Abstract
The journalist Hannah Semer has always fascinated me. I grew up in Israel during the 1970s and 1980s, when Semer’s was one of the few women’s voices heard in the public arena, alongside figures such as politicians Shulamit Aloni, Geula Cohen, Tamar Gozansky, and Supreme Court Justice Miriam Ben-Porat. Semer was an exceptional figure; she broke through the glass ceiling of journalism in a way no other Israeli female journalist did before or has done since, and very few female journalists worldwide have equaled her professional and public achievements. Semer held jobs that traditionally were—and still remain—the exclusive preserve of male journalists: parliamentary correspondent, political correspondent, editorial writer on political affairs, and, most exceptionally, editor-in-chief of a daily newspaper for two decades.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
- 2.
This committee consists of the editors and owners of the main Israeli newsrooms. Until the 1970s, it was quite prestigious and its members were given important information on condition it not be published (Limor et al. 2007).
- 3.
The Israel Press Council is the uppermost media organization in Israel. This voluntary organization was established in 1963 and is made up of representatives of the public, reporters, editors, and media owners (Limor et al. 2007).
- 4.
The global network of editors, media executives, and leading journalists, dedicated to the furtherance and safeguarding of press freedom, the promotion of the free flow of news and information, and the improvement of the practices of journalism.
- 5.
Hannah Semer. (June 27, 1983). La’Isha, p. 5. Semer’s first book, Half Tea, Half Coffee (1969), is a collection of her writings for her radio program together with essays she wrote especially for the book. Her second book, Ceausescu of Romania (1976), is a biography of the Romanian leader Ceausescu published before his transgressions as dictator became known. Semer regretted writing the book and shelved it.
- 6.
Avidar, T. (September, 1969). Nothing Stands in Hannah’s Way, Att, Issue no. 30, 29:5.
- 7.
Eisin, N. (1974). Hannah Semer, Dvar Hapo’elet, nos. 3–4:10.
- 8.
Hannah Semer. (May, 28, 1990b). A Woman, Flesh and Blood, La’Isha, 22: 27–28.
- 9.
Mary Oskovsky-York. (January, 1988). A Different Thing, Olam Haisha: 38.
- 10.
Hannah Semer. (June 27, 1983). La’Isha, p. 19.
- 11.
Tali Lipkin-Shahak. (September 14, 1990). Dvar Hashavua, p. 8.
- 12.
Cohen, Z. (August-September, 1983). An Interview with Hannah Semer, Naamat, pp. 8–9.
- 13.
Anonymous 1972, p. 3.
- 14.
Cohen, Z. (August–September, 1983). An Interview with Hannah Semer, Naamat, pp. 8–9.
- 15.
Tali Lipkin-Shahak. (September 14, 1990). Dvar Hashavua, p. 9.
- 16.
Ibid.
- 17.
Ibid.
- 18.
Sarig, M. (March 31, 2000). Hannah Semer. Iton Tel Aviv, p. 83.
- 19.
Ibid.
- 20.
Hannah Semer. (September 20, 1982). Removing the Government of Evil from the Land, Davar, p. 1.
- 21.
Hannah Semer. (December 29, 1975). The Hazed Discourse, La’Isha, p. 22.
- 22.
Hannah Semer (February 25, 1972). A Sense of Proportion, Davar, p. 15.
- 23.
Mary Oskovsky-York. (January, 1988). A Different Thing, Olam Haisha: 38.
Bibliography
Berkovitch, N. (1997). Motherhood as a National Mission: The Construction of Womanhood in the Legal Discourse in Israel. Women’s Studies International Forum, 20(5/6), 605–619.
Caine, B. (1994). Feminist Biography and Feminist History. Women’s History Review, 3(2), 247–261.
Caspi, D., & Limor, Y. (1999). The In/Outsiders: Mass Media in Israel. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press.
Chambers, D., Steiner, L., & Fleming, C. (2004). Women and Journalism. London and New York: Routledge.
