Dennis Pardee
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780197264928
- eISBN:
- 9780191754104
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197264928.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Asian and Middle Eastern History: BCE to 500CE
The discovery and decryption of Ugaritic cuneiform tablets in the 1920s has given scholars an insight into the development of alphabetic writing and the origins of biblical poetry. This book, based ...
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The discovery and decryption of Ugaritic cuneiform tablets in the 1920s has given scholars an insight into the development of alphabetic writing and the origins of biblical poetry. This book, based on the author's Schweich Lectures given in 2007, describes the origins of the cuneiform alphabetic writing system developed in Ugarit some time before 1250 bc, and the use of alphabetic writing at Ugarit, and gives a comparison of Ugaritic and Hebrew literatures.Less
The discovery and decryption of Ugaritic cuneiform tablets in the 1920s has given scholars an insight into the development of alphabetic writing and the origins of biblical poetry. This book, based on the author's Schweich Lectures given in 2007, describes the origins of the cuneiform alphabetic writing system developed in Ugarit some time before 1250 bc, and the use of alphabetic writing at Ugarit, and gives a comparison of Ugaritic and Hebrew literatures.
Lital Levy
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691162485
- eISBN:
- 9781400852574
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691162485.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter reexamines the history and indeed the idea of Modern Hebrew literature through the tension between its dominant narrative, associated with Ashkenazi Jews, and the suppressed perspectives ...
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This chapter reexamines the history and indeed the idea of Modern Hebrew literature through the tension between its dominant narrative, associated with Ashkenazi Jews, and the suppressed perspectives that emerge from the literary and scholarly activities of Arab Jews and Mizraḥim both before and after the founding of the state. It illustrates this history through the saga of a multigenerational affair: the passionate and conflicted romance of the so-called Sephardim (Sephardi, Mizraḥi, and Arab Jews) with Modern Hebrew literature's leading persona, Ḥayim Naḥman Bialik. Their story takes us from the 1920s to 1930s Levant—Baghdad, Jerusalem, and Cairo—to present-day Israel/Palestine, with the spirit of al-Andalus (Islamic Spain) accompanying us all along the way.Less
This chapter reexamines the history and indeed the idea of Modern Hebrew literature through the tension between its dominant narrative, associated with Ashkenazi Jews, and the suppressed perspectives that emerge from the literary and scholarly activities of Arab Jews and Mizraḥim both before and after the founding of the state. It illustrates this history through the saga of a multigenerational affair: the passionate and conflicted romance of the so-called Sephardim (Sephardi, Mizraḥi, and Arab Jews) with Modern Hebrew literature's leading persona, Ḥayim Naḥman Bialik. Their story takes us from the 1920s to 1930s Levant—Baghdad, Jerusalem, and Cairo—to present-day Israel/Palestine, with the spirit of al-Andalus (Islamic Spain) accompanying us all along the way.
Raymond P. Scheindlin
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195315424
- eISBN:
- 9780199872039
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195315424.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
Judah Halevi, the great medieval Hebrew poet, abandoned home and family in Spain (al-Andalus) at the end of his life and traveled east to die in the Holy Land. This book narrates his journey, quoting ...
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Judah Halevi, the great medieval Hebrew poet, abandoned home and family in Spain (al-Andalus) at the end of his life and traveled east to die in the Holy Land. This book narrates his journey, quoting from Arabic letters by Halevi and his friends, and explores its meaning through analysis of his Hebrew poems. The poems are presented both in Hebrew and in new English verse translations and are provided with full commentary. The discussion introduces Halevi’s circle of Jewish businessmen and intellectuals in al-Andalus and Egypt, examines their way of life, and describes their position vis-à-vis Arabic and Islamic culture. It also explores the interweaving of religious ideas of Jewish, Islamic, and Hellenistic origin in Halevi’s work. Although Halevi was partially motivated by a desire to repudiate the Judeo-Arabic hybrid culture and embrace purely Jewish values, the book demonstrates that his poetry and his pilgrimage continue to reflect the Judeo-Arabic milieu. His poetry and pilgrimage also show that while the Jews’ precarious situation as a tolerated minority weighed on Halevi, he was impelled to the pilgrimage not by a grand plan for ending the Jewish exile, as is widely thought, but by a personal religious quest. Chapters 1 through 3 each deal with one of the major themes of Halevi’s poetry that point in the direction of the pilgrimage. Chapters 4 through 6 are a narrative of the pilgrimage. Chapters 7 through 10 are a study of Halevi’s poems that are explicitly about the Land of Israel and about the pilgrimage. The epilogue explores the later legend of his martyrdom.Less
Judah Halevi, the great medieval Hebrew poet, abandoned home and family in Spain (al-Andalus) at the end of his life and traveled east to die in the Holy Land. This book narrates his journey, quoting from Arabic letters by Halevi and his friends, and explores its meaning through analysis of his Hebrew poems. The poems are presented both in Hebrew and in new English verse translations and are provided with full commentary. The discussion introduces Halevi’s circle of Jewish businessmen and intellectuals in al-Andalus and Egypt, examines their way of life, and describes their position vis-à-vis Arabic and Islamic culture. It also explores the interweaving of religious ideas of Jewish, Islamic, and Hellenistic origin in Halevi’s work. Although Halevi was partially motivated by a desire to repudiate the Judeo-Arabic hybrid culture and embrace purely Jewish values, the book demonstrates that his poetry and his pilgrimage continue to reflect the Judeo-Arabic milieu. His poetry and pilgrimage also show that while the Jews’ precarious situation as a tolerated minority weighed on Halevi, he was impelled to the pilgrimage not by a grand plan for ending the Jewish exile, as is widely thought, but by a personal religious quest. Chapters 1 through 3 each deal with one of the major themes of Halevi’s poetry that point in the direction of the pilgrimage. Chapters 4 through 6 are a narrative of the pilgrimage. Chapters 7 through 10 are a study of Halevi’s poems that are explicitly about the Land of Israel and about the pilgrimage. The epilogue explores the later legend of his martyrdom.
