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WORK TITLE: Righteous Transgressions
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE:
CITY: Athens
STATE: GA
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY:
http://spia.uga.edu/faculty-member/lihi-ben-shitrit/ * https://www.linkedin.com/in/lihi-ben-shitrit-a7616b1b/
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Female.
EDUCATION:Princeton University, B.A., 2006; Yale University, M.A., 2008, M.Phil., 2009, Ph.D., 2012.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer and educator. University of Georgia, Athens, assistant professor.
AWARDS:Colorado Scholar, Harvard University, 2013-14. Fellowships from organizations, including Princeton University, Smith Richardson Foundation, Middlebury College, and Yale University.
WRITINGS
Contributor of articles to publications, including the Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies. Contributor of chapters to books, including The Middle East and Taking to the Streets: Activism, Arab Uprisings, and Democratization.
SIDELIGHTS
Lihi Ben Shitrit is a writer and educator. She is an assistant professor in the Department of International Affairs at the University of Georgia. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Near Eastern Studies from Princeton University, as well as an M.A., M.Phil., and a Ph.D., all in political science, from Yale University. Ben Shitrit has received fellowships from organizations, including Princeton University, Smith Richardson Foundation, Middlebury College, and Yale University. From 2013 to 2014, she served as Harvard University’s Colorado Scholar. Ben Shitrit has written articles that have appeared in publications, including the Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies. She has also contributed chapters to books, including The Middle East and Taking to the Streets: Activism, Arab Uprisings, and Democratization.
In 2016, Ben Shitrit released her first book, Righteous Transgressions: Women’s Activism on the Israeli and Palestinian Religious Right. In an interview with Marc Lynch, contributor to the Project on Middle East Political Science Web site, Ben Shitrit described the book as “a comparative study of women’s activism in the Israeli and Palestinian right, but specifically four groups: the Jewish settlers in the West Bank, the ultra-Orthodox Shas movement, the Islamist movement in Israel, and the Palestinian Hamas.” In an excerpt of a review from the Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies, which appeared on the Project MUSE Web site, Stephanie Chaban remarked: “In Righteous Transgressions, Lihi Ben Shitrit rethinks pious women’s agency by examining women’s participation in nationalist religious movements. Using case studies from the Israeli and the Palestinian religious rights (the Jewish settler movement and the ultra-Orthodox Shas party; the Islamic Movement within Israel and Hamas), the text explores how women activists in these movements use ‘frames of exception.'” In the book, Ben Shitrit defines frames of exception to signify justifications for acting outside the norms of behavior within one’s religious culture in order to support a higher cause. She offers examples of women behaving in exceptional ways, including female Palestinians deciding to become suicide bombers and Orthodox Jewish women physically fighting with male soldiers in spite of laws against touching unknown males. Ben Shitrit draws some of her information from interviews she conducted with women from all four groups she discusses. She also cites scholarly works on those groups and on female activists.
Reviewing Righteous Transgressions in Choice, P. Rowe suggested: “While at times jargonistic, the book is an excellent study of women involved in conservative religious movements.” Rowe categorized the volume as “recommended.” Dahlia Scheindlin offered a lengthy assessment of the book on the Haaretz Web site. Scheindlin commented: “While Ben Shitrit’s academic discourse of contestation, intentionality, performatives, diagnostic and prognostic frames will at times alienate the average reader, it would be unfortunate to forgo the book by this Israeli-born author for that reason. Interested observers could learn much from the rare, up-close look at hugely influential political movements, beyond the subject of women’s roles within them.” Scheindlin added: “The academic language used in the book seems like a weighty add-on. It can feel like there are two parallel books here: one, the theoretical analysis; the other a stark picture of how minds, hearts, God, youth and gender are mobilized to generate feelings of existential threat, incitement against the perceived enemy, justifications for antagonism and violence. The latter ‘book’ gives readers a window into the wild eyes of the settlers wrestling with soldiers and obsessing over the land.” Scheindlin also stated: “It is hard to stifle a strong desire to drop the respectful academic inquiry altogether, and preach the virtues of secular humanism. But if one overcomes this instinct, Ben Shitrit’s detailed portrayal of both male and female activists offers a valuable lesson, including beyond gender issues.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Choice, June, 2016, P Rowe, review of Righteous Transgressions: Women’s Activism on the Israeli and Palestinian Religious Right, p. 1539.
ONLINE
Haaretz, http://www.haaretz.com/ (February 2, 2016), Dahlia Scheindlin, review of Righteous Transgressions.
