Project MUSE - Halutzah or Beauty Queen?: National Images of Women in Early Israeli Society National Images of Women in Early Israeli Society Julie Grimmeisen (bio) ABSTRACT Scholars have argued that there were women who immigrated to Eretz Israel (Land of Israel) in order to find gender equality. The image of the emancipated Halutzah, the female proletarian and field worker, was broadly publicized. From 1948 on, the socialist Women’s Workers Movement and its image of the Halutzah continued to influence Israeli society. They admired hard-working women who sacrificed their bodies for the national collective—in the media, their lives and sacrifices were celebrated and glorified through the act of remembering. Shortly after the state was formed, beauty pageants began to take place and expressed values in sharp contrast with the Halutzah. The women’s magazine Laisha (For the Woman) started the selection of the Israeli Beauty Queen in 1950 and created a public arena for the adoration of the beautiful female body. During young Israel’s struggle in forming a unified nation, both constructs competed for the ideal image of the Israeli woman—one in creating a heroic past, the other in drawing a picture of a glamorous future.

This paper explores the dynamics behind gendered national images and evaluates patterns of persistence and/or change. INTRODUCTION I sraeli nationalism, the construction of mas culinity, and the male image of the “New Jew” have received great attention. In researching the Israeli process of becoming a nation, a heroic male ideal is of vital interest. As in the rest of the world, in Israel the ideal pioneer, the [End Page 27] Halutz, was masculine. Later this image metamorphosed into that of the Sabra (the name given to native-born Israelis). 1 However, what became of the woman by his side? Do “women continue for the most part to remain excluded from the Jewish national project and its imagining”, 2 as Tamar Mayer states? Women are mentioned in the works written about the new ideal of masculinity in Zionism, but subordinated to the male ideal. They were portrayed either as equal partners in agricultural settlements or equal partners in military organizations. In that case, the Halutzot (pl. female pioneer) served as proof of the realization of the new, revolutionized society based on equality. 3 There were women who possessed these male ideals.

However, women were also portrayed as caring mothers who provided a comfortable home for their husbands and children. In these portrayals, their femininity came to play the counterpart to the men’s masculinity. 4 Rachel Elboim-Dror and Margalit Shilo define the image of the “New Hebrew Woman” as contradictory or double-sided, caught between new and old/traditional roles. 5 Following Tamar Mayer, they and others agree that women played (except in the biological duty of birthing the next generation) only a secondary role in national representation. 6 In challenging Mayer, Elboim-Dror, and Shilo’s position, this article focuses on the national representation of women as imagined by women after the successful foundation of the State of Israel. The years after 1948 were marked by political, economic, military, and social hardship but also by exceptional ideological efforts to define and mold—to cite Anat Helman, “a new nation of Israelis”. 7 During that time, not only men but also women infused their life with national ideals and women created their own female heroes.

A reading of the two main women’s magazines of the period, Dvar Hapoelet (Word of the Working Woman) and Laisha (For the Woman), depicts the social and national images that represented the ideal woman. This paper explores two major figures of female perfection: The Halutzah and the Beauty Queen. They represent the contradiction in the image of the New Hebrew Woman between socialist and bourgeois ideals. Study of these ideals helps to understand the position of female role models in early Israeli society, which were presented to Israeli women to create a feeling of belonging to the national enterprise. The adoration of the Halutzah offered the possibility for women to become part of Israeli pioneering history. Conversely, the Beauty Queen came to embody the nation through her beautiful body and, at the same time, satisfied a woman’s desire for a better life, as exemplified by a Western lifestyle. [End Page 28] GENDER, NATION, AND BODY “It is women … who reproduce nations, biologically, culturally and symbolically. Why, then, are women usually ‘hidden’ in the various theorizations of nationalist phenomena?” 8 Nira Yuval-Davis asked this question in 1997 and also offered an answer.

The theory about the separation of the private and public sphere of civil society locates women “in the private domain, which is not seen as politically relevant.” 9 Many studies before and since Yuval-Davis’ book Gender & Nation have challenged the subordination of women’s roles in national societies and provided new research methods about women’s studies. The concept of socially constructed sexual divisions (gender studies) aroused a scholarly interest in women in various ways and countries. 10 Thereby, “gender serves as the cultural marker of biological sex.” 11 Gender and nation are two inseparable concepts of the modern world, which relate to each other in multifaceted ways. Every “imagined community” 12 relies on “specific notions of both ‘manhood’ and ‘womanhood’.” 13 How a society constitutes itself, cannot be separated from its concepts of gender differences. They are both socially and culturally constructed and help to define the borderline between the “We” and the “Other”—the imagined outsider. 14 Further, gender and nationality are to be understood as historical concepts, which postulate validity beyond historical claims.

