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Papers by Dr. Hadara Scheflan Katzav

Feminismo/s

The basic premise of this article is that despite the many representations of mothers in the hist... more The basic premise of this article is that despite the many representations of mothers in the history of art, the maternal image has almost invariably been presented in the status of object, i.e., a reflection of the value system, interests, and perspective of the patriarchal culture, and not of the mother herself. This study examines the construction of the maternal ideal in western, particularly Israeli, culture, and suggests the turning point over the past twenty years as contemporary artist-mothers (mama’artists) have undermined this ideal. To avoid the traditional structure into which the mother has been relegated, the article adopts the matricentric perspective of Canadian scholar Andrea O’Reilly, who places the mother at the center of feminist discourse. With the understanding that the category mother intersects with, but is distinct from, the category woman, art scholarship must formulate more valid narratives. This paper has two goals. One is to examine how matricentric rese...

Arts

The story of Israel and its raison d’être are suffused by memories of the Holocaust, which constr... more The story of Israel and its raison d’être are suffused by memories of the Holocaust, which construct the self-definition and identity of the state. This article examines works by three contemporary Israeli women artists—Dvora Morag, Miri Nishri, and Bracha Ettinger—who subvert the traditional telling of history and enable rethinking of the past as the basis for the individual’s existence in the nation state. Through the works of these artists, official memory disintegrates into fragments of personal memories of the artists’ mothers, enabling a new moral, historical perspective. The reconstruction of history through stories that pass from mother to daughter contrasts sharply with Jewish tradition in which the historical story passes from father to son. The yearly Passover retelling of the Exodus admonishes “Thou shalt tell thy son on that day to say, ‘It is because of what the Lord did for me when I came out of Egypt’”. The two narratives, the Exodus from Egypt and the Holocaust, are...

Journal of Visual Literacy

The premise of the article is that the history of Western art as taught in most art curricula is ... more The premise of the article is that the history of Western art as taught in most art curricula is fundamentally biased and patriarchal. It was primarily feminist scholars who demonstrated how modernist art paradigms are constructed by gender differences and thus reflect and reinforce gender power relations. My claim is that changing the power relations requires visual literacy skills and a new reading that will broaden or modify the standard visual reading of modernist artworks. The study offers a critical visual reading of two foundational artistic themes, each to be read through dialog between the work of a male artist and that of a female artist, the themes being "girl before a mirror" and "the origin of the world". The cases are taken from a course I teach undergraduate students in education and art. For each of the themes, I present the development of an alternative critical reading of the artworks. I show how the acquisition of skills in critical feminist visual reading helps to promote the deconstruction of traditional gendered representations, and allows students to read the woman as a subject rather than an object.

Published in the book Counting on Marilyn Waring-New Advances in Feminist Economics. Edited by Ma... more Published in the book Counting on Marilyn Waring-New Advances in Feminist Economics. Edited by Margunn Bjornholt & Ailsa Mckay, Published by Demeter.

This paper offers a multidisciplinary investigation of the status of mothers in Israeli culture and society. The foundation of this reading is Marilyn Waring's position regarding the value system of western capitalism in which every merchandise and activity becomes visible via their monetary value. We illustrate how the concept of "value" is loaded with a double meaning and inner contradiction.
Israel, a democratic, western, capitalistic, family oriented and militaristic society, puts a high value on motherhood because of public secular and religious ideology, but zero economic value. The National Insurance Institute defines the job of mothering as “not working” and a woman who has worked and paid national insurance all her life loses her rights if she works "only" as a mother four years or more. The "gap" between the official "family values" vs. the economic reality is usually against women.
This chapter is the fruit of an ongoing collaboration between multidisciplinary artist, speaker and activist Shira Richter, and Head of Art Department at Hakibbuzim College Dr. Hadara Scheflan Katzav. INVISIBLE INVALUABLES is one of our major projects resulting from Warings' influence and inspiration: An exhibition of illuminated photographs extracted from domestic unpaid labor which highlights the irony of the low status of mothering by transforming mundane objects of child rearing and household work into sleek status symbols.
The exhibit about maternal invisibility in the economic sphere is both personal and political. It exposes extremely sensitive nerves in Israeli society, and has contributed to a public discourse among both individual women and socio- political organizations.

