a good example, successfully avoid military service so that they can continue their careers. Although non-Israelis refer frequently to Israel’s conscientious objectors, they make up a tiny minority among those who are exempted, some of whom are called “draft dodgers.” In Israel this post-heroism can also be described as “post-virilism.” Soldiers are no longer afraid to express their emotions, to complain to their parents about problems they are having with the army, and to weep in public for their fellow soldiers killed in combat. A “sabra” is now allowed to show the “sweetness” inside him without this being considered shameful, even if the foe may consider it a sign of weakness. They go to war in order to bring about a more peaceful life for their loved ones and the Israeli population. The goal, therefore, is life, not death. 52 For senior army figures, the possibility of loss of life is an ever-present worry. They know that when the war is over, they will be held to account by the families of fallen soldiers, in addition to being held responsible by public opinion, and could even face an official inquiry to evaluate their performance by the number of casualties sustained. This is the advantage—or disadvantage—of being a democracy in the era of 24/7 media coverage. Israel’s then-Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, had just such a bitter experience in the Second Lebanon War in the summer of 2006. The writer David Grossman wrote a heart-wrenching letter following the land battle in which his 20-year-old son lost his life. Before the end of his term of office, Olmert, who had officially resigned, had to launch another military operation in the Gaza Strip. This time he was extremely cautious. When a ground operation became inevitable, his first words were addressed to the mothers of the soldiers who would be involved in the fighting:

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Feminism and Zionism 187 I hesitated for a long time before sending the boys to a place from which some of them may not return. This morning I can look each of you in the eye and tell you that this operation was inevitable.53

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Women against War: Between Radicalism and Maternalism Not until the 1982 Lebanon War did Israeli women became aware of their potential political power. For the first time since the State of Israel came into being, the mother of a soldier killed in combat headed passionate protests against a military operation that she considered “pointless,” in other words not vital to the country’s survival.54 This was the very first time that a bereaved Israeli mother had publicly “channeled her grief and moral voice into a biting criticism of political leaders.”55 It was also the first time that reserve officers in the Israel Defense Forces had organized in a movement based on the premise that peace was a security strategy. In 1982 the Peace Now (Shalom Achshav) movement—set up in 1978 following Egyptian President Sadat’s visit to Jerusalem—became a vast protest movement against Israel’s military operation in Lebanon. It was at this time that large numbers of Israeli women decided, whether as part of Peace Now or in specifically women’s groups, to “break the silence” and protest as women against this war.56 This was the beginning of women’s pro-peace movements in Israel, a development which intensified during the two intifadas.57 Then, as now, the majority of the “peace camp” campaigners were women. Among the various movements established by Israel women, we will cite just two iconic examples to illustrate how they bring influence to bear. Women in Black (Nashim BeShahor) appeared a few weeks after the first intifada. The initiative was taken by some fifteen women in Jerusalem and led to a movement comprising a few hundred women in thirty localities in Israel. Every Friday, at the same time, women of all ages and all backgrounds, dressed in black, symbolizing mourning and the tragedy of two peoples in conflict, gathered at an intersection or a downtown traffic circle, holding up signs saying “Stop the Occupation.” This was a new form of political struggle, a new strategy. It was not a call for benefits for women; rather, they focused on a very specific political goal which they considered essential to Israeli society in general. They did not use their status or position as mothers and wives. Instead, they protested as citizens against their country’s occupation of the Palestinian territories. Passers-by directed sexist insults at them, while their political opponents call them “traitors.” They did not have any real political impact on society as a whole, but the way in which they appeared and their strategy influenced the setting up of many womenfor-peace groups in Israel as well as abroad.58

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188 Feminism and Zionism Another women’s movement, which was apolitical and on which there was greater consensus, was the Four Mothers.59 This had a real impact on the Israeli public. It was set up in 1997 in the wake of the collision of two army helicopters in which seventy-three soldiers died while on their way to Lebanon. The accident shocked the Israeli population. An intense media campaign by the Four Mothers movement challenged the usefulness of Israel’s occupation of a small buffer zone in southern Lebanon, and led to the unilateral withdrawal of the Israeli army on May 24, 2000.60 This was an example of what could be achieved by the action of women—not labeled as feminists, nor identifying themselves with being on the left or the right—who succeeded in gaining the sympathy of public opinion by using their positions as traditional wives and mothers. While the Women in Black were frightening and generated hostility, the Four Mothers were reassuring. The former sought to “unsettle” people, while the latter fought from within the establishment, without challenging its foundations. The Four Mothers movement’s striking success would later influence other mothers who joined forces in opposition to keeping Israeli troops in Netzarim, an isolated Israeli settlement in the Gaza Strip. They set up the Shuvi (“Go home”) movement, which gathered more than 60,000 signatures on the Internet and at public events. Shuvi thus continued the strategy inaugurated by Mothers Against Silence in 1982 and the Four Mothers in 1997. Lily Galili, a journalist with the Haaretz daily paper who has traced the reactions of Israeli public opinion over the years, identifies the shifts in public opinion in light of these women’s movements which she calls “movements of emotion,” a modifier that applies to reservists’ protest movements as well. Today there seems to be greater acceptance of the right of mothers to protest against war in the name of their motherhood than was the case in 1982, when it was extremely controversial among mothers themselves.61 One reason is that the joining together of mothers has by now become a fact of Israeli life, one that has helped make people more receptive to women’s voices. The society has changed as one war has been succeeded by another, and the army has lost a great deal of its status as an untouchable icon. Today’s parents were soldiers some twenty years ago, and may still be doing reserve duty. They are familiar with how the system works and its weaknesses, and they assume a right to criticize the army when they deem it necessary, particularly when their own children are involved. Calling on maternal attributes when women oppose war is a fairly common approach, albeit not agreed by all feminists. One of the first group of Israeli Arab and Jewish women who advocate peaceful coexistence between the two peoples called itself NELED (Nashim Lemaan dou-kiyoum) or

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Feminism and Zionism 189 “Women for Coexistence.” In a Hebrew play on words, “neled” means “we will give birth.”62 However, not everyone agrees with references to maternal qualities and their use in antiwar protest movements or dialogue between Palestinian and Israel women. Some Israeli feminists consider that the label “mother” simply serves traditional patriarchy. In most nationalisms, woman—who guarantees the nation’s continuity and stability—is considered a national symbol. The Hebrew roots for homeland (moledet) and nation (ooma) have clear maternal connotations. The former is derived from laledet, “to give birth,” while the latter is related to em or ima, meaning “mother.” In Arabic, a similarly link exists between the terms umma (nation) and umm (mother).63 The nation is frequently represented as a woman, and erotic metaphors that express love for the homeland have existed since the dawn of time.64 Such maternal expressions relating to the nation clearly underscore the patriarchal origins of nation-building, of the fatherland, which presupposes “fraternity,” solidarity between brothers with predominantly masculine connotations. The motherland would thus be symbolic of the fruitfulness of the soil, as of woman, which must be defended against invasion and violation by strangers. An interesting analysis of this topic can be found in the vision of one of the precursors of Zionism, Moses Hess (1812–1875), the author of Rome and Jerusalem: The Last National Question (1862). This socialist, a friend and collaborator of Marx and Engels, “returned to his people” somewhat late in life. He envisaged the establishment of a socialist Jewish state, based on Jewish ethics which, he maintained, were akin to socialism. Thus, “if the principal characteristics extolled in gentile society are the aggressive ones, focused on the man or the father, the specifically Jewish characteristics are those of love, suffering, willingness to help, and understanding one’s fellow-being, characteristics connected with the Jewish mother.” In a fascinating mixture of metaphors, Hess states that every “Jewish mother is a mater dolorosa.”65 Israeli feminist researchers and activists have made widespread use of myriad analyses of the symbols of nationalism in general and Zionism in particular. Rather than viewing them as a maternal aspect of traditional Judaism, they perceive them as a “masculine view of their country’s security policies.” Some of them try to introduce calls for equality in society into their pro-peace struggles, but generally speaking, the issue of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict constitutes the focus of their unreserved approach.

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190 Feminism and Zionism

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Can Radical Feminism Contribute to Peace? Since the Second Intifada, more and more pro-peace women’s movements have emerged in Israel. Most of their activists have political positions close to the Israeli Zionist or post-Zionist left. All these activists have developed a system of meetings, dialogue, and joint demonstrations with Palestinian women who are Israeli citizens. In order to enhance coordination, some of them have joined together in the Coalition of Women for Peace. This comprises a number of organizations, including Bat Shalom, Women in Black, the Fifth Mother, New Profile, NELED, the Israeli section of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), the Movement of Democratic Women in Israel comprising Jewish and Arab women (TANDI), and Machsom Watch.66 This coalition seeks to bring Israel’s women together in order “to support a just peace with their Arab neighbors, observe human rights and strengthen democracy in Israel.”67 These women focus on the occupation of the territories and Israel’s attitude to the Palestinians: “We are oppressing a people,” they say time and time again. This is their starting point. For them, this is the root of all of Israel’s social and economic woes. What is the underlying reason behind the predominance of women in Israeli pacifist movements in recent years and their active engagement on the ground? Possible explanations include “burnout” and fatigue in the face of never-ending threats of warfare, as well as Israeli and Palestinian women’s feminist awareness. Until the end of the 1970s, the Israeli public was convinced that wars were necessary for survival. Things changed as a result of the highly controversial repercussions of the 1982 Lebanon War. Then came the First Intifada, when Israelis saw on their television screens pictures of their soldiers confronting Palestinian women and children in revolt.68 Later, during the 1991 Gulf War, men took shelter together with women and children, for once no longer able to enjoy the traditional “protector’s halo.” Then, came the Second Intifada with its innumerable acts of violence, as more and more suicide bombings led to yet more Israeli reprisals. All of this clearly proved on both sides that this conflict could never be solved by military confrontation. Perhaps this was what led the Israelis and Palestinians to undertake the talks which led to the Oslo Agreements. It proved difficult to resolve this conflict through dialogue, and the subsequent history is well-known: the decision to withdraw unilaterally from Gaza, the rise of Hamas, the split in Palestinian ranks, the rocket attacks, followed by the inevitable reprisals. Women continue to be activists and to talk among themselves. It was women who first publicly denounced the Cast Lead military operation in Gaza (end of December 2008–January 2009), on which a consensus existed among most Israelis, who considered it necessary. A

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Feminism and Zionism 191 number of feminist associations published an antiwar declaration, calling “for an end to the use of arms and bombs and for war to be ruled out as an alternative.”69 What was new was that the eighteen organizations which signed this declaration were not only the radical pacifist organizations which oppose the occupation as a matter of course, but also organizations for women’s rights and other social and environmental action. Since they were living in Israel, even the most extreme activists could not discount the reasons for this war against Hamas in Gaza. As Alya Strauss, a Women in Black activist, acknowledges: .

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Those of us in the peace movement are not blind. We are aware of the terrible conditions in which Israeli citizens living 30 or 40 kilometers from the Gaza Strip have been living for over two years, under the daily threat of handmade rockets. But we say: negotiations, no war. . . !70 In this letter to her Women in Black activist friends in Philadelphia, Alya Strauss says that what she wants to show is that criticizing the Israeli government’s official policy is not a threat to Israel’s existence: on the contrary, it strengthens its image in the eyes of the world. This female engagement and concomitant discourse show that feminist arguments are becoming more common and that some terms and concepts such as “chauvinism,” “patriarchy” and “oppression” as applied to the context of the conflict are increasingly being taken on board. A start is being made on establishing a link between militarism and women’s status, the violence of war and domestic violence. We should also add the apathy and failure to act on the part of the peace camp in Israel, thereby leaving the field to the sole domination of radical activists, especially radical feminists. In response to those who say that their voices are marginal and in the minority they say that they draw on the very real experiences of Jewish and Palestinian Israeli women and that their efforts are intended to prevent the country’s security from being gained at the expense of the underprivileged. What they are putting forward, they say, are alternative solutions, as well as aspects of the conflict ignored in the dominant discourse of those who possess power. 71 But the systematic debasement of armed defense as an expression simply of Israeli machismo, sometimes becomes a caricature of itself: it lacks credibility and is of no use whatsoever. Left- and radical left-wing Zionists differ in their views, however. Some have little empathy for other parts of Israeli society, even with regard to terrorism, of which they themselves have sometimes been victims.72 The more radical elements put their anti-occupation struggle on the same level as their feminist demands: “The use of women's bodies to protest political op-

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192 Feminism and Zionism pression establishes the connection between women’s experience and national politics, between the Israeli occupation of foreign lands and male occupation of woman’s body,” or “To liberate us from the gigantic shadow of the male Sabra, the ‘new Jew’ of the Zionist dream.”73 “For myself and other women, feminist consciousness opened the way to alternative identities, and gradually liberated us from paralyzing fear of the masculine Israeli hero.”74 This rhetoric, which portrays the masculine sex as evil conveys the image of an implacable war of the sexes in Israel. Of course there is violence in Israel as elsewhere in the world, and likewise, Israelis react to shocking news items as if to a family drama. Some feminists describe their country’s army as brutal occupiers who oppress not only the Palestinians but also their own wives in the most dreadful fashion. Simona Sharoni, analyzing the IsraeliPalestinian conflict, conveys a hair-raising image in an article that appeared in the Israeli Women’s Studies reader:

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The violent patterns of behavior that are used by the Israeli army against Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip are part of a culture of unchallenged sexism, violence, and oppression which women face daily on Israeli streets and in their homes. And then she uses an idiosyncratic metaphor: “Every woman is an occupied territory.”75 In order to underpin her theory of Israeli sexism, Sharoni also makes the point that the Hebrew term kibush, meaning “conquest” of a military target,” is also used in the sense of “conquest of a woman’s heart.” However, she seems to forget that linguistic “machismo,” or what she calls a “relationship between militarism and sexism,”76 is not exclusive to Hebrew and to Israeli society. Sadly, it is common to all languages. Another telling example shows us how even some of Israel’s positive aspects can be interpreted negatively by Israelis themselves. Tal Nitzan, an Israeli anthropology student, submitted a master’s thesis to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem on the subject of “rapes during wartime.” Her case study was the Israeli army. This study, as she said later in an interview with the Yediot Aharonot newspaper, came about as a result of her amazement at the fact that rape, a weapon of war widespread among many armies at the present time, is not used by the Israeli army.77 Her conclusion, after talking to twenty-five reserve soldiers aged 23–32, is that the reason is “anti-Arab racism” rather than a question of ethics.78 In Israel’s case, the absence of rape may—bizarrely—be called “racist.” As if rape were connected to physical attraction and recognition of the raped victim. In the name of “feminism,” it is thus possible to say everything—and its opposite. This is not the first time that racism, rape, prostitution—central topics in feminist struggles—have been used by some radical feminists in

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Feminism and Zionism 193 order to whip up opinion against Israeli occupation.79 The situation is certainly problematic, but these exaggerations, these myriad hotchpotches and analogies, simply marginalize feminist activism, leaving the public aware of nothing more than the hyperbole. They also prevent Israeli feminist debate from getting over its navel-gazing. Zionism and Israel also have their supporters among many Jewish and non-Jewish feminists in Israel as well as worldwide. This applies to women from the Zionist left who can voice any number of criticisms of Israeli society or government policy without challenging the legitimacy of Israel’s existence. Women academics and political figures, who are also greatly engaged in Israeli-Palestinian dialogue, do not have a systematic view of all the faults and wrongs on the Israeli side. Because of their positions and their capacity to undertake dialogue, they can hold discussions with members of both right- and left-wing political parties. This heightens their presence in the media, putting them in a better position to influence Israeli public opinion. They see no contradiction between their Zionism and their feminism when dialogue exists between the two peoples. This is reflected in the views of Alice Shalvi, an early feminist activist and founder of the Israel Women’s Network80: When I think about Israel’s future, I see clearly how my feminism and Zionism are intertwined. For so many years I worked with women and girls as principal of the Pelech School, and then as founder of the Israel Women’s Network, and as a participant in the dialogue group of Israeli and Palestinian women, and I realized that women with different political views and religious beliefs can nevertheless reach a consensus if they understand that as women they have shared goals.81

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Frances Raday, a secular left-wing feminist, explains why she came from England to Israel at the end of the 1960s, to become a young lecturer in the Hebrew University’s Faculty of Law: After the Six Day War, a group of intellectuals from Yale, Oxford and various European universities got together. I was one of them. This was what was then called the New Left. Before the war in Israel, they had all lamented the imminent end of the little democratic state, the only democracy in the Middle East. On the day of victory, they all turned against Israel: they said that as long as Israel existed in the Middle East, the Arabs would never achieve their maximum potential, etc. Before the war they all wept over the possible extermination of Israel, after the victory they wept over its victory. And what about me? At the time I was (and still am) an atheist, universalist, antinationalist, even anti-national (my utopia was a world without states),

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194 Feminism and Zionism and I was stupefied by this reversal. This was when Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth was published, and everyone had read it. I said to them at the time, “If there are any wretched of the earth, they must include the Jews. There is nobody who has had a more wretched history than the Jews, nobody who has been exploited more than them.” The only person who agreed with me was a colleague from Guyana, Walter Rodney: “It is not, he said, a war between right and left, or between imperialists and non-imperialists. It is a tragic conflict between two peoples lacking a national home, fighting to survive in a small piece of land.”82 How does Frances Raday feel today about the conflict with the Palestinians? She thinks that there should be a return to the 1967 borders, even if she remains convinced that this will not resolve the conflict, which existed well before the territories were occupied. She has few illusions about the positions of her left-wing militant friends abroad, whom she addresses as follows:

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Don’t tell me that it’s because of the settlements! It was the same before 67. And that’s why I came to Israel: because I was disappointed in the Left. I am on the left, but I don’t accuse Israel of everything that happens. What I say here and abroad is that in my opinion, the settlements should be evacuated, but that it is not the settlements which have given rise to the violence against Israel. Violence against Israel began before the Six Day War. Anyway, this war was the consequence of nonstop violence against Israel. Even if we were to evacuate the settlements today, I’m not sure that that would bring about peace. I nevertheless think that they should be evacuated, because Israel needs borders with a Jewish majority. And that’s the Green Line, with a few modifications.83 Apart from the feminists of the Zionist left and the post-Zionist or antiZionist radical left who actively pursue the goal of a binational state, there is also a militant feminism in the Israeli right (both religious and secular), which is fighting for greater social justice and for an improvement in women’s status in religious law (halacha). When it comes to voting for laws in favor of women, right- and left-wing parliamentarians are often on the same Knesset committees, where for a fleeting moment they forget their disagreements. In 1993, a number of women who were actively engaged on the political right set up an ultranationalist movement to oppose the “Women in Black,” calling it “Women in Green.” Wearing green caps adorned with the motto “Israel is our heart,” they opposed any withdrawal by Israel to the Green Line, and were passionately against the evacuation of the Gaza Strip

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Feminism and Zionism 195 settlements in 2006. But whether on the far right or on the far left—women in green or women in black—they had very little influence on the Israeli population, which on the whole distrusts extremism. In fact, the proponents of a “Greater Israel” and those who favor the “binational state” actually have common ground. In both instances, the upshot would be a single country which, demographically speaking, runs the risk of losing either its Jewish character (end of a Jewish majority), or its democratic character (if all the Palestinian populations were not given equal rights). This would run counter to the goal of the State of Israel, which sees itself as Jewish and democratic. What all these trends and analyses have shown is that the subjects of Zionism, the State of Israel, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are too complex to be reduced to a few slogans. Above all, we have seen that this is a subject hotly debated in women’s movements in Israel and overseas. But the very diversity of the women’s movements means that they include unconditional supporters; those who defend the country while critical of its policies; and radical detractors of the State of Israel. Abroad, the discussion of these issues dates back to the late 1960s as feminism was emerging and becoming international. Feminist, post-feminist, and post-colonial theories have in the meanwhile become a breeding ground for the unconditional criticism of Zionism. Some Israeli feminists’ acerbic criticisms of militarism, the occupation, or the security wall—criticisms that are then spread in other countries—serve as both source and reference, influencing the stances of their peers worldwide. Jewish and Israeli women (and of course Jewish men, too) are thus making a major contribution to sustaining this tendency, thereby conferring legitimacy on it and removing any hint of antisemitism. In the international arena the ground had been well prepared since the 1970s, when the issue of Zionism and Israel’s legitimacy was raised as a matter of urgency at international women’s conferences.

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N OTES 1. Elly Bulkin, Minnie Bruce Pratt, and Barbara Smith, Yours in Struggle: Three Feminist Perspectives on Anti-Semitism and Racism (New York: Long Haul Press, 1984), 155. 2. The proto-Zionist Leo Pinsker (1821–1891) used this term as the title of his pamphlet Auto-Emancipation (Selbstemanzipation, Berlin 1882). 3. Tamar Mayer, “From Zero to Hero: Masculinity in Jewish Nationalism,” in Gender Ironies of Nationalism: Sexing the Nation, edited by Tamar Mayer (New York: Routledge, 2000), 283–308. Tamar Mayer is a professor of geography (specializing in the Middle East) at Middlebury College, Vermont. 4. The paradox is described by American historian David Biale in Power and Powerlessness in Jewish History (New York: Schocken Books, 1995).