It is this “fiction of ‘innateness’” 15 that reinforces their societal influence and strength to activate masses in their name. Finally, gender and nation are in a constant, interdependent process of defining each other. “Gender roles are reproduced in the name of the nation and in the process they reproduce the nation itself.” 16 Together they constitute the community’s vision of “belonging together”—the ideal image of the nation. 17 On the basis of gendered role models “a code of ‘proper behavior’” is propagated, which can be described as “a sort of national boundary”. 18 The idealized behavior of elected women and men determines who is permitted to feel included in the national entity. Through daily acts, women and men reproduce and reinforce their gendered identity. This identity needs to be constantly created, practiced, and enforced. Judith Butler called this phenomenon “performativity”. 19 Thereby, she focused on the body as a socially and culturally constituted phenomenon and strengthened the assumption that gender difference is an “objectified structure” 20 on the surface of the body.

The “imagined” differentiation between man and woman is visualized on the body and seen [End Page 29] as a “natural” fact. Also in the process of constructing one’s nation, the body plays an important part in expressing ideal gender roles. Women are especially associated with a strict body behavior, “as they are constructed as the symbolic bearers of the collectivity’s identity and honor, both personally and collectively.” 21 Only pure and modest women are supposed to reproduce the next healthy generation. 22 In the case of Zionism, Deborah Bernstein convincingly demonstrates in her book Women on the Margins: Gender and Nationalism in Mandate Tel-Aviv that a woman’s incorrect sexual behavior posed a threat to the national community. In particular, women who sold their body for money were associated with dishonor, disease, decay, and treason, and accused of endangering the nation’s unity, health, and future. 23 The negative image of prostitutes was used to control the boundary between “good” and “bad”, national inclusion and exclusion. Thus, the woman’s body is an important element to mark the mingling of nation and gender and its limits.

24 The desire and the necessity to identify with the social environment—within national movements this desire is especially pronounced—can also be traced among the female population. Israeli scholarship since the 1980s has shown the contribution of women to the national struggle, as well as their controlled position outside of the centers of political power. 25 Nevertheless, women combined the construction of their gender and body identity—like men—with national ideals. Billie Melman mentions women’s magazines as a way to admire national heroines. In Melman’s example, the death of Sarah Aaronsohn (a Jewish spy for the British in Ottoman-ruled Palestine during World War I, who committed suicide after being arrested) is remembered in women’s magazines. Aaronsohn is shown as a manly, courageous woman who sacrificed herself in the hour of need to secure the life of her colleagues, and by that, the future of her nation. 26 Women’s magazines also give a revealing insight in how women took part in the Israeli national project and its imagining.

THE COMMEMORATION OF THE FEMALE PIONEER Dvar Hapoelet first appeared in 1934 as the monthly magazine of the Moetzet Hapoalot (Council of Women Workers). The first Halutzot of the Second Aliyah (immigration to the Land of Israel, 1904–1914) came to Palestine to achieve gender equality, especially in the working world. They were influenced by the ideas of communism in Eastern Europe and hoped to combine their fight for women’s equality with the liberation of the Land of Israel. In [End Page 30] 1911, a first meeting of female workers took place at Kinneret, which led to the foundation of the Women’s Workers Movement (WWM). The WWM established institutions to train women in various work fields (especially in agriculture). During the arrival of the Third Aliyah (1918–1926), the WWM grew and succeeded to institutionalize itself and to broaden its activities. In 1921, the Council of Women Workers was founded as the elected board representing the WWM in the Histadrut (General Organization of Workers in the Land of Israel).

27 With its magazine, the Council intended to reach a broader public and educate women how to become independent and equal workers. Nevertheless, at the same time, the Council did not deviate from the political line of the Histadrut and its associated Labor parties like Mapai (acronym for “Workers’ Party of the Land of Israel”). For them, the fight for women’s equality at work was secondary to other national needs. 28 After the foundation of the state, the WWM prided itself for being the largest women’s organization in the country. In 1949, the Moetzet Hapoalot indicated the number of members at 82,000 women and by 1965 membership had reached 430,000. 29 However, these numbers are misleading, as most of the memberships were granted automatically to the wives of workers who joined the Histadrut. 30 The actual readership of Dvar Hapoelet was far lower than these numbers indicate. The distribution was connected to the daily Davar (published by the Histadrut) from 1934 until 1951 and the print run numbered 20,000 copies per year.

31 In 1966, the print run dropped to 2,000 copies. 32 This lower number too may be misleading, as members of agricultural collectives would often share their copies. 33 Mainly women and men who formed the elite of the Labor movement—those who identified with their ideals and employed women (such as school and kindergarten teachers, social workers, and nurses)—read the magazine. Moreover, Dvar Hapoelet was distributed to vocational schools and Zionist organizations abroad. In contrast, housewives, women from the city, and female immigrants refrained from reading it, the latter because of their lack of language skills. 34 From Dvar Hapoelet’s inception, the publishers created the column “In Memoriam” to commemorate deceased female pioneers. In the many long and short obituaries written by colleagues, friends, and family members, the commemoration of exemplary women’s lives became a regular feature. These texts offer wonderful insights into the life of many women and simultaneously show which female ideals, through the recollections of their lives, are considered positive traits in the present-day of the writer. The importance of commemoration in national communities is widely accepted for the feeling of unity it creates.

