The Bounded Female Voice in Memorial Ceremonies

Abstract

Using the Israeli case the aim of this paper is to problematize the male dominance of the memorial ceremony for fallen soldiers and to ask whether it is challenged by female voices. Analysis of 50 accounts of ceremonies (elicited from semi-structured observations) as performed in Israeli schools during the last decade reveals that the female voice is heard loudly and introduces a model of mourning ritual that competes with the heroic canonic memory. Yet this voice is not a subversive one, but rather follows the traditional role assigned for women by the male order and redefines the nation state. A new form of nationalism emerges that shifts its center of gravity from a warrior ethos to an ethos of suffering.

Everyday Ritual and Ethnographic Practice: Two Cases Showing the Importance of Embodiment and Reflexivity

“…We are interested in rituals in these settings for three reasons. First, while many studies of ritual are focused on institutionalized rituals, such as religious practices or commemoration (Lomsky-Feder 2005; Spillman 1994; Tavory 2013), we found that ritualized activity was an important component of meaning within both of our sites (Smith 2017). Second, we found that our existing tools of reflexivity could be enhanced through more specific questions about the embodied experiences of the ritual activities (Pagis 2009).…”

Military landscapes

“…Shifting modes of commemoration promoted by the state and its actors play out through landscapes such as those of Bulgarian memorialization to the Great War (Dimitrova, 2005) and Finnish state memorialization practices to the dead of the Second World War (Raivo, 2004). Debate continues to revolve around the development of landscapes of varying degrees of permanency through the interplay of private grief, personal reflection, public expressions of militarism and national narratives of identity (Inglis, 1998;Jenkings et al, 2012;Johnson, 1999Johnson, , 2003Lomsky-Feder, 2005;Managhan, 2012;Moriarty, 1997;Tarlow, 1999;Walklate et al, 2011). The reconfiguration of the National Mall in Washington DC through the military-security apparatus of urban control and surveillance, and the military-memory apparatus of the new(ish) Second World War memorial monument both illustrate this well (see Benton-Short, 2006Doss, 2008).…”

Women Breaking the Silence

“…Although women are drafted into the military, the most dominant presentation of women in the context of war in Israel has been the icon of women as mothers, not as soldiers. This has been true in a range of Israeli cultural arenas: poetry, literature, and cinema (Zerubavel 2006); memorial ceremonies (Lomsky-Feder 2005); and commemoration sites (Baumel 2001). These representations were often critical of the military but did not serve as a base for women’s antiwar activism until the 1980s.…”