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196 Feminism and Zionism 5. Ilan Pappé, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2006). 6. Idith Zertal, Israel’s Holocaust and the Politics of Nationhood (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005). 7. The first Zionist Congress, chaired by Theodor Herzl, was held in Basle August 29–31, 1897. 8. Harriet Z. Pass Freidenreich, Female, Jewish, and Educated: The Lives of Central European Women (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 2002). Attina Grossmann, “German Women Doctors from Berlin to New York: Maternity and Modernity in Weimar and in Exile,” Feminist Studies 19, no. 1 (Spring 1992): 65–67. Born into a Jewish family, Edith Stein (converted in 1921 to Catholicism; deported to Auschwitz in 1942) was one of the first women to be admitted to university courses in Germany and the first woman to obtain a doctorate in philosophy (1925). 9. Since 1953, Jewish marriage and divorce in Israel is under the jurisdiction of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel, which defines a person’s Jewish status strictly according to halakha. Personal status matters in Israel are handled by the various religious courts (Jewish, Muslim, Druse, Catholic and Orthodox Christian, etc.), a remnant of the former Turkish millet system. 10. David Biale, Eros and the Jews: From Biblical Israel to Contemporary America (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1997). 11. Lois West, ed., Feminist Nationalism (New York: Routledge, 1997). 12. Zahira Kamal, “the Feminist-Nationalist Connection in the Palestinian Movement,” in Feminist Natinalism, 101–29. 13. Anthony D. Smith, The Ethnic Origins of Nations (Oxford: Basic Blackwell, 1986); Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2005); Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Oritgin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1991). Quoted by Laurence J. Silberstein, “Cultural Criticism, Ideology, and the Interpretation of Zionism: Toward a Post-Zionist Discourse,” in Interpreting Judaism in a Postmodern Age, edited by Steven Kepnes (New York: New York University Press, 1996), 332. Laurence J. Silberstein is the Philip and Muriel Berman Professor of Jewish Studies at Lehigh University, and also directs the Philip and Muriel Berman Center for Jewish Studies. He is author of The Postzionism Debates:Knowledge and Power in Israeli Culture (London: Routledge, 1999). 14. Silberstein, “Cultural Criticism,” 336–37. 15. Judith Butler, “Contingent Foundations: Feminism and the Question of Postmodernism,” in Feminists Theorize the Political, edited by J. Butler and Joan W. Scoat (New York: Routledge, 1992). 16. Silberstein, “Cultural Criticism,” 346–49. 17. Gideon Shimoni, The Zionist Ideology (Hanover, N.H.: Brandeis University Press, University Press of New England, 1995), 4–11, names historians of nationalism who mention Jewish nationalism. 18. Hedva Ben-Israel, Bechem Haouma (Essays and articles about nationalism and Zionism; in Hebrew) (Beer-Sheva: Ben Gurion Research Institute, 2004). 19. The works of Jewish scholars Anthony Smith and Yael Tamir, more favorable to nationalist claims, including Zionism, are exceptions. David D. Laitin, Nations, States, and Violence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 147. 20. Adrian Hastings, The Construction of Nationhood: Ethnicity, Religion and

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Feminism and Zionism 197 Nationalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), Introduction, 18. Adrian Hastings (1929–2001) was a Roman Catholic priest, historian, and author. 21. Zeev Sternhell, The Founding Myths of Israel: Nationalism, Socialism, and the Making of the Jewish State (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1997), 57. 22. George L. Mosse, The Image of Man: The Creation of Modern Masculinity (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996). 23. Max Nordau (1849–1923) was a physician, author, and social critic. He was a co-founder of the World Zionist Organization together with Theodor Herzl, and president or vice president of several Zionist congresses. His most often cited book today is Degeneration (1892). 24. Max Nordau, speech at the second Zionist Congress, Basel, 28–31 Aug. 1898, Protocols of Zionist Congresses, Central Zionist Archives, Jerusalem. Nordau alluded to the need for creating a new type of Jew who would be physically strong and morally fit as the precondition for realizing the national goals of Zionism. 25. The Maccabean Revolt (167–160 BCE), was a revolt against the Seleucid Empire by a Judean rebel group (the Maccabees). The Bar Kokhba revolt against the Roman Empire lasted three years (132–135 CE). 26. Max Nordau, “Muskeljudentum,” Die Jüdische Turnzeitung, no. 2 (July 1900): 11, quoted by Todd Samuel Presner, Muscular Judaism—The Jewish Body and the Politics of Generation (London: Routledge, 2007), 3. 27. Max Nordau, “Was bedeutet das Turnen für uns Juden?” (What does gymanstics do for us Jews?), Die Jüdische Turnzeitung, no. 7 (July 1902): 109, quoted in Presner, Muscular Judaism, 61–62. 28. Presner cites Richard Blum, “The Need for Female Gymnastics,” Die Jüdische Turnzeitung, 5 (1902): 76–80), in Presner, Muscular Judaism, 3. 29. The themes of “respect” and “Jewish honor” are very present in the Theodor Herzl’s “Jewish State.” See Anita Shapira, Land and Power: The Zionist Resort to Force (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 11. 30. For example, Abbé Grégoire, Essai sur la régénération physique, morale et politique des Juifs (Essay on the physical, moral and political reformation of the Jews (1789). The French revolutionary leader advocated the emancipation of the Jews. 31. Bar Kokhba led the revolt against the Roman Empire in 132 CE, establishing an independent Jewish state which he ruled for three years as Nasi (prince). The Romans overturned this state in 135 CE, after two-and-a-half years of war. After the failure of the revolt, the rabbinical writers referred to bar Kokhba as “Simon bar Kozeba” (“Son of lies” or “Son of deception”). 32. The siege of Masada (an ancient fortification near the Dead Sea) by the Tenth Roman Legion at the end of the First Jewish-Roman War ended in the mass suicide of the 960 Jewish rebels and their families who had taken refuge there (73 or 74 CE). 33. Ahad Ha’am (1856–1927; pen name of Asher Zvi Hirsch Ginsberg [literally “one of the people,” Genesis 26:10]), was a Hebrew essayist and one of the foremost pre-state Zionist thinkers. He is known as the founder of cultural Zionism with a secular vision of a Jewish “spiritual center” in Palestine. Unlike Theodor Herzl, the founder of political Zionism, Ahad Ha’am aspired to “a Jewish state” and not merely “a state of the Jews.” 34. They quote Genesis 25: 27, where Esau and Jacob respectively represent the aggressive Roman (image of masculinity), and Israel: “And the boys grew up and

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198 Feminism and Zionism Esau was a hunter, a man of the field and Jacob was an innocent, a dweller in tents (prototypical female space),” quoted in Daniel and Jonathan Boyarin, Powers of Diaspora (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2002), 78–79. 35. Ibid., 65. 36. Lisa Brandes, “The Gender Gap and Attitudes toward War,” paper presented at the annual meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago, 1992, quoted in Mark Tessler and Ina Warriner, “Gender Feminism, and Attitudes toward International Conflict,” World Politics 49 (Jan. 1997): 250-28. See also Pamela Johnston Conover and Virginia Shapiro, “Gender, Feminist Consciousness, and War,” American Journal of Political Science 37 (Nov. 1993): 1079–99. 37. Virginia Woolf, Three Guineas (1938; London: Hogarth Press, 1952), 197. 38. Ibid., 14–15. 39. Ibid., 38–39. 40. Ibid., 16. 41. Owen’s plea for a passive Christ no doubt springs from the horrors witnessed in the First World War. Yet Jesus in the Gospels could be aggressive in speech and deed. In Matthew 10:34, Jesus declares “Think not that I come to send peace on earth; I come not to bring peace but a sword.” And he drove the money changers from the Temple with whips in John 2:15. 42. Gisela Kaplan, “Feminism and Nationalism: The European Case,” in Feminist Nationalism, edited by Lois West (New York: Routledge, 1997), 3. 43. Ibid., 18. 44. Tamar Mayer, “From Zero to Hero,” 285. 45. In Hebrew, the words of this song are: Eifo hen, habahurot ha hen, im ha kookoo ve ha-sarafan, ve haturiya, lama kvar lo ro-im otan. 46. Among the best known: the ex-anarchist Mania Shohat (1879–1961), the poet Rahel (1890–1931), and the Socialists Ada Maimon (1893–1973), Hannah Maizel (1883–1972), and Rachel Yanait Ben Zvi (1886–1979). Vincent Vilmain “Feministes et nationalistes? Les femmes juives dans le sionisme politique (1868– 1921)” (Ph.D diss., Sorbonne, 2011). 47. The Maccabees (Makabim in Hebrew) were a Jewish rebel army that took control of Judea, which had been a client state of the Seleucid Empire. They founded the Hasmonean dynasty, which ruled from 164–63 BCE, reasserting the Jewish religion and expanding the boundaries of the Land of Israel. Yosef Trumpeldor (1880–1920) was an early Zionist activist. He died defending the settlement of Tel Hai and subsequently became a Zionist national hero and a symbol of Jewish selfdefense. His last words are said to have been, “Never mind, it is good to die for our country.” 48. In his utopian novel Altneuland, (Old-New Land), Theodor Herzl imagined only a civilian army in the future Jewish state. 49. Shulamit Reinharz and Mark A. Raider, eds., American Jewish Women and the Zionist Enterprise (Waltham, Mass.: Brandeis University Press, 2005). 50. Yaron Ezrahi, Rubber Bullets—Power and Conscience in Modern Israel (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 241–42. 51. Gvura is also one of the Hebrew names of God. Yaron Ezrahi, ibid., points out that the term Klei zayin which means “weapons,” is used in Israeli slang for the male genital organ. See also Mayer, “From Zero to Hero,” 297. 52. From the Al-Qassam Brigades to the Zionist soldiers: “The Al-Qassam

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Feminism and Zionism 199 Brigades love death more than you love life.” Al-Aqsa TV (Hamas), 18 Nov. 2012, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAOzy2zwyxo ; “Hamas using Palestinians as Human Shields: ‘We desire Death as you desire Life,’” Al-Aqsa TV (Hamas), 29 Feb. 2008. 53. Roni Sofer, “We tried everything,” Ynet, 4 Jan. 2009. 54. Raya Harnik, mother of Guni, killed in the first day of the Lebanon War (June 6, 1982), published a book of poems in homage to her son. Raya Harnik, Shirim le-Guni, (Poems for Guni) (Tel Aviv: Hakibutz Hameuhad, 1983). 55. Ezrahi, Rubber Bullets, 239. 56. Two groups of women were engaged against the backdrop of the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon: Women against Silence (called also Mothers against Silence), a group of fifty women who disassociated themselves from feminism and presented an image of mothers (and fathers), was accepted by the Israeli public, which found them likable. The other group, Women Against the Invasion of Lebanon, was made up of women who had been active in the feminist Israeli movement. Its antimilitarist position provoked hostile reactions from the Israeli public. 57. The First Intifada (1987–1993) began as a spontaneous protest in Gaza in which IDF patrols were stoned. It soon spread throughout the country and involved bus and car bombings, shootings, and stabbings. The second, or “Al-Aqsa” Intifada (2000–2004) was launched by Yasser Arafat on the pretext of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s “provocative” visit to the Temple Mount. Palestinian leaders during current negotiations threaten a Third Intifada if their demands are not met. 58. Women in Black became the symbol of the opposition of many women in the world to all forms of oppressions (not only in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict). Today, after more than ten years of activism, they have lost their originality and their influence. 59. This name refers to the four matriarchs of the Bible: Sarah, Rebecca, Leah, and Rachel. Dafna Lemish and Inbal Barzel, “‫ދ‬Four Mothers’: The Womb in the Public Sphere, European Journal of Communication 14, no. 2 (2000): 147–69. 60. The decision to withdraw the Israeli army from South Lebanon was apparently heavily influenced by a change in public opinion in Israel. Arabs perceived it as a sign of weakness, and some think that it encouraged the Palestinians to launch the second, Al-Aqsa, Intifada that began on September 28, 2000. 61. Bradley Burston, “Background/Israel’s New Peace Groups—a Field Guide,” Haaretz, 16 June 2004. 62. NELED, acronym of Nashim Lemaan Du-kiyum (Women for Coexistence). Founded in 1989, they initiate solidarity visits and activities in the Palestinian territories. Approximately 20–30 women participate in the monthly meetings; occasionally men join as well, and a lecturer will speak on social and political issues. 63. The word “nation” has also its roots in the Latin word “natio” (birth). 64. Andrew Parker, Mary Russo, Doris Sommer, and Patricia Yaeger, eds., Nationalisms and Sexualities (New York: Routledge, 1992. 65. Quoted by Shlomo Avineri, The Making of Modern Zionism: The Intellectual Origins of the Jewish State (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1981), 44. 66. Profil Hadash is a feminist and anti-militarist movement which supports people who refuse to enlist in the Israel Defense Forces; on NELED, see note 62, above; TANDI (Tnuat Nashim Democratiot, Movement of Democratic Women). Machsom (Checkpoint) Watch is a group of Israeli women who monitor checkpoints

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200 Feminism and Zionism in the West Bank and the military courts, in opposition to the Israeli occupation. 67. Coalition of Women for Peace, http://www.coalitionofwomen.org; Simona Sharoni, Gender and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: The Politics of Women’s Resistance (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1995). 68. Ezrahi, Rubber Bullets, chapter three, “Power and Conscience in Modern Israel,” 175–265. 69. Eighteen Israeli feminist organizations endorsed this anti-war statement. 70. Alya Strauss, Israel to her friends in Women in Black, Philadelphia, Jan. 2003. 71. Sharoni, “Homefront as Battlefield—Gender, Military Occupation and Violence against Women,” in Women and the Israeli Occupation—The Politics of Change, edited by Tamar Mayer (London: Routledge, 1994), 126–27. 72. Some left-wing activists who have been personally affected by terrorism did not change their political position as a result. One such is Nurit Peled-Elhanan, whose 14-year-old daughter, Smadar, was killed in a suicide bombing in Jerusalem on Sept. 4, 1997. Peled-Elhanan is a lecturer in language education at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and works with Palestinian and Israeli Bereaved Families for Peace. Her father, Gen. Matti Peled (1923–1995) was a radical peace activist. Of her daughter’s death she declared: “I really believe it is the fault of the Israeli government more than the terrorists. . . . By behaving like conquerors, we’ve brought it on ourselves.” Barbara Demick, “Poster Child of Peace is Terror Victim,” Philadelphia Inquirer, 14 Sept. 1997, http://www.israelbehindthenews.com/bin/content.cgi?ID=654&q=1. 73. Erella Shadmi, “Between Resistance to Compliance, Feminism and Nationalism: Women in Black in Israel,” Women’s Studies International Forum 23, no. 1 (2000): 23–34. 74. Ibid. 75. Sharoni, “Homefront as Battlefield.” 76. Ibid., 231–46. 77. “Diné Onesin” (Laws about Rape), interview with Tamar Kaplansky, Yediot Aharonot, 31 Mar. 2008. The student in question, Tal Nitzan, began by noting in her thesis that a distinction should be made between organized military rape ordered directly by authorities as a matter of policy, as in the Bosnian wars—something which, as she confirms, has never been the policy of the Israeli army—and individual acts of rape by soldiers, which she labels with the term “symptomatic rape.” Here she concludes that this second form reflects Jewish racism against Arabs. 78. Tal Nitzan, “Controlled Occupation: The Rarity of Military Rape in the Israeli Palestinian Conflict” (M.A. Thesis, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2007). She received high marks and awards from her professors at the Hebrew University. See also Steven Plaut, “Guilty by Reason of Innocence: New Insanity from Israel’s Academic Leftists,” Jewish Press (New York), 3 Jan. 2008. The Jewish Press serves the Orthodox Jewish community. 79. Andrea Dworkin, Scapegoat: The Jews, Israel and Women’s Liberation (New York: Free Press, 2000). 80. The Israel Women’s Network (IWN, Heb. Shdulat Hanashim) is a nonprofit organization comprised of women determined to improve the status of women in Israel, regardless of political affiliation, religious outlook, or ethnic origin. Founded in 1984, the IWN has lobbied for groundbreaking legislation, such as the 1998 Sexual Harassment Prevention law, and the 2005 law establishing a Commission for Equal

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Employment Opportunities. The Israeli Supreme Court has ruled in favor of IWN petitions against discrimination in the workplace and in the IDF. 81. Alice Shalvi, “Un fanatisme de la tolérance” (A fanaticism of tolerance), Repenser Israël: Morale et politique dans l’Etat juif, edited by Ilan Greilsammer, Série Monde, no. 70 (Paris: Autrement, Sept. 1993): 181–93. 82. Interview with Frances Raday by Nelly Las, Jerusalem, June 2004. Walter Rodney became the leader of the opposition in his country, Ghana. In the early 1970s he was murdered in mysterious circumstances. 83. Interview with Frances Raday.

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C HAPTER E IGHT

Israel and Zionism in the Global Feminist Debate

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UN W OMEN ’ S C ONFERENCES : J EWISH W OMEN ON THE D EFENSIVE In 1975 the United Nations organized the first international conference on the status of women, which took place in Mexico City.1 Its aim was to draft guidelines for improving women’s economic and social situation worldwide. As can be seen from the number of participants and the interest generated, this was an unprecedented event. The official conference was attended by the delegations from 133 states, while some 6,000 women took part in the parallel Forum of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs). The feminist movements’ success in the United States and Europe had placed the issue of women on the agendas of international institutions. Feminists who had gone to Mexico full of enthusiasm intended to initiate a process of international solidarity with Third World women. However, it soon became obvious that the official discussions—undertaken by state-level representatives—were often driven by national interests rather than those of women. This explains the marked degree of politicization and the ideological clashes, which spilled over to the NGO meetings as well. Since most of the Third World countries had joined the non-aligned movement, they had resolved to condemn Israel in all relevant discussions. All that was needed was to categorize Israel as racist and guilty of apartheid, among the most hated and vilest evils in the world. The frenetic activism of the pro-Palestinian lobby paid off, and the official condemnation of Zionism appeared together with apartheid and racism in the final declaration of the conference. Women of the world were urged “to fight all forms of oppression practiced under colonialism, Zionism, racial discrimination and apartheid.” This Mexico City declaration was the prelude to what would be voted in the United Nations General Assembly just a few months later: Resolution 3379, equating Zionism with racism. Although the resolution was eventually revoked in December 1991, it dealt a major blow to the image of the State of Israel. To this day, more than two decades later, Israel still feels

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its repercussions.2 The dehumanization of Zionism in an official United Nations declaration gave the go-ahead to Israel’s moral defamation by negating its basic ideology. The world’s Jews, who were viewed as potential citizens of the Jewish state, were inevitably affected by this state of affairs. The opprobrium heaped on Israel would have an effect on Jews generally, as well as generating or justifying antisemitic attitudes in the United Nations and elsewhere. Thus Zionism made an impromptu entrance into the international feminist debate. Many eminent figures worldwide variously expressed their indignation at what appeared to be an “infamous equation” (Zionism = racism). In France especially, distinguished intellectuals published a petition denouncing this “falsification of the historical truth.”3 The reaction of the American and Israeli Jewish women attending the conference as delegates of various organizations was one of consternation and indignation. Ironically and wryly one of them said, “instead of condemning sexism, in Mexico it was Zionism that was condemned.” Betty Friedan, known for her left-wing activism during the McCarthy era, publicly protested this declaration which she considered an “outrage,” a move she considered both “antisemitic and anti-woman.”4 Bella Abzug, attending the Mexico conference as a member of the American delegation, reacted vigorously to the attacks on Israel by the Third World delegates. However, she and others failed to prevent the approval of the final declaration in which Zionism was equated with racism. For the feminist activist Letty Cottin Progrebin, this defamation of Zionism triggered her self-identification as a “Jewish feminist” with a commitment to Israel. As she later related: The “Zionism is racism” resolution—called the Declaration of Mexico—took me by surprise. I could not believe that supposed feminists who had been entrusted with the inauguration of a ten-year commitment to improving the status of all the world’s women—and who were pledged to address the monumental problems of female infanticide, illiteracy, high mortality rates, abject poverty, involuntary pregnancies, domestic violence, and so on—could allow their agenda to be hijacked on behalf of this unspeakable PLO slogan.5 Despite its political bias, in terms of scope and influence the Mexico conference can be considered central to the development of United Nations world conferences. It also initiated a series of world conferences intended to check the progress of women’s rights. The period 1976–1985 was declared the United Nations Decade for Women. Its goals were to foster “equality, development and peace.” An action plan was drawn up to guide all nations in their efforts to advance the status of women. However, advancing these goals worldwide was hampered by the vehement disputes that arose in addressing

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204 Israel and Zionism in the Global Feminist Debate political and ideological issues. Despite the involvement of some of the most prominent feminist figures, the conferences held in the Decade for Women were not, strictly speaking, “feminist” encounters. National interests were at stake, and delegates from non-democratic states had no intention of squandering a United Nations forum on “secondary” matters. Five years later, in 1980, at the “mid-decade” women’s conference held in Copenhagen, the consequences of the Mexico declaration would be felt with a vengeance. Shortly before the event, a petition signed by prominent women from a number of countries aimed to avoid the political excesses that had plagued the Mexico conference.6 Nevertheless, many Jewish feminists remembered Copenhagen as a traumatic experience, where they were confronted with an unexpected wave of hatred and hostility directed not only at Israel, but at Jews, too. The triumphal entry of the PLO delegation, led by Leila Khaled, a female terrorist who had been responsible for two attempted plane hijackings, revolted and outraged the American and Israeli women present at the conference.7 Pacifist activists had planned to have Shulamith Aloni, an up-andcoming left-wing Israeli parliamentarian, speak with the Palestinian militant. Khaled flatly refused, stating that the only way she would address the Israelis was with a firearm. In her book, The Second Stage, Betty Friedan sadly describes these “frustrating” days in Copenhagen where she had come to represent the American feminist organization, the National Organization of Women (NOW). Every attempt in a “larger plenary session in which a world feminist agenda might have emerged” was disrupted by PLO supporters, who broke up discussion of feminist issues to denounce “the Zionist entity,” or American imperialism. “I began to sense, in those frustrating days at Copenhagen, the limits of women’s power, organized as a separate interest group along sexual lines.”8 Most of the Jewish American women in Copenhagen felt the same discomfort. They had all been shocked by the extent of antiAmerican and anti-Zionist hatred, and above all, by the highly primitive expressions of verbal antisemitism targeted at them. Several Jewish feminists spoke out in articles, deploring the lack of support by their non-Jewish feminist friends.9 In adversity, they felt that they had a sense of solidarity with other Jewish women and stood shoulder to shoulder with Israel. As a result of this “traumatizing” experience, some who until then had not been particularly concerned about Israel, made the defense of Israel their paramount goal. Sometimes this engagement changed and fused with their feminist engagement in the best tradition of American Jewish feminism. Letty Cottin Pogrebin would even find numerous points in common between the two “isms” that she supports, feminism and Zionism:

