Between the Teachers' Seminary and the Legislature: The Ideological, Parliamentary and Social Work of Tova Sanhedrai-Goldreich
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Summary
The text surveys the life story and legacy of Tova Sanhedrai-Goldreich, the first religious woman to serve in the Knesset, presenting a model of leadership that combines political activism with halakhic fidelity. The survey opens with her formative years in the Diaspora and her immigration to the Land, and goes on to describe the historic struggle to achieve women's representation in the religious political arena, which led to the establishment of an independent women's list in 1949. On the ideological and practical plane, the article emphasizes her contribution to establishing the "Emunah" movement and the enterprise of national service, alongside her extensive parliamentary activity to promote social legislation and family rights. In sum, the work seeks to shed light on her figure as a trailblazer who brought about a rooted feminist revolution that empowered the status of women in Israeli society from within the world of values of the Torah.
Introduction: The Roots of Leadership and the Development of Religious-Zionist Consciousness
The figure of Tova Sanhedrai-Goldreich (1906–1993) stands at a central crossroads in the historiography of Religious Zionism and of the institutional feminist struggle in Israel.[1, 2, 3] As the first religious woman elected to the Knesset and as a leader who headed the women's organizations of Hapoel HaMizrachi, Sanhedrai presented a unique model of leadership combining deep halakhic fidelity, commitment to social justice and uncompromising political activism.[3, 4] Her work, which extended over most of the twentieth century, redefined the boundaries of the public involvement of religious women and established institutional and constitutional infrastructures that continue to shape the character of the state.[2, 3, 5]
Sanhedrai's (née Diamand) ideological development began in Eastern Galicia, where she was born on 23 September 1906 in the city of Tarnopol to a well-off and socially involved Religious-Zionist Jewish family.[1, 2, 6] Her parents were active partners in the city's Zionist institutions, an environment that instilled in her a broad political awareness already at a young age.[1] She received a comprehensive education that combined general and Jewish learning; she studied at a Polish elementary school and at a Hebrew high school in Tarnopol, from which she graduated with highest honors, and even won prizes for Hebrew articles she published in periodicals in the region.[6] Later she completed her studies at a teachers' seminary and began to teach Hebrew, a vocation that deepened her attachment to the language and to national identity.[1]
At the age of 22 she joined the religious pioneering movement "Torah va-Avodah" (Torah and Labor), in which she found an ideological home that expressed her aspiration to combine religious commitment with productive work.[1, 6] Within the movement she quickly made her way to leadership roles in Eastern Galicia, managed immigration units and training groups, and became one of the heads of "HaChalutz HaMizrachi" in her town.[1, 6] Her public involvement expanded with her election as a delegate to national conferences of Mizrachi and Hapoel HaMizrachi in Poland, where she was also elected a member of the central committee.[1, 6] She was among the founders of the "Bnot Mizrachi" movement, and in 1932 she was entrusted with managing a joint training group of "Torah va-Avodah" and "HaChalutz HaMizrachi."[1] A year later, in 1933, she was elected to serve as a delegate to the Zionist conference in Lvov, a role that gave her international diplomatic and political experience on the eve of her immigration to the Land of Israel.[1]
In 1934 Sanhedrai immigrated to the Land and settled at first in Tel Aviv.[1, 2] To support herself she worked at physical and casual jobs in various moshavim, and in this way she was exposed for the first time and directly to the particular hardships of religious women pioneers in the Land of Israel.[1] This encounter made clear to her that the establishment of the Yishuv, and especially the religious establishment, did not provide an adequate answer for the religious woman pioneer who sought to combine agricultural and productive work with strict observance of the commandments, an insight that marked the beginning of her long struggle to establish independent religious women's frameworks.[1]
Her Torah and Social Teaching: The Combination of "Torah va-Avodah" and the Theory of "Mother of All Living"
Tova Sanhedrai-Goldreich's Torah teaching was not shaped in abstract theological writings, but derived directly from the worldview of the "Torah va-Avodah" movement, which saw physical labor and economic creativity in the Land of Israel as binding religious values interwoven with Torah study.[1, 7] Sanhedrai gave this outlook a rooted feminist interpretation, which sought to anchor the status of women in the sources of the Torah itself, without needing the secular conceptual tools of rebellion against religion.[4]