Project MUSE, https://muse.jhu.edu/ (June 9, 2017), Stephanie Chaban, review of Righteous Transgressions.
Project on Middle East Political Science, https://pomeps.org/ (May 30, 2017), Marc Lynch, author interview.
University of Georgia, School of Public & International Affairs Web site, http://spia.uga.edu/ (May 30, 2017), author faculty profile.*
Lihi Ben Shitrit
Department of International Affairs
Assistant Professor
Department of International Affairs
Education
Ph.D., Yale University 2012, Political Science
MPhil, Yale University 2009, Political Science
MA, Yale University 2008, Political Science
BA, Princeton University 2006, Near Eastern Studies
Areas of Expertise
Middle East Politics
Religion and Politics
Women, Gender and Politics
Honors, Awards, and Achievements
Colorado Scholar, Women’s Studies in Religion Program, Harvard University (2013-2014)
The Kathryn Davis Peace Fellowship (2012)
Social Science Research Council, International Dissertation Research Fellowship (2009-2010)
Yale University Dissertation Fellowship (2008-2010)
University of Chicago, Visiting Scholar (2008-2009)
MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies, Pre-Dissertation Fellowship (2008)
The Smith Richardson Foundation Fellowship, International Security Studies (2007)
Davis Scholar, Princeton University (2002-2006)
Near Eastern Studies Department Research Fellowship, Princeton University (2005)
Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies Fellowship (2004)
Fred Fox Summer Award, Princeton University (2004)
Course Instruction
INTL 4370 Middle Eastern Political Systems
Selected Publications
Righteous Transgressions: Women’s Activism on the Israeli and Palestinian Religious Right (under contract, Princeton University Press).
“Women, Freedom, and Agency in Religious-Political Movements: Reflections from Women Activists in Shas and the Islamic Movement in Israel.” 2013. Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies. 9.3.
“Religion, Society and Politics in the Middle East.” 2013. In Ellen Lust ed., The Middle East, 13th edition, Congressional Quarterly (with Robert Lee).
“Israel.” 2013. In Ellen Lust ed., The Middle East, 13th edition. Congressional Quarterly.
“Activism and Civil War in Libya.” 2013 In Lina Khatib and Ellen Lust eds., Taking to the Streets: Activism, Arab Uprisings, and Democratization, John Hopkins University Press (with Intissar Rajabany).
QUOTED: "While at times jargonistic, the book is an excellent study of women involved in conservative religious movements."
"recommended."
Ben Shitrit, Lihi. Righteous transgressions: women's activism on the Israeli and Palestinian religious Right
P. Rowe
53.10 (June 2016): p1539.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 American Library Association CHOICE
http://www.ala.org/acrl/choice/about
Ben Shitrit, Lihi. Righteous transgressions: women's activism on the Israeli and Palestinian religious Right. Princeton, 2016. 282p bibl index afp ISBN 9780691164564 cloth, $70.00; ISBN 9780691164571 pbk, $22.95; ISBN 9781400873845 ebook, contact publisher for price
53-4562
HQ1236
2015-19622 CIP
In her first book, Ben Shitrit (international affairs, Univ. of Georgia) provides an analysis of women's activism in conservative Islamist and Jewish movements based in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. She analyzes the narratives provided in interviews and the documentary evidence coming from women activists among the Israeli settler movement, the Mizrahi Jewish supporters of Shas, the Islamic Movement in Israel, and the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas). The author identifies the ways in which these movements provide opportunities for women to engage in activism that transgresses traditional gender roles, or "frames of exception." She finds that religious nationalist movements are more likely to allow women to engage in such transgressive activism, but that such frames of exception remain ambiguous given their use in hardening social distinctions between the religious nationalists and those outside the movement. Ben Shitrit demonstrates a deep understanding of the movements under study and uncovers a wealth of primary and secondary research on the topic. While at times jargonistic, the book is an excellent study of women involved in conservative religious movements. Summing Up: ** Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above.--P. Rowe, Trinity Western University
Rowe, P.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Rowe, P. "Ben Shitrit, Lihi. Righteous transgressions: women's activism on the Israeli and Palestinian religious Right." CHOICE: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, June 2016, p. 1539. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA454942973&it=r&asid=89750c2ffd4d34936c87a7e33b1cd1af. Accessed 3 May 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A454942973
QUOTED: "While Ben Shitrit’s academic discourse of contestation, intentionality, performatives, diagnostic and prognostic frames will at times alienate the average reader, it would be unfortunate to forgo the book by this Israeli-born author for that reason. Interested observers could learn much from the rare, up-close look at hugely influential political movements, beyond the subject of women’s roles within them."