In her book Recovered Roots, [End Page 31] Yael Zerubavel demonstrates that “Zionist collective memory provided the ideological framework for understanding and legitimizing its vision of the future.” 35 She especially concentrates her study on the national mystification of Joseph Trumpeldor, the fallen Hebrew hero during the battle of Tel Hai in 1920. At the same time, other scholars such as Oz Almog believe that the commemoration of women was suppressed by the strong myth of the fighting pioneer. 36 As Alon Confino notes: “Zionist collective memory” appears to have been uniquely successful in creating a consensus among different gender, political, social, and ethnic groups in the Jewish Yishuv. 37 Yet in order to understand this process, we must explore how Zionists constructed a symbolic common denominator out of different ideological beliefs and how, in essence, “Zionist collective memory” meant different things to different people. 38 Over the last decade, Israeli academics have started to challenge the unity of collective memory and to include the memory of the Halutzah. “Narrating gender” serves as a very useful model for the interplay between individual action and the general structure of society.

39 The narrated individual story is constructed in a specific surrounding, which defines the scope of action of the biography through rules, values, and symbolism. In researching the complex relation of gender and nation, the combination of individual biography and collective commemoration is a very instructive juxtaposition. It is striking that the Halutzot in particular were very active in remembering their own lives and those of their comrades. 40 Ruth Kark, for example, worked with the memoirs of Rachel Yanait Ben-Zvi, a Labor activist and the wife of the second Israeli president. Kark writes about the memories of male and female pioneers: That there was a marked contradiction between their declared obligation to gender equality and their descriptions of the new, socially and economically reformed society that was to be established in Eretz Israel. … [The memories] did not reflect the reality. 41 Many examples illustrate that women themselves disseminated the “myth of equality”. The myth conveys that women were equal in all areas of Palestine’s newly built society. Specifically, the image of the working woman in the fields and in the defense of the new Jewish settlements served as a proof of this Zionist achievement.

Many academic works since the 1980s have [End Page 32] refuted this myth and provided evidence for the continuing subordination of women in the public sphere. 42 Although the Halutzot did not achieve gender equality, they still fought to belong in the national community. In their personal recollections, female pioneers very consciously connected the liberation of the woman with national redemption. Especially after the successful foundation of the state, they proclaimed their role in building the country and neglected the unsuccessful story of women’s emancipation. For this purpose, they transformed their distress, in particular their bodily pains, into heroism. The commemoration of deceased female comrades appeared in one of the first publications of the WWM in 1930. In the book, which was later translated to English with the title The Plough Woman, it says: This book is, in form and content, the mirror of a great episode in the history of Jewish womanhood. … The section The Departed is the briefest indication, chosen out of a long list of heroic figures, of the sacrifices which have been laid on the altar of Jewish freedom. The women whose lives were broken in the struggle are legion; the few remembered here are representative and not exceptional.

43 This practice of commemorating heroic women is later continued in Dvar Hapoelet. After the death of Dr. Dvorah Zussman-Borodianski, the magazine dedicated an obituary to her on 23 November 1948. A friend of hers wrote: I knew her 16 years, since she came to our Moshavah. 44 She had already spent a long working period in the Land. Her expertise was in the care of eye infections and women. Her dedication to these professions was not accidental, because both enjoyed special importance for the condition of the land. Her relation to birth was a national-human one. She convincingly explained how great the joy of a mother can be and how joyful the time of pregnancy. And she set an example—she was a mother of three children and her relationship to the family and the children was not expressed by the formality of a physician but by motherliness and dedication. She did not neglect her children. On Shabbat, on holidays, in the evenings, on days of Khamsin 45 and cold or at night—she always answered, when somebody called her, without signs of bitterness in her heart.

She had a weak body and a strong will. Her house was a shelter for every person in need and offered bread and clothing. … She did everything for the fellowman with modesty and without publicity. … She moved between us for many years and at the same time her illness nibbled on [End Page 33] Click for larger view In Memoriam of Dr. Dvorah Zussman-Borodianski, Dvar Hapoelet, 23 November 1948. Courtesy of the Monthly Naamat (new name of the magazine since 1977) [End Page 34] her body. But she continued her work. … Truly, she was a great woman and a generous human being, an example of a woman and mother. 46 Dr. Dvorah Zussman-Borodianski is remembered as an ideal woman. Why is the deceased woman considered to be a role model? Which traits of her way of life justified her commemoration on the pages of Dvar Hapoelet? Was she an ideal, an exception, or a representative woman like many other women?

Most of the female pioneers did not have a doctor’s degree, so Zussman-Borodianski’s professional skills clearly distinguished her from the female population of her time. But the depiction of her life presented further characterizations that suited the publication’s series of obituaries. An example of an important theme is the sacrifice of one’s body. The life of the pioneers was accompanied with enormous physical effort. Dvorah Zussman-Borodianski had a “weak body”, but with her “strong will” she transcended her physical limitations. She gave birth to three children, worked day and night through extreme weather, and did not stop, even when she was ill and her body was deteriorating. The importance of body transformation for the Zionist movement has been widely discussed in the research about the new Hebrew masculinity. 47 The first pioneers were very eager to eliminate supposed exilic Jewish traits, like weak and degenerated bodies, and devoted themselves especially to hard and grueling fieldwork. Boaz Neumann demonstrates in his book Land and Desire in Early Zionism that physical pain was part of this process of national rebirth in Eretz Israel.