At the basis of her conception stood the premise that the Jewish sources do not discriminate against women, but grant them a firm inner spiritual and moral status.[4] This outlook was formulated in her famous saying: "We do not weep over our status as women. This status is in any case assured to us by the Torah, the woman being 'the mother of all living.'"[4] The concept of "mother of all living" served in her eyes not as a pretext for binding the woman to the narrow domestic and family sphere, but as a source of moral authority that entitles the woman to a unique perspective and to an equal responsibility for shaping the spiritual, economic and moral character of the renewed Jewish state.[4] Sanhedrai held that out of the woman's unique role in the family and in the community grows her public duty to take part in the institutions of government and law in order to ensure the moral resilience of society.[2, 4]
The central literary and ideological expression of these lines in her figure was collected in the biographical book "Be-Emunah Bacharti" ("In Faith I Chose"), edited by Shaul Meizlish and published by the "Emunah" movement.[5, 8] The book's title draws direct inspiration from the verse in the Book of Isaiah: "counsels from afar, in faithfulness and steadfastness" (etzot me-rachok emunah omen).[8, 9, 10] The accepted interpretation of this verse, cited in the name of Rashi and other commentators, defines the phrase "emunah omen" as a firm, faithful and strong faith based on ancient Divine promises that were fulfilled.[9, 11] For Sanhedrai, this faith was not passive, but was translated into uncompromising perseverance in the public arena and a willingness to fight for her beliefs even against fierce opposition from within.[7, 8] This legacy, which connects in-depth study with social action, is commemorated today by the "Ne'emanei Torah va-Avodah" movement through the daily study app "Yomy," which enables a regular combination of the study of Torah and Mishnayot with everyday toil in the spirit of Sanhedrai's vision.[2]
The Struggle for Political Representation: The Founding of the "List of the Working Woman and the Religious Woman" (1949)
The historic turning point in the struggle for the political representation of religious women in Israel came on the eve of the elections to the Constituent Assembly (the First Knesset) in January 1949.[7] The main religious and Haredi parties decided to run jointly under one political umbrella—"the United Religious Front."[7, 12] However, owing to heavy pressure from the Haredi and conservative elements in the Front, it was decided to exclude women completely from the list of candidates for the Knesset.[7]
Sanhedrai, who headed the working women's organization of Hapoel HaMizrachi, saw this decision as a severe blow to the rights of the women who were partners in the Religious-Zionist enterprise and as an attempt to return them to a position of public inferiority.[3, 7] She refused to give in to the conservative dictates, and together with other prominent women leaders such as Devorah Eliner, Miriam Ankorit-Eliash and Chaya Goldzak, led a bold political move of breaking away and founding an independent religious women's party: the "List of the Working Woman and the Religious Woman."[7]
The new list, which ran under the letters "Peh-Dalet," presented a pioneering election platform combining two basic aims that until then had been perceived as opposed: fortifying the Jewish and halakhic character of the new state through legislation to protect Shabbat and kashrut, alongside an uncompromising struggle for equal rights for women in general, and for religious women in particular, in the labor market and in the institutions of the family.[7] Although the list won only 2,796 votes (about 0.7% of the total votes) and did not pass the electoral threshold, the move forced the religious parties to recognize the political power of women.[7] Following the pressure and the public resonance, the seceders merged back into the parent party (Hapoel HaMizrachi, which later became the National Religious Party, Mafdal), with a promise of the future inclusion of women in the party's institutions, a promise that was fulfilled with Sanhedrai's historic election to the Fourth Knesset in 1959.[2, 3, 7]
Parliamentary Activity in the Knesset: Social Legislation and Family Law
During her long tenure in the Knesset, which extended over four consecutive terms (the 4th–7th Knessets, between the years 1959–1974), Sanhedrai focused most of her efforts on social legislation and on protecting the most disadvantaged populations in society.[2] She perceived the law not only as a normative tool, but as a first-rate social and educational means that gives citizens a real opportunity to integrate into productive and respectable frameworks of employment.[2]
Her initiatives in the Knesset committees and in the plenum were characterized by a comprehensive view of workers' rights and by an attempt to regulate labor relations in the young economy.[2] Among other things, she called for legislation that would require the teaching of a trade and of practical skills in schools as a tool for narrowing social gaps.[2] She demanded that a defined period of compulsory negotiation be set by law before the start of a strike in order to prevent damage to the economy, and was an active partner in drafting and promoting central laws such as the Minimum Wage Law, the Severance Pay Law, and various bills in the fields of arbitration and the settlement of collective labor disputes.[2]
