Hebrew Queen Esther

Chapter 6 “Our Only Romantic Festival”: Hebrew Queen Esther The previous chapter dealt with the political performances of Mordechai, Haman, and the horse. The topic of this chapter is no less political, as it will analyze the performances of Esther, the main female protagonist of both the biblical story and the Tel Aviv carnival. The passing episode of Hebrew Queen Esther left a deep mark on Zionist and Jewish collective memory, as a unique combination of Jewish folk- lore, the European-Mediterranean carnivalesque tradition, and cap- italist mass entertainment.1 But as often happens with intersections of nationalism and gender, here the political and the personal were intermingled.2 Carnivalesque subversive traditions, including The East European tradition of Purimspiel, highlighted the war of the sexes as a guiding theme through the enactment of feminine roles by men’s bodies masqueraded as women’s, and displayed as ugly. This mocked not only the feminine inclination to decoration, but even sexual desire altogether. Until the industrial age, the more common Western carnivalesque ruler was usually a King, rather than a Queen. In some cases, there were separate parties for women who elected their own Queens (somewhat like the biblical Vashti). In Jewish folkloric traditions, especially in Eastern Europe, the “Purim Rabbi” or Purimspielers were always men as well — mostly yeshiva students.3 In bourgeois Tel Aviv, this kind of misogynistic tradition was barely present, and was replaced by the middle-class elevation of feminine beauty and heterosexual attraction. Unlike symbolic violence, 1 Carmiel 1999: 9. 2 On the different intersections of gender and nationalism see: Yuval-Davis 1993; Yuval-Davis 1997. 3 Davis 1987: 105; Belkin 2001. Chapter 6. “Our Only Romantic Festival”: Hebrew Queen Esther 139 the carnivalesque motif of grotesque sexuality was totally rejected by the bourgeois ethos of respectability, as elucidated by Mosse.4 Nevertheless, in Mandatory Tel Aviv, the concept of respectability itself was contested with regard to public appearance of flesh- and-blood women. The public imagery of the industrial era entailed the relative disappearance of the masculine body from the public eye as an object of knowledge or desire. Meanwhile, with the wan- ing of women’s political activity in the public spheres of the rising middle class, their visual presence was increasing, “as though the real absence of women as actors in the bourgeois civil sphere was filled by com pensatory fantasies — or constellations of fantasies — about femininity.”5 The Zionist movement and bourgeois family values are no lon- ger considered contradictory in scholarship. As recently discussed by Razi and others, the family was considered a significant socializing agent for nation-building. In fact, it was recently revealed, even the majority of anti-bourgeois pioneers got married and created monog- amist families, in what historian Lilach Rosenberg-Freidman desig- nates “conservative revolution.”6 Moreover, Zionism assumed masculine qualities of active political and cultural subjects, and women activists were less prominent in Jewish Nationalism, in Palestine and abroad, than in other modern Jewish political and social movements.7 Despite the importance of the equalitarian ethos in pioneers’ circles, women were underrepresented in politics, journalism, and many other realms of public life, whereas raising children was considered their main national role. At this point Zionist discourse corresponded with the bourgeois myths of the “house priestess.”8 The Hebrew Queen Esther pageants were an overloaded inter- section of gender, ethnicity, “family values,” and nationalism, as 4 Mosse 1985. 5 Solomon-Godeau 1996: 117. For more about Woman-as-commodity see: Kuchta 1996; Roberts 1998; Tiersten 2001. 6 Ze’ira 2002: 154–166, 265–272; Razi 2009; Razi 2010; Rosenberg-Freidman 2012a (quote from p. 121); Rosenberg-Freidman 2012b. 7 Hyman 1995: 79–81. 8 Bernstein 1992; Shilo 1996; Biale 1997: 176–203; Bernstein 1998a; Herzog 2002; Stoler-Liss 2003. 140 Chapter 6. “Our Only Romantic Festival”: Hebrew Queen Esther already shown by a number of scholars.9 This chapter strives to dem- onstrate that the Zionist case was singled out from other bourgeois nationalisms not by the equalitarian pioneers’ ethos, but by the biblical intertextuality. In particular, the biblical allusions frequently used in the public discourse about Hebrew Queen Esther were often under- stood as referring to an ancient Oriental past of the Jewish people, and hence reveal a complicated relationship between nationalism, Orientalism, and gender, and more particularly between national- ist, familial, and religious components of Jewish ethnic nationalism. Moreover, the biblical intertextuality was definitive for the local iden- tity of the pageants in the face of the globalized beauty pageants. Male Dominance? Masculine and Feminine Beauty In 1926, Baruch Agadati announced a contest for Purim ball’s Queen Esther — the prettiest and most typical Jewess in Tel