The General Zionists and the WIZO party, 1948-51

By: Gruweis Kovalsky O.
Published in: Israel Affairs
SDGs : SDG 05  |  Units:   | Time: 2021 |  Link
Description: In the first elections for the Israeli parliament (January 1949) WIZO ran as a women’s party seeking equal rights for wo men. It won enough votes for a parliamentary seat–highly unusual in that day and age. WIZO was unique in that it started out as an apolitical women’s organisation aligned with the mid-stream Zionist consensus and redefined itself as a party fighting for gender equality.This article examines the developments in the General Zionist Party that led WIZO, founded as a women’s philanthropic organisation, to run as an independent political party on its own platform on the eve of the establishment of the State of Israel. It will also look at the impact of WIZO party on Israel’s center-right – the General Zionists, the Progressive party and Herut – in the context of the Constituent Assembly elections. The establishment of a women’s party in 1948-49 was a unique phenomenon with no equal anywhere in the world at the time. © 2021 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.