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Israel and Zionism in the Global Feminist Debate 205 I know Zionists who are racists, just as I know racist feminists, but that didn’t make Zionism racism any more than a few bigoted women made feminism racism. Moreover, one could say that Zionism is to Jews what feminism is to women. Zionism began as a national liberation movement and has become an ongoing struggle for Jewish solidarity, pride, and unity. Similarly, feminism, which began as a gender liberation movement, has become an ongoing struggle for women’s solidarity, pride and unity. Just as feminism has been maligned and misunderstood by those who do not bother to understand it, so too has Zionism been maligned and misunderstood by its enemies. In conclusion she expresses her bitter disappointment:

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I was accustomed to hearing Israel defamed at the UN, but not in a gathering where sisterhood is supposed to be powerful. What was going on? Why was all that womanpower being directed against Jews?10 Since the Mexico and Copenhagen international encounters of women, Zionism—a vague concept with which even its detractors are not familiar— has become a denigratory term and a bone of contention in various feminist circles. Prior to these events, nobody in women’s movements had been remotely interested in it, nobody had thought of documenting the issue, nor of pondering the relationship between Zionism and feminism. Zionism was primarily a topic that existed within the Jewish world, and for some Jewish women it was part of their search for roots and their rediscovery of their Jewish identity. It was also bound up with the antisemitism which confirmed the vital need of a state for the Jews. The entrance of Third World women to the international feminist arena created tensions among western feminists who were accused of universalizing the experiences of western women from whom the former were excluded. In addition, the Third World had also unconditionally championed the Palestinian cause against Israel, which was thought of as a European foreign body in the East. Everything contributed to generating an atmosphere conducive to antisemitism. Once the United Nations had—by virtue of its “automatic majority”—declared Zionism to be a “racist” ideology, antiZionism obtained official legitimacy and even became a moral imperative. 11 Hence it became the ideology espoused by any Third World and progressive left-wing intellectual who did not wish to swim against the tide. It was then that many western feminists broke ranks with their Jewish peers who, come what may, were particularly sensitive about Israel. It had become impossible to explain things differently, to show that Israel’s conflict with the

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206 Israel and Zionism in the Global Feminist Debate Palestinians was not, a clear-cut matter of ideology or so-called racism, that it was quite simply, in a view now disputed but still prevalent, a painful territorial national conflict. As neatly defined by the historian Alain Dieckhoff:

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the outcome of a painful encounter between two nationalisms that are out of step with each other: one was born out of nineteenth-century turmoil, while the other emerged from the heady atmosphere of the liberation movements that led to the twentieth-century emergence of the Third World.12 However one feels about the various nationalisms, Israel’s situation cannot be ignored. Israel is a fact: practically half of the world’s Jews—people who have “nowhere else” to go—live there. Even those who call themselves postZionists or anti-Zionists know full well that there is no going back. But who is willing to listen to arguments? Emotion plays a major role in this conflict, on which a disproportionate amount of attention is focused relative to tragedies and injustices perpetrated elsewhere throughout the world. Israel cannot go unnoticed. Continuous Palestinian harassment leads to military operations, and often media reports on these response operations without noting the initial provocation, making it appear that Israel is at fault. Defending Israel is certainly not easy, particularly because new developments keep cropping up in this never-ending conflict. Since Mexico and Copenhagen, Jewish organizations’ representatives have resolved not to allow such anti-Jewish excesses to pass unchallenged. Following the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War, antisemitism tied in with antiZionism could not but recede, particularly since a new Israeli-Palestinian dialogue began in the aftermath of the 1991 Gulf War, and was then crowned by the 1993 Oslo accords. However, in September 2001, at the Durban Conference against Racism, antisemitism-cum-anti-Zionism reached an unexpected new peak. International meetings that purport to seek progress “toward a better world” do not always manage to do without the Jewish scapegoat. One may ask, for example, why at the 2003 World Social Forum held in Porto Alegre, Brazil, a large number of antiglobalist activists paraded in T-shirts and brandished placards with anti-Jewish slogans. This phenomenon has been dubbed the “new antisemitism” to distinguish it from its past form. History has shown us clearly, however, that one of antisemitism’s characteristics is its capacity to morph into new forms time and time again.

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Israel and Zionism in the Global Feminist Debate 207 A NGUISH , D ILEMMAS , AND C ONFUSION : C ONFRONTING I SRAEL ’ S W ARS

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While the Jewish women at the Copenhagen conference were still dwelling on their frustrations in the face of what they felt was antisemitism in the women’s movement, new events would soon place Israel in the center of international opprobrium: Israel’s 1982 Peace for the Galilee operation, triggered by the shooting of Israel’s ambassador in London, Shlomo Argov, and in response to Palestinian terrorist actions in Israel’s north. Israeli forces crossed the Lebanese border, and on September 14, Israel’s Lebanese Christian ally, Bashir Jemayel, was assassinated by his opponents. A few days later, on September 17–18, Lebanese Phalangist militias entered the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps, and massacred Palestinians, shocking the entire world and generating an enormous protest movement within Israel itself.13 This war placed Zionism in the sights of the women’s movement, particularly in Great Britain, where the debate was fiercest and posed a serious threat to its cohesion. It must be remembered that the anti-Zionist hostility which spilled over into antisemitic comments was not a straightforward consequence of the Lebanon war. Jewish feminists had already experienced this at the Mexico and Copenhagen international women’s conferences. In a lengthy critical article on feminist identity politics, the English Jewish feminist Jenny Bourne described the dilemmas of Jewish women in the English feminist movement when Israel was involved: In June 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon. . . . The women’s movement unhesitatingly took the side of their Palestinian sisters. Where did we stand? Did we support Israel and Zionism—in which case we were running against the feminist tide—or would we ourselves come out against Israel in the name of a larger feminist politics? Were we Jews first or feminists first? How could we stay true to both our feminism and our knowledge of ourselves and our history. . . ? We [Jewish feminists] refused, that is, to take a stand on the crucial and painful contradictions posed by the material realities of the Middle East, and opted instead to internalize those contradictions into a crisis of Jewish feminism, to be resolved on the basis of our complex identities. Politics required us to take a stand on the issue, metaphysics allowed us to escape it—but feminism allowed us to conflate the political and the personal, the objective and the subjective, the material and the metaphysical, and escape into Identity Politics.14

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208 Israel and Zionism in the Global Feminist Debate

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These dilemmas of Jewish women reflect the confusion of many feminist activists who still retain emotional and identity ties with Israel even when they criticize its policies. Their positions span the gamut between unconditional support for Israel, critical support, and unflagging hostility. There are also those who simply analyze the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a straightforward issue of “patriarchy” in two (Israeli and Palestinian) societies characterized by masculine dominance and hence by definition violent. As Jenny Bourne puts it ironically, “We reduced the massive international problem of Israel to a simplistic expression of male power.”15 In the European and American feminist movements, however, the question of Israel and the Palestinians is not confined to Jewish women, even though often they feel the most concerned. Hence the distinction is not between Jews and non-Jews, but between those who are “hostile” to Israel and those who are its “friends.” We could of course have just come up with an overview of antisemitism and described the reactions of the most radical women, those who are most entrenched and unprepared to listen to any explanations about Israel, which by definition is considered guilty as charged and hence reprehensible. However, this would be tantamount to attaching importance solely to antiZionist feminist radicalism, which certainly does not represent the feminist point of view as a whole. Among the greatest theoreticians and activists of the cause of women there exists a more moderate current, one which is less centered on post-colonial guilt, sympathizes with the suffering of the Palestinian people but also understands the existential grounds for the establishment of the State of Israel and the complex nature of its conflict with its neighbors. They know that to support only one side and say that it is the only party in the right, does not encourage moderation or help to solve this complicated conflict. In order to analyze feminist attitudes to Zionism and Israel, we have focused on three countries which stand out by virtue of their feminist theories and activism: Great Britain, the United States, and France. T HE Q UESTION OF Z IONISM IN A NGLO -A MERICAN F EMINISM Anti-Zionism in the Feminist Debate in Great Britain The attitude of the British feminist movement in the wake of the 1982 Lebanon War would not have been so important had it not reflected the far left’s hostility to Israel after the Six Day War in 1967, a tradition that flourishes to the present. In addition, this episode also left a bitter taste among

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Israel and Zionism in the Global Feminist Debate 209 many Anglo-Jewish women, even those who were most critical about Israeli policies. Why was this specific to Great Britain? When racism and the far right came to the fore in the 1970s, English feminists developed an interest in minority women. They examined the nexus between racism and sexism, and rallied against racism. As Zionism was regularly stigmatized at international conferences, and the British women’s movement joined ranks with far left anti-Zionist groups, there came about an atmosphere conducive to virulent attacks on Israel and Zionism. These intensified during the 1982 Lebanon War. In the feminist press as well as some other British publications, Israel was described as an imperialist and racist state, and Zionism was depicted as an absolute evil. False information circulated about the systematic rape of Palestinian women by Israeli soldiers. Such reports were denied by the WAVAW (Women Against Violence Against Women) organization, as were rumors that Palestinian pupils had been gassed, and other atrocities had been committed. Two notable publications spread and even “imposed” antiZionism within the British women’s movement. One was the monthly Outwrite, set up in a militantly anti-globalist and anti-imperialist spirit, and hence by definition hostile to Israel. Its infatuation with the Palestinian cause and its anti-Zionism were part of its engagement, as was clearly stated in its editorials on several occasions. The same cannot be said for Spare Rib, the other British feminist publication at the time, which was supposed to represent women from many walks of life, with a wide range of experiences and leanings. Despite its generally more moderate editorial policy, its attitude to Israel was far from impartial, constituting a textbook case of blatant bias in a purportedly democratic magazine.16 Information published about Israel and Israelis was often wrong or exaggerated. In 1983, Spare Rib published onesided opinion pieces hostile to Israel with no right to respond. Spare Rib covered itself from any possible charge of antisemitism by accepting contributions from Israeli Jewish women who also attacked Zionism. These included a respected academic, Nira Yuval-Davis, who stated that “the struggles against Zionism, anti-Semitism and racism are complementary, rather than competing.”17 They must, she said, be a part of any feminist politics. She went on to explain that “Israeli legislation had to perpetuate in various ways sexist and medieval Jewish laws,” thus obstructing equality between the sexes. Such words from an Israeli-born professor, lent credibility to her assertions.18 Another Israeli feminist, Aliza Khan, appeared in an interview together with a Lebanese and a Palestinian feminist, in which they compared Zionism to Nazi ideology. The article’s title was unambiguous: “Women

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210 Israel and Zionism in the Global Feminist Debate Speak Out Against Zionism,” with a matching subtitle: “If a woman calls herself feminist she should consciously call herself anti-Zionist.”19 What about the right to reply? The forty or so letters sent in reaction to this article were automatically blue-penciled by Spare Rib’s editors. In an editorial devoted to this affair they stated20

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As a collective we are united in a pro-Palestinian position; we are concerned about Palestinian oppression and support their struggle for self-determination and independence. We are not an anti-Zionist collective although individually many of the collective define themselves as such. . . .” They also recognized that “there is growing anti-Semitism in this country,” and knew that they “should confront their own antisemitism.” Part of this confrontation, they state, “is recognizing that anti-Zionism can conceal antisemitism,” but in any event, they “do not accept Zionism as a strategy for the liberation of oppressed Jewish people at the expense of the Palestinians.” Hence they refused to publish not only openly Zionist letters, but even those which, while critical of Israel’s policies, implied a degree of goodwill toward Zionism, in other words, “those who through their silence on this subject, negated the oppression and struggles of the Palestinian people.” This narrowminded approach made it impossible for Jewish women to challenge the idea that Zionism is “intrinsically imperialist and racist,” let alone propose more positive interpretations. To avoid being charged with antisemitism, Spare Rib’s editors said that they was prepared to publish articles on the racism and antisemitism of the British far right, and even acknowledged that some antiZionist publications might be masking antisemitism.21 This editorial generated a feeling of profound unease in the UK women’s movement. Jewish women cited in particular the basic principles of feminism which allowed each activist to define her own point of view and her own politics. Denying them the right to express themselves called this principle into question, together with feminine solidarity and the unity of the movement. Thus, the UK Jewish feminists were compelled to establish their own feminist magazine, Shifra. Acknowledging its tie with Israel, but without being openly Zionist, its first editorial stated that it was open to publishing criticism of Israel’s policies and social structures.22 Later, Jenny Bourne wrote about Jewish women’s dilemmas in the feminist movement in Britain when Israel was at war.23 A number of Jewish women considered Jenny Bourne’s article to be overly critical of Israel, and they, in turn, decided to publish a response in order to defend more positive views on Zionism.24 Reactions to the Lebanon War were virulently anti-Israel in most parts of the world, including among Jewish and non-Jewish feminists both

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Israel and Zionism in the Global Feminist Debate 211

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individually and collectively. In Great Britain more than anywhere else, there was a wave of utterly uninhibited animosity toward Israel, unencumbered by any fear that such an attitude might turn into outright antisemitism. This undoubtedly reflected the British left, well-known for its radically anti-Israel stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. An astonishing anecdote published in a British newspaper cites an example which illustrates the irrationality of this anti-Zionism. Richard Ingrams, editor of the satirical Private Eye and Observer columnist, confessed in his weekly column that he had “developed a habit when confronted by letters to the editor in support of the Israeli government to look at the signature to see if the writer has a Jewish name. If so, I tend not to read it.”25 Did Ingrams genuinely not realize how antisemitic such an attitude sounds? He was ignoring the fact that the most vituperative criticisms of Israel and Zionism were often penned by Jews. This, however, is doubtless a mere detail. In the name of unlimited “freedom” of expression, the British press can allow such excesses without realizing their gravity. Hostility to Israel has become common in British intellectual settings which pass it on overseas. It was in Britain that in 2002 the petition to boycott Israeli universities—which then spread to other countries—was initiated.26 The same year the Guardian published a letter from a group of prominent Jews renouncing their right to Israeli residence and citizenship, saying that they regard the legal entitlement as “morally wrong” when those who “should have the most right to a genuine return. . .are excluded.”27 Numerous Jewish intellectuals joined in this acerbic criticism of Israel and Zionism, which sometimes came perilously close to demonization. In doing so they have no misgivings, feel no anguish, no dilemmas: for them everything is clear: “There are oppressors and victims and Israel is the oppressor.” The English feminist Jacqueline Rose is a typical example. Her anti-Zionism, as she explains in a British newspaper, is spontaneous, almost visceral: My first visit to Israel in 1980 was hardly typical for a young Jewish woman. On the plane, I found myself sitting next to Dima Habash, 16year-old niece of George Habash, the leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. “Are you Jewish?” she asked, and when I said I was, without a moment’s pause she continued: “You think Israel belongs to you.” “No,” I replied, surprised by my own urgency, “I think it belongs to you.”28 Even the Palestinian teenager thought it natural for a Jew to be on Israel’s side. However, only Jews are capable of this kind of “altruism,” so much so as to generously offer the State of Israel as a gift. In the meanwhile,

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212 Israel and Zionism in the Global Feminist Debate

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Jacqueline Rose has become the disciple of anti-Zionism, which she teaches and disseminates at the universities that issue invitations to her. Her lectures at Princeton were published in 2005 as The Question of Zion, in which she paints a frightening picture of Zionism.29 The British scholar Shalom Lappin, in his review of the book, drew on his wide-ranging knowledge of Jewish studies to analyze all the errors and distortions in this work in which messianism, psychoanalysis, and Jewish tradition are all used in claiming that Zionism is an “aberration of Jewish history.”30 Rose drew on the writings of Gershom Scholem, Hannah Arendt, Freud, Lacan, and the Israeli “new historians” in order to come up with her own definition of Zionism, “a collective insanity”or “a form of communal neurosis.”31 She proposed to subject it to psychoanalysis in order to reveal the manner in which the trauma of persecution in Diaspora led to the displacement of rage, shame, and helplessness onto innocent Palestinian victims who had no part in the European abuse of its Jews. Jacqueline Rose frequently cites the American feminist Judith Butler, with whom she has close intellectual ties, especially on the issue of anti-Zionism.32 Irrespective of whether they are Jewish or not, these feminists often draw on their own theories or those of better known theorists in order to underpin their points of view on Zionism or the Israeli-Arab conflict. The example of Hannah Arendt, who in her youth was active in the Zionist movement but later called Zionism into question, provides them them with an opening to bring out their own anti-Zionism.33 It is, however, well known that Hannah Arendt’s relationship with Zionism was more complex than the way it is presented by Judith Butler or Jacqueline Rose. Arendt had an emotional tie with Israel and, like most Diaspora Jews, feared for its survival. In her reply to the heads of the anti-Zionist American Council for Judaism, who had supported her in the wake of the storm that followed the publication of Justice in Jerusalem, she wrote: You know that I was a Zionist and that my reason for breaking with the Zionist Organization was different from the anti-Zionist stand of the Council: I am not against Israel on principle, I am against certain important Israeli policies. I know that should catastrophe overtake this Jewish state, for whatever reasons (even reasons of their own foolishness), this would be the perhaps final catastrophe for the whole Jewish people, no matter what opinions every one of us might hold at the moment.34 Arendt clearly linked the continuity of Jewish existence and the Jewish state. Later, she unhesitatingly contributed to the emergency appeal organized on the eve of the Six Day War. At that time she wrote to her friend Mary

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Israel and Zionism in the Global Feminist Debate 213 McCarthy, “Any real catastrophe in Israel would affect me more deeply than almost anything else.”35 Thus, to cite Hannah Arendt in support of radical anti-Zionism and a systematic rejection of Israel fails to convey the ambiguity and complexity of her thinking about the State of Israel. As her biographer Elisabeth Young-Bruehl has pointed out, Arendt was not antiZionist, but rather saw herself as part of the “loyal opposition,” and was grateful to her Zionist readers who understood her position for what it was.36 Arendt had seen the creation of the State of Israel, and knew that the matter was no longer theoretical. Israel exists, and nearly half of the Jewish people live there now. American Feminism, Israel, and Zionism In American progressive intellectual circles there has for a number of years been an anti-Zionist wave similar to its British counterpart, likewise with major Jewish participation. Earlier we saw the example of Judith Butler, a professor of comparative literature at the University of California, Berkeley. Butler does not conceal her positions, which are not just hostile to Israel’s policies but to the very foundations of Zionism. She even finds anti-Israel petitions over-cautious:

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I signed a petition framed in these terms. . .in which 3,700 American Jews opposed the Israeli occupation, though in my view it was not nearly strong enough: it did not call for the end of Zionism, or for the reallocation of arable land, for rethinking the Jewish right of return or for the fair distribution of water and medicine to Palestinians, and it did not call for the reorganization of the Israeli state on a more radically egalitarian basis.37 This is the “program” that Butler endorses and conveys through articles and public lectures. She defends the boycott of Israeli universities, calls for the Jewish state to be replaced by a binational state, and as she announces unambiguously, “the end of Zionism.”38 As she says, she fails to understand why her positions are criticized by Jews, whereas all she is doing is to apply a Jewish precept based on the ethic of non-violence.39 Is the “progressive” engagement of third-wave American feminism, as represented in particular by Judith Butler and other academics, inevitably anti-Zionist? To illustrate the complexity and development of the stances taken by the feminist Left, we can examine the experience of Gerda Lerner (1920–2013), a noted American historian who pioneered in women’s history and Afro-American studies.40 As an activist with a far-left family tradition, and a Communist Party member during the McCarthy era, her point of view is of special importance because of nearly a century’s worth of experience

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214 Israel and Zionism in the Global Feminist Debate and her expertise as a historian. Born in Vienna in 1920, Lerner escaped from Nazism in 1938. In later life she felt bound to reflect (publicly in her writing at least) on the meaning of being Jewish (“by choice or by accident of birth”) and on the ties between the Diaspora and the State of Israel. What reasons pushed her to return to the Jewishness she had not addressed for so long (at least in her field of research and her writings)? To her dismay she was personally targeted as a Jew at her university in Madison, Wisconsin, irrespective of what she was or what she had been. A swastika was daubed on the door of her university office, and she received antisemitic threats in her voicemail. Hitler’s Nuremberg Laws, she pointed out, defined Jews by “genetic” inheritance into the third generation, and lifestyle choices meant nothing. “Similarly, the person who put a swastika on my door in Madison, Wisconsin, fifty years later cared not one bit as to what kind of a Jew I was or I am. I was a Jew, that was sufficient.”41 She went on to analyze the Jews’ relationship with history and the need for a Jewish state: To be a Jew means to live in history. The history of the Jews is a history of one holocaust after another with short intervals of peaceful assimilation or acculturation. . . . What it means to be a Jew—having to look over your shoulder and have your bags packed.