He concludes: “For the halutzim, where there was pain, there was the Land of Israel.” 48 The suffering of the body was interpreted in serving a higher aim and symbolized the construction of the bond to the land. The remembrances of the female pioneers are testimonials of the difficult physical experiences, but also of their preparedness to offer painful sacrifice. This excessive demand on one’s own body was expressed in many other obituaries as well. The Halutzah’s body was described as “slim”, “petite”, “small and weak”, 49 and not at all fit for the life in Palestine. But still the ideal female pioneer confronted every “exhausting work beyond her physical strength”, every illness, personal loss, material and financial plight and continued to go through life demonstrating “vigor and emotional strength”. 50 “She willingly accepted the distress of hard work and life.” 51 “Calloused and bloody hands” 52 caused by fulfilling construction work were celebrated, as was the suppression of bodily pain as she continued cultivating the land.

53 Special attention was paid to the Halutzot who [End Page 35] sacrificed their bodies and lives while defending Jewish settlements or who were killed during the war of 1948. 54 Exceptional courage and willingness to die for her country was attributed to the pilot Zoharah Leviatov who died after her airplane crashed on 8 August 1948. She was to have said about the choice of her dangerous profession: “In any case, I know that I am going to die young.” 55 In the monthly obituaries, the Halutzot’s sacrificed body symbolized a trait of ideological power, and this trait was purportedly needed to create the national redemption in Palestine. The accomplishments of the first female pioneers and their successors commemorated in Dvar Hapoelet formed an integral part of the Israeli collective memory of the 1950s and 1960s. They have to be interpreted as the WWM’s effort to inscribe the Halutzot’s heroic sacrifices in the national history of the newly founded state. Further, the descriptions of female pioneers’ outstanding past achievements created a framework of female identification with the national struggle, which continued after the foundation of the state.

The young Israeli state faced many challenges, and along with this, Israeli women needed to be prepared for the national construction to come (especially in the fields of household, education, health, and integration). Thereby, the WWM remained true to the ideals of Halutziut (pioneerism). Zussman-Borodianski’s sacrifice of her body, the absolute dedication to both her profession and to her family, the commitment to the collective, her personal modesty and reservation are recurring themes of the commemorated women. Also in the socialist women’s movement imagination, the ideal Israeli woman of the future was supposed to possess all of these qualities. The obituaries also reveal evidences of nostalgic feelings. One author wrote about the Halutzah Shulamit Khnernovski that she “belonged to a generation who did not ‘play’ with principles. For this generation the ideal was nothing abstract and unrealistic.” 56 She knew how to live a “life full of work and deprivations.” 57 On another occasion somebody complained that the new generation only worked to earn money and not to build up the land.

58 After 1948, Israeli society was changing fast (due to mass immigration, militarization, centralization of the political system, and Westernization) and many pioneers of the older generation longed for a bygone era that seemed more meaningful. One change they vehemently opposed at Dvar Hapoelet was the national celebrations of Beauty Queens. In an article titled “Is the Beauty Contest Really Beautiful?”, Shoshanah Hareli condemned the event as a decadent undertaking in times of economic crisis (“The candidates appear in dresses that cost hundreds of liras.” 59 ) and [End Page 36] asked provocatively: “Can our country tolerate a reality where nothing else matters than superficiality?” 60 She tried to defend the legacy of the hardworking Halutzah against the influence of glamorous entertainment shows, which based the ideal of femininity on bodily beauty. STAGING BEAUTY—THE ELECTION OF THE ISRAELI BEAUTY QUEEN The launching of the first election of Miss Israel in 1950 is closely tied to the foundation of Israel’s commercial women’s magazines.

61 Laisha started as a supplement to the daily Yediot Ahronot in 1947, but soon appeared as an independent weekly magazine. Initial circulation was low (a few thousand copies annually), and after two decades it reached 72,000 copies a year. 62 Laisha was written in a simple, personal, and direct style. Its target market was women between 25 and 29 years old, but younger and older women, housewives and employed women, as well as men, read the magazine. 63 The 1950s and 1960s are seen as years of the “Return to the Housewife” 64 status, and to a bourgeois model of womanhood. Laisha also concentrated on “women’s affairs” in the private sphere—as opposed to the “men’s world” in the public sphere—and its articles dealt with subjects such as household, cooking, childrearing, fashion, cosmetics, and love stories. The magazine reinforced the idea that woman’s main obligation in society is being a housewife and mother.

