John C. Lehr

Symbolism and landscape: the Etzion bloc in the Judean mountains

In the early 1940s, the Jewish National Fund (JNF) acquired lands south of Bethlehem in a region that later became known as the Etzion bloc. In the years that followed, the JNF and the Settlement Department of the Jewish Agency established a bloc of settlements on these lands that included four kibbutzim: Kfar Etzion (1943), Massuot Yitzhak (1945), Ein Zurim (1946), and Revadim (1947). These were the only Jewish settlements in the area between Jerusalem and Hebron. During the War for Independence, in 1948, these settlements were abandoned and destroyed, and a total of about 220 people lost their lives almost all the male residents of Kfar Etzion as well as other Jewish defenders who had joined them. Nineteen years later, following the conquest of this territory by Israel in the Six Day War, the children of those who had been killed at Kfar Etzion appealed to the government to return to their homes, and to re-establish first and foremost Kfar Etzion. This effort, finally given governmental approval, became the vanguard of the movement to resettle the Etzion block, which, by Summer 1995, had a population of 9,000 and comprised three kibbutzim, four community settlements, and a town. The motivation in 1967 for resettling the Etzion bloc the first area in Judea and Samaria to be settled after the Six Day War was not primarily ideological, political or security-related, as was the establishment of other settlements in Judea and Samaria. The renewal of settlement in the Etzion bloc its goals, location, and the form it took should be understood in the context of its symbolic significance for the children of those who were killed there, the survivors of the bloc, and the Israeli public in general, and is related to the massive loss of life during the War for Independence and the accompanying trauma. The symbolism of Etzion bloc can also explain the long-held and prevalent view among many Israelis that consensus exists in Israel about the need to keep the Etzion bloc in Israeli hands in any kind

Social Philosophy and the Early Development of Winnipeg's Public Parks

Les premiers parcs de Winnipeg firent leur apparition vers la fin du XIXe siecle. Pour comprendre leur origine, il faut se situer dans le contexte plus large des philosophies sociales qui avaient cours alors en Amerique du Nord. Bien que leur conception et leur fonction aient evolue, les parcs furent etablis pour servir les interets des promoteurs immobiliers et pour satisfaire aux exigences des reformateurs sociaux. Ils furent donc concus pour accroitre la valeur des terrains et ameliorer la qualite de la vie a Winnipeg. Vers le milieu des annees vingt, les efforts combines des entrepreneurs prives et des pouvoirs publics avaient cree un reseau de parcs et d’espaces verts qui repondaient aux besoins et interets d’une grande partie de la population de la ville.

The Ukrainian Cultural Landscape in Canada and Brazil: A Century of Change and Divergence

Between 1891 and 1914 thousands of Ukrainian peasants left their ancestral homeland in Western Ukraine to seek land on the agricultural frontiers of Western Canada and southern Brazil. Often these emigrants who left for radically different frontiers originated from the same districts and villages; some even came from the same families. The new landscapes created in Canada and Brazil by these Ukrainian pioneers reflected environmental differences between the Old World and the New. The Ukrainian landscape in Brazil showed the most immediate response to environmental change, but the isolation of the Brazilian communities meant that evidence of traditional folkways and aspects of material culture survived far longer in Ukrainian Brazilian areas than in Ukrainian Canadian communities. At the same time as these landscapes in the Ukrainian diaspora were evolving, the landscapes of the hearth area were also experiencing change. This paper is thus an attempt to consider the role of time, environmental change, and culture in three areas that are geographically widely separated, but retain certain cultural commonalities in radically different physical and political environments.De 1891 à 1914 des milliers de paysans ukrainiens ont quitté leur patrie ancestrale en Ukraine de l’Ouest pour des terres aux frontières agricoles de l’Ouest canadien et du Brésil du sud. Ces émigrants qui partaient pour des contrées radicalement dissemblables, provenaient souvent des mêmes districts et villages, si ce n’est des mêmes familles. La manière dont ces pionniers ukrainiens ont réaménagé ces territoires, reflétait les différences environnementales du vieux et du nouveau monde. Au Brésil, ils se sont immédiatement adaptés au changement géographique, mais l’isolement de leurs communautés a permis aux formes de vie traditionnelles populaires et aux caractères culturels architecturaux de leurs villages de survivre beaucoup plus longtemps que chez les Canadiens ukrainiens. Parallèlement aux transformations des paysages de la diaspora ukrainienne, d’autres mutations se faisaient aussi dans son foyer ancestral. Cet article tente donc de considérer le rôle du temps, du changement environnemental et de la culture dans les trois régions qui retiennent certains points culturels communs malgré leur grand éloignement géographique aux unes et aux autres et des terrains physiques et politiques radicalement différents.

