Artigo Revisado por pares

Motherhood and nation: The voice of women artists in Israel's bereavement and memorial discourse

2012; Routledge; Volume: 31; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/13531042.2012.710774

ISSN

1744-0548

Autores

Yael Guilat,

Tópico(s)

Gender, Security, and Conflict

Resumo

Abstract This article offers an interpretive reading of current works of art by women that indicate the paradoxical place of the woman artist as a mother in the cycle of militarism and attitudes toward the discourse of bereavement and commemoration. My hypothesis is that the arts herald or anticipate the trauma by seeking to express something that may be called "pre- and counter-commemoration." This interpretation of these artists' stance expands on insights arising from the notion of "counter-memory" to discuss a paradoxical form of commemoration that refuses to acquiesce in the cycle of militarism and memorialization. The article offers an integrated examination of theory and practices in the historical context of motherhood and nationalism and, specifically, of women artists in Israel in recent decades in the "discourse of bereavement" as opposed to the "discourse of the bereaved." Keywords: motherhoodnationalismmilitarismwomen artistscounter-memorybereavementcommemorationcollective memory Acknowledgment This article originally appeared in Hebrew in Israel, nos. 18–19 (2011): 237–67. I am grateful to the artists for their permission to reproduce the photographs of their works in this article. Notes 1 Metzer Metzer, Sara. 2009. "Kolan ha-shotek shel imahot le-hayalim kraviyim". In Imahut: Mabat meha-psikho'analizah umi-makom aher, (Motherhood: Psychoanalysis and other disciplines) Edited by: Perroni, Emilia. 257–69. Jerusalem and Tel Aviv: Van Leer Jerusalem Institute and Hakibbutz Hameuchad. (The silent voice of the combat soldiers' mothers) [Google Scholar], "Kolan ha-shotek," 257. 2 See Hays Hays, Sharon. 1996. The Cultural Contradictions of Motherhood, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. [Google Scholar], The Cultural Contradictions of Motherhood; Yuval-Davis Yuval-Davis, Nira. 1997. Gender and Nation, London: Sage. [Google Scholar], Gender and Nation. 3 Naveh Naveh, Hannah. 1993. Be-shevi ha-evel: Ha-evel bi-re'i ha-sifrut ha-ivrit ha-hadashah, (Captives of mourning: Perspectives of mourning in Hebrew literature) Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad. [Google Scholar], Be-shevi ha-evel. 4 Shalom Seri, head of the Soldiers Commemoration Division at the Israel Ministry of Defense at the relevant time, describes in detail how the change also affected parents who had lost offspring in previous wars. He defined the state's relations with bereaved families as having crossed a "watershed" in terms of commemoration. Shalom Seri, interview, Ramat Aviv, 7 August 2010. 5 Katz Katz, Yossi. 2007. Lev ve-even: Sipurah shel ha-matzevah ha-tzva'it be-Yisrael, 1948–2006, (Heart and stone: The story of the military tombstone in Israel, 1948–2006) Tel Aviv: Ministry of Defense. [Google Scholar], Lev ve-even; Guilat and Waksman, "Ha-matzevah ha-tzva'it," 12. 6 See Almog Almog, Oz. 1991. Andartot le-halalei milhamah be-Yisrael. Megamot, 34(2): 179–210. (Memorials to fallen soldiers in the Israeli Wars: A semiotic analysis) [Google Scholar], "Andartot ve-halalei milhamah"; Levinger Levinger, Esther. 1995. Women and War Memorials in Israel. Woman's Art Journal, 15(1): 40–6. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar], "Women and War Memorials in Israel"; Baumel-Schwartz Baumel-Schwartz, Judith. 2008. Hantzhahat nashim. Ariel, : 66–79. (Women's military monuments) [Google Scholar], "Hantzahat nashim"; Ofrat Ofrat, Gideon. 2009. "Dmut ha-em ba-omanut ha-yisre'elit". In Imahut: Mabat meha-psikho'analizah umi-makom aher, (Motherhood: Psychoanalysis and other disciplines) Edited by: Perroni, Emilia. 152–64. Jerusalem and Tel Aviv: Van Leer Jerusalem Institute and Hakibbutz Hameuchad. (The image of the mother in Israeli art) [Google Scholar], "Dmut ha-em," 152. 