65 Beyond that, Laisha can be interpreted as a public forum where female journalists wrote about the problems, needs, wishes, and desires of women. The magazine’s rise and the success of its beauty pageant competition were built on serving women’s pleasures and dreams. 66 Recent studies increasingly focus on body ideals in popular culture. Thereby, the beautiful body can be explored “as a primary site for the construction and performance of gender, and specifically of femininity”. 67 For women especially, beauty is considered a “trait of desirability”, 68 which finds its material expression on the surface of the body. Beauty contests are, in the truest sense of the word, “performances” (Butler) of the beautiful female body, which came to be a cultural signifier of female gender and national identity. 69 The interpretation of such contests is twofold: feminists depict them as feminine objectification, and others as feminine empowerment. 70 On the one hand, beauty pageants serve as symbolic objects of display and sources of income for their organizers. But they also actively participate in the creation of their national society and can motivate processes of social change and reform.

Erica Reischer and Kathryn Koo argue: [End Page 37] Women’s bodies, and social constructions of the ideal female form, do more than reflect women’s position in society: They offer a powerful means for negotiating, redefining, and reconceptualizing that position. 71 In the process of mass-mediated beauty contests, young women compete against each other, are judged according to meaningful beauty criteria, and transformed into exemplary women. The participants are measured against an ideal they come to represent themselves. At the end of the competition, one woman is chosen who “best” embodies the national vision of femininity. 72 In the Israeli case as well, the participants can be seen as symbolic bearers of the national body and at the same time as agents of the Israeli attempt to adapt to Western standards and the commodification of the female beauty. At the end of 1949, Laisha launched the competition for the first election of Malkat Hayofi shel Israel (the Beauty Queen of Israel) and created a mechanism to challenge the ideal of the Halutzah. The organizers showed great concern about the standards and necessity of beauty care in Israel.

On 28 December 1949, they announced: A beauty pageant—what for? Only to follow the footsteps of the rest of the world? Not necessarily. We have two aims: first, to live like all the others. And second, to combine with it a publicity campaign for the protection of the beauty, vitality, and charm of the Israeli woman. It is known that our tropical climate is no help for the beauty of the woman. On the contrary, it detracts her vitality and wears her out. … We want to convince you by this beauty competition, which our newspaper plans to hold every year, that in our land [beauty] care is necessary from a young age on. 73 What Laisha introduced in Israel in 1950 had its beginning in many other countries a few decades earlier. The election of national Beauty Queens is a Western “product” that found imitators all over the world. At the beginning of the twentieth century, picture competitions in American newspapers were very popular. 74 In 1907, a Japanese newspaper copied the idea and elected the most beautiful girl of Japan.

75 The first known live competitions took place in France and America—in 1921, the first Miss America was elected in Atlantic City. 76 The rest of the European and some non-Western countries followed soon after. 77 Sarah Banet-Weiser explains the appearance of these beauty contests by two parallel developments. On one side, commercial culture found its acceptance amongst the middle class at the beginning of the twentieth century. Thereby, the combination [End Page 38] of women’s bodies and advertisement for fashion and cosmetics was successfully employed. On the other side, women increasingly became part of public life through their successful struggle for suffrage and more liberal employment options (such as dancers and models). These two processes connected in the creation of beauty pageants. 78 During the following decades beauty pageants became legitimate public events and reached their “golden years” 79 after WW II, both nationally and internationally: since 1951, the Miss World competition has been held in London, and since 1952, the Miss Universe competition has been held in America. The competitions were watched by millions of people on television.

80 Beauty pageants can be seen as a phenomenon that takes place around the world and simultaneously “showcase[s] values, concepts, and behavior that exist at the center of a group’s sense of itself.” 81 They have universal and local significance at the same time. The organizers at Laisha were very eager to elect their own national representative and take part in this international venture. On 17 May 1950, they specified their aims again: But there is another aim [for the introduction of the beauty pageant]: to glorify the name of Israel by beauty amongst other nations. As a state, in this sense we are behind other states, which use the woman as a national strength, which sometimes bears more power than diplomats have. 82 The contest in Israel had a precedent during the pre-state period: the election of Queen Esther during Purim celebrations in Tel-Aviv. But as scholars have pointed out, the Queen Esther competition did not create a beauty ideal for women, and the new event after the foundation of the state was very different in scope and exclusiveness. Further, the Malkat Hayofi competition was not attached to another event but was an event on its own.

83 The female beauty ideals, which Laisha promoted, were a continuation and reinforcement of bourgeois culture, which also found its expression in many advertisements. The presented women therein “excelled in tall and thin figures, in upright posture, and plentiful and trimmed hair. … The face of the young beautiful woman was supposed to be oval, with thin eyebrows, long eyelashes, and a small mouth.” 84 Often actresses were shown, who had the right athletic, well-formed body but with round curves. 85 These ideals stood for elegance, cleanliness, and for “keeping up appearances”. 86 As in other countries, the beauty competitions gained wide attention in the Israeli public, especially in the magazine Laisha itself. The [End Page 39] election announcement, presentation of the candidates, voting, the final evening ball—and then the national and international journeys of the elected Beauty Queen filled the pages of Laisha all year long. It began as the application form for the candidates was printed more than half a year in advance. 87 Soon after that, photographs of each candidate were printed every week. 88 The tension reached its climax with the coronation ceremony, which Laisha described in great detail and with many pictures.

