A Jewish Sisterly Tribute to Nira

Abstract

I feel incredibly privileged to have been asked to comment on the republication of Nira Yuval-Davis’s (1984) brave and lucid article about antisemitism and Zionism from Spare Rib September 1984 and on Nira’s framing introduction (Yuval-Davis, 2020). I also feel frightened about engaging in what was then, and still remains, a very painful and angry debate, largely amongst Jewish feminists. I feel ‘frozen’ because the issues reach to the core of my being—as Jewish and as a feminist. It is hard for me to speak about such sensitive issues, although I care passionately. The rise of feminism has helped to open up debate but also, with the inexorable rise of the religious and political right, sociopolitical contexts have become individualist and neoliberal. The connotations around what Gail Chester and I called ‘From A to Z with feminism in the middle’ are different (Chester and David, 2017). They are about antisemitism and Zionism, racism and antiracism, where Israel/ Palestine fits and what it means to be a Jewish feminist today.