Gender Related Questions in the Jewish War Novel by Tova Reich

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In her brilliant novel, The Jewish War Tova Reich relates the story of Jerry Goldberg, or as he later called himself Yehudi Hapoel. This man is a leader of Jewish zealots’ band and he aims to form a new independent Jewish state in the West Bank. During all the story development one of the most considerable issues Tova Reich discusses is a gender-related question. The author pays a lot of her attention to the revelation of the sad situation of women in Jewish society. Tova Reich depicts the life of Jerry Goldberg’s three wives: a conflicted divorcee, a Barnard-educated English literature scholar, and a mail-order swindler. In the following paper, I have my goal to observe the issue of uneasiness about the political, spiritual, and even material fate of the women in the Jewish settler community and the world of the ultra-Orthodox depicted in the Jewish War novel by Tova Reich. The events related in the novel vividly prove that women face serious bias and prejudice problems as to their political, spiritual, material, and family fate in Jewish society.

Women and their lots in life in Jewish society are often addressed by Tova Reich in her novel The Jewish War. The most remarkable and well-developed characters in The Jewish War are women and especially Yehudi’s wives. A lot of the main events of the novel are connected to women or exercised by them. The novel’s main protagonist Yehodi first marries Shelly Kugel.

Shelly Kugel is Yehodi’s sweetheart since childhood. She is the daughter of Hy Kugel, the owner of Catskills hotel and the well-respected rich man. She is a good wife raising children and primary doing all the work about the house including the most difficult one. Shelly gives all herself to her husband and family however she does not feel satisfaction and happiness in her marriage. This woman’s life is the embodiment of some of the most vivid gender problems in Jewish society.

Formidable Carmela Yovel becomes Yehudi’s second wife. “Carmella had become his true helpmeet, a formidable tigress, the zealous, passionate spokesperson for the movement” (Reich 103). Carmella is more like Yehudi’s business partner; she helps him with his works as to organizing protests and other projects related to creating a new Jewish country. However, she is of no help to Shelly, the first man’s wife. She hardly does any housework and is very rarely at home. She mostly spends her time with her husband protesting and sabotaging work. Whenever it comes to solving difficult problems arising in Yehudi’s political affairs Carmela comes to help. We read about her achievements any time the author speaks about Yehudi’s political activities. It is also remarkable that Carmella never figures out as a leader though she is to solve the very difficult problems, she is always an industrious and capable helper for her husband, but nothing more than this. Women cannot occupy principal positions in Jewish political affairs.

Eventually, Yehudi’s third wife is Malkie Seltzer, the passionate admirer of the novels of Collette and the very tender home-related person. Malkie Seltzer is a divorced woman, she has five children from her first marriage with Zelig Seltzer and she regularly visits them traveling to Jerusalem in secret. The woman is very beautiful and she is more loved by Yehudi than the other wives.

Although the author was raised in an Orthodox Jewish home and descended from a long line of Rabbis, The Jewish War exhibits uneasiness about the political, spiritual, and even material fate of the women in the Jewish settler community and the world of the ultra-Orthodox. This uneasiness is primarily connected to a sad lot of being a part of a polygenic marriage, doing a lot of hard and non-prestigious work about the house, and in general and limited opportunities in the areas of politics and business for women in the Jewish nation.

Let us consider each of these uneasy situations. First of all, speaking about a sad lot of being a part of polygamy marriage Shelly’s example comes to mind. Her situation depicts the very essence of the problem of polygamy. She understands she is not as beautiful as Malkie and Carmella and sees that she is not a beloved wife. Shelly compares herself to the first wife of Jacob the Hebrew patriarch whose story is told by the prophet Moses in the Bible book of Genesis: “I’ll be like Leah, the less beloved wife, the weak-eyed one from weeping, who does her share of childbearing but still gives her maid Ziphah to her husband, Jacob as a concubine. It’s so Old Testament” (Reich 104). This is what Shelly has to face in her marriage. She is unhappy and unsatisfied in this marriage. And it is no wonder as sharing something that is supposed to belong only to you by all the laws of common sense is a very sad fate. In addition, Creator who is considered to be the originator of the Hebrew nation as the descendants of hid faithful servant and “friend” man of faith called Abraham, marriage is supposed to be the union of only two people: “This is at last bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. This one will be called Woman because from man this one was taken. That is why a man will leave his father and his mother and he must stick to his wife and they must become one flesh “(Genesis 2:23, 24, New Jerusalem’s Bible). Here the first man Adam comments on the conception of a marriage developed by the human Creator: marriage is a union of one man and one woman.

As far as I am concerned it is highly inappropriate to be a part of a polygamy marriage for both the man and his woman. They all will suffer certain difficulties: the women will have the constant completion forth approval of their husband thus creating serious tension and the man will be affected by the negative atmosphere of this tension and the constant spirit of bitterness in the house. Children will also suffer: the children of a more loved wife will be more valued by the father thus causing the unhappiness of all the other wives’ children. So the situation with the allowance of polygamy is sad in Jewish society to my mind. I believe a worse situation only exists in the Arab Muslim world. Their rules and principles on polygamy marriages are even more cruel and unjust than for women.

