Henya M. Pekelman ( he, הֶניָה מ' פֶּקֶלמן, 1903 – August 20, 1940) was a
Zionist
Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת ''Tsiyyonut'' after ''Zion'') is a nationalist movement that espouses the establishment of, and support for a homeland for the Jewish people centered in the area roughly corresponding to what is known in Je ...
pioneer
Pioneer commonly refers to a settler who migrates to previously uninhabited or sparsely inhabited land.
In the United States pioneer commonly refers to an American pioneer, a person in American history who migrated west to join in settling and dev ...
and
manual labor
Manual labour (in Commonwealth English, manual labor in American English) or manual work is physical work done by humans, in contrast to labour by machines and working animals. It is most literally work done with the hands (the word ''manual'' ...
er of the
Yishuv
Yishuv ( he, ישוב, literally "settlement"), Ha-Yishuv ( he, הישוב, ''the Yishuv''), or Ha-Yishuv Ha-Ivri ( he, הישוב העברי, ''the Hebrew Yishuv''), is the body of Jewish residents in the Land of Israel (corresponding to the s ...
. She
immigrated
Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens. Commuters, tourists, and ...
to Mandatory Palestine in 1922, and her self-published book ''The Life of a Woman Worker in the Homeland'' ( he, חיי פועלת בארץ) is recognized as one of the most authentic sources about the life of women laborers in Palestine in the 1920s. She died by
suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Mental disorders (including depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, personality disorders, anxiety disorders), physical disorders (such as chronic fatigue syndrome), and s ...
merchant
A merchant is a person who trades in commodities produced by other people, especially one who trades with foreign countries. Historically, a merchant is anyone who is involved in business or trade. Merchants have operated for as long as indust ...
s that gave great importance to education and diligence. After finishing her
primary education
Primary education or elementary education is typically the first stage of formal education, coming after preschool/kindergarten and before secondary school. Primary education takes place in ''primary schools'', ''elementary schools'', or first ...
, she joined the effort of providing for the family. In 1922, after her father's death, she
immigrated
Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens. Commuters, tourists, and ...
to Mandatory Palestine with her mother.
In Palestine, Pekelman worked in various manual labor jobs, including concrete casting and flooring. It was Ada Maimon, ten years Pekelman's senior, from the same hometown, who helped her upon arrival and advised her to learn flooring.
In 1925, the rape that she suffered resulted in the birth of her first daughter, Tikva, who died after about one month as a result of poisoning.
In 1927 she got married, and a year later gave birth to her second daughter, Tzipora.
In 1935 she self-published her
autobiography
An autobiography, sometimes informally called an autobio, is a self-written account of one's own life.
It is a form of biography.
Definition
The word "autobiography" was first used deprecatingly by William Taylor in 1797 in the English peri ...
, ''The Life of a Woman Laborer in The Homeland'', in which she described her childhood, adolescence and first three years in Mandatory Palestine, including the rape affair. At the top of her book she wrote:
On January 19, 1940, Pekelman threw herself to her death from the third floor balcony of the Esther Cinema on
Dizengoff Square
Dizengoff Square or Dizengoff Circus ( he, כִּכָּר דִיזֶנְגוֹף, fully Zina Dizengoff Square, , ''Kikar Tsina Dizengof'') is an iconicTel Aviv for a farewell party held by a friend toward his leaving the country. She describes meeting, after the party, a fellow pioneer named Yeruham Mirkin, who insistently invited her to join him in his cousin's room, where she reported he beat her up and raped her.
She returned to
Petah Tikva
Petah Tikva ( he, פֶּתַח תִּקְוָה, , ), also known as ''Em HaMoshavot'' (), is a city in the Central District (Israel), Central District of Israel, east of Tel Aviv. It was founded in 1878, mainly by Haredi Judaism, Haredi Jews of ...
depressed and dispirited, but told no one about the incident. After some time she went back to a flooring job in Tel Aviv, but did not feel well, and a doctor she visited told her she was pregnant. When she confronted Mirkin with that, he denied any involvement with it, and when he learnt about the birth of the baby girl, he ran off.