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Only in the light of this history, she concludes, can we understand the significance of the existence of the State of Israel and even the idiosyncratic behavior of that country’s leaders: It is not always a sign of paranoia to think that one is surrounded by enemies. For many religious Jews, Eretz Isroel, the land of Israel, means the fulfillment of biblical promise and the rightful place in a land from which they were driven. But for millions of nonreligious and secular Jews the State of Israel means that for the first time in two thousand years Jews no longer will allow themselves to be defined by others and scapegoated by them. I think that this particular meaning should be important as well to every non-Jew who believes in the right of people to self-determination and freedom.42 Gerda Lerner personally had lived through the rise of Nazism, and when she came to America in the 1940s she experienced the “standard antisemitism of the average American” at that time.43 In her “political autobiography” published in 2002, she related how a landlord refused to rent her an apartment because of the “Jewish look” of her husband, filmmaker Carl Lerner, who was already very familiar with Jew-hating in the town where he grew up, Philadelphia.44 Not so long before, she had fled her Vienna home under the Nazi threat, and at the time was not thinking of anywhere that she could find

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Israel and Zionism in the Global Feminist Debate 215 refuge: “Now I was in America and there was no escape.”45 In this autobiography which ends in 1958, she raises questions about Nazism, antisemitism, Hiroshima, the beginnings of the Cold War, and McCarthyism. But nowhere does she refer to the 1948 establishment of the State of Israel, not even en passant. For her at the time it was probably a non-event. This shows how long Israel took to come to occupy the place that it now holds in the awareness of the world’s Jews. Because an array of forms of antisemitism has persisted, the Jewish state has (in principle at least) come to represent a potential haven, even for certain Jews who are ideologically and physically very distant. A second feminist path worth looking at is that of another progressive intellectual, Bettina Aptheker (1944–), daughter of the eminent JewishAmerican Communist Herbert Aptheker, grew up in the 1950s in a family which attached no importance to Jews or the State of Israel. In a 1993 article, she acknowledges that in her youth she “internalized a considerable amount of anti-Semitism,” and “blamed Jews for much of their own suffering.”46 When she gave her Introduction to Feminism course, a group of female Jewish students—“good-spirited and unabashedly happy about their identity”—came to ask her “politely but firmly” when she was intending to give a lecture on antisemitism. The course outline had promised a lecture on “Racism and Antisemitism.” Impressed by this Jewish assertiveness, she began gathering material about Jewish history, of which she was completely ignorant, in particular on antisemitism and Zionism. In her article she asserted that it was “crucial to define Zionism and its historical roots in the claim of a homeland for the Jewish people.”47 However, her positions became more radical as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict took new turns. As her Santa Cruz colleagues became increasingly anti-Zionist, she unambiguously supported the Palestinians against Israel.48 Some Jewish academics complained that several of the University of California campuses had become “home to a great deal of virulent anti-Israeli rhetoric,” including that at Santa Cruz, known for its ultra-leftism since the 1960s.49 They testified that in 2001, a radically anti-Zionist line was officially adopted there, reflected in campus events and course titles, especially in the Feminist Studies Department, which was headed for a number of years by Bettina Aptheker. In the United States as in Europe, anti-Zionism, hand in hand with ultra-leftism, is often conveyed by Jews, including Israelis. To present an alternate view on Israel in such university settings is often completely out of the question.50 In the United States, the radical anti-Zionist current on campuses faces a strong, well-organized and vigilant Jewish community. Among the most active circles are former far-left Jewish

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216 Israel and Zionism in the Global Feminist Debate activists, disappointed by progressivism and Third Worldism, who have become libertarians or even conservatives. In order to offset distortions found in pro-Palestinian propaganda, in 2002 they set up Campus Watch, as well as Scholars for Peace in the Middle East. A number of student groups have been set up to respond to anti-Israel hostility on campuses.51 The Jewish American feminist Phyllis Chesler even refers to a “new McCarthyism” on university campuses where, she says, only one position is tolerated: one that is antiIsrael and pro-Palestinian. In her two books, The New Anti-Semitism and The Death of Feminism, she vigorously challenges the thinking of her feminist friends.52 She relates how she was spurned and shunned after daring to deviate from the sole acceptable feminist thinking, especially when she announced after 9/11 that she would be voting for George W. Bush as U.S. president. Protesting “cultural relativism,” she says that

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even I could not have predicted the rapid and extreme Stalinization and Palestinianization that would take place among academics and activists in general. I could never have imagined that the western intelligentsia, the “good” people, including feminists, would make so tragic an alliance with Islamic barbarism and misogyny. An early feminist, she insists that she has not changed her feminist positions by one iota (“I regret nothing. I am not recanting my ideals as a civil rights worker, as a member of the anti-war movement, or as a feminist.”).53 The hostility directed at her is motivated by intolerance, which she refers to as “Stalinization.”54 In her book with the provocative title The Death of Feminism, she states: “What I once knew as women’s studies has been taken over by totalitarian thinkers who are far more leftist than feminist and whose anti-Americanism and anti-Zionism have become obsessions.”55 While Phyllis Chesler declares that she has not changed her feminist positions, being published by the conservative and anti-feminist Frontpage Magazine distanced her further from her former colleagues in the women’s movement. Excluded from the feminist press, this is one of the only forums in which she can defend Israel and criticize obscurantist Islam without being called an islamophobe. Italian journalist Fiamma Nirenstein had a similar experience. As soon as she began to defend Israel, she was labeled a “right-winger”: What? Right-winger? Me? An old feminist human rights activist, even a communist when I was young? Only because I described the ArabIsraeli conflict as accurately as I could and because sometimes I identified with a country continuously attacked by terror, I became a right-winger? In the contemporary world, the world of human rights,

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Israel and Zionism in the Global Feminist Debate 217

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when you call a person a right-winger, this is the first step toward his or her delegitimization.56 Eventually she did join the right wing after being disowned by her country’s left wing because of her independent positions, especially on Israel.57 Phyllis Chesler’s experience is certainly not exceptional. Many American feminists, whether Jewish or non-Jewish, have an attachment to Israel’s existence while wishing for a just settlement of the complex conflict with the Palestinians. Yet as Chesler points out, when under the influence of “political correctness” and intolerance, it is not possible for all women to speak their minds as frankly as she does. Since the 1982 Lebanon war some Jewish feminists protested the war, for which the initiative emerged in Israel, where the Peace Now movement organized large-scale demonstrations. Hence, it was possible to support this pro-peace movement as a way of opposing the Israeli government policy without betraying one’s own “family.” Left-wing Jews could satisfy themselves that they were showing solidarity with Israel, although it involved a political collaboration with the Israeli left in order to seek a just solution to the conflict with the Palestinians. This trend became more apparent during the first intifada that began in late 1987, which coincided with the feminization of the Israeli peace movements. Unlike the 1982 Lebanon war, moderate American Jewish feminists found it easier to publicly criticize the Israeli government’s policy, which they thought was dangerous for Israel. In 1987, a group of New York women set up the Jewish Women’s Committee to End the Occupation, which demonstrated once a week outside the offices of the main Jewish American organizations with the goal of ensuring that the voice of women in favor of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was heard. Members at the time, including well-known feminists such as Blanche Wiesen-Cook, Alice Kessler-Harris and Esther Broner, considered this solution to be necessary for both humanitarian and moral reasons and, as they put it, because it is the only one which “will enable Israel to survive.”58 A few more radical women’s groups in the United States, Great Britain, France, and other countries, in solidarity with the Israeli Women in Black, also underscored the dangers of the occupation.59 However, new developments in the conflict, the failed peace process, the suicide attacks followed by Israel’s military operations lead to a yawning gulf between those who demonstrate “for the good of Israel” and those who consider Israel to be “criminal and racist.” This latter small fringe group of anti-Israel Jewish activists often includes rabidly anti-Zionist Israelis. They set the tone and the legitimacy for anti-Zionism in wider circles.

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218 Israel and Zionism in the Global Feminist Debate The harshest condemnation of Zionism and Israel is fueled by radical Israeli feminists who publish their views in English and have close ties with American colleagues. Given the large number of Jewish women among American feminist leaders, in recent years the debate about Zionism has come to resemble a debate among Jews. Although we have taken the example of Great Britain and the United States, the same tendencies are to be found in many countries, including Canada, Australia, Latin America and the whole of Europe. As for all the previous subjects, we will study the state of affairs in France, which is at the same time both similar and dissimilar.

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F EMINIST F RIENDSHIP FOR I SRAEL : A F RENCH E XCEPTION ? Among non-Jewish French feminist leaders of the 1970s, we find a fascinating phenomenon: many of those who at the time belonged to revolutionary left groups, evince great understanding of and sometimes remarkable goodwill toward the State of Israel. In this they differ notably from what we have seen in Great Britain, the United States, and even Israel. This does not mean that there are no classical feminist tendencies to antiIsrael anti-Zionism in France. As elsewhere, they certainly exist and make themselves known in publications, in Internet discussion groups, sometimes at demonstrations, and are primarily associated with antiglobalist and postcolonial tendencies. Given the Marxist and leftist origins of the larger segment of French feminism in the Seventies, this is a particularly intriguing state of affairs. It does not, of course, mean that every one of these women supports Israel’s policies. They are, however, among other things influenced by such factors as a desire for a just solution, a more complex way of looking at this conflict, and the fear—for some of them—that anti-Zionism will turn into antisemitism, and above all, the fear that another catastrophe will engulf the Jewish people in its national homeland. On the whole, most of these women refuse to bow down before the straightjackets of one-track thinking, anti-globalism, and the obsession with colonialism and “imperialism.” Apart from Simone de Beauvoir, who wrote about her attitude to Zionism and Israel, the attitudes and comments that will be quoted below are drawn from recorded conversations. It all began indeed with Simone de Beauvoir, who followed “with passion” the struggle of the Jews to establish the State of Israel, and never stopped supporting its cause. The dread she felt in the days before the Six Day War, then the Yom Kippur War, her petitions against the 1975 United Nations resolution equating Zionism with racism, and her empathy for Israel even

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during the highly controversial Lebanon War of the 1980s exemplify an unusual, not to say exceptional “loyalty.”60 To the very end of her life, she never swerved in the slightest from this position. She ignored neither the plight of the Palestinians, nor what she considered mistakes in Israeli policies. However, like many French intellectuals, she found the prospect of the State of Israel being wiped off the face of the earth unbearable. 61 Her biographers, Claude Francis and Fernande Gontier, note that she was almost always at odds with the leftists because of her views on the Middle East. As she said, “A leftist must unconditionally admire China, side with Nigeria against Biafra, for the Palestinians against Israel. I do not give in to these conditions.”62 One could argue that her fame and admiration for her enabled her to express unpopular positions without running the risk of being excluded. The background to her attachment to Israel’s existence undoubtedly lies in her experiences during World War II and the sufferings of the Jews, as well as her Jewish friendships. Simone de Beauvoir is by no means an exceptional case. When questioned today, many French feminist theorists and activists—all women of the left or even the far left—are similarly positive with regard to Israel or, to put it another way, they are all greatly attached to Israel’s existence. Asked about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Michelle Perrot was very sincere in her reply: This question divides feminists, divides me inside myself. Political positions seemed to me to be simpler and more clear in the past than now, perhaps that’s because of my age, but I think it’s more because of the complex nature of how things are. It’s a very complex conflict. Once again, I obviously—I say “obviously” because solidarity with Israel, with the establishment of the State of Israel, was a kind of political identity. I haven’t changed my position about this. But I can’t accept the Palestinians’ situation. I can’t accept this settlement policy. Recently there was a program on the Arte channel—obviously you’re affected by what you see on the television, in the papers. It was about the wall that’s being constructed. We were told that the wall does not follow the line that was accepted by the United Nations, so that there will be room for settlers. And this was round a kibbutz whose members were even behind the Palestinians. It’s the most incredible hullabaloo. Most of my friends are Jewish. The Jewish problem is our problem. Jews are associated with universalism. For them to have a state of their own, that’s right, but at the same time it is to be regretted. It is as if they were switching from the universal to the specific. The Jews are more than that.63

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220 Israel and Zionism in the Global Feminist Debate Similarly, Antoinette Fouque, who earlier played a leading role in the differentialist wing of the French women’s movement, strongly supports Israel and is concerned about its security. Fouque’s interest in Zionism is part of her keen interest in identity rather than due to any nationalist aspect. For her, a woman must assume her identity in full as a woman; this applies equally to Jewish identity, a topic which fascinates her although she is not Jewish. Below are some excerpts from a conversation during which she told me about her feelings for Israel64: Jean Daniel uses the term “Jewish prison,” just as Simone de Beauvoir spoke of the anatomical prison. To be born a girl or a boy, is this a fleshly identity or a prison?. . . What the antisemites cannot bear is for the Jews to have a land. This means that they can no longer be persecuted pitilessly. They have a real place. “and it promises well, the soil whereon I have established my law” as Saint-John Perse wrote. The soil is a metaphor. The fantasy of destroying them (Hitler) first involves the fantasy of destroying this state.65

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Julia Kristeva does not conceal her support for Israel, where she has professional ties and many friends. She is also troubled by the upsurge of antisemitism in France, which she identifies as even reaching as far as her psychoanalyst practice. Fearless about flouting the “politically correct” standards of the leftist circles from which she comes, she says: There are no two ways to it: the State of Israel must exist. In what form, that is the question. . . . What I hear on the couch is terrifying, a real oil slick. Politically speaking I think that this latent antisemitism may turn into violence. People are ashamed at statements like this, so they only say this sort of thing in private. The most acerbic political reactions in intellectual circles seemingly demonstrate indifference, along the lines of “I’m not interested,” people are “fed up with hearing about the Israel-Arab conflict, forget it, a form of denial, withdrawal. Or there’s the “tackily polite” approach: “Let them get on with it, the Jews and the Arabs, let them kill each other.” The conflict in the Middle East has generated a French context, but nobody as yet has determined its full impact nor analyzed the consequences. This is a very bad, dangerous time. On the one hand there’s a fundamentalist lslamist upsurge, which for understandable reasons the public authorities are downplaying, but it represents a very real threat to the republican spirit and civil liberties. And it is these Islamists who are pushing women into veils and burqas, who are taking advantage of the despair and misery of the young people and the unemployed, and who are creating real strongholds in the banlieues [projects or council

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Israel and Zionism in the Global Feminist Debate 221 estates]. Associated with this movement, a new form of antisemitism is developing. The experts are wondering what to call it, anti-Zionism or antisemitism, and while there is something to be said for deciding about terminology, the facts are on the ground. . . .66 The far-left feminist activist Claudie Lessellier, who was interviewed at a center that helps migrant women, has nothing but criticism for her leftist friends’ anti-Zionism and “excesses”: Anti-Zionism is anti-Jewish. There is a momentum to antisemitism: “The Jews kill children. They poison the water. . . .” Because of the excesses I’ve stopped going to far-left demos, even the people who say they are against antisemitism get things mixed up. And just being at demos is the same as supporting them. The way I see it, saying you’re an “anti-Zionist” means wishing for the destruction of the State of Israel. As for a binational state, the Jews will be run out of it or killed. I’m generally against religious nationalism, but for the State of Israel it’s different: it’s a reality, it cannot be destroyed. (When I defend Israel, I’m asked if I get my salary from the Mossad.)67 Another left-wing feminist activist, the novelist Sophie Chauveau, expresses profound identification with Jews and the State of Israel:

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The existence of the State of Israel is necessary for my existence as a woman who’s French, republican and feminist. My culture is based on yours (Jewish). My positions have isolated me from the left and leftwing feminists. For me, defending Israel goes without saying. My friends on the left ask me: “Why do you defend Israel?” and I reply: “I’m European, so I am Jewish.” (When I defend Israel I’m called a reactionary: “Have you gone over to the right?”)68 Notably, the above points of view are those of non-Jewish women. There is a far longer list of French feminists, Jewish and non-Jewish alike, “friends of Israel” who have a variety of outlooks, but share in the importance that they ascribe to Israel’s existence, its security, and combating antisemitism. The Palestinian issue is felt to be a painful problem which must be resolved by setting up a Palestinian state side by side with the Jewish state, not in its stead. As a result, they feel free to vehemently criticise Israeli policy, without calling Israel’s existence or its foundations into question. Among those interviewed were Michèle Le Doeuff, Liliane Kandel, Jacqueline Feldman, Christine Bard, Rita Thalman, Françoise Picq, Marie-Jo Dhavernas, Catherine Deudon, Juliette Minces, Sylvina Boissonnas, Marie-Jo Bonnet, Christine Fauré, Nicole-Claude Mathieu, Agnès Roukline, Hélène Palma, Michèle Idels, Fiametta Venner, Anne Zélinsky, and Marcela Yacub. Also

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222 Israel and Zionism in the Global Feminist Debate included were activists affiliated with the Revolutionary Communist League, Maya Surdut and Suzy Rojtman; and Lucia Martini, of Women in Black in Paris. Even more surprising was the position of Fadela Amara, the chairwoman and founder of Ni Putes Ni Soumises (Neither whores nor submissive), an organization of mainly Muslim women whose families hail from the Maghreb.69 At a December 2003 gathering in Paris in support of the Geneva Accords, she showed that her support for the Palestinians did not automatically lead to hostility toward Israel.70 At this public event she declared: “Palestine is in my heart and Israel in my conscience.” This position, which doubtless led to much grinding of teeth, is however something of an exception among Muslim populations. Identification with Palestinians often goes hand in hand with radical hostility to Israel, which has repercussions for attitudes to Jews in general. This then leads to tension between Jews and Arab Muslims in France, exacerbated by the Islamists. The demarcation line tends to run in parallel to the controversy over wearing the veil in public places, continues to concern many feminists, and recently has shifted to concerns over wearing the burqa, a full-body covering. The veil worn as a sign of a political (rather than strictly religious) commitment is often tied to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Hostility to Israel and those who defend it is in particular to be found on Internet sites such as the Indigènes de la République (Native People of the Republic, indigenes-republique.fr), or Oumma.com. This hostility can descend into outright antisemitism. The example of the Women in Black in Paris gives us an idea of the complex nature of Jewish-Muslim relationships in France especially, in the context of the Israeli-Arab conflict. This small group, set up in 2001 by four or five Jewish women, met every Saturday afternoon at the Fontaine des Innocents in the Paris neighborhood of Les Halles. About fifteen women from a variety of backgrounds, including some Arab Muslims, took part. In the wake of what the Jewish women described as “antisemitic excesses,” relationships soon soured. The Jewish women in the group, while denouncing the occupation (their slogan was “Stop the Occupation), made a point of defending the existence and legitimacy of Israel and expressing their horror at the suicide attacks.71 The other women, who focused solely on the fate of the Palestinians, took part in anti-Israeli demonstrations, where some extremists brandished streamers depicting the Star of David modified as a swastika. Gradually the Jewish women left the group.72 Once again, this is emblematic of the complex situation of many Diaspora Jewish women who seek a just peace between Palestinians and Israelis, but without renouncing their solidarity with Israel. Whatever their positions—approving or critical—

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Israel and Zionism in the Global Feminist Debate 223 Jewish women often relate to Israel with the concern felt for a family member who is in trouble. Israel’s “troubles” inevitably impact on the image of the Jews as a whole. This can be sensed in the attitudes of a number of prominent French Jewish women, such as the writer Hélène Cixous and politician Simone Veil. For Cixous, a leading theorist of “feminine writing,” the question of Israel—its image, policies, and security—is of special importance in light of her family background:

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I am from a Jewish family. . . . Things that have happened to the Jews—their history—affect me. When it comes to Israel, I understand why the country came into being, because I have lived through it. At first there was some adversity, its establishment following the colonial model. But given the circumstances, could this have been avoided?. . . . I have always of course been on the peace movement side, and I am driven to despair by what is happening. Rabin’s assassination is just like Gandhi’s. Every time someone sees the light, to get out of the tunnel. . . . And at the same time, it must be admitted that these are situations with very tangled roots, all analyses are very complex. I always told my Arab friends that in order to understand, people need to know what horrendous wounds have been inflicted on the Jews. They must not be forgotten. . . . And the boycott of Israeli academics? I find this appalling and disgusting. People jumble up Israeli Zionists, Jews, and this is no accident.73 Moving on from feminist activists and theorists, we must not ignore Simone Veil, a Holocaust survivor who has held distinguished positions in French polits. As a result of her efforts, the abortion bill was passed in 1975, revolutionizing the situation of women in France. As a result, she became an icon for many French feminists.74 Although she is first and foremost French, she never forgets her tragic past and related Jewish origins. In an address that she delivered at a conference on remembering the Holocaust, she did not conceal her apprehension over Israel’s survival, nor her solidarity with the Jewish state: [A] few years ago there was a Hadassah Women convention in Miami, and I noticed how successfully American Jews expressed their attachment to their country and at the same time their solidarity with Israel. The same applies to French Jews: we are French. Some of us are from these Jewish families who were the first to become full citizens more than two hundred years ago, as a result of the French Revolution. We have no intention, though, of abandoning our Jewishness, whether religious or cultural. Because of these ties we are by defini-

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224 Israel and Zionism in the Global Feminist Debate tion behind Israel, fearful and watchful of the survival of this small country which is threatened from all sides. Even if we are not citizens and do not live there, like all Israelis we are divided over the solutions needed so that at last its peace and security can be guaranteed and prosperity will return. And above all for Israel not to be unjustly condemned and outlawed as a pariah state.75 This kind of public declaration about antisemitism and Israel does, however, require a certain self-assurance if the person in question is a political figure with Jewish roots. For a long time Simone Veil refrained from speaking publicly about Israel or her Jewishness. Since she first set foot in the public arena she suffered both antisemitic and misogynous insults and threats when in power, in particular during the 1970s debate over legalizing abortion which “won” her the hostility of the Catholic far right. Even later into the next decade, film maker Claude Autant-Lara, at the time a National Front parliamentarian, published a vehement attack on her in the September 1989 issue of Globe:

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She (Simone Veil) belongs to an ethnic group which is a political ethnic group that is trying to become established and dominant. . . . Oh, she plays on people’s heartstrings with that [the concentration camps]. But she came back from there, didn’t she? And she’s well. So when people tell me about genocide, I say, in any case, they missed Mother Veil. There was unanimous denunciation in France of these odious racial and antisemitic slurs; feminist groups across the board held protest demonstrations. Nor was this the first time that French feminists took part as feminists in demonstrations against antisemitism. In October 1980, following the terrorist attack on the Rue Copernic synagogue, they had marched holding women’s liberation movement streamers. Yet for a long time such events would remain exceptions, especially in recent years with the domination of Islamist-origin antisemitism and its ties to the Israel-Arab conflict. The upshot is a hotchpotch of concepts that leaves the field open to stereotypes and preconceived ideas. Today, fighting antisemitism is often considered a political act that seeks to defend the State of Israel and distract from the fight against Islamophobia—currently considered France’s real problem. It is therefore difficult to raise the subject of Islamist-origin antisemitism. In today’s climate, those French feminist activists who were previously conspicuous by their silence, their non-intervention on far-right antisemitism and revisionism, are also reluctant to protest Islamist antisemitism.

