Special Interview: the Halutzic Spirit of Pioneer Women Continues

More than half the Jewish women in the United States do not belong to any Jewish organization, not even a synagogue, according to Frieda Leemon, president of Pioneer Women. Mrs. Leemon, who was elected in October, plans to make it a major goal of her two-year term to go after these unaffiliated women in order to increase the strength of the 50,000-member women’s Labor Zionist organization.

Mrs. Leemon, who is from Farmington, Mich, a suburb of Detroit, and Nava Arad, who last month was elected secretary general of Na’amat, Pioneer Women’s sister organization in Israel, were interviewed by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency at the conclusion of Pioneer Women’s three-day national board meeting this week.

Pioneer Women supports Na’amat in its efforts to improve the status of women in Israeli society, Mrs. Leemon said. It raises funds to help Na’amat provide vocational training, education and social services for women, youth and children and to aid the absorption of new immigrants.

These programs and the ideology behind them should appeal to American Jewish women, particularly those involved in the women’s liberation movement here, Mrs. Leemon said. She said Pioneer Women was founded 52 years ago when a group of Israeli feminists appealed to a small group of their women friends in the United States to help them in the efforts to play an equal role in the Jewish pioneer movement in Palestine.

Most of the early members were women whose husbands were part of the Labor Zionist movement. While many wives of Labor Zionists are Pioneer Women today, Mrs. Leemon stressed that her group is an autonomous organization that has women from all walks of life, including professionals. Many young women are also joining and there is even a chapter where the average of the members is 22.

In Israel, Na’amat (formerly Moetzet Hapoalot) with 700,000 members is the largest women’s group in the country and is represented in every part of the country, according to Mrs. Arad, a trained social worker. She said the organization includes women in every type of job, housewives and volunteer workers. It takes in not only Jewish women but also Arab and Druze women. In many schools Arab and Jewish youngsters learn together, she said.

LACK OF EQUALITY IN ISRAEL

Mrs. Arad said Na’amat provides vocational training for girls and women, it has agricultural schools and it provides day care centers so that women can work.

However, she noted that Israel is a society where women still do not have “real equal” status. She pointed out that only 40 percent of Israeli women work and that among Jews from the Arab countries, girls still receive only the minimum education. She said a study has found that among women who finished high school about 70 percent women who finished high school about 70 percent wanted to go to work but among those who only went five or six years to school, the number going to work was very small.

Mrs. Arad said that when women perform the same jobs as men they get equal pay but the need is to open more jobs to women. She said women still are predominant in the traditional female jobs and there was a need to move them into other occupations, especially the factories. She said that in developing towns, women do work in industry. In kibbutzim that have industry, women, who over the years had tended to drift into the traditional women’s jobs after the early pioneer days, are now seeking to work in the factories.

Mrs. Arad also spoke of the need for more women in executive jobs. She said one of the problems is that women cannot devote the extra time needed for these positions because of the need to take care of their families. She pointed out that Na’amat now comprises more than half of the membership of the Histadrut and five women are now on the Histadrut executive, including, for the first time, Na’amat’s secretary general. The Pioneer Women are not connected with the Histadrut.

MAJOR TASKS OF NA’AMAT

One of the major tasks of Na’amat is to promote legislation helping women, Mrs. Arad said. She said Na’amat is responsible for helping to see that Israel’s first legalized abortion bill was adopted. She noted that Na’amat did not work only with the women Knesset members but also with the men and it seeks to get men involved in supporting legislation for women. She said that if the Likud government attempts to repeal the bill, in accordance with agreement with its Aguda coalition partner, Na’amat will mount a strong fight against such action.

Right now Na’amat is seeking legislation that will require women who do not go to the army to serve in some other type of national service. Mrs. Arad said many women are being exempted from the army because of another agreement between Likud and the Aguda. She said it was not fair that some should serve and others do not. She noted that there are still severe shortages in hospitals, the educational system, the social services and in work with the elderly that these women could fill.

Mrs. Arad also pointed out that the army still is a major educational instrument in Israel and many women from poor families are being denied training they otherwise would have received.

‘AN ORGANIZATION OF WOMEN WHO CARE’

Mrs. Leemon, a graduate of Wayne State University, has been long active in Pioneer Women both in Detroit and on the national level. She is also a member of he boards of the Jewish National Fund, Histadrut, Israel Bonds, the American Zionist Federation and the United Jewish Appeal.

Mrs. Arad, 40, holds degrees from the Paul Baerwald School of Social Work at Hebrew University and the London School of Economics and Political Science. She has been active both in Na’amat, the Histadrut and in the Labor Party where she is a member of the Central Committee.

Pioneer Women is still inspired by the Labor Zionist ideals of the founders and builders of Israel, Mrs. Leemon stressed. She said when Na’amat has a project it comes to the American group to provide the funds. Since the Pioneer Women’s first project, an agricultural school for young women in the Talpiot section of Jerusalem, the organization’s programs have sought to meet the needs of the times, Mrs. Leemon said.

When there was a large influx of immigrants from Arab countries, Pioneer Women introduced head start programs long before they began in the U.S. Today it has a program which is helping young women who don’t work or go to school but would be on the streets unless they received the training to make them useful contributors to society. “We are an organization of women who care,” Mrs. Leemon affirmed.