89 Articles followed with background information about the winner and her experiences on her journeys abroad. 90 The number of beauty contests in Israel increased as well. Other titles were inter alia: Malkat Hakolnoa, Malkat Hayain, Malkat Hamaim (run by Haolam Hazeh), Malkat Hakhofim, and Malkat Hamalkot (run by Olam Haisha). 91 But Laisha always elected the official Miss Israel, who also took part in the Miss Universe and Miss World competitions from 1952 on. 92 The focal point of the competition was the female body. The selection of the final candidates centered on the question of perfect body sizes and proportions. A first selection committee, consisting of doctors, artists, and sport coaches, chose the finalists after two presentation rounds, first in dresses, then in swimsuits. Dr. Etia Grinberg-Berger reported the following after having examined the girls: My overall impression was that the participants have nice, harmonic bodies and enjoy good health. But I noticed quite often, that those with the more harmonic and healthier body structure, were actually children of our country. Really, from the candidates which I saw, they had the most perfect body.

93 Dr. Grinberg-Berger stated hereby that the more beautiful girls—body wise—were local girls. In her opinion, they had the best proportionate, healthy, and harmonious bodies. She believed in the heightened awareness of body culture by living in Eretz Israel. This belief is also known by the many works written about the Zionist masculinity—about the ideal of the “New Jew”. In this case, the beautiful female body represents the transformation of body and soul through living on the land. By following the beauty contest, more connections to the “Sabra culture” 94 of that period can be found, but this time, transformed to suit the beautiful female body. Besides the idealization of the beautiful bodies of native candidates, there can be compared the adoration of youth, athletic military training, or “Hebraizing” name changes. 95 All the candidates were young in age (between 17 and 25 years old); most of them were school graduates and active in some kind of outdoor physical training. 96 [End Page 40] Young female soldiers especially were welcomed to take part.

In 1953, Havatzelet Dror, who was at the end of her military duty, was crowned Israel’s Beauty Queen. 97 Another important feature of the beauty competition and a common phenomenon in immigration societies were new, modified names for the winners, which pronounced their Hebrew identity. Michal Harrison, Israel’s Beauty Queen 1951, did not only win the crown but a new name as well. Immediately after her coronation, she was asked to change her name to Harel (meaning “mountain of God”). She happily consented. 98 So did others: Ora Gamily became Ora Vered (rose) in 1952 and Havatzelet Drilman was named Dror (sparrow). 99 Further, most of the winners had an Ashkenazic (European)—opposed to a Mizrahi (Eastern)—family background, but there were exceptions to the rule. Ora Vered was a daughter of a Yemenite family. Yemenite Jews were seen as the original biblical Jews and inspired Zionist imagination.

Vered’s victory continued the tradition to admire Yemenite women for their authenticity and their exotic beauty; that is, suntanned complexion, black hair, and “fair appearance”. 100 She represented Israel’s position between West and East, rejection and attraction of the East. 101 She also inspired the pageant organizers to produce a costume with Yemenite embroidery as the Beauty Queen’s national dress. 102 Still, the beautiful female body primarily symbolized a Western orientation. The winner of the first competition in 1950 was German-born Miriam Yaron, a nurse from Jerusalem. As Israel’s first beauty symbol, she did not represent her individual beauty, but the beauty of her nation. The contest established the idea of female physical beauty as national value. 103 During the election process an ideal image of Israeli femininity was constructed, which was used as an example for other Israeli women. Laisha wrote proudly: She is a dark-haired beauty, tall, with an affectionate smile, and big, striking eyes. She has a wonderful, outstanding body of the “Sabra” type.

You are surely interested in her sizes: height—1,64 m; weight—53 kg; neck girth—31,5 cm; chest girth—86 cm; girth—68 cm; hip size—93 cm; thigh girth—53 cm; leg girth—32,5 cm; ankle girth—22,5 cm. These are the ideal sizes, fitting to the beauty sizes of the world. 104 Laisha also made it very clear that her “beauty sizes” represented those of other beauties in the world. Three representatives of international beauty examples were present at the coronation of the Israeli Beauty Queen: Miss Switzerland, Miss Lyon, and Miss France, Juliette Figueras, who also held the title of Miss Europe. They visited Israel shortly before the event and [End Page 41] Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 2. A Selection Committee Chose the Finalists, Laisha, 14 June 1950. The caption at the bottom reads: ‘The artist Asia Woolf measures one of the beauty contest contestants. Why the mask on her face?