"The academic language used in the book seems like a weighty add-on. It can feel like there are two parallel books here: one, the theoretical analysis; the other a stark picture of how minds, hearts, God, youth and gender are mobilized to generate feelings of existential threat, incitement against the perceived enemy, justifications for antagonism and violence. The latter “book” gives readers a window into the wild eyes of the settlers wrestling with soldiers and obsessing over the land."
"It is hard to stifle a strong desire to drop the respectful academic inquiry altogether, and preach the virtues of secular humanism. But if one overcomes this instinct, Ben Shitrit’s detailed portrayal of both male and female activists offers a valuable lesson, including beyond gender issues."
What Do Settler Women and Female Suicide Attackers Have in Common?
Israeli and Palestinian women will ‘transgress’ by suspending religious beliefs if it serves a political cause, discovers political scientist Lihi Ben Shitrit.
Dahlia Scheindlin Feb 02, 2016 12:32 AM
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A Palestinian woman uses a slingshot during clashes with Israeli troops in the West Bank city of Bethlehem on Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2015.
A Palestinian woman confronts Israeli soldiers during a confrontation in Bethlehem, in October 2015. AP
A quiet coup: Young religious women are flocking to the Israeli army
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“Righteous Transgressions: Women’s Activism on the Israeli and Palestinian Religious Right,” by Lihi Ben Shitrit, Princeton University Press, 304 pp., $22.95
In late January, Israeli settlers tussled with Israel Defense Forces soldiers charged with evicting them from two homes in Hebron. In a familiar sight on the Israeli news, settler women balanced small children on their hips as they berated and harangued the soldiers. The very next day, a 13-year-old Palestinian girl attempted to stab a security guard in the West Bank and was shot dead – joining numerous Palestinian women and youngsters who have participated in such attacks since October.
Israelis tend to seek personal explanations for female Palestinian violence, as if political extremism is understood when it comes to men, but contradicts typically “feminine” qualities. Activism among women in conservative Jewish religious movements may seem counterintuitive as well, since traditional “feminine” behavior is not thought to include political activism or leadership.
In “Righteous Transgressions: Women’s Activism on the Israeli and Palestinian Religious Right,” Lihi Ben Shitrit, an assistant professor at the School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Georgia in Athens, probes women’s activism in four conservative religious or religious-nationalist movements in Israel and its environs – Jewish settlers, the ultra-Orthodox Israeli political party Shas, the Islamic Movement in Israel and Hamas – in a search for shared ways of thinking. It’s unlikely that her research subjects would appreciate being categorized together, but social scientists who question gender, religious extremism, nationalism or social movements will.
While Ben Shitrit’s academic discourse of contestation, intentionality, performatives, diagnostic and prognostic frames will at times alienate the average reader, it would be unfortunate to forgo the book by this Israeli-born author for that reason. Interested observers could learn much from the rare, up-close look at hugely influential political movements, beyond the subject of women’s roles within them.
The political scientist and women’s studies expert conducted a formidable amount of research and displayed substantial tenacity in reaching her subjects. She spent several years winning the personal trust of leaders and members of the first three groups, who represent tight-knit and often highly suspicious social communities. She built relationships, attended events, transcribed extensive conversations and pored over media sources – especially in the case of Hamas where, as an Israeli, she could not forge personal ties. She read both Hebrew and Arabic texts, and when researching Shas, her Moroccan background prompted openness among some of the party's figures.
Ben Shitrit observes that gender and feminist researchers typically presume that women naturally seek greater empowerment and liberation. That leads such academics to puzzle over why some women work to advance conservative political movements that constrain them within gender roles. She believes these questions reflect a Western liberal feminist bias and mislead the inquiry.
Instead, Ben Shitrit accepts as a given that women take part prominently and often enthusiastically in religiously conservative or religious-nationalist movements. In all four movements she examines, women have become active as participants, organizers or sometimes leaders. The question for the author is: How do these women justify activism and participation sometimes in front-line struggles that contradict traditional gender norms of Orthodox Judaism or conservative Islam? And could these justifications ultimately, or unwittingly, aid in shifting traditional roles?
Thus, Jewish women settlers sometimes physically struggle with male IDF soldiers, although Orthodox Jewish law strictly proscribes touching a male stranger. On the Palestinian side, a woman suicide bomber abandons her role as mother (or future mother) and becomes a supporter of male fighters to advance a political-religious goal.