7 Michel Foucault Foucault, Michel. 1977. Language, Counter Memory and Practice New York [Google Scholar] emphasizes the subversive elements of counter-memory in the matrix of power relations between the hegemonic historical narrative and that of disempowered groups. See Foucault, Language, Counter Memory and Practice, 209. In our context, the position of motherhood in the Israeli militaristic public arena is perceived as weak or marginal. For discussion of counter-memory, see also Zerubavel Zerubavel, Yael. 1994. Recovered Roots: Collective Memory and the Making of Israeli National Tradition, Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. [Google Scholar], Recovered Roots, 9–10. 8 Young Young, James. 1999. Memory and Counter Memory. Harvard Design Magazine, 9: 1–10. [Google Scholar], "Memory and Counter Memory." 9 Grossman Grossman, David. 2008. Ishah borahat mi-bsorah, (To the End of the Land) Bnei Brak: Hasifria Hachadasha-Hakibbutz Hameuchad. 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M.A. thesis, Tel Aviv University 1997 [Google Scholar], "Militarizm o antimilitarizm?" 14 See Tenenbaum Tenenbaum, Ilana, ed. 2008. Check-Post: Shnot ha-shmonim ba-omanut be-Yisrael, (Check-Post: Art in Israel in the 1980s) Haifa: Haifa Museum of Art. [Google Scholar], ed., Check-Post. 15 Gertz Gertz, Nurit. 1993. Sipur meha-sratim: Siporet yisre'elit ve-ibudeha la-kolno'a, (Motion fiction: Literature and cinema) Tel Aviv: Open University. [Google Scholar], Sipur meha-sratim; Shohat Shohat, Ella. 1989. Israeli Cinema: East/West and the Politics of Representation, Austin: University of Texas Press. [Google Scholar], Israeli Cinema. 16 Yael Zerubavel, for example, describes the diachronic progression of cultural representations in various fields on the theme of patriotic sacrifice, one that projects onto the ways in which bereavement, memory, and memorialization are addressed. She dwells, among other things, on changes in recent decades in authors' perception of the motive of sacrifice and the advent of women's activism in the bereavement discourse. Zerubavel Zerubavel, Yael. 2004. "Krav, hakravah, korban: Hemshekhiyut ve-shinui bi-tefisat ha-gevurah ha-patriotit be-Yisrael". In Patriotizm: Ohavim otakh moledet, (Patriotism: Homeland, we love you) Edited by: Ben-Amos, Avner and Bar-Tal, Daniel. 61–98. Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad and Dyonon. (Battle, sacrifice, and martyrdom: Continuity and change in the conception of patriotic sacrifice in Israeli culture) [Google Scholar], "Krav, hakravah, korban." 17 De Beauvoir de Beauvoir, Simone. 1984. The Second Sex, Trans. H.M. Parshley. 1949 New York: Vintage Books. [Google Scholar], The Second Sex. 18 Safran Safran, Hannah. "Ha-kesher ha-amerikani: Hashpa'ato shel ha-feminizm ha-amerikani al ha-tnua'ah li-zkhut ha-behirah le-nashim ba-yishuv ha-yehudi ve-al ha-tnu'ah le-shivyon ha-nashim be-Yisrael" (The American connection: The influence of American feminism on the struggle for women's suffrage in the Yishuv [1919–1926], and women's equality in Israel [1971–1982]). Ph.D. diss., University of Haifa 2001 [Google Scholar], "Ha-kesher ha-amerikani." 19 Butler argues that gender should be understood as a relation among socially constituted subjects in specifiable contexts. In other words, rather than being a fixed attribute in a person, gender should be seen as a fluid variable that shifts and changes in different contexts and at different times. She states that "There is no gender identity behind the expressions of gender… identity is performatively constituted by the very 'expressions' that are said to be its results." See Butler Butler, Judith. 1990. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, New York: Routledge. [Google Scholar], Gender Trouble, 25, 33. See also Ziv Ziv, Amalia. 2007. "Tzarot shel migdar: Judy Butler". In Drakhim le-hashivah feministit: Mavo le-limudei migdar, (Venues of feminist thinking: An introduction to Gender Studies) Edited by: Yanai, Nitza. 