Yael Ben-Zvi Morad

This paper examines a fascinating similarity among three memoirs from different periods of the Yishuv – Zionism before the establishment of the State of Israel. The three memoirs are those of Sara Malkin of the second Aliya, who was recognized as a leading woman pioneer; of Henya Peckleman of the third Aliya, who lived with her mother in conditions of economic hardship and became one of Israel/Palestine’s first female construction workers, though she never gained honour or social status, and committed suicide at 35; and the memoirs of Netiva Ben-Yahuda, one of the first female fighters in the Palmach. In these three different life stories, I identify a similar social pattern: all three women were excluded from the centers of Zionist activity in which they were involved; in periods marked by life-threatening dangers (such as a war or plague), these women, who transgressed gender boundaries, were all falsely accused of causing death; and this accusation was in turn used as a pretext to remove them from the group and restore gender-order.
The article suggests that contradictory definitions of femininity characterize Zionist ideology and practice. This inner contradiction is manifested in the gaps between ideology and practice during the second and third Aliyas, as well as in the status and roles of women in the Palmach. This paper points out and analhyzes the intriguing connections between literary devices and social-gendered conditions.

This essay examines the integration of the Christian narrative of sacrifice—the Crucifixion—into contemporary Israeli cinema. This story has gradually seeped into the more dominant narrative of sacrifice in Israeli culture: that of the biblical Binding of Isaac. The article draws particular attention to a significant transition in the representation of human sacrifice in Israeli political cinema dealing with the Israeli- Palestinian conflict, and examines the significant political impact of this transition on the Israeli national narrative. The article questions the ways these narratives of self-sacrifice are incorporated in the films and what the Israeli cinematic perspective on the conflict gains from this use of Christian themes as a way to obtain public penance, forgiveness, and redemption

This essay examines the integration of the Christian narrative of sacrifice—the Crucifixion—into contemporary Israeli cinema, a narrative which has gradually seeped into a more dominant narrative of sacrifice in Israeli culture, that of the biblical Binding of Isaac. It particularly draws attention to a significant transition in the representation of human sacrifice in Israeli political cinema, dealing with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, from a singular and dominant one (the biblical Binding of Isaac) to a dual narrative of sacrifice (the Binding of Isaac coupled with the Crucifixion). It examines the significant political impact of this transition on the Israeli national narrative. Some of the questions that this change poses include not only its rationale and its timing, but the very fact that Israeli filmmakers choose Christian motifs to depict a conflict between two peoples that are predominantly Jewish and Muslim. The article questions in which ways these narratives of self-sacrifice are incorporated in the films and what the Israeli cinematic perspective on the conflict gains from this use of Christian elements. Israeli films that integrate Christian motifs put a spotlight on themes of guilt and forgiveness. They resonate pangs of guilt for Israel's control over the Palestinian civilian population. They are full of 'self-flagellation' and remorse; therefore, I argue, they are used by filmmakers as a stage for public penance, for the sake of peace, forgiveness and redemption.

Patricide: Gender, Space and Nationalism in Contemporary Palestinian Cinema
by Yael Ben-Zvi Morad

Synopsis of the book

Patricide: Gender, Space, and Nationality in Contemporary Palestinian Cinema focuses on the connection between gender and nationalism in contemporary Palestinian cinema. The book exposes the duality of the preservation of gender role division alongside the parallel deconstruction of gender definitions in Palestinian society and cinema throughout the decades of national struggle. It addresses various perceptions of masculinity and femininity and the complex relationship between these perceptions and nationality, religion, and the construction of cinematic space and language.
At the center of the study, the national struggle is presented as a masculine rite of passage for young Palestinian men who are rebelling against both their submissive fathers and the Israeli occupiers. The situation of living under occupation—the loss of sovereignty over one's people and homeland and living under a foreign power following a military defeat and a trauma—is perceived by Palestinian men as a feminine situation, as emasculation. The motivation for war lies in a renewed attempt to achieve masculine control over the territory. While the older men have experienced symbolic castration and are passive, weak, absent, or submissive to Israeli rule, younger men are fighting for their male identity through rebellion against the submissive Palestinian father and the Israeli military ruler.
Patricide also examines the ways in which the feminist struggle has become integrated into the national struggle. Women are represented in Palestinian cinema as carriers of the message of national liberation, whether as young freedom fighters who confront head-on the Israeli security forces, or as brides and mothers of various ages who succeed in fulfilling, through their actions within their families, the better part of their Palestinian nationalist principles. Palestinian cinema provides a central stage for the place of women in the national struggle. Moreover, it recognizes the public value of the family activities of women and avoids the conventional contrast between the domestic and public spheres.
While in many cultures the position of women as a symbol of the homeland amounts to an image only,  Palestinian cinema motivates and humanizes the image, placing the woman at the heart of the Palestinian national struggle. Women in Palestinian cinema have used the fact that they are identified with the land as leverage for their international feminist activity. The woman is responsible for one of the fundamental principles of the Palestinian national struggle: tzumud—devotion to the soil. In this capacity, she fights for the family's legal property rights to land, the right to live and implement their life on the land, she works in the fields and cooks the food that is harvested, and also preserves the traditional Palestinian culture in everyday cooking rituals that contribute to the preservation and spread of Palestinian nationalism. In Palestinian film, women unite the exiled nation by preserving family unity and bringing their family members and the people back to the homeland, thus realizing two other important values in the struggle: unifying the nation and return (al-awda).
The everyday rituals performed by Palestinian women, which are often the focus of Palestinian films, are the daily rituals of Palestinian national preservation and the dissemination of nationalism, in the terms of Homi K. Baba.  They contain an element of the preservation of ancient nationalism in the face of processes of modernization and urbanization. This process of preservation links the Palestinians to an ancient ancestor.  In many respects, the focus of Palestinian cinema on repetitive everyday traditional feminine activities assumes, in Kristeva's  terms, a feminine perception of time, as well as a feminine rhythm of the national cinematic narrative. In the absence of historical archives and an organized and unified school system, women have been concerned for decades with preserving the memory of the Palestinian past, instilling national awareness in the younger generation, and creating a national narrative. They have done this in each individual family, and the Palestinian cinema creates a mosaic of families, portraying the family role of women as major national emissaries, as a central element of Palestinian social cohesiveness, preserving the most basic elements of nationalism: an imagined community, a meta-narrative, historical memory, national education, national rituals, the preservation of Palestinian cultural, and a strong connection to the land.
At the same time, documentary and feature films also create the figure of the female Palestinian fighter on the screen. This figure is complex, and manages, in a unique period of continuing national struggle, to enable women to break through gender boundaries and position themselves in the center of society.
The situation of the Palestinian diaspora, which includes exiles in their own country, creates cinema that deconstructs national and gender unity. In this respect the accented characteristics, to use Naficy's  term, of Palestinian cinematic language are often combined with a feminist cinematic language. In light of all this, I believe that Patricide will contribute not only to the study of Palestinian cinema, but also to the study of female and feminist writing by both men and women.