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Israel and Zionism in the Global Feminist Debate 225 French Animosity towards Israel and Zionism A highly critical and dispassionate tendency, sometimes openly hostile to Israel, also has its accredited representatives among French feminists. However, very few dare to publicly denounce Israel in terms as violent as those of the English or American feminists cited above. Among the women notorious for their clearly anti-Israel publications (a few of whom we will quote) are: Monique Chemillier-Gendreau, a lecturer in international law in Paris, was one of the first supporters for a boycott of Israeli universities, as demanded in December 2002 by the Paris VI university’s Board of Governors. That same year she published a book in defense of the Palestinians’ right of return, presenting the State of Israel as an apartheid society liable to implement an extermination program:

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To stand firm over the idea of a Jewish state is to continue building an apartheid state, and to accept, in the name of reciprocity, that throughout the world so-called “pure” States will also be constructed, this lunacy that always comes close to extermination and sometimes implements it.76 We can also cite Danièle Sallenave, who in 2002 became known as coauthor (together with Edgar Morin and Sami Naïr) of an extremely anti-Israel article, which led to the three authors being prosecuted for racial defamation.77 In her book Dieu.com (2004), Sallenave mainly attacks Israel through the prism of (the Jewish) religion and women’s status within it, which is equated in practical terms with the worst Islamic theocracies. In particular she expresses a visceral antipathy for Israel’s “unconditional” Jews, of whom she speaks in particularly suspicious terms.78 The other feminist activist, Christine Delphy, whom we have already cited in other contexts, has become more cautious in her writing on the Middle East conflict than in the past. In 1993, Nouvelles Questions Féministes (of which she is editor) published a highly controversial article by Andrea Dworkin describing Israeli society, and in particular the situation of women, as monstrous.79 Several of the journal’s contributors objected, and pointed out that the text was full of distortions and mistakes.80 However, the chasm between Delphy and her fellow theorists of materialist feminism subsequently deepened after her journal took a new postcolonial editorial line and she fiercely opposed the law banning the wearing of the Islamic veil in schools. Delphy’s feminist friends were shocked to see one of the most radical activists of feminism, the author of L’ennemi principal (in other words “patriarchy”), marching side by side with radical Islamists. These outand-out “secularists” or laïcardes, as they called themselves, never forgave

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226 Israel and Zionism in the Global Feminist Debate her for this about-face, which flew in the teeth of the very essence of universalist feminism. Delphy in turn cited her struggle against racism and Islamophobia. For her, antisemitism is irrelevant: Jews are merely suffering the consequences of their identification with the State of Israel. On another issue we refer now to the French women’s rights activist Gisèle Halimi, who refers to Israel with unconcealed hostility.81 Sometimes, being Jewish or “having a Jewish background” makes it possible to criticize Israel in a more open-minded fashion than non-Jews such as Delphy or even Sallenave. First of all, there is less risk of being considered antisemitic, and such a position may have the advantage of reflecting a certain selfcriticism—although some would call it Jewish self-hatred. The novelist Michèle Manceaux states this directly in her book Histoire d’un adjectif. Her decision to publicly reveal her Jewishness, which her parents had kept hidden since the German occupation of France, was, as she admits, primarily designed to enable her to combat Israel’s policy from within: “Oddly, it is the Palestinians’ suffering which leads me to support dwindling Jewish honor. Because I do not approve of Israel’s policies, it seems to me that I could fight it better from within.”82 In making this admission, she even acknowledges that in this war, she is more moved by the death of Palestinians than by the death of Israelis, “perhaps because more of them (Palestinians) died and their diaspora is so weak.”83 Sociologist Sonia Dayan-Herzbrun, a Jewish academic specializing in gender and Islam studies, wrote an entire book on women and politics in the Middle East without mentioning the world “Israel” other than to castigate it fleetingly. She casually talks about “honor killings” and other crimes against women that are common in traditional Arab society, accusing the Israeli authorities of tacitly accepting this practice.84 Yet she has never studied any aspect of the situation in Israel. To visit the country and undertake in-depth research would give her the opportunity to scrutinize the state of affairs from the Jewish angle and to meet countless Israeli colleagues with positions similar to her own. Such an approach has been taken by Esther Benbassa, another French Jewish specialist in contemporary Jewry who is familiar with Israel. Benbassa takes issue with the massive support for Israel shown by the majority of the French Jewish community, particularly during the December 2008 military operation in Gaza. The “sacralization of Israel” can only damage the Jewish state in her view. As she says, “because the existence of Israel is important to me, I cannot but be critical about it.”85 Similarly, some three thousand individuals in 2010 signed the petition, “A Call to Reason” (JCall), copied from the American Jewish lobby group J Street.86 Sent to the

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Israel and Zionism in the Global Feminist Debate 227 European Parliament in May 2010 by Jews of differing backgrounds and ideological stances, its message underscored the dangers of the continuing occupation and approved intervention by Europe in order to “impose peace.”87 Such an initiative can actually stimulate an interest in Israel for Jews who, given the deadlock in the conflict, vacillate between indifference and discouragement. We have already seen that even a critical committment to Israel can have a salutary effect on Jewish identity.88 The problem is that so often the “good intentions” of those who criticize Israel “for its own good” too often find their statements cited as arguments to delegitimize Israel’s existence. In feminist forums, as in other online French forums, the remarks of Jewish intellectuals are generally given a cursory reading and are taken out of context. Hence they are used as a benchmark for harsh anti-Israel diatribes which come thick and fast whenever the IsraeliPalestinian conflict flares up. A reaction to the 2008 Gaza war (Operation Cast Lead), published in an online feminist studies forum, provides a good illustration of the spitefulness that sometimes characterizes the criticism of Israel:

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Has an Israeli historian not just proved the nonexistence of a “Jewish people” and thereby deconstructed the myth of the “Chosen People”?. . . By emphasizing the crime of the Holocaust and renaming it “Shoah,” since 1948 the State of Israel has given itself unlimited rights: it has established itself, fought, expanded, expelled, confiscated, demolished, razed, occupied, colonized, enclosed, locked up, oppressed, starved, shelled and killed whole families, members of the Palestinian people who had never done it any harm.89 This is only one example of the style used by those who accuse Israel of the most dreadful crimes and all of the world’s evils. Generally speaking they fail to mention the acts of terrorism that have bathed Israel’s population in blood, nor do they note the brutality of Hamas toward its own people in Gaza. No one criticizes the absolute ban on homosexuality. Feminist topics are also ignored—the requirement that women (even non-Muslims) wear a veil, forced marriages, and honor killings of girls suspected of “wantonness,” not to say “immorality,” by their own relatives. One way or the other, Israel is always required to produce a “certificate of good character” vouching for its legitimacy. Sometimes the barbed criticism aimed at Israel is the result of oversimplification and a lack of knowledge about the origins of the Israel-Palestinian conflict. A hotchpotch of religious, ethnic, racial, and socioeconomic factors is put forward, and while not everything is completely wrong, in this complex conflict where religions, nationalisms, and historical memories are all jumbled up and clash, one cannot expect a public debate

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228 Israel and Zionism in the Global Feminist Debate worthy of the name. Categorical statements, fueled by preconceived ideas, remain impervious to any contradictory arguments, as each side barricades itself behind its ideological positions. In France as elsewhere there is no dialogue or interaction across the range of feminist debate on the IsraeliPalestinian conflict. When asked about this issue, one of the feminist theorists referred to this “none so deaf” syndrome, which is hardly specific to France. She has friends on both sides, and gave voice to the awkwardness that she feels when siding with one camp or the other: When pro-Israeli events take place, the antis don’t come, and vice versa. There’s no confrontation, no dialogue. No contact whatsoever. The fact that they have practically nothing to do with each other promotes each side’s isolation in its own camp. Supporting one side and disparaging the other puts you in a real bind. You feel your hands are tied because it is not politically correct to criticize Arabs. You just want to be somewhere else—anywhere else! It would make things less fraught. And you wouldn’t feel you’re betraying anyone. You’ve touched a sore spot. What can we do?90 Where, one might wonder, is this “somewhere else”? Somewhere where it would be possible to thrash out this issue unemotionally, devoid of hate and passion. That is the question.

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Confusing Antisemitism and Anti-Zionism in the Feminist Debate In this chapter, as in previous ones, we have touched upon some aspects of the complex, not to say ambivalent ways in which feminist theorists and activists relate to the concept of Zionism and the reality of Israel. In particular we have noted the “Jewish and Israeli” influences in the shaping, strengthening and acceptance of intellectual trends hostile to the State of Israel. Those feminists who fulminate against any and all “essentialism” are the first to essentialize Zionism, a pluralistic school of thought which they often define as simple “racism.” This definition, which in the 1970s the nonaligned countries together with the Soviet bloc managed to attach to Zionism, has enjoyed a new lease on life since the September 2001 UN Durban conference. At that time, anti-Zionism once again revealed its antisemitic face.91 While the shock of Durban was enormous for some feminists, for others the Durban conference, as with the 9/11 attacks, rather heightened their intolerance for Israel. Will this intolerance, which gave rise to a huge uproar, last? It was previously thought that the rejection of Israel went hand in hand with the expressed hatred of America during the presidency of George W. Bush, and that the inauguration of Barack Obama as U.S. presi-

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Israel and Zionism in the Global Feminist Debate 229

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dent would usher in a change. This hope has proven to be illusory, and the situation has only gotten worse, but we must remember that this rejection is not simply a present-day state of affairs, but has a lengthy history going as far back as the 1960s. What makes it particularly difficult to address any Jewish topics today is the never-ending tendency to often reduce, not to say confine, them to media coverage of the Middle East conflict. The very terms antisemitism, Shoah, and Holocaust, which nobody dared question following the horrors of Nazism, have acquired a pejorative connotation that advocates a particular stance which is political or ideological, not to say “communautariste” or “sectarian”—presently a very fashionable label in France. Almost everywhere the issue of Israel and its conflict with the Palestinians has become the focal point of all open debate involving Jews. Some books and articles denounce what they call “antisemitism in the guise of blackmail,” supposedly designed to prevent the criticism of Israel.92 But this linkage of the Palestinian question and the Jews in general does not necessarily come from the Jews. In Durban, as we have seen, the demonization of Israel went hand in hand with the hatred of the Jews. “You reap what you have sown,” a French feminist said to me: “Since Israel declares that it is the state of all the Jews, don’t be too surprised when you find you must bear the consequences.”93 Hence to avoid antisemitism, Diaspora Jews should systematically distance themselves from Israel (as various Jewish intellectuals in Great Britain and the United States do by drawing up petitions). As early as 1982 the American Jewish feminist Letty Cottin Pogrebin was taken aback by the way things get mixed up, as she wrote in her article on antisemitism within the women’s movement published in Ms.: On hearing that I planned to write about anti-Semitism, one feminist asked, “Won’t Ms. have to give equal time to the PLO?” Incredible. When did anti-Semitism turn into a “balanced issue,” with Palestine Liberation Organization interests skewed into a respectable other side? Must we remind people that those who are against anti-Semitism are against Jew-hating? The opposite is not to be pro-PLO. The opposite is to be for Jew-hating.94 And as late as 2005, the feminist Caroline Fourest asked herself the same question in the French context, in La tentation obscurantiste (The obscurantist temptation): Be that as it may, there is a real sense of disquiet about this issue on the [French] Left. As if acknowledging that the Jews are victims of antisemitism in France would be tantamount to supporting Israeli government policy. As if fulminating against antisemitism would be in

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230 Israel and Zionism in the Global Feminist Debate competition with combating racism against people from North Africa.95 It is perfectly legitimate to criticize Israel’s policies, and Caroline Fourest does not refrain from doing so. What may be viewed as antisemitism is the tendency to demonize this country and deny its right to exist. French historian Elisabeth Roudinesco acknowledges the tenuous distinction between anti-Zionism and antisemitism.96 At the time of the Six Day War she was taken aback on seeing swastikas covering the walls of the school where she taught in Algiers. She was also stunned to discover that her French fellow teachers, most of them Maoists or leftists, refused to deem these incidents antisemitic: “In the present-day political context, hostility to Israel was so great and the guilt towards formerly colonized peoples so harrowing that nobody dared address the issue of these swastikas.” She went on to maintain that there are two ways of criticizing Israel: One involves questioning the very principle of its existence, while the other focuses on its policies. Questioning Israel’s existence means an attitude of denial, which can permit the switch between anti-Zionism and antisemitism and thereby rules out any political criticism. Attacking France’s colonialist policy has never led to that country’s existence being called into question.97

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Writing in Le Monde in reaction to the suicide attacks that had bathed Israel in blood since the beginning of the Second Intifada, Françoise Giroud admitted she had been shocked by the reactions of Parisians, unconcerned by the deaths of Israelis and for whom “only the deaths of Palestinians counted,” as she pointed out sarcastically. Without condoning Israel’s policies, she interpreted this attitude as a form of latent antisemitism, a way of washing their hands of guilt for the Holocaust: Almost at the speed of light, the instant the first stone was thrown in the Second Intifada, there was a striking switch, something that could not be explained without its backdrop against which it occurred. Finally! Now we can speak ill of the Jews and bad-mouth them! “Me, antisemitic? You insult me—but that Palestinian child dying on television in front of our very eyes, who killed him? Who was it?” The main thing is that there should be no discussion: there is to be no discussion of emotions, nor of the natural desire to support the underdog. . . . It would appear that henceforth the Jews can no longer be expected to turn the other cheek, come what may. On the other hand, today, instead of—in vain—flexing their muscles to show their

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Israel and Zionism in the Global Feminist Debate 231 strength, what we would like to do is to implore them to evince their intelligence and age-old wisdom.98 When talking about Israel’s wars, public opinion can too easily slide into hidden antisemitic prejudice. The fact is that nobody forgets that this is a Jewish state, with all its attendant implications. We should take a moment to think about the tendency, in this conflict, to ignore the anguish of the Israeli side, on the grounds that Israel has a strong military and can defend itself. On 9/11, the United States, with all its power, saw the demonstration of its vulnerability when confronted by the murderous madness of a handful of terrorists. Israel, which given its small landmass and its hostile surroundings is infinitely more fragile, must in addition respond to both Diaspora and world expectations that it provide a “moral example.” A thorny wartime assignment. Returning to the “French Exception” And finally, we need to try and explain this “French exception” that sometimes takes the form of the friendship—or, more accurately, the emotional bond—that ties so many French feminists to Israel, but also its converse: the unswerving hostility of so many others. Drawing on his own experience, French historian Pierre Nora sheds light on the historical context of these contradictory feelings toward Israel, He starts by reminding us of an almost forgotten chapter in French-Israeli ties: the idyll between the two countries in the Jewish state’s earliest years:

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In the heady atmosphere created by the emotion and enthusiasm that accompanied the birth of this tiny sanctuary state, like a Noah’s Ark from a reprehensible and disaster-stricken Europe, the Zionist national project seemed to be in harmony with the French national credo. Indeed, secular and socialist Zionism appeared to be its logical outcome, not to say quasi-ideal realization.99 However, in the wake of the Six Day War the idyll fell apart. General de Gaulle labeled the Jews “an elite people, sure of themselves and domineering.” Not long afterwards Israel moved closer to the United States and the American model. For part of the French Left, “Palestine” gradually came to “replace China and Cuba,” also acquiring the “privileged” status of victim. France’s Arab policy made this U-turn easier. This historical retrospective might explain—at least in part—the French feminists’ positions described above. On the one hand there are the women who have remembered, whether directly or indirectly, the origins of and reasons behind the establishment of the State of Israel and the concomitant

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232 Israel and Zionism in the Global Feminist Debate emotions. It is they who, as Pierre Nora also noted, acknowledge that “the great moments of France’s definition of its identity—the Revolution, the Dreyfus Affair, Vichy—have at the same time also been the milestones in Jewish destiny.”100 And then there are those who see Israel as did General de Gaulle. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict serves to remind them of French colonialism and the violent Algerian war. Israel makes them think of “arrogance,” “racism,” and “colonialism,” and they are unwilling to accept that this comparison is off the mark, and that Israelis, most of them refugees from Arab countries or Holocaust survivors and their offspring, have no homeland to “go back to.” Given the yawning gulf between the different forms of nationalism, religion, and cultures that exist in this part of the Middle East, the only possible resolution involves reaching accord between all the parties. Demonizing one side or the other, or pitting one against the other, simply makes it more difficult to come within reach of this goal. While this is not a topic specific to feminists, it has stirred up—and continues to do so—what are often heated, not to say passionate, debates within women’s movements.

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N OTES 1. The first World Conference on Women was held in Mexico City (19 June 19–2 July 1975) at the end of the 1975 International Women’s Year (IWY) proclaimed by the United Nations. 2. UN Resolution 3379 was adopted on November 10, 1975 by a vote of 72 to 35, with 32 abstentions, and reads “that Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination.” Supported by the Soviet Union and by what has become known as an “automatic majority” of Arab countries and Third World member states, it was revoked in 1991 by UN General Assembly Resolution 4686. Robert S. Wistrich, A Lethal Obsession: Antisemitism from Antiquity to the Global Jihad (New York: Random House, 2010), chapter 13, “Bigotry at the United Nations,” 465–93; Yohanan Manor, To Right a Wrong—The Revocation of the UN General Assembly Resolution 3379 Defaming Zionism (New York: Sheingold, 1996). 3. This petition was published by the French journal Nouvel Observateur, 17 Dec. 1975. Signatories included André Malraux, Pierre Mendès-France, François Mitterand, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, René Cassin, and Andrei Sakharov. It read: “This falsification of the historical truth forgets the genocide of six million victims. It distorts the aspiration of the Jews persecuted by the racism to find a national identity. It harms the cause of the peace and denies the vocation of the United Nations.” Quoted by Denis Charbit, “Simone de Beauvoir, Israël et les Juifs,” Temps Modernes, no. 629 (June–July 2002): 163–84. 4. Amy Stone, “Friedan at 55—From Feminism to Judaism,” Lilith Magazine, no. 1 (1976): 11. 5. Letty Cottin Pogrebin, Deborah, Golda and Me: Being Female and Jewish in America (New York: Crown, 1991), 154.

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Israel and Zionism in the Global Feminist Debate 233 6. “How Copenhagen Became Another Mexico City,” Jewish Floridiar of Palm Beach County, 8 Aug. 1980, 1, 7. The petition, which had been initiated in France, called for an end to the politicization of the conference and “to preserve its universal character.” Among those who signed it were Simone de Beauvoir, Bella Abzug, and Betty Friedan. 7. Leila Khaled (1944–) joined the radical Arab National Movement at age 15; its Palestinian branch became the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). In 1969, she was involved in the hijacking of TWA flight 840 from Rome to Athens, and in a second hijack attempt in 1970 (El Al Amsterdam to New York), Khaled was arrested and her partner shot dead by the Israeli air marshall on board. The pilot diverted the plane to Heathrow airport in London, where Khaled was held for one month before being released as part of a prisoner exchange. She currently serves on the Palestine National Council. http://www.agirlsguidetotakingoverthe world.co.uk/#!leila-khaled/c185n; https://www.google.co.il/?gfe_rd=cr&ei=yoIxU8u GOoOI8Qeu_YHgBw#q=leila+khaled+in+copenhagen+un+conference. 8. Betty Friedan, The Second Stage (New York: Summit Books, 1981), 211. 9. Pogrebin, Deborah, Golda and Me, 154–63. 10. Ibid., 155. 11. From 1967 (in the wake of the Six Day War) to 1991 (end of the Cold war), the UN Security Council passed 88 resolutions against Israel, and the UN General Assembly passed more than 400. The number of resolutions and their sharp tone reflected, in large part, the powerful influence of the alliance between the Arab world and the Soviet bloc—a position so extreme that the General Assembly voted in 1979 to condemn the historic peace accord between Egypt and Israel. In the General Assembly, 130 of the 190 member nations will, almost automatically, vote against Israel. 12. Alain Dieckhoff, “Les trois combats du sionisme,” in Israël de Moïse à Oslo (Paris: Seuil, 1998), 269–84. 13. The Kahan Commission of Inquiry appointed by the Israeli government found that Israeli troops failed in that they did not intervene and prevent the Phalangist militias from entering the camps. The Commission recommended the resignation of then-Defense Minister Ariel Sharon and IDF Chief of Staff Rafael Eitan. No similar investigation was carried out by the Lebanese government. http://www.archives.gov.il/ArchiveGov_Eng/Publications/ElectronicPirsum/Kahan Commission/ ; http://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/foreignpolicy/mfadocuments/yearbook6/ pages/104%20report%20of%20the%20commission%20of%20inquiry%20into%20the %20e.aspx. 14. Jenny Bourne, “Homeland of the Mind: Jewish Feminism and Identity Politics,” Race and Class 29, no. 1 (1987): 4; reprinted as “Jewish Feminism an the Search for Identity,” Spare Rib 184 (Nov. 1987): 22–24; see also Juliet Pope “Antiracism, Anti-Zionism and Antisemitism—Debates in the British Women’s Movement,” Patterns of Prejudice, 20, no. 3 (1986): 13–27. 15. Bourne, “Homeland,” 6. 16. Pope, “Anti-Racism, Anti-Zionism and Antisemitism.” Spare Rib was a monthly published between 1972 and 1973, with a respectable circulation of 20,000. 17. Nira Yuval-Davis, “Anti-Semitism/Zionism/Racism,” Spare Rib no. 148 (Sept. 1984): 6; reprinted in Connexions 19 (Winter 1986): 6–9. 18. Ibid., 8. Yuval-Davis adds, “This, by the way, is why the United Nations

