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Hemdah Ben-Yehuda

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Havvah Shapiro

“Our literature lacks the participation of the second half of humanity.” Thus proclaimed the Hebrew writer Hava (Eva) Shapiro (1878-1943) in her 1909 feminist manifesto, the first ever in the Hebrew language. She was the most prolific female Hebraist of her era to remain in the Diaspora and the first woman ever to have kept a diary in Hebrew.

Prose Writing in the Yishuv: 1882-1948

Female Yishuv writers have often been ignored in discussions of Jewish literature from the period. As the sometimes-melancholy tone and escapist themes of their writing show, these women struggled to escape the margins in pre-state Palestine. Nonetheless, the works of these female writers offer important insights into the lives of Yishuv women and paved the way for contemporary women writers.

Women Journalists in Israel

Despite social barriers, Jewish women have played an essential role in the creation and propagation of news and journalism in Israel. With the advent of women’s magazines and the popularization of television, women became particularly involved in the news industry. However, while the numbers of female Israeli journalists have increased, women journalists still face gender-based discrimination. In recent years, many have become vocal members of women’s rights movements such as #MeToo and advocates for a more equitable future.

Children's Literature in Hebrew

Born in the Diaspora and continued in the Yishuv and the state of Israel, children’s literature in Hebrew participated actively in facilitating the construction of a national collective self. Female children’s book authors disseminated Hebrew as a secular language in both Palestine and the Diaspora and created a new prototype of the child as a native-born “child of nature.”

Hemdah Ben-Yehuda

Hemdah Ben-Yehuda collaborated with her husband to revive ancient Hebrew and make it a truly functional living language. She helped coin new Hebrew words, created salons for Jewish thinkers, and wrote articles for the newspaper she and her husband ran. Beyond her own writings, she helped edit and compile the seventeen-volume Complete Dictionary of Ancient and Modern Hebrew.

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