Prof. Lilach Rosenberg-Friedman's latest research deals with the story of the children outside the kibbutzim in the years 1958-1924, "from below"; Emphasis on the personal experience of the children and their parents. The study focuses on children and teenagers, natives of the country and new immigrants, who came to kibbutzim outside of the youth immigration, for a variety of reasons. Among them were orphans, children whose parents had difficulty raising them, children of single mothers or fathers who were unable to care for them, children with personal difficulties or those whose parents believed in collective education. The findings that outline the daily lives of children and parents in the city and in the kibbutz, point to diverse perceptions of childhood, parenting and family that prevailed in society during the period under discussion. They testify to the perception of the kibbutz as an alternative family, but also to the complexity of absorbing these children despite the egalitarian kibbutz ethos, and the ideological and material conditions that were a favorable platform for their absorption. The phenomenon reflects the challenges of coming of age in a national society that is in the stages of formation and strives for social homogeneity. The unique study presents it through the eyes and voices of the children and their parents, while analyzing the reasons that brought them to the kibbutz and their daily routine there.
"As a history buff and one who likes to walk the small paths of the country," says Prof. Rosenberg-Friedman, who serves as the head of the department, "studying in the Department of AI Studies and Archeology in Bar-Ilan was a natural path for me. In my undergraduate studies in the department, I participated in a seminar given by Prof. Margalit Shilo, which dealt with women's history. On a personal level, I was interested in knowing how men and women lived their daily lives in the past. I focused on researching women's history. And so my path was paved in the field of social history, with an emphasis on women, gender and family in Israel of the XNUMXth century."
The variety of studies conducted by Prof. Rosenberg-Friedman over the years reflect the attempts of Israeli society to shape itself in a western-modern spirit and at the same time point to its being rooted in tradition. The nationalism that served everything strengthened the different positions and led to opposing moves. "My view of the world as a social historian, which I try to instill in my students as well, is that studying history is not only interesting for its own sake, but it provides an essential perspective for understanding the reality of our lives. My research on religious Zionism, which crossed three levels that created a new empirical and theoretical space: nationalism, religion and gender; My research on mixed marriages from a historical perspective, on childbirth, on a hundred captives of the War of Independence, are topics that preoccupy the contemporary Israeli discourse. The historical view sheds light on these issues from a different angle that gives them depth. When you look back, you see things in perspective and discover what achievements have been achieved and at the same time what goals are still to be pursued. The same goes for history in general and women's history in particular."
Soon her book will be published, "Zions from the womb and birth" (published by the Ben-Gurion Institute for the Study of Israel and Zionism), which deals with birth in Israel during the mandate period and the first years of the state. In the book, Prof. Rosenberg-Friedman analyzes the perceptions of birth in depth, and the attempts to regulate it, and in this way sheds light from a unique angle on the central ambition of the settlement, which was focused on creating a Jewish majority in Israel, and on the problematic that was involved in achieving this goal. A major insight that emerges from this research is that politics is often determined by individual men and women in their everyday lives.
Prof. Rosenberg-Friedman's fifth and last year as head of the Department of AI Studies and Archeology was dedicated, together with Prof. Hizki Shoham from the Interpretation and Culture Studies program, to organizing an international conference with many participants.
On June 27-29, the international and multi-participant conference of the Israel Studies Association will be held on campus (Association for Israel Studies) . The conference will emphasize aspects of diversity and conflict in Israeli society, in hundreds of lectures in a variety of fields, including history, geography and environment, political science, Orientalism, international relations, law, sociology, communication, art, culture and philosophy. For the first time in its history, Bar-Ilan University will host the conference, which will be attended by nearly five hundred researchers, old and young, from around the world.
