Esther Carmel-Hakim

Esther Carmel-Hakim is a lecturer in The Department of Jewish History at the University of Haifa. She received a B.A. from Concordia University in Montreal and an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Haifa. Her doctoral dissertation title was “Women’s Agricultural Training in the Yishuv, with the Assistance of Jewish Women’s Organizations 1911–1929.” Her specialization is in Jewish women’s Zionist organizations and women on the kibbutz.

Articles by this author

Vera Weizmann

A Zionist and a physician, Vera Weizmann was a founding member of the WIZO. She accompanied and assisted her husband Chaim, the president of the Zionist Federation of Britain and first president of Israel, as he negotiated the founding of a Jewish state.

Rebecca Sieff

Rebecca Sieff, the daughter of a wealthy Jewish family from Manchester, England, played an active role in two central social-historical movements: the struggle for women’s rights and the Zionist movement that eventually led to the establishment of the State of Israel.

Hannah Maisel-Shohat

Combining her zeal for the Zionist movement and her extensive education in agriculture, Hannah Maisel-Shohat dedicated herself to the establishment of women’s farms and agriculture education programs in Palestine in the 1920s.

Emma Levine-Talmi

Politician and writer, Emma Levine-Talmi, grew up in a liberal Jewish home in Warsaw before immigrating alone to Palestine in 1924 at the age of nineteen. She was active in Kibbutz life before becoming a member of Knesset for the Mapam party. During her time in the Knesset, she engaged in social issues, including, equal rights for women.

Senta Josephthal

Senta Josephthal was German-born Zionist activist who was particularly influential in the kibbutz movement. She trained and recruited young Germans to the movement and represented the kibbutz movement in national organizations and political arenas after emigrating to Palestine.

Romana Goodman

Romana Goodman (1885-1955) was a staunch feminist and passionate Zionist who helped establish the influential Women’s International Zionist Organization (WIZO) in 1918. During her career, she was also a founding member of the Jewish Women’s League for Cultural Work in Palestine, helped lead several Zionist conferences, and assisted in the creation of the first B’nai B’rith women’s lodge in England in 1919.

Shulamit Goldstein

A member of the underground militant group Irgun Zeva'i Le'ummi, Shulamit Goldstein became Israel’s first female pilot in the 1930s. Later in life, she also became a nursery school teacher, a poultry farmer, and a fiberglass manufacturer.

Shulamit Bat-Dori

Shulamit Bat-Dori defied notions about the inappropriateness of theater in the kibbutz, creating popular and acclaimed plays for the masses. Bat-Dori joined Ha-Shomer ha-Za’ir and made Aliyah in 1923, bringing her passion for theater, dance, music, and languages to Kibbutz B (later Mishmar ha-Emek). She wrote plays and founded the Kibbutz theater.

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How to cite this page

Jewish Women's Archive. "Esther Carmel-Hakim." (Viewed on November 21, 2024) <https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/author/carmel-hakim-esther>.