619–63. Raanana: Open University. (Gender trouble: Judy Butler) [Google Scholar], "Tzarot shel migdar." 20 On women's writing and the art discourse, see Guilat Guilat, Yael. 2006. 'Eifoh hayiten u-mah asiten?' Ha-siah ha-migdari ba-omanut be-reshit shnot ha-tishim u-mekomo be-vikoret ha-omanut be-iton Ha-aretz. Israel, : 199–225. (Where were you when it happened? On women's art, gender discourse, and art criticism in Ha'aretz during the 1990s [Google Scholar], "Eifoh hayiten?" 21 Kristeva Kristeva, Julia. 1980. Desire in Language: A Semiotic Approach to Literature and Art, New York: Columbia University Press. [Google Scholar], Desire in Language, 135. 22 See Barthes Barthes, Roland. 1985. The Grain of the Voice: Interviews 1962–1980, London: Jonathan Cape. [Google Scholar], The Grain of the Voice. 23 By insisting that the maternal body acts in the space that lies between nature and culture, Kristeva tries to counteract stereotypes that reduce maternity to nature. Even if the mother is neither the subject nor an agent of her pregnancy and giving birth, she never ceases to be primarily a speaking subject. In fact, Kristeva uses the maternal body with its two-in-one, or other within, as a model for all subjective relations. Like the maternal body, each of us is what she calls a subject in process. As such, we are always negotiating with the other within, i.e., the return of the repressed. Like the maternal body, we are never completely the subjects of our own experience. Some feminists have found Kristeva's notion of a subject in process a useful alternative to traditional notions of an autonomous unified (masculine) subject. Kristeva Kristeva, Julia. 1989. Black Sun: Depression and Melancholia, Trans. Leon S. Roudiez New York: Columbia University Press. [Google Scholar] also discusses the theme of the dynamic encounter between writing and melancholia in her seminal book Black Sun. The explicit relation between the two – Kristeva opposes the "artistic" or "writing" cure for melancholia – serves as a basis for my assumption about the psychological function of the women artist's mechanism of "anticipation" of the potential trauma through its visual symbolical representation. 24 Ziv, "Tzarot shel migdar," 639. 25 Anat Palgi-Hecker Palgi-Hecker, Anat. 2005. Me-i-mahut le-imahut, (Mother in psychoanalysis: A feminist view) Tel Aviv: Am Oved. [Google Scholar], Me-i-mahut le-imahut; and Emilia Perroni Perroni, Emilia, ed. 2009. 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Ahayot, lohamot ve-imahot: Etos u-metzi'ut be-mivhan bnot dor 1948. Iyunim Bitkumat Yisrael, 10: 353–80. (Sisters, fighters and mothers: Ethos and reality in the 1948 generation) [Google Scholar], "Ahayot, lohamot ve-imahot." 39 For millennia, Western culture has had traditions of allegorical winged figures for victory: starting with Nike, the Greek goddess of victory, and her manifestation in Roman art (Victoria), and up to the early twentieth century. In the arch of Septimus Severus, for example (203–204 CE), two Victorias clutching wreathes and palm fronds appear. The combination of the fronds, representing victory, and the wreaths, representing remembrance, was adopted in monuments to soldiers who fell in World War I, and the winged-victory allegory was common at memorial sites in Europe and United States. See Borg Borg, Alan. 1991. War Memorials from Antiquity to the Present, London: Leo Cooper. [Google Scholar], War Memorials from Antiquity to the Present. 40 The nation-as-mother allegory in its metamorphosis of motifs is common in the classic arts, e.g., in war goddesses and cities' patron saints. The European national movements of Romantic cultural origins embraced these models and their attributes, merged them with local national mythology, and thereby produced personifications of modern nations in woman-emblems such as Marianne in France and similar ones in Germany, Britain, and elsewhere. Gideon Ofrat notes: "This tradition of the nation-image in the neoclassical mythologization of the 'mother-country,' the 'homeland,' or 'Zion' did not weaken its grip in the early Zionist design." See Ofrat Ofrat, Gideon. 