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234 Israel and Zionism in the Global Feminist Debate resolution which defined Zionism as a racist ideology is correct.” Yuval-Davis earned her B.A. and M.A. at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem; she is currently affiliated with the University of East London, and was a founding member of Women Against Fundamentalism and Women In Black in London. 19. Roisin Boyd, “Women Speak Out against Zionism,” Spare Rib, no. 121 (Aug. 1982): 22–23. The women were Nidal (Lebanese), Randa (Palestinian), and Aliza Khan (Israeli). 20. Editorial, Spare Rib, no. 130 (May 1983): 4. 21. Ibid. The Spare Rib committee’s positions were adopted after discussions, and its decisions were taken by majority vote. At this time, women of color formed half of the collective. Bernice Hausman, “Anti-Semitism in Feminism: Rethinking Identity Politics,” Iowa Journal of Literary Studies 11 (1991): 83–96. 22. Shifra began publication in December 1984. Jewish feminists more committed to Zionism published their articles in the Jewish Feminist Group Newsletter. 23. Jenny Bourne, “Homeland.” 24. Anon., Word in Edgeways: Jewish Feminists Respond (London: JF Publications, 1988). Bourne criticizes the feminist slogan, “the personal is political” adding that identity politics (including Jewish feminism) is reactionary. 25. The Observer, 13 July 2003, quoted in Robert Wistrich, “Antisemitism Embedded in British Culture,” Post-Holocaust and Anti-Semitism, no. 70, 1 July 2008. 26. Two British professors, Steven Rose (himself Jewish) of the Open University and his wife, Hilary Rose of Bradford University, initiated the petition. 27. “We Renounce Israel Rights,” Guardian, 8 Aug. 2002; the petition was signed by Michael Rosenian Saville, Prof. Irene Bruegel, Michael Kustow, Mike Marqusee, Prof. Steven Rose, Leon Rosselson and thirty-eight others in an open letter to the newspaper. 28. Jacqueline Rose, “This land is your land,” The Guardian – The Observer, 18 Aug. 2002, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/aug/18/1. 29. Jacqueline Rose, The Question of Zion (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005). She dedicated her book to Edward Said. 30. Shalom Lappin, “The Caricature of Zion,” Democratiya (Fall 2006), http:// 207.97.238.133/democratiya/article_pdfs/d6Lappin.pdf. Lappin wrote: “Rose’s book exhibits a remarkable lack of familiarity with the most basic elements of Jewish culture and Zionist history. She relies heavily (in fact almost exclusively) on a few influential secondary sources to support her far-reaching assertions.” Lappin is Professor of Computational Linguistics in the Department of Philosophy at King’s College London. In September 2006, he testified before Britain’s All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry against Antisemitism. 31. Rose, Question of Zion, 17. 32. A dialogue between Rose and Butler took place just before the two-day conference on “Fear of the Other and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict,” organized by the FFIPP (Faculty for Israeli-Palestinian Peace), London, 23–24 Sept. 2005. 33. Judith Butler “I merely belong to them,” London Review of Books 29, no. 9 (9 May 2007): 26–28. 34. Elisabeth Young-Bruehl, Hannah Arendt: For Love of the World (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982), 361. 35. Carol Brightman, ed., Between Friends: The Correspondence of Hannah

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Israel and Zionism in the Global Feminist Debate 235 Arendt and Mary McCarthy, 1949–1975 (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1995), 249. 36. Young-Bruehl, Hannah Arendt, 361. 37. Judith Butler, “Quotations,” http://www.egs.edu/faculty/judith-butler/quotes. 38. Judith Butler, “Israel/Palestine and the Paradoxes of Academic Freedom,” Radical Philosophy 135 (Jan.–Feb. 2006): 8–17. 39. J. Butler, interview by Udi Aloni, for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, op. cit. 40. Gerda Lerner, ed., Black Women in White America—A Documentary History (New York: Vintage, 1973). She wrote the script for the film Black Like Me (1966), directed by her husband Carl Lerner. 41. Gerda Lerner, Why History Matters: Life and Thought (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 14. 42. Ibid., 15. 43. Gerda Lerner, Fireweed—A Political Biography (Philadephia: Temple University Press, 2002). 44. Ibid., 253. “Carl said: I look too dark to suit her. Anti-Semitism. . . . Where I grew up in Philadelphia anti-Semitism was a daily experience. The Jewish kids walked to school in bunches, for protection. . . . You learned to stay on your side of the street.” 45. Ibid., 299. 46. Bettina Aptheker, “Teaching about Anti-Semitism and the Legacy of Jewish Women,” Women’s Studies Quarterly nos. 3–4 (1993): 63. 47. Ibid., 66. 48. Bettina Aptheker, former chair of the Feminist Studies Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz, co-published an open letter to the American Government calling for a halt to all aid to the State of Israel: Jewish Journal, 4 Feb. 2005. Her criticisms of Israeli policies have been published in The Newsletter of the UCSC Women’s Studies Department, The Wave. 49. Leila Beckwith, Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, and Ilan Benjamin, “Faculty Efforts to combat Anti-Semitism and Anti-Israeli Bias at the University of California, Santa Cruz,” in Post-Holocaust and Anti-Semitism Web Publications, Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, no. 3, 1 Sept. 2005. 50. Leila Beckwith, “Bias Colors UC Santa Cruz Department,” Jewish Journal, 4 Feb. 2005. Beckwith reported that on October 21, 2004, the Women’s Studies Department at UC Santa Cruz had sponsored a talk by Hedy Epstein about “The Question of Israel/Palestine,” in which she compared Israel to a Nazi state and excused suicide bombing. The same department declined to cosponsor a talk on campus on the same topic with Nonie Darwish, an Arab writer critical of the Arab world’s attitude to Israel, and founder of Arabs for Israel. 51. Among the most active, we find David Horowitz, editor-in-chief of FrontPage Magazine, http:/www.frontpagemag.com/. Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, http://spme.org/ reports on and respond to the BDS movement, and shares many of the goals of Campus Watch. Prof. William Jacobson of Cornell’s Law School writes the Legal Insurrection blog, http://legalinsurrection.com, and its associate Campus Insurrection, http://campusinsurrection.com. Campus Watch, http://www.campus-watch.org/ is a project of the Middle East Studies Forum, which seeks to improve teaching on the subject: “The project mainly addresses five problems: analytical failures, the mixing of politics with scholarship, intolerance of alternative views, apologetics, and the abuse of power over students. Campus Watch

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236 Israel and Zionism in the Global Feminist Debate fully respects the freedom of speech of those it debates while insisting on its own freedom to comment on their words and deeds.” 52. Phyllis Chesler, The New Anti-Semitism: The Current Crisis and What We Must Do About It (San Francisco, Josey-Bass, 2003); idem, The Death of Feminism (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005). 53. Chesler, New Anti-Semitism, 16. 54. Phyllis Chesler, “The History and Psychological Roots of Anti-Semitism Among Feminists, Their Gradual Palestinization and Stalinization,” News Real Blog, 5 Sept. 2010. 55. Chesler, Death of Feminism, 51. 56. Fiamma Nirenstein, extract from a speech presented at the conference “Old Demons, New Debates: Anti-Semitism in the West,” 11–14 May 2003, YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, New York. 57. http://www.fiammanirenstein.com/pagine.asp?id=2. 58. Blanche Wiesen Cook, a professor who specializes in the history of women, has written a biography of Eleanor Roosevelt. Alice Kessler-Harris is a professor of American history at Columbia University, New York. Esther Broner has published many books on Jewish topics. 59. It should be noted that in some countries, such as India, “Women in Black” demonstrations have nothing to do with the Middle East conflict. 60. Denis Charbit, “Simone de Beauvoir, Israël et les Juifs: les raisons d’une fidélité,” Les Temps Modernes, no. 629 (June–July 2002): 163–84. 61. Simone de Beauvoir, Tout compte fait (Paris: Gallimard, 1972), 449: “Quant à moi l’idée qu’Israël puisse disparaître de la carte m’est odieuse” (I find the idea that Israel can disappear from the map unbearable). 62. Claude Francis and Fernande Gontier, Simone de Beauvoir (Paris: Perrin, 1985), 348. 63. Michelle Perrot is a French historian, professor emeritus at the Paris Diderot University. Michelle Perrot and Georges Duby, eds., Histoire des femmes en Occident (History of women in Western countries), 5 vols. (Paris: Plon, 1992). 64. Antoinette Fouque, interview by Nelly Las, Paris, Mar. 2003. 65. Jean Daniel, La Prison juive (Paris: Odile Jacob, 2005). Daniel is an Algerian-born French-Jewish journalist and author, founder and executive editor of Nouvel Observateur. In his book Daniel argues that prosperous, assimilated Jews in the West live in a self-imposed prison of three invisible walls: the idea of the Chosen People, Holocaust remembrance, and support for Israel. Fouque’s sympathy for Israel does not prevent her from being on good terms with Palestinian activists as Leïla Shahid, the PLO representative in Paris. She published the translation of Hanan Ashrawi, La paix vue de l’intérieur (This side of Peace, a personal account) (Paris: des femmes, 1996). 66. Julia Kristeva, interviewed by Nelly Las, Paris, Mar. 2004 and May 2007. Kristeva (also quoted in chapter 6) is a psychoanalyst and professor at the Paris VII University. 67. Claudie Lessellier, interviewed by Nelly Las, Paris, Maison des femmes de Paris, 23 June 2003. Together with Fiametta Venner, Claudie Lessellier and Fiametta Venner, eds., L’extrême droite et les femmes (The extreme right and women) (Villeurbanne: Golias, 1997). 68. Sophie Chauveau, interviewed by Nelly Las, Paris, 25 June 2003. Chauveau

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Israel and Zionism in the Global Feminist Debate 237 is not Jewish, but identifies with the Jewish roots of European culture. 69. Most women who are part of Ni Putes Ni Soumises live in the “banlieues”— certain French suburban neighborhoods referred to as “difficult” or “sensitive.” Although Muslim, they oppose Islamic fundamentalism, including the wearing of the veil. The movement emerged in March 2003 in Paris. 70. The Paris gathering on 12 December 2003 was organized by the Peace Now movement and Two People–Two States. 71. Caroline Kunstenaar, a Jewish woman activist in the Paris Women in Black relates an anecdote: When I utter the word “Israel,” my Jewish friends told me: “lower your voice.” Caroline Kunstenaar, interview by Nelly Las, Paris, May 2004. 72. See Chapter 4 concerning Régine Dhoquois-Cohen’s resignation from the Women in Black group of Paris. 73. Hélène Cixous , interviewed by Nelly Las, Paris, Mar. 2004. 74. Simone Veil (1927–) is a Holocaust survivor who has held prestigious posts in France and the European Union. She served as Minister of Health under Valéry Giscard d’Estaing (1974–1979), and in this period advocated the legalization of abortion (achieved in January 1975). She served as President of the European Parliament between 1979–1982; then as French Minister of State, Minister of Health and Social Affairs (1993–1995), and Member of the Constitutional Council (1998– 2007). In November 2008 she was elected to the Académie française. 75. Congrès of the GAIS (Groupe d’action internationale pour la mémoire de la Shoah), May 2003. At the time, Simone Veil was president of the Fondation pour la mémoire de la Shoah (Holocaust Remembrance Foundation), a position she held from 2000 to 2006. 76. Monique Chemillier-Gendreau, Le droit au retour, le problème des réfugiés palestiniens (The right of return, the problem of the Palestinian refugees) (Arles: Actes Sud, 2002), 314–15. 77. Danièle Sallenave, Edgar Morin, and Samir Naïr, “Israël-Palestine: le cancer,” Le Monde, 3 June 2002. They had been sued for racial defamation by the organizations France-Israël and Avocats sans frontières (Lawyers without borders). After being found guilty in May 2005 by the Versailles Court of Appeal, the judgment was overturned by the Supreme Court of Appeal on 12 July 2006. 78. Danièle Sallenave, Dieu.com (Paris: Gallimard, 2004). 79. Andrea Dworkin, “Whose Country Is It Anyway?,” Ms. (Sept.–Oct. 1990): 74–77, describes the acts of violence perpetrated against women in the United States as a permanent “Crystal Night,” a reference to the 1938 Nazi pogrom against the Jews of Germany. “The condition of Jewish women in Israel is abject: Where I live things aren’t too good for women. It’s not unlike Crystal Night all year long given the rape and battery statistics—which are a pale shadow of the truth—the incest, the pornography, the serial murders, the sheer savagery of the violence against women. But Israel is shattering. Sisters: we have been building a country in which women are dog shit, something you scrape off the bottom of your shoe.” 80. Rita Thalmann resigned from the editorial committee in protest; noted in a private letter, 1 Nov. 1993. Thalmann’s objection was over the particular article chosen for translation, with no explanation, out of Dworkin’s other numerous works. 81. Gisèle Halimi, interview by Delphine Descaves and Muriel Bemardin, L’Oeil Electrique, no. 16 (2000), http://oeil.electrique.free.fr/article.php?numero=16 &articleid=52.

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238 Israel and Zionism in the Global Feminist Debate 82. Michèle Manceaux, Histoire d’un adjectif (Paris: Stock, 2003), 15. 83. Ibid., 28. 84. Sonia Dayan-Herzbrun, Femmes et politique au Moyen-Orient (Women and politics in the Middle East) (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2005). 85. Esther Benbassa, Être juif en France (Paris: éditions CNRS, 2009). 86. The initiative to form JCall (Appel à la raison [A call to reason]) came about in the middle of increasing criticism of Israeli policies from Jewish groups in Israel, the United States, and Europe. Along these lines, JCall has said its founding ideas are similar to those of J Street, a group of left-of-center American Jews. Many members are from France. 87. In a “counter-call” initiated by Shmuel Trigano and Raphaël Draï and called “Raison garder” (Keep your head), they wrote: “The idea of a peace imposed on Israel under pressure, is a denial of democracy and of international law, with colonialist overtones.” http://www.dialexis.org/php/index.php. 88. See Chapter 4, above, about the French Committee of Jewish Intellectuals against the Lebanon War. 89. Internet feminist forum, December 2008, simone.univ-tlse2.fr; see Shlomo Sand, When and How Was the Jewish People Invented? (New York: Verso Books, 2010). 90. Françoise Collin, interview by Nelly Las, Paris, June 2003. 91. Recall the situation surrounding the 1980 Copenhagen international women’s conference, with which this chapter began. 92. Étienne Balibar and others, Antisémitisme: l’intolérable chantage—– IsraëlPalestine, une affaire française (Paris: La Découverte, 2003). 93. Delphy interview. 94. Letty Cottin Pogrebin, “Anti-Semitism in the Women’s Movement,” Ms. (Aug. 1982). 95. Caroline Fourest, La tentation obscurantiste (Paris: Grasset, 2005). 96. Elisabeth Roudinesco, Retour sur la question juive (Paris: Albin Michel, 2009), makes a distinction between the Universal Jew (her own position) and the “Territorial Jew” (the Zionist credo). 97. Ibid. 98. Françoise Giroud (1916–2003): French journalist, screenwriter, writer, and politician. She edited L’Express until 1971, and then served as its director until 1974, when she was asked to join France’s national government. In 1974 she was appointed Secrétaire d’État à la Condition feminine (Women’s Affairs Minister) by French President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, and in August 1976 she was appointed to the position of Minister of Culture. After her political career, she wrote a weekly column to Le Nouvel Observateur from 1983 until her death. Françoise Giroud, “Cette Shoah qui ne passe pas,” Le Monde, 12 June 2002. For most of her life, Giroud did not admit to being Jewish. 99. Pierre Nora, “Mémoires et identités juives dans la France contemporaine,” Le débat (Sept.–Oct. 2004). 100. Ibid., 21.

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Conclusion

As our intellectual journey draws to a close, what have we learned? Adopting a comparative approach, we have seen how Jewish reflections and women’s commitments intersect and how identities are asserted or rejected in the French and Anglo-American contexts. We have considered a number of Jewish issues, including religion, Holocaust memory, antisemitism, and Zionism. Questions have been asked, diverse positions have been outlined and found to overlap, and many life stories have been recounted. Has this contributed in any way to elucidating the multiple dilemmas facing today’s Jewish women? An attempt has been made to present these experiences in their plurality, albeit with no claim to complete neutrality. Four decades after the emergence of the women’s movement, some of its original leaders retain most of their earliest convictions, including their ideological intransigence. Aware of their contribution to profound change in women’s status throughout the world, at the same time they know full well that their work is far from over and a great deal remains to be done. They are seeing the emergence of new feminist trends to which they do not always subscribe. When asked to talk about Jewish issues, none of them was surprised, nor did any of them question the relevance of this topic to feminism. Clearly feminism, primarily relating to gender differences, does not have an answer for everything. Unlike the all-embracing Marxist approach, feminism cannot fret about all of the world’s woes. By definition, the feminist approach relates first and foremost to women’s status. Inevitably, other issues, other forms of oppression come second. They can be addressed according to specific interests or affinities, such as immigration, globalization, and poverty as well as racism or antisemitism. The results would be just as productive, but would remain incomplete. Rather than giving replies, we have asked questions. Among the fundamental concerns, there is, first of all, the notion of “difference” as a starting point for the concept of identity: can the assertion of difference or indifference in the context of sexual identity help in analyzing Jewish identity? This is irrespective of whether it is viewed as real cultural difference, or as difference without content in the Sartrean sense of the term. Clearly this topic relates to more than Jews, and of course not just to women. Everyone can relate to it. We often observe, for example, that the French “republican universalism” of some feminists does not necessarily tally with their view of

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240 Conclusion gender relations, secularism, or (in the case of Jewish feminists) their Jewishness. But we also note that there may be a contradiction between the former and the latter, just as affirming the positive nature of the difference between the sexes does not necessarily lead to cultural differentialism. This brings us to a question that—albeit in different forms—has been addressed by philosophers, sociologists, and some feminist activists: is “being Jewish,” like “being a woman,” a choice or a given? In feminism, the issue of the “innate” and the “acquired” is central, especially since Simone de Beauvoir’s famous assertion: “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.” But being Jewish is not of the same order as being a woman. “Jewish,” as it invariably involves cultural, religious, and genealogical dimensions, recognizes that one is part of a community, and more generally, of a people. In contrast, the concept of “woman,” with its biological bias, is not necessarily governed by bonds of loyalty and faithfulness vis-à-vis the female gender in general. Sisterhood or solidarity between women—“the community of women”—was introduced by the feminist movement of the 1970s, but before long its limits became clear, so any analysis will be quite different for Jews rather than women. What then is the source of the commonly drawn analogies between the status of women and that of Jews? What are the underlying reasons and origins of these analogies? Also, what is the point of the sexism/racism or sexism/antisemitism analogies? Through identification with the Other, an analogy may be useful for combating all kinds of hatreds: sexism, homophobia, racism, or antisemitism, to name just a few. However, each of these phenomena has its own distinctive characteristics, and does not necessarily generate mutual empathy. And yet, notwithstanding its imperfections, the analogy remains the only tool by which we can grasp the mechanisms through which racist or sexist prejudices work. It also makes it possible to reconcile various vehicles of identity. Drawing analogies has enabled some Jewish feminists to shift from their feminist reflection to their Jewish identity, and vice versa. This “shift” does not apply to everybody, just as the meanings of the concept of “Jewish identity” do not. However, these questions have enabled us to propose a more effective introduction to the discussions triggered by the confrontation between the various components of contemporary Jewish identity and feminism. It is within this context that we have observed the path taken by female Jewish activists, whether out-and-out feminists or those with an interest in feminism, from the late 1960s onwards, against an early twentieth-century historical backdrop. What reasons led many Jewish women to move away from their feminist engagement to a commitment to Jewish causes? In parallel, how does Jewish identity adapt to feminism, especially in the case of

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Conclusion 241 American Jewish feminists? An attempt has been made to square the circle by comparing and contrasting French and American women, who, while identifying similar issues, conspicuously analyze and think about them in very different ways. The American feminist tradition of self-narrative, of openly displaying one’s Jewishness, has resulted in an open and candid, not to say outspoken, debate about both Jewishness and feminism, whereas in France, the shadow of “identity issues” or “essentialism” in French universalist feminism exerts a dampening effect on the discussion of this field. It is in the United States above all that this symbiosis between feminist activism and Jewish commitment has taken shape: asserting themselves positively as women allowed them to address another—Jewish—aspect of their identity. There is a logic to the processes of constructing identity, a correlation between the multiple identities that make up every individual personality. This may be a cohesive or conflicted correlation. As we have seen, even among the most universalist French feminists there may be this underlying link to identity. Some will tend to confine their multiple identities to the private sphere, while others prefer to express themselves publicly when an opportunity arises to do so. Using a feminist analysis, we have looked at the changes in the two—American and French—Jewish communities. The postmodern tendency to cultural “fusion” with its resultant blend of cultures is increasingly to be observed among American Jews, where mixed marriages lead to a combination of Jewish and Christian traditions. Thus Hanukkah and Christmas are simultaneously celebrated as Christmukkah, and there is a new fashion of weddings where both a minister and a rabbi bless a mixed union. Such a thing would make a good number of France’s traditionally-minded Jewish community shudder. Determined to uphold and maintain stability over identity, the Gallic community is becoming ever more inward looking as it strengthens its outward defenses. At the same time it is also seeking a more visible presence, as shown in the public lighting of Hanukkah menorahs (as is common in the United States), the wearing of the kippa and other conspicuous symbols of identity, which they relinquish only out of fear of antisemitic attacks. Although many refuse to display their Jewishness because of French-style republican principles (or, as some people put it, “to ghettoize themselves”), this does not prevent them from having an identity which may be buried but is nevertheless very much present, a sense of solidarity with their fellow Jews, and often concern about Jewish news— from acts of antisemitism, to the prospect of war in Israel, or even a news item that publicly calls into question some deed by a person with a Jewishsounding name.

