Nostalgia Sunday – The Womens Corps

March 14, 2010 - 4:31 PM by

A new exhibit has gone up at the Eretz Israel Museum in Tel Aviv: Women in the Service of the British Army. The exhibit tells the story of the women in the pre-State Israel Yishuv who served in the British Army during World War II.

Curator Batya Donner writes, “The volunteers, who were called to enlist into the ATS (Auxiliary Territorial Service, and the WAAF (Women’s Auxiliary Air Force), may have marked a turning point in historical decision-making.

“The national question whether to enlist into the British Army, like the men who served in the Jewish Brigade, revived deliberations on helping the British, who initiated the White Paper in the war against the common German enemy, or enlisting into the nascent Israeli organizations. The central issue of stormy discussions focused on the enlistment of women into the British Forces, was gender-oriented – would it be right to allow the Yishuv’s women to serve in uniform side by side with British soldiers?

“The act of enlisting women into the British Forces was unprecedented in the Jewish or Eretz Israel context, and in hindsight perhaps heralded the enlistment of the women of the Yishuv in World War II and the establishment of CHEN – the Women’s Corps – in the IDF, whose first commanding officers were a group of women trained in the ATS.”

The exhibit shows posters encouraging women to join the British army, insignia, badges of merit and other medals given to the women, service books and discharge books, as well as video interviews with some of the surviving volunteers.

There are also photographs depicting the variety of their roles in the British army: they worked mainly in hospitals, served as clerks, cooks and nursing auxiliaries, and worked in the quartermaster’s store, etc. Some were also jeep drivers, such as Sonia Peres, the president’s wife, and Sarah Stern, legendary proprietor of Cafe Tamar.

An excellent essay about the ATS by former MK and diplomat (and my mother’s boss at the Israel Consulate in the early 1950s) Esther Herlitz, who herself served in the corps, is available online at the Jewish Women’s archive.

Herlitz also mentions the book by Zivia Cohen, entitled We Volunteered for the British Army: Jewish Women from Palestine in World War II, which was published (in Hebrew) in 2005.

The ATS has a permanent collection on display at Beit Gdudim Museum, Moshav Avihayil near Netanya. Beit Gdudim is devoted to the history of the Jewish volunteer brigades in both World Wars, and the women’s corps finally received its due credit a few years ago.

Some more great posters from the era are on view at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs website.

Tags: , , , , , , , , • Category: A New Reality, General, History and Culture, Israeliness, Nostalgia Sunday, War 

Comments

2 Comments on Nostalgia Sunday – The Womens Corps

  1. Nostalgia Sunday – The Modern Israeli Woman In Old Newsreels | ISRAELITY on Sun, Aug 8th 2010 11:45 PM

    2. [...] few months ago, I posted an item about the Women’s Corps, timed to coincide with an exhibit about those brave women of pre-State Israel who volunteered for [...]

  2. Nostalgia Sunday – Service Women | ISRAELITY on Sun, Jun 26th 2011 5:51 PM

    3. [...] A previous post about the women in the British Army’s Jewish Brigade provides much information about the role of the Auxiliary Territorial Service (the women’s corps) which served as the roots for CHEN, the women’s arm of the Israel Defense Force which was founded in 1948. Two important following dates: 1995, when Israel’s Supreme Court ruling abolished the limitation on women engaging in combat roles, and 2001 when CHEN was incorporated into the General Staff. [...]

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