Down Hall, J. (1987). Second Thoughts: On Writing a Feminist Biography. Feminist Studies, 13(1), 19–37.
Fogiel-Bijaoui, S. (1999). Families in Israel: Between Familism and Post-Modernism. In D. Izraeli, A. Friedman, H. Dahan-Kalev, S. Fogiel-Bijaoui, M. Hassan, H. Herzog, & H. Naveh (Eds.), Sex, Gender, Politics (pp. 107–166). Tel-Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad. [Hebrew].
Fogiel-Bijaoui, S. (2010). Democracy and Feminism: Citizenship, Gender and Civil-Rights. Ra’anana: Open University. [Hebrew].
Fogiel-Bijaoui, S. (2016). Navigating Gender Inequality in Israel: The Challenges of Feminism. In J. H. Schoeps, O. Glockner, E. Ben-Rafael, & Y. Sternberg (Eds.), Handbook of Israel: The Major Debates (pp. 423–436). De Gruyter Oldenbourg: Oldenbourg.
Franks, S. (2013). Women and Journalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP). (2015). Who Makes the News? London and Toronto: World Association for Christian Communication (WACC). Retrieved from http://bit.ly/21exo5B.
Halperin-Kaddari, R. (2006). Feminist Legal Theory, Social Change, and the Advancement of Women in Israel. Democratic Culture, 10, 163–190. [Hebrew].
Herzog, H. (2004). Women in Israeli Society. In U. Rebhun & C. I. Waxman (Eds.), Jews in Israel: Contemporary Social and Cultural Patterns (pp. 206–214). Hanover and London: Brandeis University Press.
Herzog, H. (2006). Between the Lawn and the Gravel Path: Women, Politics, and Civil Society. Democratic Culture, 10, 191–214. [Hebrew].
International Women’s Media Foundation (IWMF). (2011). Global Report on the Status of Women in the News Media. Washington: IWMF.
Kimber, M. W. (2000). The ‘Suppression’ of Fanny Mendelssohn: Rethinking Feminist Biography. 19th Century Music, 26(2), 113–129.
Lachover, E. (2009). The First Lady of Hebrew Journalism: Hannah Semer (1924–2003). Medien and Zeit, 24(2), 40–54.
Lachover, E. (2013). Professionalism, Femininity and Feminism in the Life of Hannah Semer (1924–2003): First Lady of Israeli Journalism. NASHIM, 4, 120–138.
Lachover, E., & Lemish, D. (2018, March). Women in Israeli Journalism: Forwards and Backwards. Israel Affairs. Online first. https://doi.org/10.1080/13537121.2018.1454016.
Lieblich, A. (1997). On Writing Biography. Israel Journal of Communication, Culture and Society, 2, 31–43.
Limor, Y., Adoni, H., & Mann, R. (2007). Media and Communication Lexicon. Tel-Aviv: Yedioth Acharonoth. Hebrew.
Melman, B. (1993). The Angel of History Has a Gender: The History of Women, History and Politics – 1880–1993. Zmanim: Historical Quarterly, 21, 18–33. [Hebrew].
Naor, M. (2012). The Conductor. The Seventh Eye. Retrieved June 30, 2018, from https://bit.ly/2lBDoqF. [Hebrew].
Paxton, P., & Hughes, M. M. (2017). Women, Politics, and Power: A Global Perspective. Los Angeles: Sage.
Pitkin, H. F. (1967). The Concept of Representation. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Quataert, J., & Wheeler, L. A. (2012). Editorial Note: Individual Lives: Windows on Women’s History. Journal of Women’s History, 24(3), 7–12.
Reinhartz, S. (1993). Feminist Biography: The Pains, the Joys, the Dilemmas. In A. Lieblich & J. Ruthellen (Eds.), Exploring Identity and Gender: The Narrative Study of Lives (pp. 37–82). Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Reinke, R. (2010). Catfight: A Feminist Analysis. Chrestomathy: Annual Review of Undergraduate Research, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, School of Languages, Cultures, and World Affairs, College of Charleston, 9, 162–185.
