Daughters/Soldiers and Redundant Mothers: Literary Representations of Military Service in Israeli Women's Writing

Dr Tsila Ratner, Department of Hebrew & Jewish Studies, University College London, University of London

The conscription of women to the IDF was one aspect of the attempt to build an egalitarian society in which the ‘people army’ not only secured the state but was also instrumental to the identification with the collective and therefore the commitment to civil life. Revisions of the national and historical discourses in Israel since the 90s have repudiated these assumptions. Feminist scholarship went further in highlighting the marginalization and exposure to sexual abuse of women in the army as the inevitable consequences of the ideological and hierarchical structure of the military. Feminist research has linked the positioning of women at the bottom of the military hierarchy with women’s vulnerability to abuse and argued that women’s service has no impact on their status in civil life. On the contrary, the deepening militarism of Israeli society reinforces women’s marginality. This scholarship empowered the exposure of sexual abuse of women in the army, testified to in high profile court cases, and led to the more radical stance: refusal to serve in the military on the grounds of feminist convictions. This paper is a study of the literary representations of Israeli women in the military written by women writers. The Israeli context, in which these works are embedded, intensifies the inherent tensions between women and militarization due to the ideological status of the military in Israel and the political circumstances. However, they shed light on women’s position in the military in general.

Biography:

Dr. Tsila Ratner is a native Israeli, who has lived in London since 1984. She took degrees in Hebrew literature and philosophy at Tel-Aviv University. She served as a lecturer in the Department of Hebrew Literature until her move to England. Since 1984, Dr. Ratner has taught Hebrew literature at both Cambridge University and Leo Baeck College. In 1995 She was appointed Lecturer in Modern Hebrew Literature in the Department. She recently organised an international conference on modern Hebrew literature, which was hosted by the Institute of Jewish Studies at University College London. Dr. Ratner has made important contributions to the viability of modern Hebrew as a subject in the secondary school curriculum in the UK. She serves as the Chief Examiner for the Modern Hebrew 'A' Level Examination, and is currently developing its new syllabus. She organises annual workshops on modern Hebrew Literature for teachers and students, which are hosted by the Department. While at Tel-Aviv University, Dr. Ratner helped edit textbooks devoted to poetry and literary criticism. She has translated a number of American novels into Hebrew, most notably J. Fielding, The Other Woman , and T. Dreiser, Sister Carrie . Dr. Ratner's research program is increasingly focused on Women's Studies within the context of modern Israeli literature.

Organiser: Bloomsbury Gender Network hosted by the SOAS Centre for Gender Studies

Contact email: rs94@soas.ac.uk