The other prejudice regarding the matter of polygamy marriage is that they are only allowed for men. A man can always add another wife whenever he wishes to do so (Reich 104). However, this is impossible for women. Again, women’s rights and freedoms are limited in Jewish society as compared to the rights of men.

The next sad situation for women to be considered is doing a lot of hard and non-prestigious work about the house and in general. Women are likened to donkeys doing a lot of very hard works. Shelly had to work actively even during her late months of pregnancy – she had to carry heavy things (Reich 83). However, her husband who is a representative of the stronger sex and thus is predestined by nature for doing hard work does not help his wife even if he cannot be busy at work. My opinion is that this problem is very severe in Jewish society. This mistake of improper treating of women can lead to the situation which is now observed in Arab countries; women live short lives and die within thirty or forty years of hard work thus establishing a severe demographic problem of lacking females.

And finally, women’s opportunities are very limited in the areas of politics and business in the Jewish nation. This came historically. Women in ancient Israel had the only primary task which is giving birth. They were also to do all the necessary work about the house. However, occupying responsible positions in the areas of politics, science, medicine, education, and business was forbidden for them. This situation continues to be unwavering within the centuries to pass. Tova Reich devotes a lot of her novel’s pages to the depiction of the problem. Women’s lot in Jewish society is connected with a lot of sadness. The author describes the life of one of the female characters with these thought-provoking words: “When Emunah closed her eyes she saw – what? The entire grinding panoply of her anxieties and worries awakened her like a prod to the heart in the hours before the dawn. For Emunah, disaster was always threatening, the days were indescribably exhausting and heavy with underlying, impending catastrophe. The work, too, was never completed, physical labor, and the next morning she had to start all over again” (Reich 103). Speaking about this discrimination I have to notice that this is probably the worst thing about women’s situation in Jewish society. Numerous women are gifted with outstanding thinking abilities and ingenious skills. Why waste these valuable recourses? Human society will benefit from women’s achievements in different areas apart from housekeeping and childbearing. This truth was many times proved by numerous successful women scientists, politicians, people of art, and so on.

Numerous works on literature, history, and sociology examined the gender problems in Jewish society topicality throughout history. The issues about Jewish society, its organization, principles, laws, and tendencies are very complicated as always. Nations have always had difficulties in understanding Hebrews. Numerous efforts were made to explain at least some complicated issues regarding Jewish people. One of the latest and very successful efforts was performed by young hopeful Sarah Glidden in her autobiographic novel “How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less”. Sara Glidden a Hebrew descendant living in the United States relates her traveling experiences about the different reality she visits and its quirks. Her story is well focused politically and historically. She carefully tries to deconstruct the long-lasting conflict of organizing the Jewish state and the other related issues. Sara Glidden’s novel throws light on important questions of politics, gender, religion, and history. Sara explains what she saw and related in her novel “did open up the whole situation for [her] and make [her] realize just how complex it is” (Glidden 15).

After seeing everything with her own eyes Sara Glidden explains her vision of the situation in the West Bank in the next words:

“You grow up being told ‘Israel is your country, you can go there, you can live there, it’s for you. We have to support Israel, we have to plant a tree in Israel.’ No one ever told us about the conflict when we were kids. So then you get older and you find out about the conflict and it feels like it’s something that your family’s doing that you don’t like, like ‘This is my country? But I don’t want them to do this! I don’t them to hurt people. I don’t want anyone that I’m affiliated with to hurt anybody.’ When you try to put it in the context of self-defense, or the reasons why Israel would do these things, it just got so complicated and so upsetting that I just almost had to ignore it and just kind of read the paper, but not think about It” (23).

She has ascertained that along with a row of the other difficult problems in Israel the gender problem is of great concern in Jewish society. Women face serious bias and prejudice problems everywhere: within the family, at school, at work, and many more. “It’s more complicated than that,” is a phrase that readers will see throughout the “How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less” novel. And it is also related to the difficult issues of women’s discrimination and their poor treatment in Jewish society. Sara who got accustomed to feministic values and victories in American society states: “Clearly you’re not going to ever understand such a complicated place in such a short amount of time, but I wanted to try. So this book is about that attempt at trying to figure it out because when I got there, I realized it was a lot more complicated than I thought” (50). Definitely what Sara Glidden witnessed in the modern Israel society as to the attitude to women motivated her to express her notice of appeal in the novel “How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less” where she expresses a lot of discontent about gender-related issues common in the modern-day Israel society.

Reflecting on all the concluded facts it should be stated that the gender problem is rather serious in Jewish society as is evident from the novel by Tova Reich. Women have to cope with serious bias and prejudice problems as to their political, spiritual, material, and family fate. They have to tolerate polygamy marriages, they also do a lot of hard work about the house which is only anticipated to be done by the stronger sex, women are discriminated against in the areas of business and politics. Considerable gender problems are also confirmed by Sarah Glidden in the autobiographic novel “How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less”. Her observations related to the novel prove that the gender problem is always on the front burner issue in the West Bank.

Works Cited

Glidden, S. How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less. United States: Vertigo, 2010. Print.

Reich, T. The Jewish War. Syracuse: University Press, 1997. Print.

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Gender Related Questions in the Jewish War Novel by Tova Reich

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