A yiddishe mame desperately seeking a Mame Loshn: Toward a theory of the feminisation of stigma in the relations between Israelis and Holocaust survivors

The two components of this paper are personal reflections on contemporary feminist Israeli-Jewish identity in exile and on a theory of the feminisation of stigma in the relationship between Zionism, Israeli society, the Holocaust, and Holocaust survivors. The paper argues that in constructing Zionist Israeli normality as masculine, the state of Israel, and Zionism before it, feminised the Jewish diaspora and the Holocaust and stigmatised Holocaust survivors. This feminisation influenced the author's own multi-layered Israeli Jewish identity, sending her in search of her Yiddish-Jewish feminist roots.