The Effect of the Major Immigration Waves on Beauty Pageants in Israel
Abstract
The article deals with the effect of three major immigration waves on Israeli beauty pageants during the years they took place. Beauty pageants reflect much of the society in which they occur, its characteristics and values. Immigration in Israel had a major effect in shaping the Israeli state and its society, then and now. This article examines how and why these events affected and were expressed in beauty pageants in Israel. The article examines three major immigration waves, the number of immigrants, and their composition: the immigration wave between 1948 and 1956, the one in the 1960s, and the immigration wave from the former Soviet Union in the 1990s. Relevant issues of LaIsha, a popular Israeli women’s magazine that covered the beauty pageants, its contestants, and the winners, were analyzed to understand the effect of this immigration on the pageants.
The analysis found that although immigration was represented in the pageants via the contestants, this was true mainly for European immigration. Immigrants from Arabic countries had very little representation and there were few contestants from these countries in the 1950s and ‘60s, for diverse reasons: the immigrants resided in geographically peripheral areas and LaIsha, which contained information relating to the pageants, was not readily available; the traditional character of the immigrants conflicted with the pageant values; the negative image of the immigrants in the eyes of the resident population and the dominant hegemony in Israel’s early years that promoted a European perception of beauty.
The analysis of beauty pageants in the 1990s shows that immigrants from the former Soviet Union were well-represented in the pageant winners and that ethnic representation had diversified as well. During these years contestants came from various cities and towns in Israel, including from peripheral areas. Furthermore, women from eastern communities, the daughters and granddaughters of the immigrants from Arabic countries in the 1950s and ‘60s, were better represented. This change is a possible reflection of changes in Israeli society and changes within the Jewish communities of eastern origin.