Settlers cry before Israeli police remove them from the Neve Dekalim settlement.
Settlers cry before Israeli police remove them from the Neve Dekalim settlement in the Gush Katif bloc in the southern Gaza Strip, August 17, 2005.Reuters
‘Frames of exception’
Ben Shitrit posits a theory for how women carve an ideological space for their activity, which becomes the filter for her analysis: They develop what she calls “frames of exception” – theological interpretations and justifications for transgressing “righteous” behavioral norms for the sake of the cause.
“Frames of exception” represent an extraordinary need of the collective that transcends normal gender roles — including, for example, the redemption of the land of Israel through settlement, or defense of the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem. But the author emphasizes that the allowance given to the women is temporary; each movement seeks to move society in a direction that will ultimately preserve their traditional place, not erode it. The “framing process… explicitly suspends, rather than challenges, their movement’s gender ideology for the sake of its nationalist goals,” Ben Shitrit writes.
The author distinguishes between nationalist-religious movements (settlers and Hamas) and movements that she sees as primarily proselytizing (Shas and the Islamic Movement – specifically the latter’s southern branch, since the northern branch is more nationalist in character). Movements that are both religious and nationalist, she finds, are more broadly conducive to disruptive gender roles.
The proselytizing movements welcome women’s active engagement, but they are more prone to what Ben Shitrit calls “complementarian activism,” meaning that women and men hold distinct roles intended to complement one another’s essential (gender-related) skills. However, in both types of movements the behavior reflects the fact that women’s roles are built on traditional ideas as caregivers, supporters, pillars of strength and stability, family anchors.
A woman settler journalist tells Ben Shitrit: “…my mother gave my father this space to run ahead with [his settlement activism]… When he made it happen, she was there. If the technical details had to be attended to, he wasn’t alone, he had an entire family. She took care of that. If he brought guests home, she took care of the guests.”
The Islamic Movement has expanded the more traditional female role as caregivers and family providers to include religious proselytizing by women, for women. One such activist tells the author, “When I see women in the street talking or laughing loudly or not following the correct way, I approach them. I don’t say right away ‘come to Islam,’ I find a way to reach that woman gently. If she is responsive, I invite her to class.”
In a chapter on more revolutionary “protest” activity, the book gets to the heart of extremist actions: those of the women settlers and suicidal attackers mentioned earlier. Ben Shitrit observes that even their temporary transgressions rest on essential – read, stereotypical – women’s qualities. These include having an emotional basis for their acts, justifying sacrifice for the sake of their children, and insisting that they are not competing with men or vying for equal status:
“We are not here to prove that women can compete with men,” says one member of a Hamas women’s military brigade. “[The men] are the ones who have been fighting and sacrificing, but we are trying to lift from them some of this load.’” As such, even the grim silver lining that extremism might prompt a break with gender constraints seems unlikely.
Palestinian women trying to free the teen, at Nabi Saleh protest.
Palestinian women trying to free Mohammed Tamimi, during the protest in Nabi Saleh on August 28, 2015.AFP
Ben Shitrit then examines women’s formal leadership in the movements, which ranges from low to growing, and presents some helpful quantitative data on the rate of women’s political participation. The activity of these women, she argues, is essential for growing the constituencies of each movement. This chapter is also useful for understanding what the future of political leadership might look like, in this area: At least two of the movements she examines – settler parties in Israel and Hamas in Palestine – are steadily growing in political control, the latter in terms of controlling the Gaza Strip and receiving increasing support in surveys both there and in the West Bank.
Two parallel books
Throughout “Righteous Transgressions,” the women Ben Shitrit studies show authentic enthusiasm for their activism and involvement. “I felt that my home is on fire,” says Hanna, a settler. “I couldn’t sleep at night… [I] could not afford not to leave a future for my children.”
With scenes like these, the academic language used in the book seems like a weighty add-on. It can feel like there are two parallel books here: one, the theoretical analysis; the other a stark picture of how minds, hearts, God, youth and gender are mobilized to generate feelings of existential threat, incitement against the perceived enemy, justifications for antagonism and violence.
The latter “book” gives readers a window into the wild eyes of the settlers wrestling with soldiers and obsessing over the land. We witness children, Palestinian citizens of Israel, playing martyrdom games, “shooting” mock soldiers and deepening the cult of Al-Aqsa – specifically, their narrative of its imminent destruction by Jewish villains who wish to destroy Islam. For their part, Shas women writhe in a mass religious frenzy to drive home women’s religious roles, values and duties, while Hamas encourages women to be the perfect supportive wives to men who will kill and die, or lead an ultra-theocratic movement.