In a parallel channel, Sanhedrai led a series of focused reforms in the field of family law and individual welfare, using her parliamentary power to correct social distortions that directly affected women and children.[2] She initiated a law requiring that maintenance be given to a widow from the estate of her late husband in order to prevent her being cast into poverty, and worked to abolish the age limit for financial support of children under the Succession Law, out of the understanding that the duty of caring for orphans does not lapse when they reach a formal age of majority.[2] Alongside this, out of concern for the physical and moral well-being of young girls, she led the struggle to raise the minimum age of consent for sexual relations to 18.[2] At the same time, in accordance with the conservative-halakhic line she held, Sanhedrai firmly opposed any proposal seeking to ease the penalties for performing abortions or to lead to their legalization, a position that reflected her religious conception of the sanctity of life and of the traditional family.[2]
Communal and National Enterprises: The "Emunah" Movement and the Establishment of National Service
Sanhedrai's public work was not confined to the walls of parliament, but found expression in founding and leading huge social enterprises that changed the face of communal reality in Israel.[2, 5] With the establishment of the state, she immediately enlisted in intensive field activity for the absorption of immigrants, with a special focus on the complex absorption of immigrants from Yemen and on aid to families harmed during the War of Independence.[1] This activity was carried out in close partnership with Sarah Stern, her companion on the way and later her colleague in the Mafdal faction in the Knesset.[1]
As chairwoman of the "Emunah" movement (which developed out of the working women's organization of Hapoel HaMizrachi), Sanhedrai led a revolution of services and education among the Religious-National public.[1, 2, 3] Under her leadership, the organization developed an extensive network of day-care centers for early childhood, vocational schools and midrashot for girls, out of the aspiration to give religious women both a broad education and professional training that would enable them to integrate into the modern labor market in a respectable and independent way.[1]
Her most prominent historical contribution to the social security of the state was her decisive part in founding and establishing the enterprise of national service.[5] With the establishment of compulsory conscription to the IDF, fierce opposition arose among the religious public to the conscription of religious girls for halakhic reasons of modesty and observance of the commandments.[5] Sanhedrai identified the social danger inherent in excluding religious girls from the circle of national contribution, and held that a sweeping exemption without an alternative would create a deep social rift and harm the public standing of religious women.[5]
To resolve this crisis, Sanhedrai was among the initiators and founders of "the Association for Volunteering among the People" (today "the Volunteering Association").[5] The association, which began its activity from a small and modest office in Jerusalem, offered for the first time a supervised state framework enabling religious girls to volunteer for a year or two of communal and social service in the education, health and welfare systems in peripheral areas and in distressed neighborhoods.[5] This solution preserved the girls' boundaries of halakha and modesty, but at the same time opened before them a first and significant window for leaving the closed domestic sphere for active national work, a move that was a dramatic catalyst for the professional and academic integration of religious women into Israeli society in the following decades.[5]
Summary and Legacy
Tova Sanhedrai-Goldreich died in Jerusalem on 31 August 1993, at the age of 86, and was buried on Har HaMenuchot.[2] Her decades of public activity left an indelible mark on the social and political structure of Israel. Through a rare combination of political determination, social sensitivity and deep halakhic commitment, Sanhedrai succeeded in formulating a unique religious feminist alternative—one that is founded not on the negation of tradition, but on a renewed reading of its sources for the sake of empowering women and making them equal partners in shaping the character of Jewish sovereignty.[3, 4]
Her progressive laws in the fields of welfare and family law continue to serve as a basis for social policy in Israel, and the huge enterprises she founded—foremost among them the "Emunah" movement and the national service system—continue to operate on a broad scale serving tens of thousands of citizens.[2, 5] Israeli society honors her memory by naming streets after her in the cities of Tel Aviv and Beersheba [2], and her figure is studied as a pioneering historical model illustrating how the power of faith can become a significant tool of tikkun olam and of formative political action.[3, 8]
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