Gender, Power and Equality: Women’s Roles in Hutterite Society

This chapter, which is part of a comprehensive research project on the social position, economic role and attitudes of Hutterite women, seeks to examine gender relationships within the Hutterian community. The first section deals with the principles of Hutterite belief and the place of the woman in this framework. The second section describes the female occupations, and the third section discusses the inherent lack of gender equality in the Hutterite colonies. The fourth section deals with the women’s attitude towards their lack of equality. The chapter further analyzes the ways in which women influence the communities in recent years. It discusses where women have influence within the colony and the areas of colony operation where they wish to see change. As in every society, even in the most egalitarian, not every woman wishes to be influential. Despite considerable difficulties, Hutterite women who wish to influence colony affairs can do so. Keywords:gender equality; Hutterite colonies; Hutterite society; Hutterite women; women’s occupational roles

Heritage Interpretation and Politics in Kfar Etzion, Israel

Kfar Etzion is a Kibbutz first established in Palestine in the 1930s. At the end of the British Mandate, in 1948, it became a de facto Israeli military outpost that controlled access to Jerusalem from the south. Kfar Etzion fell to Arab forces in 1948 and the area became Jordanian territory until 1967 when Israeli forces occupied the West Bank. Kfar Etzion was re-established in the same year. Kfar Etzion now interprets its history through a sophisticated multilingual audio-visual presentation offered in a museum built over a former bunker where Jewish defenders were killed. This presentation is analysed to illustrate the ways in which an historical narrative is constructed for interpretive purposes and to show that Bloc and Israeli perspectives are conflated for political purposes. The battle for the Bloc continues through the interpretation of heritage.

Book Reviews : The American backwoods frontier: an ethnic and ecological interpretation. By Terry G. Jordan and Matti Kaups. Baltimore and London, Johns Hopkins University Press. 1992. xiii + 340 pp. £17.00, paper. ISBN 0 8018 4375 8:

at all, into the developing world of consumer capitalism. And when new services and goods were purchased, they were often incorporated into alternative systems of meaning. These historians argue, in effect, that by actively appropriating and transforming leisure goods to suit its own purposes, working-class, ethnic consumption resembles less a cultural suicide than cultural awakening. Whether one sees consumption as cultural suicide or the potential for cultural awakening, its awesome force can hardly be denied. Woodstock is celebrated twentyfive years later with a flourish of enterprising commercial sponsorship, Disney wants to ’recreate’ history next to a Civil War battlefield, and anyone, with the cash, may purchase a pair of Doc Marten’s, the boots banned only last year at a Texas high school for their ’radical associations’. We all live in the Land of Desire, whether we

Jewish Pioneer Agricultural Settlements in Western Canada

Jewish settlers established agricultural settlements in the Canadian Prairie Provinces from the early 1880s through the first decade of the 20th century. Without exception these settlements were eventually abandoned by their founders. Today there are no Jewish rural agricultural communities in western Canada. Environmental adversity and lack of farming experience as major factors in the failure of the Jewish settlements are questioned. This study argues that Jewish pioneers abandoned their farms when they were unable to reconcile the demands of religious observance with the dispersed pattern of settlement mandated by the Dominion Lands Act of 1872. Poor coordination of aid by Jewish philanthropic institutions and their failure to strive for the concentration of Jewish colonization in a single geographic area exacerbated the social and religious problems faced by rural Jewish settlers. For many, relocation to a Jewish urban community was the only way to remain observant to Jewish religious law.

Review Essay: Ukrainians In Canada

(1990). Review Essay: Ukrainians In Canada. American Review of Canadian Studies: Vol. 20, No. 1, pp. 109-115.