We drew it on so as not to influence public opinion.” Courtesy of the Weekly Laisha [End Page 42] The First Miss Israel Beauty Contest—Miriam Yaron (Center), front page, Laisha, 9 August 1950. Courtesy of the Weekly Laisha [End Page 43] found enthusiastic attention in Israeli media. 105 Figueras and her female companions staged a fashion parade at the coronation ball, presenting the latest fashion from Paris. Finally, none other than Miss Europe herself crowned Miriam Yaron and symbolically welcomed her to the family of Beauty Queens. 106 The beauty pageant offered the possibility to become part of the Western world by adapting to Western beauty ideals. Simultaneously, the national Beauty Queen served as a symbol of Israeli pride on the international scene. The expectations placed on the elected Beauty Queen were very high. Shortly after the coronation Laisha published an article, entitled “The Beauty in the Service of the State of Israel”. 107 The author, Nirah Segel, discussed the multiple ways Miss Israel could be of help to her young state in exporting fashion, negotiating at the United Jewish Appeal in America, or just giving her country a beautiful and charming face abroad.

Miriam Yaron’s prize as the winner was a journey abroad; she first traveled to France and England then to the United States. Every step of her journey was accompanied with a series of pictures and articles. In London, Miriam Yaron attended receptions, balls, met the mayor of London, other politicians, and representatives of Jewish organizations, and gave an interview at the BBC. 108 In the United States, she helped to distribute state bonds. 109 Each time, she reported on the developments in the young State of Israel to an interested audience and simultaneously represented Israeli beauty in its most charming way. Laisha summarized her trip with the words, that “her mission had no minor value—in some respects even major value, like a famous personality of a state.” 110 Traveling abroad and staying in exclusive hotels was a very attractive prize at that time, which many other Israeli women only dreamed of. 111 Her appearances in glamorous dresses at events where she formed the center of attention sounded like a fairytale. 112 In contrast, life in Israel was controlled by a strict austerity regime, which also included clothing and shoes.

113 The international presence of beautiful Israeli women increased further when Laisha started to send their national winners to international competitions. Ora Vered was the first Israeli representative at Miss Universe in Long Beach, California, and took part in a large parade through the city. 114 Some beauty pageant participants, such as Gila Golan, the first runner-up in 1960, used their one-year of regency and public exposition to start an acting career in Hollywood. 115 Laisha consciously circulated the dream of potential fame and an independent career for women. The stories about the Beauty Queens’ journeys offered the possibility of an escape from the difficult reality in Israel. The commercial women’s magazine also offered answers to the [End Page 44] Click for larger view Figure 4. Ora Vered at the Miss Universe parade in Long Beach, USA, front page, Laisha 9 July 1952. Courtesy of the Weekly Laisha [End Page 45] unfulfilled desires of Israeli women. Advertisements of beauty products and fashion promised women that they could become like their beauty ideal.

Taya, an Israeli cosmetics producer, was one of the longest partners of Laisha and provided its beauty products to all the candidates. 116 The goal of the competition in Israel, to adapt to Western standards and take part in its culture, strengthened the process of individualization, Americanization, and commercialization of the female body, but also the possibility to represent its own national standards and values. During the critical time after the foundation of the state, the Israeli beauty pageant served as a symbol of national unity as well as a role model for a better, more glamorous life. CONCLUSION In reality, the women’s role in Israel focused on housework in the 1950s and 1960s (with a few notable exceptions: Golda Meir served as minister of labor and foreign minister. In 1969, she became Israel’s prime minister). This was the outcome of a policy that based itself on a strong family foundation (through a high birth rate, military strength, and the axiom of being a Jewish state). 117 Women who worked outside their own houses did so in traditional female professions: as teachers, nurses, and secretaries.

118 Neither the ideal of the Halutzah nor the ideal of the Beauty Queen were realized by a large number of Israeli women—rather, the contrary was true. However, the realization is not the whole purpose of ideal gender roles, but rather, the creation of a vision for the past and future. The adoration of the Halutzot clearly fits the national necessity of creating a heroic past of the first Zionist Labor pioneers. The new image of the Beauty Queen contradicts this Labor ideal in some ways: the propagation of commercial beauty care, the admiration of luxurious dresses, or exciting journeys abroad. But, on the other hand, there are similarities. The importance of body culture is a relevant element of both images. Furthermore, the aim of creating, unifying, and representing Israeli society was the source of both role models. These ideals existed side by side to offer women (and men) a vision of female participation in the Israeli national enterprise.

[End Page 46] Julie Grimmeisen JULIE GRIMMEISEN has recently submitted her doctoral dissertation to the Department for Jewish History and Culture at Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich, on “Pioneers and Beauty Queens: National Female Role Models in Early Israeli Society, 1948 to 1967”. She is author of “Günter Grass’ First Visit to Israel,” Münchner Beiträge zur Jüdischen Geschichte und Kultur 1 (2009). N 85. Ibid., 139. 86. Oz Almog, “From Blorit to Ponytail: Israeli Culture Reflected in Popular Hairstyles,” Israel Studies 8.2 (2003): 92. 87. Laisha, “Laisha Announces the Competition for the Election of Israel’s Beauty Queen 1950,” 28 December 1949. 88. In 1950, the presentation of the candidates lasted from January to May. 89. Laisha, “That Way Miss Israel of 1950 Was Elected,” 2 August 1950.