2004. "Heyi li em ve-ahot". In idem, Be-heksher mekomi, (In local context) Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad. (Be a mother and a sister unto me) [Google Scholar], "Heyi li em ve-ahot," 112. The Motherland Calls, the Soviet sculptor Yevgeny Vuchetich's colossal (85 m.) statue, erected in 1960 as a monument to those who fell in World War II at Volgograd, is another archetype of the Great Mother in classical garb. See Neumann Neumann, Eric. 1955. The Great Mother: An Analysis of the Archetype, Trans. Ralph Manheim New York: Pantheon Books. [Google Scholar], The Great Mother. 41 Baruch Baruch, Adam. 1988. "Tzirufim". In Omanut ha-pisul be-Yisrael: Hipus zehut, (Sculpture in Israel: A quest for identity) (exhibition catalogue) Edited by: Amos, Kenan. Tefen: The Open Museum, Tefen Industrial Park. (Combinations) [Google Scholar], "Tzirufim," 7. 42 An example of an exception is the young mother-figure in the design of Hannah Orloff (1888–1968) at a monument built at Kibbutz Ein Gev (1952) to a woman combat soldier, a mother who fell there. As for the metamorphoses of the biblical nation-image, see Ofrat Ofrat, Gideon. 1991. Ganim tluyim (The hanging gardens), Jerusalem: Omanut Israel. [Google Scholar], Ganim tluyim, 64–70. 43 See Levinger, Andarta'ot la-noflim, 30. 44 "The Name-of-the-Father" (in French Nom du père) is a concept that Jacques Lacan developed in his seminal psychoanalytic oeuvre. In terms of Lacan's three orders, the "language of the father" refers not to the real father, nor to the imaginary father (the paternal imago), but to the symbolic father. See Friedman, "Imahut bi-re'i ha-te'oriyah." 45 See Perroni, "Introduction," 15. 46 Baumel-Schwartz argues that the characteristics of women in the memorials for the fallen correspond to the role of women in the war but stand in categorical contrast to the mythical image of the era of gender equality. See Baumel-Schwartz, "Hantzahat nashim," 68; and Levinger, Andarta'ot la-noflim, 76. 47 The concept of "resistance" is crucial in the philosophy of Boris Groys Groys, Boris. 2008. Art Power, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar], who asks rhetorically, "Does art hold any power of its own, or is it only able to decorate external powers – whether these are powers of oppression or liberation?" He answers his question in the affirmative: "Art does have an autonomous power of resistance" (Art Power, 13). The struggle for inclusion is possible only as a resistance to the exclusion of aesthetical censorship values from the inside of the field. 48 Levinger, "Women and War Memorials," 41. The monument is depicted at http://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%9B%D7%A4%D7%A8_%D7%99%D7%94%D7%95%D7%A9%D7%A2 (accessed 21 June 2012). 49 See Malkinson, Rubin, and Witztum Malkinson, Ruth, Shimshon, Rubin and Eliezer, Witztum, eds. 1993. Ovdan ve-shkhol ba-hevrah ha-yisre'elit, (Loss and bereavement in Israeli society) Jerusalem and Tel Aviv: Kana and Ministry of Defense. 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("Present but absent," "still life," and "a pretty maiden who has no eyes": On the presence and absence of women in the Hebrew language, Jewish religion, and Israeli life) [Google Scholar], "'Nokhahot nifkadot.'" 55 In recent years, the art establishment has developed an appreciation for her work. In 2010, Eshel Gershuni won the Ministry of Culture's prize for lifetime achievement. 56 Ofrat, "Dmut ha-em," 52. 57 For more about these exhibitions, see Guilat, "Eifoh hayiten?" 58 Ofrat, "Dmut ha-em," 163. 59 Only in 1995, after petitions by bereaved families, did the High Court of Justice authorize inscriptions that conveyed personal messages on graves in military cemeteries. From the second half of the 1990s onward, legislative processes addressed the issue of personal inscriptions and were followed by a legislative amendment prohibiting political expressions, symbols, pictures, etc. The authorized "personal" plaque places the inscription at the bottom of the stone; the personal inscription consists of a sentence no more than two rows long. See Katz, Lev ve-even, 241. Batya Gur's Gur, Batya. 