Aviv, who that will qualify as biblical Esther. This Esther will be the Queen of the Purim ball and the Queen of the procession to be held in Tel Aviv’s streets on the Purim festival.10 Usually, the Queen was elected in a special gala, held a month before Purim, by ticket-purchasers. At the carnival, the Queen-elect had several performative roles, the most important of which was the leading of the carnival street procession in an open car, accompanied by Agadati himself. The prize was not a sum of money, but a huge vase or another item of Oriental houseware.11 The pageants took place for four years, through 1929, and they were a huge success on both the local and the Jewish-international scale. Two or three years after the initiation of the pageant at Agadati’s ball, almost every Purim ball across Palestine elected “the Ball’s Girl,” “Queen Esther” or an explicit “beauty Queen.” Queens were elected by Jewish ethnic groups, regions, or youth clubs, and several of the 9 Carmiel 1999: 116–155; Spiegel 2001: chapter 1 (thanks to Dr. Spiegel for sharing her work with me); Stern 2006. 10 “Yafo ve-Tel-Aviv” [Jaffa and Tel Aviv], Ha’aretz 22.1.1926. 11 Carmiel 1999: 116–156. Chapter 6. “Our Only Romantic Festival”: Hebrew Queen Esther 141 winners represented their group in larger balls or in the main carnival procession in Tel Aviv.12 The custom was quickly popularized abroad as well, and many Jewish clubs elected their own Queen Esthers, inspired by Tel Aviv. Queen Esther pageants were so identified with Purim balls that in many places in the Jewish world Purim balls were called “Queen Esther Balls.” In fact, this was the first cultural prac- tice created in Tel Aviv that was disseminated throughout the Jewish world, positioning the young town as a prominent Jewish cultural center on a global scale.13 In 1930, as an outcome of a weighty political-cultural dispute, Agadati cancelled the pageant, and by 1933 it more or less disappeared from all Purim balls in Palestine (though the pageants continued to be held abroad). During this short lifetime, the pageants attracted great public attention from both supporters and opponents, and were the main grounds on which Agadati was defined as the “king” of Tel Aviv’s entertainment culture. The immediate inspiration were the beauty pageants of Atlantic City, which were initiated in 1921 as the “Miss America” contest and immediately gained currency all over the world — including the “first” and the “third” worlds.14 As an icon, the Beauty Queen was active in the public culture of British Palestine, particularly in the context of Purim balls. A Purim ball in Tel Aviv featured Kriman Kallem from 12 Such as: Tel Aviv’s Yemenite Queen (“Hamalka hateimanit” [The Yemenite Queen], Doar-Hayom 21.3.1929); Queen Esther of Petah-Tiqwa (“Em ham- oshavot holekhet be-ikvot Tel-Aviv” [The first colony follows Tel Aviv], Doar-Hayom 26.2.1928), of Safed (“Tzefat,” Ha’aretz 2.4.1929), or of “Maccabi” (Doar-Hayom 11.3.1928). A promise was made that “all Purim queens that were elected this year all over the country” would attend a Jerusalemite Purim ball (“costumes ball,” the posters collection, national library of Jerusalem, file V1969/3, and Doar-Hayom 29.3.1929). 13 “Ester hamalka ha-ostralit” [Australian Queen Esther — in Melbourne], Ha’aretz 5.3.1931; “Kabalat panim le-ester hamalka mi-New York” [A reception to New Yorker queen Esther], The posters collection, national library of Jerusalem, file V1969/3; two Yiddish invitations to Purim ball in Madison Square Garden, New York, 1930, and Chicago, 1934 (photos collections, Beit Ariela, Tel Aviv, file 1460). For a detailed study of the significance of Queen Esther pageants for Jewish communities in Argentina up to the 1960s see: Brodsky 2004: chapter 3 (thanks to Dr. Brodsky for sharing her work with me). 14 Bivans 1991: 8–12. 142 Chapter 6. “Our Only Romantic Festival”: Hebrew Queen Esther Turkey as the 1932 World Beauty Queen.15 The Jewess Elisheva Simon, the 1929 “Miss Europe,” attended the “Ophir” theatre Purim ball, and distributed the local pageant’s prizes.16 The presence of the Beauty Queen in public discourse was even more prominent in commer- cial language. The icon of the Beauty Queen was in frequent use to sell cigarettes, sewing machines, and other products.17 In Jerusalem, “a Yemenite Queen” was driven in an open car to publicize the cos- mopolite Purim balls of the “Bristol” café.18 Key cultural agents in the field, Agadati among them, refrained from declaring the pageant’s winner the “Beauty Queen,” and talked only about “Queen Esther.” Nonetheless, the title “Beauty Queen” was habitually used in commercials and by the broader public, and the term was used commonly by its opponents, or when the speaker was “provincial” enough to make this “incorrect” use.19 However, some- times even the cultural elite slipped, such as when Mayor Dizengoff spoke during the festive “royal” reception in his office: Today you are the Queen of Tel Aviv, governing from the Yarkon to Jaffa’s border.

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