Jewish Girls

The story of Zionist women’s struggle for suffrage within the complex political and religious context of the Yishuv.
“Shilo elucidates the strong historical connections between feminism and Jewish nationalism—and their mutual reinforcement—as Zionist women struggled for suffrage in Mandatory Palestine in the context of the movement to found a Jewish and democratic state.

Following the Balfour Declaration and the British conquest of Palestine (1917–1918), the small Jewish community that lived there wanted to establish an elected assembly as its representative body. The issue that hindered this aim was whether women would be part of it. A group of feminist Zionist women from all over the country created a political party that participated in the elections, even before women’s suffrage was enacted. This unique phenomenon in Mandatory Palestine resulted in the declaration of women’s equal rights in all aspects of life by the newly founded Assembly of Representatives.