1998. Even tahat even, (Stone for stone) Jerusalem: Keter. [Google Scholar] novel, Even tahat even, is based on the tragic case of Shula Melet. 60 Psychological and psychiatric scholarship depicts the mourning process as a sequence composed of several steps. After the initial exposure to the loss, the process moves to the gradual restructuring of a life-world without the dead. Obviously, this model leaves much room for personal variability. As studies in Israel show, the mourning process of bereaved parents never really ends; instead, it becomes a basic given in their lives (Witztum, Nefesh, evel ve-shkhol, 68). As an indication of an important aspect of Israel's civil religion, the commemorative cult of dead soldiers is expected to assuage personal bereavement by investing the loss with existential significance at the socio-national level. For many of the bereaved, however, becoming "living memorials" means a painful dissociation between public self-presentation, typified by endurance and self-restraint, and the anguish felt in the private realms of the self. In many cases, the split between the prescribed heroic role and the private suffering exacerbates the sense of loss. See Bilu and Witztum Bilu, Yoram and Witztum, Eliezer. Fall 2000. War-Related Loss and Suffering in Israeli Society: An Historical Perspective. Israel Studies, 5(2): 1–31. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar], "War-Related Loss and Suffering." 61 See Pershing and Bellinger Pershing, Linda and Bellinger, Nishelle. 2010. From Sorrow to Activism: A Father's Memorial to His Son Alexander Arredondo, Killed in the U.S. Occupation of Iraq. Journal of American Folklore, 123(488): 179–217. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], "From Sorrow to Activism"; Grider Grider, Nicholas. 2007. 'Faces of the Fallen' and the Dematerialization of US War Memorials. Visual Communication, 6(3): 265–79. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar], '"Faces of the Fallen.'" 62 Other groups in Israeli public life, including Women in Green, act from a position of motherhood but assent to their role in the national discourse as soldiers' mothers and the "nation's womb." Although they do not accept government policy, they do not direct their protest at canonical national outlooks including memorialization, i.e., they do not oppose memorialization per se in the sense of counter-memorial. For example, their memorialization takes on obvious political features when they name illegal outposts in the West Bank for fallen soldiers. In a report posted on the Religious-Zionist Channel 7 website headlined "To Return to Joseph's Tomb in Broad Daylight," the Women in Green expressed support for everything that Garin Shechem (the Nablus core settlement group) had done – actions that had led to the death of one of the worshipers who had entered the tomb's compound without authorization – and accepted the price in blood as part of the struggle. See www.inn.co.il/News/News.aspx/218896 (accessed 25 June 2012). For the Women in Green, see www.womeningreen.org.il 63 See n. 19 above. 64 Wigoder Wigoder, Meir. 2000. "Lehabit be-hizakhrut: Tzilum andarta'ot ve-nof ha-zikaron". In Kol makom: Nof yisre'eli im andartah, (Everywhere: Landscape and memory in Israel) Edited by: Dominey, Drora and Lebee-Nadav, France. 11–17. Tel Aviv: Hargol. (Looking and remembering: Photography, monuments and memory landscape) [Google Scholar], Lehabit be-hizakhrut, 11–17. 65 On the nationalization of the landscape and its role, see, in regard to the construction of the Israeli art and visual culture, Dalia Manor Manor, Dalia. 