90. Laisha, “The Life of Miriam Yaron, Israel’s Beauty Queen,” photo report, 23 August 1950; “Miriam Yaron, Israel’s Beauty Queen, Left for France and England on an Airplane of ‘Air France’,” 13 December 1950. 91. Translation: Cinema Queen, Wine Queen, Water Queen, Beach Queen, and Queen of the Queens. See Helman, Fashioning a Young State, 140; Haolam Hazeh, “Water Queen,” 3 September 1958; Haisha, “Emi Gabai Was Crowned [End Page 50] ‘Beach Queen 1960’,” 18 September 1960; “That Way the ‘Queen of the Queens’ Was Crowned,” 28 May 1961. 92. Laisha, “Israel’s Beauty Queen Will Participate in the Competition ‘Miss Universe’ in Hollywood,” 16 January 1952. 93.

Laisha, “The Members of the Selection Committee, Who Chose the 20 Finalists, Express their Opinion,” 14 June 1950. 94. The generation of Jews born in the Land of Israel who strongly influenced the cultural development of Israeli society since the 1930s. Especially after the War of Independence, fighters of the Palmach units became national heroes. See Almog, The Sabra. 95. Ibid., 80–1, 91–5. 96. Ilana Messinger, a candidate in 1957, was described as follows: “Graduate of a secondary school, sport’s coach, plentiful Sabra-charm, suntanned skin, brown eyes and hair, small nose, sensual mouth.” See Laisha, “That Way Miss Israel of 1957 Was Elected,” 11 June 1957. 97. Laisha, “Yesterday Female Soldier—Today ‘Queen’!” 5 August 1953. 98. Michal Harel wrote a book about her experiences as Israel’s Beauty Queen, which Laisha partly published. Therein, she described the incident in detail.

See Laisha, “The Diary of the Beauty Queen,” 29 July 1953. 99. Laisha, “Ora Vered Tells Her Experiences,” 4 June 1952; “Talk with Havatzelet Dror,” 29 July 1953. 100. Laisha, “Members of the Selection Committee Express Their Opinion,” 14 June 1950. On the custom to elect Yemenite girls as Queen Esther on Purim see Bat-Sheva Margalit-Stern, “Who’s the Fairest of Them All? Women, Womanhood, and Ethnicity in Zionist Eretz Israel,” Nashim 11 (Spring 2006): 142–63. 101. Ella Shohat, Israeli Cinema. East/West and the Politics of Representation (London and New York, 2010), 89–92. 102. Laisha, “I Will Return to Serve in the Army!” 18 June 1952; Helman, Coat of Many Colors, 110–11. 103.

Helman, Fashioning a Young State, 141–2. 104. Laisha, “That Way Miss Israel of 1950 Was Elected,” 2 August 1950. 105. Ha’aretz, “‘Miss Europe’ Came to Israel”; Yediot Ahronot, “Three Beauty Queens Came to Israel” [Hebrew]; Jerusalem Post, “Beauties Upset Airport Routine,” 30 July 1950. 106. “She [Miss Europe] put the crown on her [Miss Israel’s] head and kissed her.” See Laisha, “That Way Miss Israel of 1950 Was Elected,” 2 August, 1950. 107. Laisha, “The Beauty in the Service of the State of Israel,” 9 August 1950. 108. Laisha, “The Voyages of the Beauty Queen,” 3 January; “Israel’s Beauty Queen Broadcasts During the Hebrew Hour of BBC,” 17 January 1951. 109.

Laisha, “The Beauty Queen of Israel During Her Work of Distributing State Bonds in the US,” 6 June 1951. 110. Laisha, “The Travel Album of Miss Israel: The City Councils of Westminster and London, and the Studio of BBC,” 2 February 1951.. [End Page 51] 111. Helman, Fashioning a Young State, 140. 112. Laisha, “The Beauty Queen Was Received With a Lot of Splendor in England,” 3 January 1951. 113. Women protested against the austerity regime in buying the restricted commodities on the black market. See Orit Rozin, The Rise of the Individual in 1950s Israel: A Challenge to Collectivism (Waltham, MA, 2011), 7–26. 114. Laisha, “Ora Vered at the Miss Universe Parade in Long Beach, USA,” 9 July 1952. 115. Laisha, “The Cinema Discovered Gila,” 13 April 1965. 116.

Laisha published long lists of the gifts, which the Beauty Queen and the other candidates received. See: Laisha, “Every Beauty Queen Wanted to Travel to Israel,” 26 July 1950. 117. Nitza Berkovitch, “Motherhood as a National Mission: The Construction of Womanhood in the Legal Discourse in Israel,” Women’s Studies International Forum, 20:5–6 (1997): 605–19. 118. Almog, “Halutzah, Sabarit, Housewife, Yuppie,” 24. [End Page 52] Copyright © 2015 Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and Ben-Gurion Research Institute for the Study of Israel and Zionism

Question: In 2015 what global contest ruled against the use of swimsuits for its 114 competitors, for the first time since 1951 inception?
Answer: Miss World