The baby died about a month later under strange circumstances, and Pekelman was arrested for murder. She told the investigators about the rape, but had no evidence but her word against Mirkin. A representative of the
Histadrut
Histadrut, or the General Organization of Workers in Israel, originally ( he, ההסתדרות הכללית של העובדים בארץ ישראל, ''HaHistadrut HaKlalit shel HaOvdim B'Eretz Yisrael''), is Israel's national trade union center ...
bailed her out, but she described her freedom being "worse than hell": she was stared at by everybody, with no friends left to support her, as being a rape victim was considered by the conservative society of those days as a violation of modesty rules, and they suspected her of poisoning her daughter.
Her struggle for equality in employment
Pekelman's struggle for equal opportunity in employment culminated with her return to Tel Aviv. While looking for work on construction sites, she recognized one of the workers she knew. When asked why she didn't work, she insisted that "the men take up all the jobs, and the girls only have
household work
Homemaking is mainly an American and Canadian term for the management of a home, otherwise known as housework, housekeeping, housewifery or household management. It is the act of overseeing the organizational, day-to-day operations of a house ...
left for them, and I am not accustomed to that yet." The next day, when she got to work, the men scoffed at her saying she would break until noon. However, she chose to work in the most difficult place, in the middle of the ladder. On pages 153-154 of her book, she described a gathering of workers in her room, where the women workers demanded to work with the men:
The main job in Hadera at that time was the drying up of the marshes. Most women felt that they were as qualified as men for this job and demanded their share in drying the marshes, not to show that they were strong, but to provide with bread to eat; I also attended such a meeting. We proved undisputedly what work we were doing in Tel Aviv: building houses ourselves, poured concrete roofs ourselves, with help from no men. We asked them in what way marsh drying is more difficult than house construction. If there is a fear of malaria – in any case the woman is in the place of the disease, and when she does not have good food she is in danger of catching it anyway, and if because of bodily weakness – then there are also weak men who are not allowed physical work.
The book: ''The Life of a Woman Worker in Her Homeland''
Pekelman's publishing of her autobiographical book was self-financed. The book tells her story in first person style, from her childhood, adolescence and immigration to Mandatory Palestine. It describes her attempts to integrate into the work and social life in the country, and the crisis following the violent events she went through.
The book allows for a historical examination of the gaps that emerge between the idealization of the historical narrative and reality, as experienced by the author.
In 2007 the book was re-published with annotations, including an epilogue of two essays, one by David De Vries and Talia Pfefferman, and the second by Tamar Hess, all three of them from the Tel Aviv University. The re-publication was part of the "Critical Essays" series of the Heksherim Research Institute for Jewish & Israeli Literature & Culture, inin collaboration with the Ben-Gurion University. Following a reference to Pekelman's book in the book ''A Woman in Eretz-Yisra'el'' by Deborah S. Bernstein (Tel Aviv, Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 1987), Hess had found a copy of the book at the National Library of Israel, and was probably the first to request this copy.
The book's importance as a historical source
In Henya Pekelman's stories, the pattern of her voice being silenced can be taken as a symbol for the general frequent silencing of women's voices in those times. Her book is regarded as one of the most authentic sources on laborer's life in Mandatory Palestine in the 1920s. its uniqueness lies in the fact that in it history speaks to us through the mouth of an ordinary person, contrary to most narratives covering political leaders and elite groups.
Another importance of the book is found in the social and political contexts in which it was written: Although at the beginning women were considered equal to men in various sectors of the economy, by the time the British mandate had begun, there was an expectation that they return to their traditional roles: childbirth, childcare, education and home care.
In her insistence on continuing to perform duties outside the home, such as fruit picking, dairy farming or tobacco field work, Pekelman sounds the voices of women who were excluded by a society that was essentially run by men.
Her daughter and granddaughter
Tzipora, Pekelman's second daughter, moved to the Tel Aviv "Pioneers' House" and later on to Kibbutz Yagur. She married Shalom Bornstein and in 1945 gave birth to Pekelman's granddaughter, Ein-Yah Tamir, and divorced Bornstein. She then moved to Kibbutz Manara and married David Tamir.
Tzipora is reported to have hidden Pekelman's book from her daughter, an act that combined with the general disregard of the book by the press at the time.
Further reading
*Deborah S. Bernstein (1992), Editor. ''Pioneers and Homemakers: Jewish Women in Pre-State Israel'' (SUNY Series in Israeli Studies)