2005. Art in Zion: The Genesis of Modern National Art in Jewish Palestine, London and New York: RoutledgeCurzon. [Google Scholar], "A View from Afar: Landscapes of the Homeland," in idem, Art in Zion, 113–33. See also Guilat Guilat, Yael. 2011. Mapot-nofiyot ve-she'elat ha-teritoriyah: Diyun be-yetziroteihem shel amanim akshaviyim yehudim u-falastinim be-Yisrael. Dvarim—Academic Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies, 3: 70–81. (Mapping-landscape: Imagery of place and territory in the works of Jewish and Palestinian artists in Israel in recent decades) [Google Scholar], "'Mapot-nofiyot'." 66 Naveh, "Al ha-ovdan," 106. 67 Mann-Shalvi Mann-Shalvi, Hanni. "Hashpa'at ha-yedi'ah she-banim be-Yisrael mitgayesim la-tzava al tahalikhim muda'im veshe-einam muda'im ha-ovrim al ha-horim meha-ultrasound la-giyus" (From ultrasound to the draft: The impact of the knowledge that boys in Israel are drafted at age eighteen on the conscious and unconscious emotional attitudes and relatedness of their parents). Ph.D. diss., University of Haifa 2005 [Google Scholar], "Hashpa'at ha-yedi'ah." Her underlying hypothesis is that for expectant young couples the knowledge that their fetus is male arouses substantial anxiety due to the expected future draft. The research, focusing on the intergenerational transmission of trauma, aims to explore the effects of this anxiety (conscious and unconscious) on the emotional attitude and object relations of parents toward their sons and the dynamics of their marital relationship at various stages of the sons' development. Mann-Shalvi points out that mothers hold fathers responsible and blame them in advance for the son's (potential) death during his military service. Fathers accept this responsibility but (occasionally) weakly protest the mothers' overprotective patterns of motherhood. These assumptions are reflected in the common themes of some women's works of art described here, as well as in the Binding of Isaac motif depicted in many art works by men. 68 Mann-Shalvi Mann-Shalvi, Hanni. "Hashpa'at ha-yedi'ah she-banim be-Yisrael mitgayesim la-tzava al tahalikhim muda'im veshe-einam muda'im ha-ovrim al ha-horim meha-ultrasound la-giyus" (From ultrasound to the draft: The impact of the knowledge that boys in Israel are drafted at age eighteen on the conscious and unconscious emotional attitudes and relatedness of their parents). Ph.D. diss., University of Haifa 2005 [Google Scholar], "Hashpa'at ha-yedi'ah." Her underlying hypothesis is that for expectant young couples the knowledge that their fetus is male arouses substantial anxiety due to the expected future draft. The research, focusing on the intergenerational transmission of trauma, aims to explore the effects of this anxiety (conscious and unconscious) on the emotional attitude and object relations of parents toward their sons and the dynamics of their marital relationship at various stages of the sons' development. Mann-Shalvi points out that mothers hold fathers responsible and blame them in advance for the son's (potential) death during his military service. Fathers accept this responsibility but (occasionally) weakly protest the mothers' overprotective patterns of motherhood. These assumptions are reflected in the common themes of some women's works of art described here, as well as in the Binding of Isaac motif depicted in many art works by men See also Sasson-Levy Sasson-Levy, Orna. 2006. Zehuyot be-madim: Gavriyut ve-nashiyut ba-tzava ha-yisre'eli, (Identities in uniform: Masculinities and femininities in the Israeli military) Jerusalem: Hebrew University Magnes Press. [Google Scholar], Zehuyot be-madim. 69 Ofrat, "Dmut ha-em," 157. 70 A sizable part of the Petah Tikva Yad Lebanim Museum collection consists of works that deal with this motif. See also Ofrat Ofrat, Gideon. 1988. Akedat Yitzhak ba-omanut ha-yisre'elit, (The sacrifice of Isaac in Israeli art) Ramat Gan: Ramat Gan Museum of Israeli Art. [Google Scholar], Akedat Yitzhak; Sperber Sperber, David. 2002. "Hofa'at Sarah be-stzenat ha-akedah ba-omanut ha-yisre'elit". In Akh be-vekhi ha-em yehi le-olamim, (But the weeping of the mother will be for evermore) Edited by: Sperber, David. 4–61.

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