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242 Conclusion Feminists of all faiths are affected by attitudes to religion, which are highly complex and ambiguous insofar as they tend to fluctuate between two extremes: either the systematic rejection of all religious principles, or alternatively the appropriation of religion, adapted to feminism and sometimes even feminized. For example, nowadays American liberal synagogues are dominated by women, who conduct services and constitute the majority of candidates for pulpit positions, as men turn away from such roles. To practice their religion in full while adapting it to feminism is a tendency that has recently emerge in the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim faiths—to mention only the monotheistic ones. Feminism may appear to religions as either friend or foe, either strengthening them or stripping them of cherished traditional components. Feminists may seek to modify or even reform religion to make it more favorable to women. But what typifies this religious feminism, which has an overarching aim of improving the status of women in each religion, is that there is little sense of solidarity between believers of the different faiths, as when it comes to their relation to Judaism and Jews. We find, for example, Christian theologians seeking Christianity’s “feminist” origins, which can be to the detriment of Judaism; while there are Muslim women professing a radical form of Islamism who rarely distance themselves from the anti-Jewish diatribes of their imams. Observant Jewish women, for their part, may advance arguments or biblical interpretations in defense of their ideas about the status of women in Judaism. Others, particularly among the most Orthodox, tend to distance themselves from outright feminism, which they consider subversive and perhaps even hostile to Judaism and Jews alike. Generally speaking, then, “religious feminism” is more divisive than unifying for women, and in this time of increasing extremism it fails utterly to diminish interfaith tensions. Nevertheless one can find encounters taking place with the aim of remedying this situation. Secular feminism, particularly in France, is no more unifying than its religious counterpart. It is most suspicious when considering the paradoxical alliance between religion and feminism. Another complex, multifaceted topic is Zionism and the State of Israel. Particular attention has been given in this study to this issue because of its centrality to contemporary Jewish identity, and the place of Israel in international affairs, obliging Jews to take a stand in the passionate debate. By comparing and contrasting certain topics in Zionism with the goals of feminism in mind, we find, as with all national liberation movements, both points of similarity and major differences. Political Zionism began as a national liberation movement, with the end goal of establishing a Jewish state. Unfortunately, the state of Israel would be caught in an insoluble terri-

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Conclusion 243 torial dispute. In the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, there is no typical “feminist” position, and it must be noted that there is a yawning gap between legitimate criticism of Israel’s policies and calling its very existence into question. It may be argued that most feminist activists in pro-peace movements in both Israel and elsewhere abide by a particular feminist ethic. The radicalism of many of them can also be explained by the original links between most western feminists and far left revolutionary movements, and thus we find two extremes: either unconditional “friendship” or out-and-out enmity. The two camps refuse to engage in dialogue, and it is very rare that they meet; nor, apparently, does the hostile camp acknowledge that Palestinian leaders have negotiated over the years with their Israeli counterparts. Even when thorny issues have not been fully resolved, there is actually a good deal of mutual cooperation in many areas, such as public health concerns, some security matters, work permits, and so on. Abroad, however, intransigence and virulent mutual accusations rule the day, apparently ignoring the glimmers of hope for peace. The dilemma of those who defend Israel is whether dialogue is possible with those who deny the country’s right to exist. In parallel, the same question that is raised in connection with anti-Judaism will be asked about anti-Zionism: at what point does it become antisemitism? Thus, we inevitably return to the topic of antisemitism in its various forms. Following the Holocaust, the question of antisemitism acquired heightened significance. All Jewish introspection commonly contains the memory of a personal, family, or historical experience of antisemitism, with its associated questions about the Jewish destiny, the significance of being Jewish, and the meaning of Jewish identity, even in the absense of religious belief. At the beginning of the women’s liberation movement, American Jewish feminists had a problem addressing the issue of antisemitism. In the 1980s, some of them blamed the movement for having failed to take seriously this evil, and they made attempts to self-analyze, confront, and reflect about it. A decade later, French feminists timidly followed in their American sisters’ footsteps. Feminism’s primary success has been to liberate speech—of Jewish women about their own identities as well as of feminists of all persuasions about Jewish issues, relating in particular to religion, antisemitism, Zionism, and/or Israeli policies. On all these topics feminists have adopted myriad positions. Books and articles published in the last few years show that being a woman, even an oppressed woman, or a feminist, for that matter, is no antidote to being antisemitic or racist. Nor, of course, is being Jewish. Brainstorming about the oppression of women may, as we have seen, provides us with tools for analyzing the mechanisms of the diverse forms of oppression to

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244 Conclusion

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be found in our societies. When feminism is viewed as offering a more egalitarian and fairer idea of society, it can be readily drawn on in order to analyze most social phenomena, including contemporary Jewish issues and questions. As we have seen, the latter constantly crop up in national and international current affairs, sparking debate among feminists as well as Jews. Feminism, being far from homogeneous, and Jewish questions so complex, no unequivocal conclusions can be drawn. If our dissection of this complexity has enabled us to undermine at least a few of the ideological certainties to which both sides have laid claim, we will have done what we set out to do.

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Selected Bibliography

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246 Selected Bibliography ———. Power and Powerlessness in Jewish history. New York: Schocken Books, 1986. ———, Michael Galshinsky, and Susannah Heschel, eds. Insider/Outsider: American Jews and Multiculturalism. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998. Birnbaum, Pierre. Geography of Hope: Exile, the Enlightenment, Disassimilation. Translated by Charlotte Mandell. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2008. Borgeaud, Philippe. La mythologie du matriarcat—L’atelier de Johann Jakob Bachofen. Genève: Librairie Droz, 1999. Bouveresse, Jacques. Prodiges et vertiges de l’analogie. Paris: Raisons d’agir, 1999. Boyarin, Daniel. A Radical Jew: Paul and the Politics of Identity. Berkeley: Calif., University of California Press, 1994. ———, Daniel Itzkovitz, and Ann Pellegrini, eds. Queer Theory and the Jewish Question. New York: Columbia University Press, 2003. Boyarin, Jonathan, and Daniel Boyarin, eds. Jews and Other Differences. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997. Braidotti, Rosi. Patterns of Dissonance: A Study of Women in Contemporary Philosophy. Cambridge: Polity, 1991. Brettschneider, Marla. ed. The Narrow Bridge, Jewish Views on Multiculturalism. New Brunswick, N. J.: Rutgers University Press, 1996. Bulkin, Elly, Minnie Bruce Pratt, and Barbara Smith. Yours in Struggle— Three Feminist Perspectives on Anti-Semitism and Racism. New York: Long Haul Press, 1984. Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge, 1990. ———, and Joan W. Scott, eds. Feminists Theorize the Political. New York: Routledge, 1992. Chalier, Catherine. Figures du féminin. Paris: des femmes, 2006. Chanter, Tina, ed. Feminist interpretations of Emmanuel Levinas. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2001. Chaumont, Jean-Michel. La concurrence des victimes: génocide, identité, reconnaissance. Paris: La Découverte, 1997. Chesler, Phyllis. The New Anti-Semitism: The Current Crisis and What We Must Do about It. San Francisco: Josey-Bass, 2003. ———. The Death of Feminism. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. Christ, Carol, and Judith Plaskow, eds. Womanspirit Rising, a Feminist Reader in Religion. New York: Harper and Row, 1979.

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Selected Bibliography 247 Cohen, J., and R. Zagury-Orly, eds. Judéités: Questions pour Jacques Derrida. Paris: Galilée, 2003. Cohen, Percy S. Jewish Radicals and Radical Jews. London: Academic Press, 1980. Collin, Françoise. Le différend des sexes. Nantes: Pleins feux, 1999. ———. L’homme est-il devenu superflu? Hannah Arendt. Paris: Odile Jacob, 1999. ———. Les cahiers du Grif—Hommage à Sarah Kofman. Paris: Descartes, 1997. Daly, Mary. Beyond God the Father. Boston: Beacon Press, 1973. ———. Gyn/Ecology, the Metaethics of Radical Feminism. Boston: Beacon Press, 1990. Delphy, Christine. L’ennemi principal (2)—Penser le genre. Paris: Syllepse, 2001. Derrida, Jacques. L’écriture et la différence. Paris: éditions du Seuil, 1967.

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———. Adieu à Emmanuel Lévinas. Paris: Galilée, 1997. Dhoquois, Guy, and Régine Dhoquois. Le militant contradictoire. Paris, L’Harmattan, 2004. Donaldson, Laura. Decolonizing Feminism: Race, Gender and EmpireBuilding. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992. Dorlin, Elsa. La Matrice de la race. Généalogie sexuelle et coloniale de la Nation française. Paris: La Découverte, 2006. Dworkin, Andrea. Scapegoat—The Jews, Israel and the Women’s Liberation. New York: Free Press, 2000. Eller, Cynthia. The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory. Boston: Beacon Press, 2000. Esser, Annette, and Luise Schottroff, eds. Feminist Theology in an European Context. Kampen: Kok/Pharos, 1993. Evans, Mary. Simone de Beauvoir: A Feminist Mandarin. London: Tavistock, 1985. Evans, Sara M. Personal Politics: the Roots of Women’s Liberation in the Civil Rights Movement and the New Left. New York: Knopf, 1979. Ezrahi, Yaron. Rubber Bullets—Power and Conscience in Modern Israel. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1996. Fackenheim, Emil. To Mend the World. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994. Finkielkraut, Alain. Le Juif imaginaire. Paris: Seuil, 1980. ———. L’identité malheureuse. Paris: Stock, 2013.

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248 Selected Bibliography Fontenay, Elisabeth de. Une toute autre histoire, Questions à Jean-François Lyotard. Paris: Fayard, 2006. ———. Actes de naissance—Entretiens avec Stéphane Bou. Paris: éditions du Seuil, 2011. Fouque, Antoinette. There are Two Sexes: Essays in Feminology. Edited by Sylvina Boissonnas. Translated by Catherine Porter. New York: Columbia University Press, 2015. Originally published as Il y a deux sexes. Paris: Gallimard, 1999. ———. Gravidanza. Paris: des femmes, 2007. ———. Génésique: féminologie III. Paris: des femmes, 2012. Fourest, Caroline. La tentation obscurantiste. Paris: Grasset, 2005. ———. Frère Tariq. Paris: Grasset, 2004. ———, and Fiametta Venner. Tirs croisés—la laïcité à l’épreuve des intégrismes juif, chrétien et musulman. Paris: Calmann-Lévy, 2003. Freeman, Jo. The Politics of Women’s Liberation: a Case Study of an Emerging Social Movement and its Relation to the Policy Process. New York: D. Mckay, 1975. Friedan, Betty. The Feminine Mystique. New York: Dell, 1964. ———. The Second Stage. New York: Summit Books, 1981. Fuchs, Esther, ed. Israeli Women’s Studies—A Reader. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2005. Gebara, Yvone. Le mal au féminin, Réflexions théologiques à partir du féminisme. Paris: l’Harmattan, 1999. Génération MLF (1968–2008). Paris: des femmes, 2008. Gerber, David A., ed. Anti-Semitism in American History. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1986. Glazer, Nathan. American Judaism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957, 1972. Gontier, Claude Francis, and Fernande Gontier. Simone de Beauvoir. Paris: Perrin, 1986. Greenberg, Blu. On Women in Judaism: A View from Tradition. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1981. Gresh, Alain. L’islam, la République et le monde. Paris: Fayard, 2004. Gross, Rita M., Feminism and Religion: An Introduction. Boston: Beacon Press, 1996. Guillaumin, Colette. Sexe, race et pratique du pouvoir. Paris: Côté-Femmes, Paris, 1992. Haddad, Gerard. Le péché originel de la psychanalyse. Paris: Seuil, 2007. Halimi, Gisèle. Fritna. Paris: Plon, 2000.

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Selected Bibliography 249 Hastings, Adrian. The Construction of Nationhood: Ethnicity, Religion and Nationalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Héritier, Françoise. Masculin/féminin, la pensée de la différence. Paris: Odile Jacob, 1996. Heschel, Susannah, ed. On Being a Jewish Feminist—A Reader. New York: Schocken, 1983. Hoock-Demarle, Marie-Claire, ed. Femmes, Nations Europe: Paris, CEDREC, 1995. Horkheimer, M., and T. W. Adorno. Dialectic of Enlightenment: Philosophical Fragments. Translated by Edmund Jephcott. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2002. Hyman, Paula. Gender and Assimilation in Modern Jewish History: The Roles and Representation of Women. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1995. Irigaray, Luce. Éthique de la différence sexuelle. Paris, éditions de minuit, 1984. ———. Sexes et parentés. Paris: éditions de minuit, 1987. ———. Je, tu, nous, pour une culture de la différence. Paris: Grasset & Fasquelle,1990. ———. Être deux, Paris: Grasset, 1997. Kandel, Liliane, ed. Féminisme et nazisme. Paris: Odile Jacob, 2004. Kellenbach, Katharina von. Anti-Judaism in Feminist Religious Writings. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1994. Kepnes, Steven, ed. Interpreting Judaism in a Postmodern Age. New York: New York University Press, 1996. Kern, Kathi. Mrs Stanton’s Bible. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2001. Klein, Charlotte. Anti-Judaism in Christian Theology. Translated by Edward Quinn. London: SPCK, 1978. Klejman, Laurence, and Florence Rochefort. L’égalité en marche, Le féminisme sous la Troisième République, Paris: des femmes, 1989. Kofman, Sarah. Paroles suffoquées. Paris: Galilée, 1987. ———. Rue Ordener, rue Labat. Paris: Galilée, 1994. Koltun, Elizabeth, ed. The Jewish Woman: New Perspectives. New York: Schocken, 1976. Kristeva, Julia. Pouvoirs de l’horreur. Paris: Seuil, 1980. ———. Étrangers à nous-mêmes. Paris: Fayard, 1988. ———. Les nouvelles maladies de l’âme. Paris: Fayard, 1993. Laitin, David D. Nations, States and Violence. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.

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250 Selected Bibliography Lampert, Lisa. Gender and Jewish Difference from Paul to Shakespeare. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004. Lapierre, Nicole. Changer de nom. Paris: Stock, 1995. Las, Nelly. Jewish Women in a Changing World—A History of the International Council of Jewish Women 1899–1995. Translated by S. Nakache. Jerusalem: Institute of Contemporary Jewry, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1996. ———. Voix juives dans le féminisme—Résonances françaises et angloaméricaines. Paris: Honoré Champion, 2011. ———, ed. Le féminisme face aux dilemmes juifs contemporains. Sèvres: Rosiers, 2013. Le Rieder, Jacques. Le cas Otto Weininger—Racines de l’antiféminisme et de l’antisémitisme. Paris: PUF, 1982. Lerner, Gerda. The Creation of Patriarchy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986. ———. Why History Matters. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. ———. Fireweed: a Political Autobiography. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2002. Lévesque, Claude. Par-delà le masculin et le féminin. Paris: Aubier, 2002. Levinas, Emmanuel. Difficile liberté. Paris: Albin Michel, 1963, 1976. ———. Essai sur l’extériorité. La Haye: Martinus Nijhoff, 1961, 1980. ———. L’Humanisme de l’autre homme. Paris: Fata Morgana, 1972. ———. Autrement qu’être ou au-delà de l’essence. La Haye: Martinus Nijhoff, 1978. ———. Totalité et infini: essai sur l’extériorité. La Haye: Martinus Nijhoff, 1984. Levitt, Laura. Jews and Feminism: The Ambivalent Search for Home. New York: Routledge, 1997. Lipsyc, Sonia Sarah, ed. Femmes et judaïsme aujourd’hui. Paris: In Press, 2008. Lorde, Aude. Sister Outsider. New York: Crossing Press, 1984. Löwy, Ilana. L’emprise du genre. Paris: La dispute, 2006. Lyotard, Jean-François. Heidegger et les “juifs.” Paris: Galilée, 1988. Macciocchi, Maria A., ed. Les femmes et leurs maîtres. Paris: Christian Bourgeois éditeur, 1978. Manceaux, Michèle. Histoire d’un adjectif. Paris: Stock, 2003. Manor, Yohanan. To Right a Wrong: The Revocation of the UN General Assembly Resolution 3379 Defaming Zionism. New York: Shengold, 1996.

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Selected Bibliography 251 Marty, Eric. Une querelle avec Alain Badiou, philosophe. Paris: Gallimard, 2007. Mayer, Hans. Outsiders: A Study in Life and Letters. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1982; original German edition, 1975. Mayer, Tamar, ed. Gender Ironies of Nationalism: Sexing the Nation. London: Routeledge, 2000. Memmi, Albert. Portrait d’un Juif . Paris: Gallimard, 1962. ———. La libération du Juif. Paris: Payot, 1966. Meyer-Wilmes, Hedwig. Rebellion on the Borders: Feminist Theology Between Theory and Praxis. Translated by Irene Smith-Bouman. Kampen: Kok/Pharos, 1995. Miller, Nancy K. Getting Personal: Feminist Occasions and Other Autobiographical Acts. New York: Routledge, 1991. Minow, Martha. Making All the Difference: Inclusion, Exclusion, and American Law. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990. Mopsik, Charles. Le sexe des âmes—Aléas de la différence sexuelle dans la Cabale. Paris-Tel Aviv: éditions de l’éclat, 2003. Morgan, Robin, ed. Sisterhood is Powerful. New York: Random House, 1970. Mosse, George L. Nationalism and Sexuality. New York: Howard Fertig, 1985. ———. The Image of Man: The Creation of Modern Masculinity. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. Nadell, Pamela S., ed. American Jewish Women’s History: A Reader. New York: New York University Press, 2003. Noddings, Nel. Women and the Evil. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1989. O’Grady, Kathleen, and Judith L. Poxon, eds. Religion in French Feminist Thought: Critical Perspectives. London: Routledge, 2003. Okin, Susan Moller, ed., Is Multiculturalism Bad for Women?. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999. Ouzan, Françoise. Histoire des Américains juifs. Bruxelles: André Versaille, 2008. Pappé, Ilan. The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. Oxford: Oneworld, 2006. Patai, Raphael. The Hebrew Goddess. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1990. Peskowitz, Miriam, and Laura Levitt, eds. Judaism Since Gender. New York: Routledge, 1997. Picq, Françoise. Libération des femmes: les années-mouvement. Paris: Seuil, 1993.

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252 Selected Bibliography Plaskow, Judith. Standing Again at Sinai: Judaism from a Feminist Perspective. New York: Harper, 1991. ———, and Carol P. Christ, eds. Womanspirit Rising: A Feminist Reader in Religion. New York: Harper and Row, 1979. ———, and Donna Berman, eds. The Coming of Lilith: Essays on Feminism, Judaism, and Sexual Ethics 1972–2003. Boston: Beacon Press, 2005. Pogrebin, Letty Cottin. Deborah, Golda and me: Being Female and Jewish in America. New York: Crown Press, 1991. Pouzol, Valérie. Clandestines de la paix: Israéliennes et Palestiniennes contre la guerre. Bruxelles: Complexe, 2008. Raczymow, Henri. Un cri sans voix. Paris: Gallimard, 1985. Reinharz, Shulamit, and Mark A. Raider, eds. American Jewish Women and the Zionist Enterprise. Waltham, Mass.: Brandeis University Press, 2005. Richards, David A. Identity and the Case for Gay Rights: Race, Gender, Religion as Analogies. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999. Rochefort, Florence, ed. Le pouvoir du genre—Laïcités et religions 1905– 2005. Toulouse, Presses Universitaires du Mirail, 2007. Roiphe, Anne. Generation Without Memory: A Jewish Journey in Christian America. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1981. Roszak, Theodore. The Making of a Counter Culture. New York: Anchor Books, 1969. Roudinesco, Elisabeth. Retour sur la question juive. Paris: Albin Michel, 2009. Rousso, Henry. The Vichy Syndrome: History and Memory in France since 1944. Translated by Arthur Goldhammer. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1991. Ruether, Rosemary Radford. Religion and Sexism: Images of Woman in Jewish and Christian Tradition. New York: Simon and Shuster, 1974. ———. Sexism and God-Talk: Toward a Feminist Theology. Boston: Beacon Press, 1983. ———. Goddesses and the Divine Feminine: a Western Religious History. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005. Rutherford, Jonathan. Identity: Community, Culture, Difference. London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1998. Sallenave, Danièle. Carnet de route en Palestine occupée: Gaza-Cisjordanie, novembre 1997. Paris: Stock, 1998. ———. Dieu.com. Paris: Gallimard, 2004. Sand, Shlomo. The Invention of the Jewish People. Translated by Yael Lotan. London: Verso, 2009.

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Selected Bibliography 253 Sartre, Jean-Paul. Réflexions sur la question juive. Paris: (1946); Gallimard, 1954. Schneider, Susan Weidman. Jewish and Female: Choices and Chances in our Lives Today. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1985. Scholem, Gershom G. Fidélité et utopie: essais sur le judaïsme contemporain. Translated by B. Dupuy and M. Delmotte. Paris: CalmannLévy, 1978, 1992. Schuessler-Fioenza, Elisabeth. But She said: Feminist Practices of Biblical Interpretation. Boston: Beacon Press, 1992. Sedgwick Kosofsky, Eve. Epistemology of the Closet. New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1990. Sharoni, Simona. Gender and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: The Politics of Women’s Resistance. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1995. Schneider Weidman, Susan. Jewish and Female: Choices and Changes in our Lives Today. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1984. Sharma, Arvind, and Katherine K. Young, eds. Her Voice, Her Faith: Women Speak on World Religions. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 2002. Shimoni, Gideon. The Zionist Ideology. Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England for Brandeis University Press, 1995. Smith, Anthony D. The Ethnic Origins of Nations. Oxford: Basic Blackwell, 1986. Starhawk. Dreaming the Dark. Magic, Sex and Politics. Boston: Beacon Press, 1982, 1988, 1997. Staub, Michael E., ed. The Jewish 1960s: An American Sourcebook. Waltham, Mass.: Brandeis University Press and University Press of New England, 2004. Stone, Merlin. When God Was a Woman. New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1976. Taguieff, Pierre-André. La nouvelle judéophobie. Paris: Mille et une nuits, 2002. Thalmann, Rita. Être femme dans le IIIe Reich. Paris: Robert Laffont, 1982. ———. Tout commença à Nuremberg. Paris: Berg International, 2004. ———, ed. Femmes et fascismes. Paris: Tierce, 1987. Todd, Samuel Presner. Muscular Judaism. London: Routledge, 2007. Trigano, Shmuel. Le récit de la disparue—Essai sur l’identité juive. Paris: Gallimard, 1977. ———. L’E(xc)lu—Entre Juifs et chrétiens. Paris: Denoël, 2003. Umansky, Ellen, and Dale Ashtony, eds. Four Centuries of Jewish Women’s Spirituality: A Source Book. Boston: Beacon Press, 1992.