Rotchield, S. (2006). No One Ever Called Me “Meidale.” Shulamit Aloni Feminism and Leadership. Master’s thesis submitted in the Department of Gender Studies, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan. [Hebrew].
Rubinstein, D. (2012). Hanna Zemer 1925–2003. Jewish Women’s Archive. Retrieved June 30, 2018, from https://bit.ly/2Kl4cJT.
Safran, H. (2006). Don’t Wanna Be Nice Girls: The Struggle for Suffrage and the New Feminism in Israel. Haifa: Pardes. [Hebrew].
Schwindt-Bayer, L., & Mishler, W. (2005). An Integrated Model of Women’s Representation. The Journal of Politics, 67(2), 407–428.
Semer, H. (1969). Half Tea, Half Coffee. Ramat-Gan: Masada. [Hebrew].
Semer, H. (1976). Ceausescu of Romania. Tel-Aviv: Hidekel. [Hebrew].
Smith, V. (2015). Outsiders Still: Why Women Journalists Love—and Leave—Their Newspaper Careers. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Triger, Z. H. (2010). “I have Never Joined the Women’s Rights Movement”: Golda Meir and the Beginnings of the Women’s Movement in Eretz Israel. In E. Katvan & R. H. Halperin-Keidari (Eds.), One Law for Man and Woman: Women, Rights and Law in Mandatory Palestine. Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press. [Hebrew].
Tuchman, B. W. (1979). Biography as a Prism of History. In M. Pachter (Ed.), Telling Lives: The Biographer’s Art (pp. 132–147). Washington, DC: New Republic Books.
Ware, S. (2012). The Book I Couldn’t Write: Alice Paul and the Challenge of Feminist Biography. Journal of Women’s History, 24(2), 13–36.
Journalistic Sources [Hebrew]
Anonymous. (1972). Sokolow Prizes. Davar, 3.
Avidar, T. (1969, September). Nothing Stands in Hannah’s Way. Att, Issue no. 30, 29.
Cohen, Z. (1983, August–September). An Interview with Hannah Semer. Naamat, 8–9.
Eisin, N. (1974). Hannah Semer. Dvar hapo’elet, nos. 3–4, 9–10.
Lipkin-Shahak, T. (1990, September 14). Dvar hashavua, 8.
Oskovsky-York, M. (1988, January). A Different Thing. Olam Haisha, 38.
Peri, Y. (2003, March 11). Golda Gets Angry Every Morning. Ha’aretz, 2B.
Sarig, M. (2000, March 31). Hannah Semer. Iton Tel Aviv, 83–84.
Semer, H. (1972, February 25). A Sense of Proportion. Davar, 15.
Semer, H. (1975, December 29). The Hazed Discourse. La’Isha, 22.
Semer, H. (1977, August 1). The Psychology of a Minority. La’Isha, 7.
Semer, H. (1978, December 18). Golda the Woman. La’Isha, 21.
Semer, H. (1982, September 20). Removing the Government of Evil from the Land. Davar, 1.
Semer, H. (1983, June 27). La’Isha, 19.
Semer, H. (1990a). Women Editors. Lady Globes, 27–28.
Semer, H. (1990b, May 28). A Woman, Flesh and Blood. La’Isha, 22.
Semer, H. (1995, June 16). Davar: Seventy Years. Davar, 20.
Semer, H. (1996, June). Something Happened in the Death of a Newspaper. Otot, 192, 34.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Lachover, E. (2020). A Noticeable Woman in the Public Sphere: The Life of Israeli Journalist Hannah Semer (1924–2003). In: Shabliy, E., Kurochkin, D., Ayee, G. (eds) Global Perspectives on Women’s Leadership and Gender (In)Equality . Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41822-9_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41822-9_8
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-41821-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-41822-9
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)