Feminismo/s

The basic premise of this article is that despite the many representations of mothers in the hist... more The basic premise of this article is that despite the many representations of mothers in the history of art, the maternal image has almost invariably been presented in the status of object, i.e., a reflection of the value system, interests, and perspective of the patriarchal culture, and not of the mother herself. This study examines the construction of the maternal ideal in western, particularly Israeli, culture, and suggests the turning point over the past twenty years as contemporary artist-mothers (mama’artists) have undermined this ideal. To avoid the traditional structure into which the mother has been relegated, the article adopts the matricentric perspective of Canadian scholar Andrea O’Reilly, who places the mother at the center of feminist discourse. With the understanding that the category mother intersects with, but is distinct from, the category woman, art scholarship must formulate more valid narratives. This paper has two goals. One is to examine how matricentric rese...

Arts

The story of Israel and its raison d’être are suffused by memories of the Holocaust, which constr... more The story of Israel and its raison d’être are suffused by memories of the Holocaust, which construct the self-definition and identity of the state. This article examines works by three contemporary Israeli women artists—Dvora Morag, Miri Nishri, and Bracha Ettinger—who subvert the traditional telling of history and enable rethinking of the past as the basis for the individual’s existence in the nation state. Through the works of these artists, official memory disintegrates into fragments of personal memories of the artists’ mothers, enabling a new moral, historical perspective. The reconstruction of history through stories that pass from mother to daughter contrasts sharply with Jewish tradition in which the historical story passes from father to son. The yearly Passover retelling of the Exodus admonishes “Thou shalt tell thy son on that day to say, ‘It is because of what the Lord did for me when I came out of Egypt’”. The two narratives, the Exodus from Egypt and the Holocaust, are...

Journal of Visual Literacy

The premise of the article is that the history of Western art as taught in most art curricula is ... more The premise of the article is that the history of Western art as taught in most art curricula is fundamentally biased and patriarchal. It was primarily feminist scholars who demonstrated how modernist art paradigms are constructed by gender differences and thus reflect and reinforce gender power relations. My claim is that changing the power relations requires visual literacy skills and a new reading that will broaden or modify the standard visual reading of modernist artworks. The study offers a critical visual reading of two foundational artistic themes, each to be read through dialog between the work of a male artist and that of a female artist, the themes being "girl before a mirror" and "the origin of the world". The cases are taken from a course I teach undergraduate students in education and art. For each of the themes, I present the development of an alternative critical reading of the artworks. I show how the acquisition of skills in critical feminist visual reading helps to promote the deconstruction of traditional gendered representations, and allows students to read the woman as a subject rather than an object.

Published in the book Counting on Marilyn Waring-New Advances in Feminist Economics. Edited by Ma... more Published in the book Counting on Marilyn Waring-New Advances in Feminist Economics. Edited by Margunn Bjornholt & Ailsa Mckay, Published by Demeter.

This paper offers a multidisciplinary investigation of the status of mothers in Israeli culture and society. The foundation of this reading is Marilyn Waring's position regarding the value system of western capitalism in which every merchandise and activity becomes visible via their monetary value. We illustrate how the concept of "value" is loaded with a double meaning and inner contradiction.
Israel, a democratic, western, capitalistic, family oriented and militaristic society, puts a high value on motherhood because of public secular and religious ideology, but zero economic value. The National Insurance Institute defines the job of mothering as “not working” and a woman who has worked and paid national insurance all her life loses her rights if she works "only" as a mother four years or more. The "gap" between the official "family values" vs. the economic reality is usually against women.
This chapter is the fruit of an ongoing collaboration between multidisciplinary artist, speaker and activist Shira Richter, and Head of Art Department at Hakibbuzim College Dr. Hadara Scheflan Katzav. INVISIBLE INVALUABLES is one of our major projects resulting from Warings' influence and inspiration: An exhibition of illuminated photographs extracted from domestic unpaid labor which highlights the irony of the low status of mothering by transforming mundane objects of child rearing and household work into sleek status symbols.
The exhibit about maternal invisibility in the economic sphere is both personal and political. It exposes extremely sensitive nerves in Israeli society, and has contributed to a public discourse among both individual women and socio- political organizations.