It is hard to stifle a strong desire to drop the respectful academic inquiry altogether, and preach the virtues of secular humanism. But if one overcomes this instinct, Ben Shitrit’s detailed portrayal of both male and female activists offers a valuable lesson, including beyond gender issues.
For example, Ben Shitrit portrays religious orthodoxy as a sort of structured, role-defined life for both women and men, with loopholes like a “break glass in emergency” box that they can smash when the “nation” calls: that is, women can experience a breakthrough vis-a-vis their roles, and presumably men (the author does not address this) can break other norms, such as secular laws. But in reading this work, another interpretation seems possible: Religion may be more like a pliable hunk of challah dough. The extensive interpretations show theologies being kneaded and twisted into any shape that justifies West Bank settlement, or in the Islamic case, they can be seen as a plate of ful (fava beans) being mashed and flavored into any form that justifies Palestinian nationalist activity.
Habayit Hayehudi MK Orit Strock.
Habayit Hayehudi MK Orit Strock during a Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee hearing, December 8, 2014.Olivier Fitoussi
Then there is the “frame of exception” itself. It is not clear why this useful concept is applied exclusively to women in conservative religious movements, something even Ben Shitrit hints at: “[The] mechanism of frames of exception might have parallels in other nationalist contexts, including secular ones.” In fact, the suspension of normal social roles, morality and possibly law-abiding behavior seems to define extremism of any political bent, for men or women – anyone who wishes to justify disruption or even violence for a putatively higher cause.
Personal sacrifice
Finally, the notion of sacrifice is a prominent theme in Ben Shitrit’s book. The disruption of gender norms women actually cherish is largely described in these terms. Thus the far-right Israeli politician and settler, Orit Strock is quoted as saying: “I told myself, ‘For your children you were willing to lose sleep but for Hebron you are unwilling to do so?’” A Hamas suicide bomber’s final text indicates that her action “does not stem from women’s choice but is rather imposed on them” – not by coercive men, but by “an exceptionally catastrophic situation in which choice is not available” – and one for which she purposely relinquishes her role as a mother, on behalf of God.
Legitimate or detestable, there is apparently a romantic power in personal suffering and sacrifice for a cause. Maybe this helps explain some of the attraction to these movements in general, among women or men.
Contrast this, for example, with the Israeli left. Although left-wingers cherish their values, there was until very recently little personal suffering involved in advocating an end to the occupation. The greatest punishment was indifference or derision. Only handfuls of soldiers, even on the left, have been willing to do a few weeks of unpleasant, but hardly Gulag-grade military prison time.
Yet times are changing. The social opprobrium of the left reached new heights following the first war in Gaza in 2009, followed by hostile legislation, job loss due to political views, and most recently, the arrest of some of its activists on murky charges, under gag order. With the noose tightening, one can only pray that any “personal price” to be paid involves only conceptual or psychological “frames of exception,” rather than the dire sacrifice of life or limb.
Dahlia Scheindlin holds a PhD in political science from Tel Aviv University. She is a public opinion researcher and a political strategist, and a regular writer at +972 Magazine.
read more: http://www.haaretz.com/jewish/books/1.700711
QUOTED: "In Righteous Transgressions Lihi Ben Shitrit rethinks pious women’s agency by examining women’s participation in nationalist religious movements. Using case studies from the Israeli and the Palestinian religious rights (the Jewish settler movement and the ultra-Orthodox Shas party; the Islamic Movement within Israel and Hamas), the text explores how women activists in these movements use 'frames of exception.'"
Stephanie Chaban
(in Journal of Middle East Women's Studies)
In Righteous Transgressions Lihi Ben Shitrit rethinks pious women’s agency by examining women’s participation in nationalist religious movements. Using case studies from the Israeli and the Palestinian religious rights (the Jewish settler movement and the ultra-Orthodox Shas party; the Islamic Movement within Israel and Hamas), the text explores how women activists in these movements use “frames of exception” that allow them to temporarily step out of their constricted gender roles and perform their activism, turning social and religious transgressions into what they perceive to be righteous acts.
