Peter will explore and describe the link between the women who founded the Federation of Women Zionists (1918) and later WIZO (1920), and the greater movement for women’s suffrage in the UK, including its more militant arm, the Women’s Social and Political Union.
It is perhaps not coincidental that the push for Jewish female political enfranchisement came strongest from Britain. In 1918, the British government had passed the Representation of the People Act. The act gave all men over 21 and women over 30 who were on the local government register in Great Britain and Ireland - or married to a man who was - the right to vote in parliamentary elections. The Parliament (Qualification of Women) Act, passed in November 1918 allowed women to stand for election and serve in Parliament.
Peter will look at how many of the central figures in the formation of the League of Women Zionists and WIZO had been active participants.
Peter Bergamin is Lecturer in Oriental Studies at Mansfield College, University of Oxford, and Research Fellow of the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies. Peter specialises on the British Mandate for Palestine, with a particular interest in Maximalist-Revisionist Zionism.