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254 Selected Bibliography

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Venner, Fiametta, and Claudie Lessellier, eds. L’extrême Droite et les femmes. Villeurbanne: Golias, 1997. West, Lois A. Feminist Nationalism. New York: Routledge, 1997. Wieviorka, Michel. La différence—Identités culturelles: enjeux débats et politiques. Paris: L’aube, 2005. Wittig, Monique. The Straight Mind and other Essays. New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1992. Wistrich, Robert S. A Lethal Obsession: Antisemitism from Antiquity to the Global Jihad. New York: Random House, 2010. ———. From Ambivalence to Betrayal: The Left, the Jews, and Israel. Lincoln, Neb.: University of Nebraska Press, 2012. Woolf, Virginia. Three Guineas. London: Hogarth Press, 1938, 1952. Young-Bruehl, Elizabeth. Hannah Arendt: For Love of the World. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982. Yuval Davis, Nira. Gender and Nation. London: Sage, 1997. Zertal, Idith. Israel’s Holocaust and the Politics of Nationhood. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.

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Index

Abzug, Bella, 65–67, 83 (n. 7), 203, 233 (n. 6) Adorno, Theodor W., 44–45 Agacinski, Sylviane, 144–45 Agamben, Giorgio, 148 Ahad Ha’Am, 180, 197 (n. 33) AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee), 69–70, 84 (n. 23) Allen, Woody, 107 Alliance israélite universelle (AIU), 26– 27, 155 Aloni, Shulamit, 204 Amado Lévy-Valensi, Éliane, 105, 114 (n. 70),148–49 Amara, Fadela, 110 (n. 4), 222 Amir, Yigal, 161 Amitiés judéo-chrétiennes de France (AJCF), 139 (n. 30), 157 Anderson, Benedict, 177 Antelme, Robert, 102, 113 (n. 54) Antler, Joyce, 67, 81, 84 (n. 16) Aptheker, Bettina, 215–16 Aptheker, Herbert, 215 Aquinas, Thomas, 56 Arendt, Hannah, 48–50, 61 (nn. 48, 49, 51, 52), 81, 175, 212–13 Argov, Shlomo, 207 Association nationale des études féministes (ANEF), 97–99 Attar, Dena, 78 Augustine, Saint, 56 Autant-Lara, Claude, 224 Bachofen, Johann Jakob, 126

Badinter, Elisabeth, 13, 23, 33 (n. 1), 36 (n.45), 58, 152–53 Badiou, Alain, 32–33 Bailly, Danielle, 95–97, 104, 112 (n. 32), 152 Balibar, Etienne, 13 Barack Fishman, Sylvia, 134–35 Bard, Christine, 221 Bar Kokhba, Shimon, 179–80, 197 (nn. 25, 31, 32) Barth, Karl, 132 Basch, Françoise, 98–99, 101, 112 (nn.41, 43) Basch, Victor, 98–99, 113 (n. 42) Bataille, Georges, 176 Bat Shalom, 190 Beauvoir, Simone de, 12, 45–48, 53, 58, 61 (n. 54), 91, 98, 101 (n. 2), 143–44, 166 (n. 10), 218–20, 232 (n. 3), 233 (n. 6), 236 (n. 61), 240 Bebe, Pauline, 156, 169 (n. 71) Beck, Evelyn Torton, 110 Beckwith, Leila, 235 (nn. 49, 50) Benbassa, Esther, 226 Berdugo, Evelyne, 157 Bernheim, Cathy, 91 Biale, David, 24, 26, 176 Birnbaum, Pierre, 22 Bloch, Alice, 76–77 Blumenfeld, Kurt, 49–50 Boissonnas, Sylvina, 221 Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, 132 Bonnet, Marie-Jo, 221 Bourne, Jenny, 78, 80, 207–10 Bouveresse, Jacques, 33

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256 Index

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Boyarin, Daniel, 181–82 Boyarin, Jonathan, 181–82 Boys, Mary C., 133 Braidotti, Rosi, 28, 37 (nn.58, 59) Braun, Christina von, 18–19 Broner, Esther, 217 Brunschvicg, Cécile, 120 Bulkin, Elly, 80, 172 Bund, 97, 104 Bush, George W., 216, 228 Butler, Judith, 15–17, 29–31, 35 (n. 20), 80–83, 86 (n. 67), 177, 212–14 CADAC (Coordination des associations pour le droit à l’avortement et à la contraception), 111 (n. 17) Carlebach, Julius, 41 Cercle Gaston Crémieux, 97, 152 Chalier, Catherine, 28, 37 (n. 63) Chaumont, Jean-Michel, 55 Chauveau, Sophie, 221, 237 (n. 68) Chemillier-Gendreau, Monique, 225 Chesler, Phyllis, 51, 67, 216–17 Chiennes de Garde, 53 Civil Rights Movement, 65–66, 69–70 Cixous, Hélène, 90, 107–108, 114 (n. 81), 144–45, 159, 223 Coalition of Women for Peace (CWP), 190 Collin, Françoise, vii, 29, 62 (n. 56), 102, 143, 165 (n. 2) Comte, Auguste, 121, 138 (n. 19) Condorcet, Nicolas de, 41, 59 (n. 10) consciousness-raising (CR), 5, 10–11, 70–72, 78, 92, 95, 98, 153 Consistoire israélite du Bas-Rhin, 155, 169 (n. 68) Consistoire israélite de Paris, 155–56, 169 (n. 68) Coopération féminine, 157

Coppel, Marthe, 93–94, 112 (n. 25) Cornell, Drucilla, 28, 37 (n. 60) Cott, Nancy, 81 CRIF (Conseil représentatif des juives de France), 156–57, 169 (n. 74) Daly, Mary, 51, 117–18, 130, 137 (n. 3), 143 Daniel, Jean, 220, 236 (n. 65) Daum, Annette, 131, 142 (n. 64) Dayan-Herzbrun, Sonia, 106, 226 Debray, Régis, 159, 170 (n. 85) Deleuze, Gilles, 14 Delphy, Christine, 14, 46, 53, 62 (n. 70), 111 (n. 14), 160, 225–26 Derrida, Jacques, 14–15, 33 (n. 1), 34 (n. 18), 108, 151, 163 Deudon, Catherine, 221 Deutscher, Isaac, 81 Dhavernas, Marie-Jo, 221 Dhoquois-Cohen, Régine, 91–92, 96, 103, 113–14 (n. 65), 237 (n. 72) Dieckhoff, Alain, 206 Döhm, Christian Wilhem von, 41 Douglas, Mary, 146 Drazan, Anthony, 106 Drumont, Edouard, 120 Durand, Marguerite, 120 Dworkin, Andrea, 51, 63 (n. 88), 67, 225, 237 (nn. 79, 80) Eichmann, Adolf, 129 Engels, Friedrich, 34 (n. 5), 126, 139 (n. 37), 189 Estenne, Redith, 95, 112 (nn. 28, 31) Ezrahi, Yaron, 185, 198 (n. 51) Ezrat Nashim (movement), 73, 85 (n. 36) Fauré, Christine, 221 Faurisson, Robert, 97

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Index 257 Goldman, Pierre, 54, 62 (n. 74) Gontier, Fernande, 219 Gornick, Vivian, 67 Gouges, Marie Olympe de, 41, 59 (n. 11) Goux, Jean-Joseph, 149–50 Greenberg, Blu, 135 Greenfeld, Liah, 178 Grillo, Tina, 57 Grossman, David, 186–87 Gugenheim, Michel, 155 Guillaumin, Colette, 53, 62 (n. 70) Gyp, 120, 138 (n. 15)

Feldman, Jacqueline, 47, 91–92, 95–96, 99, 152–53, 221 Felski, Rita, 27–28, 37 (n. 58) Femmes et hommes en Église (FHE), 157 Fichte, Johann G., 42 Fifth Mother, 190 Finkielkraut, Alain, 22–23, 36 (n. 45), 111 (n. 10) Firestone, Shulamith, 67 Fondation pour la mémoire de la Shoah (FMS), 101, 237 (n. 75) Fontenay, Elisabeth de, 31–32, 90, 109, 149 Foucault, Michel, 14, 33 (n. 1) Fouque, Antoinette, 34 (n. 3), 47, 61 (n. 40), 111 (n. 14), 144–45, 151, 220, 236 (n. 65) Fourest, Caroline, 160–61, 170 (nn. 93, 94), 230–31 Four Mothers, 188 Fox Keller, Evelyn, 81 Francis, Claude, 219 Francos, Ania, 106–107 Fraser, Nancy, 17 Freud, Sigmund, 57, 144, 212 Friedan, Betty, 19–20, 50, 67–69, 203– 204, 233 (n. 6) Friedlander, Judith, 46–47

Habash, Dima, 211 Habash, George, 211 Hadassah, 66, 83 (n. 11), 223 Halimi, Gisèle, 92, 105–106, 111 (n. 16), 226 Hall, Stuart, 16–18, 26, 79 Haraway, Donna, 14–15, 17, 35 (n. 23) Hastings, Adrian, 178, 196 (n. 20) Heidegger, Martin, 31, 149 Heschel, Susannah, 131, 141 (n. 61) Hess, Moses, 189 Hess, Rudolf, 129 Hippel, Theodor Gottlieb von, 41 Hobsbawm, Eric, 178 Horkheimer, Max, 44–45 Horvilleur, Delphine, 156

Galili, Lily, 188 Gaon, Yehoram, 183 Garson, Catherine, 153 Gauche prolétarienne (GP), 154 Gaulle, Charles de, 231–32 Geller, Laura, 75 Gilligan, Carol, 82 Giroud, Françoise, 230, 238 (n. 98) Goldman, Emma, 66 Goldman, Nicole, 156–57, 169 (n. 74)

Idels, Michèle, 221 Indigènes de la République, 222 Ingrams, Richard, 211 International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU), 66–67 Irigaray, Luce, 27, 33 (n. 1), 136, 144– 50, 149–50, 159 Israel Women’s Network (IWN), 193, 200 (n. 80) Itzkowitz, Daniel, 22

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258 Index Jacobs, Monica, 157 Jemayel, Bashir, 207 Jewish Feminist Organization (JFO), 73 Jewish Women’s Committee to End the Occupation, 217 John XXIII, Pope, 125 Jordan, June, 71 Josephus, Flavius, 181 Jung, Carl Gustav, 45, 119

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Kandel, Liliane, 53, 62 (n. 70), 63 (n. 88), 91, 97–98, 101, 112 (n. 36), 221 Kaplan, Gisela, 182–83 Kaye/Kantrowitz, Melanie, 71–72 Kellenbach, Katharina von, 20–21, 36 (n. 35), 56–57, 128–30, 133, 140 (n. 49), 142 (n. 74) Kerber, Linda K., 81 Kessler–Harris, Alice, 217, 256 (n. 58) Khaled, Leila, 204, 233 (n. 7) Khan, Aliza, 209, 234 (n. 19) Kofman, Sarah, 101–102, 113 (nn. 54, 56) Kohn, Hans, 178 Kristeva, Julia, 34 (n. 3), 144–48, 159, 163, 166 (n. 21), 220, 236 (n. 66) Kruks, Sonia, 29 Kunstenaar, Caroline, 100, 105, 237 (n. 71) Lacan, Jacques, 14, 144, 176, 213 Lampert, Lisa, 39–40 Lapierre, Nicole, 102–103 Lappin, Shalom, 212, 234 (n. 30) Lauretis, Teresa de, 15 Law of Return, 23, 36 (n. 46), 211 Le Doeuff, Michèle, 221 Lerner, Carl, 214 Lerner, Gerda, 20, 81, 101, 126–27, 213– 14

Lessellier, Claudie, 221 Lesseps, Emmanuèle de, 54–55, 58 Lessing, Theodor, 43 Levi, Primo, 102 Levinas, Emmanuel, 28, 31, 33 (n. 1), 47–49, 61 (n. 44), 136, 149–51, 158, 162–63, 167 (nn. 35, 38, 39) Levi-Strauss, Claude, 126 Levitt, Laura, 79, 86 (n. 64) Lévy, Benny, 111 (n. 13), 112 (n. 31), 154–55, 168 (n. 61) Lévy, Léo, 154–55 Lipsyc, Sonia Sarah, 155, 169 (nn. 66, 68) Loos, Adolf, 43 Lorde, Audre, 12, 70 Louis, Marie-Victoire, 29 Löwy, Ilana, 56 Luxemburg, Rosa, 175–76 Lyotard, Jean-François, 14, 31–32, 38 (n. 73) Maccabeans (Maccabees), 179, 184, 197 (n. 25), 198 (n. 47) Machsom Watch, 190, 199 (n. 66) MacKinnon, Catharine, 63 (n. 88) Madsen, Catherine, 136, 142 (n. 83) Malraux, André, 176, 232 (n. 3) Malraux, Clara, 90 Manceaux, Michèle, 21, 226 Marcion, 130 Marienstras, Richard, 152 Maritain, Jacques, 176 Martini, Lucia, 222 Marx, Karl, 189 Mathieu, Nicole-Claude, 221 Maugeret, Marie, 120, 138 (n. 16) Mayer, Tamar, 174, 185, 195 (n. 3) McCarthy, Mary, 212–13 McCarthyism, 203, 213–16

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Index 259

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McGee, Willie, 66, 83 (n. 7) Medem, 97 Mendelssohn, Moses, 41 Merguy, Joël, 155, 169 (n. 69) Meyer-Wilmes, Hedwig, 165, 171 (n. 108) Miller, Nancy K., 79–81, 86 (n. 63) Minces, Juliette, 220 MLF (Mouvement de libération des femmes), 47, 61 (n. 40), 91–92, 95– 96, 112 (n. 29), 154 Mopsik, Charles, 150–51, 167 (n. 44 Morgan, Robin, 67 Morin, Edgar, 225, 237 (n. 77) Mosse, George L., 42, 179 Mouvement juif libéral de France (MJLF), 156 Moyse-Lipman, Gabrielle, 120, 138 (n. 12) Mulack, Christa, 129 Naïr, Samir, 224–25, 237 (n. 77) Naquet, Pierre-Vidal, 152 Nathan, Maud, 66 National Council of Jewish Women, 66, 84 (nn. 10, 12) National Organization for Women (NOW), 204 National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA), 121, 138–39 (n. 23) Neher, André, 90 NELED (Nashim Lemaan dou-kiyoum), 188–90, 199 (n. 62) Neusner, Jacob, 146 New Profile (Profil Hadash), 190, 199 n. 66) Nietzsche, Friedrich, 42 Ni Putes Ni Soumises (NPNS), 89, 110 (n. 4), 222, 237 (n. 69) Nirenstein, Fiamma, 216

Nitzan, Tal, 192, 200 (nn. 77, 78) Noddings, Nel, 126 Nora, Pierre, 231–32 Nordau, Max, 179, 181, 197 (nn. 23, 24) Nussbaum, Martha, 29 Obama, Barack, 228 Ochs, Carol, 131 Olmert, Ehud, 186 Owen, Wilfred, 182, 198 (n. 41) Ozick, Cynthia, 135–36 Palma, Hélène, 221 Parmer, Daniel, 134 Patai, Raphael, 126, 140 (n. 41) Paul, Saint, 31–32, 125–26, 128, 132, 144, 147 Peace Now (Shalom Achshav), 187, 217, 237 (n. 70) Pelayo, Alvero, 39, 59 (n. 2) Perrot, Michelle, 219, 236 (n. 63) Picq, Françoise, 92, 111 (n. 14), 221 Pilate, Pontius, 129 Pius XII, Pope, 125, 139 (n. 29) Plaskow, Judith, 34 (n. 8), 130–32, 136, 141 (n. 59) PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization), 203–204, 229, 236 (n. 65) Pogrebin, Letty Cottin, 52, 67, 74–76, 204, 229 Pratt, Minnie Bruce, 19 Priesand, Rabbi Sallie, 110 (n. 6), 134 Rabin, Yitzhak, 161 Raczymow, Henri, 102 Raday, Frances, 193–94 Ramadan, Hani, 162 Ramadan, Tariq, 162 Rider, Jacques le, 42 Ringart, Nadja, 91

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260 Index

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Rodney, Walter, 194, 201 (n. 82) Roiphe, Anne, 67–68 Rojtman, Suzy, 222 Rose, Ernestine, 66 Rose, Hilary, 234 (n. 26) Rose, Jacqueline, 211–12, 234 (nn. 30, 32) Rose, Steven, 234 (nn. 26, 27) Roudinesco, Elisabeth, 230 Roukline, Agnès, 221 Rousso, Henry, 92 Ruether, Rosemary Radford, 117–18, 124, 133, 137 (n. 3), 139 (n. 28) Sadat, Anwar El-, 187 Salanskis, Jean-Michel, 24–25 Sallenave, Danièle, 162–63, 165, 171 (nn. 96, 104), 225–26, 237 (n. 77) Sartre, Jean-Paul, 31–33, 38 (n. 76), 45– 48, 57, 60 (n. 39), 112 (n. 36), 232 (n. 3), 239 Schneiderman, Rose, 66 Schoenberg, Arnold, 43 Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (SPME), 216, 235 (n. 51) Scholem, Gershom, 48–49, 61 (nn. 47, 49) Schopenhauer, Arthur, 42 Schüssler Fiorenza, Elizabeth, 118, 137 (n. 6) Scott, Joan W., 81 Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky, 15, 21, 35 (n. 22), 80–81 Seidman, Naomi, 80, 106 Setel, Drorah, 26 Shahid, Leïla, 236 (n. 65) Shalvi, Alice, 193 Sharoni, Simona, 192 Shuvi (movement), 188 Silberstein, Laurence J., 177, 196 (n. 13)

Smith, Anthony D., 177, 196 (n. 19) Smith Miller, Elizabeth, 122, 138 (n. 23) Soler, Jean, 146 Sorge, Elga, 129 SOS Sexisme, 53 Stanton, Elizabeth Cady, 121–23, 138 (nn. 18, 23), 139 (n. 24) Starhawk [Miriam Simos], 25, 118–19, 137 (n. 9) Stein, Edith, 105, 114 (n. 71), 175, 196 (n. 8) Steinem, Gloria, 67 Sternhell, Zeev, 178 Stone, Merlin, 126, 130–33, 140 (n. 41) Storper-Perez, Danielle, 105, 114 (n. 69) Strauss, Alya, 191 Surdut, Maya, 91, 111 (n. 17), 222 Surjet, Célia, 156 Swidler, Leonard, 127–28 TANDI (Movement of Democratic Women in Israel), 190, 199 (n. 66) Tax, Meredith, 67 Thalmann, Rita, 53, 62 (n. 70), 97, 100– 101, 221, 237 (n. 80) Touraine, Alain, 13 Trible, Phyllis, 132 Trigano, Shmuel, 150–51, 169 (n. 65), 238 (n. 87) Trumpeldor, Joseph, 184, 198 (n. 47) Union nationaliste des femmes françaises, 120–21 United Nations, 69, 161, 202–205, 218– 19, 228, 232 (nn. 1, 2, 3), 233 (nn. 4, 18) Vana, Liliane, 155, 168 (n. 63) Varnhagen, Rahel, 49, 61 (n. 52)

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Index 261 Veil, Simone, 8 (n. 7), 55, 101–102, 223–24, 237 (nn. 74, 75) Venner, Fiametta, 160–61, 221 Volkov, Shulamit, 41, 44

Yacub, Marcela, 221 Yerushalmi, Yosef Hayim, 124, 133 Young-Bruehl, Elisabeth, 213 Yuval-Davis, Nira, 209, 233 (n. 18) Zacklad, Jean, 96, 112 (n. 31), 153–54 Zélensky, Anne, 111 (n. 15), 221 Zertal, Idith, 50 Zionist Congresses, 175, 179, 196 (n. 7), 197 (n. 23)

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Wald, Lilian, 66 WAVAW (Women Against Violence Against Women), 209 Weber, Max, 137 (n. 2) Weil, Simone, 105, 114 (n. 71), 158, 169 (n. 78) Weiler, Gerda, 129, 141 n. 56) Weininger, Otto, 42–43, 59 (n 15), 60 (n. 20), 158 Welger, Corinne, 104, 114 (n. 67) West, Lois, 176 Wiesen-Cook, Blanche, 217 Wildman, Stephanie M., 57 Wittig, Monique, 15,35 (n. 24), 111 (n. 14) WIZO (Women’s International Zionist Organization), 157 Wollstonecraft, Mary, 4159 (n. 12)

Women in Black, 103, 113 (nn. 64, 65), 187–88, 190–91, 194, 199 (n. 58), 217, 222, 236 (n. 59), 237 (n. 71) Women in Green, 194–95 Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), 190 Women’s liberation movements, 6, 10– 11,14, 47, 61 (n. 40), 70–72, 89, 92, 111, 112 (n. 29), 117, 125, 132, 152, 154, 165, 176, 179–80, 224, 243 Woolf, Virginia, 181–82 World Social Forum (Porto Alegre), 206 Wright, Richard, 57

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Nelly Las is a historian of contemporary Jewry and women’s studies, affiliated with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and was a Helen GartnerHammer Scholar-in-Residence at the Hadassah Brandeis Institute (2014). Her research interests center on comparative Jewish Diasporas in cross-cultural and gender perspective. Her works include Jewish Women in a Changing World: A History of the International Council of Jewish Women (Jerusalem, 1996; French edition, Femmes juives dans le siècle: Histoire du Conseil international des femmes juives [Paris: L’Harmattan, 1996]).

Jewish Voices in Feminism : Transnational Perspectives, Nebraska, 2015. ProQuest Ebook Central,