Ben Shitrit labels the movements “expressions of contemporary socially conservative religious movements that have become increasingly visible and influential since the 1970s and that offer a particular fusion of religion and politics” (78). While each movement engages with proselytizing and nationalist commitments to different degrees, since the 1980s they can be resolutely viewed as religious-nationalist, with a strong focus on nationalist activism. The text contextualizes the four movements, providing information not only on their structure and support but also on their gender ideology and engagement (or struggle) with feminism. In addition to pursuing an agenda of greater religiosity among their communities, they have much in common concerning their gender frameworks, all expressing a commitment to a divinely sanctioned ideology supporting gender complementarity. Motherhood and reproducing the nation are familiar tropes in this narrative, as is providing material and emotional support for spouses, whether they are active in the movement’s formal leadership or studying religious texts. Feminism, commonly associated with a toxic secular Western agenda, is viewed as destroying gender roles.
The core of the text employs three forms of women’s involvement in their respective movements as units of analysis: complementarian activism, women’s public protest, and [End Page 138] women’s formal (political) representation. Complementarian activism is the cornerstone of women’s activism in these movements, offering “a uniquely feminine contribution to their movements that comfortably sits with their official gender ideology” (80). On the surface, this activism does not appear controversial, nor does it challenge the sexual division of labor each movement upholds (e.g., creating crèches and kindergartens, leading religious study groups). In fact, this activism is viewed as essential and valuable for the larger movement. Women portray their activities as a form of political activism couched in maternal language and see their work as complementing/supporting the work of male activists. This is even true for the women activists of Hamas, where women’s support of martyred males, especially husbands, plays a special role within the larger Palestinian community.
Engaging with theory concerning gender and nationalism, Ben Shitrit’s discussion of women’s protest strategies highlights how women serve as boundary markers within each movement, though more so within their specific ethnoreligious community than between Jews and Muslims (129). They employ a language of the feminine and an embrace of maternalism, saying that they are compelled to act on behalf of their children, the land, and the nation (180). Ben Shitrit broadens the concept of protest including settler women harassing Israeli soldiers over land confiscation, Islamic Movement activists challenging Jewish entrants at the al-Aqsa mosque, Shas activists attending a women-only conference, and activists challenging Hamas’s stance on female martyrdom, but also complicates any possibility of a true comparison.
Lastly, women’s formal political participation, which is low to nonexistent in the movements, is addressed. While the movements never explicitly prohibit women’s political participation, role complementarity continues to be the focus and in some cases, like the Islamic Movement’s activism in the Bedouin Negev region, conservative social norms trump religious allowances, making women’s access to the public sphere difficult. Instead, women’s grassroots or informal activism is highly prized in each setting, especially their role in accessing other women.
Ben Shitrit concludes that in the more nationalist movements (the settler movement and Hamas), women’s activism is more likely to adopt “frames of exception,” allowing for a temporary suspension of constricted gender roles for the sake of the...
QUOTED: "a comparative study of women’s activism in the Israeli and Palestinian right, but specifically four groups: the Jewish settlers in the West Bank, the ultra-Orthodox Shas movement, the Islamist movement in Israel, and the Palestinian Hamas."
On this week’s POMEPS podcast, Marc Lynch speaks with Lihi Ben Shitrit about her new book, Righteous Transgressions: Women’s Activism on the Israeli and Palestinian Religious Right. Shitrit is an assistant professor at the School of Public and International Affairs, University of Georgia, Athens.
“The book is a comparative study of women’s activism in the Israeli and Palestinian right, but specifically four groups: the Jewish settlers in the West Bank, the ultra-Orthodox Shas movement, the Islamist movement in Israel, and the Palestinian Hamas,” said Shitrit. “What motivated me to do this was the fact that you can still pick up a book on any of these movements and not find any women mentioned— not by name, not even by subject, not even the category of women. As if women are not important to the politics of these movements. And for me that was a glaring gap because we know women support these movements.”
“One thing that I found was that women in these movements think that they’re not recognized enough in terms of the general public— the media and academia don’t cover them and don’t recognize their contributions. Their own movements recognize their contributions, but the wider public doesn’t,” said Shitrit. “So they wanted also to convey their message. And at the end of the process, I had so much access and great support by women who really supported what I was doing.”
“The question that I’m asking is how do women in very conservative religious movements— with very clear ideas about women and men’s different public and private roles— how are they able to participate in forms of activism that seems to transgress or go beyond what the movement says that they should do?” Shitrit said. “And why do we see variation? Why do we see that in some movements, women’s activism really adhere to the very conservative ideology of their movement— and in other movements women totally transgress and participate in much more expansive forms of activism.”
“I’m hoping what comes from the book will be that the people I work with actually read the book— and maybe find that they have so much in common with women in these movements. Maybe this could be a kind of fresh step towards seeing others as someone who has something in common with you.”