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804762939
- eISBN:
- 9780804779104
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804762939.003.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Jewish Studies
This chapter begins with two brief collective portraits of the American Hebraists from two different periods to introduce the subject of this study. The first comes from the pen of Zalman Shazar, a ...
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This chapter begins with two brief collective portraits of the American Hebraists from two different periods to introduce the subject of this study. The first comes from the pen of Zalman Shazar, a historian and man of letters who became Israel's third president; the second involves the author's former instructor, Boston Hebrew Teachers College president Eisig Silberschlag. The chapter then discusses Hebrew in America by situating it in reference to Christian Hebraism, which was responsible for the knowledge of Hebrew becoming a necessary attainment for the elite of Protestant clergy in the colonial period. It also examines the origins of the revival of Hebrew as a modern, spoken tongue and the development of American Hebrew literature, in particular Hebrew poetry.Less
This chapter begins with two brief collective portraits of the American Hebraists from two different periods to introduce the subject of this study. The first comes from the pen of Zalman Shazar, a historian and man of letters who became Israel's third president; the second involves the author's former instructor, Boston Hebrew Teachers College president Eisig Silberschlag. The chapter then discusses Hebrew in America by situating it in reference to Christian Hebraism, which was responsible for the knowledge of Hebrew becoming a necessary attainment for the elite of Protestant clergy in the colonial period. It also examines the origins of the revival of Hebrew as a modern, spoken tongue and the development of American Hebrew literature, in particular Hebrew poetry.
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804762007
- eISBN:
- 9780804775021
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804762007.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter discusses the Hebrew and Yiddish meta-literary thinking of literary scholars and historians between the end of World War I and the first years of Israeli independence. This meta-literary ...
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This chapter discusses the Hebrew and Yiddish meta-literary thinking of literary scholars and historians between the end of World War I and the first years of Israeli independence. This meta-literary thinking organized itself along two axes, a vertical and a horizontal one. Those with a proclivity for thinking vertically were intrigued by the questions of whether and how the literature retained a unifying common denominator as it evolved throughout the epochs and eras predicated upon one or another paradigm of periodization. They were mostly Hebrew scholars who studied the development of Hebrew literature. Those whose thinking gravitated toward the horizontal axis, mostly non-Hebraic scholars, with Yiddishists at their head, tended to think in spatial terms and look for patterns of significant simultaneity in Jewish writing. The scholar who more than anybody attempted to conflate the two axes was Sadan, whose vast scholarly project was divided between the canonical new Hebrew and Yiddish literatures, and at the same time also between canonical literatures and their sub-canonical extensions, such as writing that belonged in the space between literature and folklore, historiography and linguistics.Less
This chapter discusses the Hebrew and Yiddish meta-literary thinking of literary scholars and historians between the end of World War I and the first years of Israeli independence. This meta-literary thinking organized itself along two axes, a vertical and a horizontal one. Those with a proclivity for thinking vertically were intrigued by the questions of whether and how the literature retained a unifying common denominator as it evolved throughout the epochs and eras predicated upon one or another paradigm of periodization. They were mostly Hebrew scholars who studied the development of Hebrew literature. Those whose thinking gravitated toward the horizontal axis, mostly non-Hebraic scholars, with Yiddishists at their head, tended to think in spatial terms and look for patterns of significant simultaneity in Jewish writing. The scholar who more than anybody attempted to conflate the two axes was Sadan, whose vast scholarly project was divided between the canonical new Hebrew and Yiddish literatures, and at the same time also between canonical literatures and their sub-canonical extensions, such as writing that belonged in the space between literature and folklore, historiography and linguistics.
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804762007
- eISBN:
- 9780804775021
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804762007.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter analyzes Jewish literary discourse in the twentieth century. It argues that the theoretical study of the Jewish literatures was not born in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem in the 1960s but rather ...
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This chapter analyzes Jewish literary discourse in the twentieth century. It argues that the theoretical study of the Jewish literatures was not born in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem in the 1960s but rather in Warsaw, Berlin, Paris, and even in New York or at Harvard University (where the first formal history of the new Yiddish literature was written in the late 1890s by the Slavicist Leo Wiener, the father of Norbert who was to establish the science of cybernetics). It discusses how critics and literary scholars of the first half of the twentieth century turned away from was the discourse of official Slovesnost or Literaturwissenschaft only to focus on another, which bore more directly on concerns and issues that were of paramount significance in their eyes.Less
This chapter analyzes Jewish literary discourse in the twentieth century. It argues that the theoretical study of the Jewish literatures was not born in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem in the 1960s but rather in Warsaw, Berlin, Paris, and even in New York or at Harvard University (where the first formal history of the new Yiddish literature was written in the late 1890s by the Slavicist Leo Wiener, the father of Norbert who was to establish the science of cybernetics). It discusses how critics and literary scholars of the first half of the twentieth century turned away from was the discourse of official Slovesnost or Literaturwissenschaft only to focus on another, which bore more directly on concerns and issues that were of paramount significance in their eyes.
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804762007
- eISBN:
- 9780804775021
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804762007.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter discusses the emergence of the new Hebrew literature beginning in the late eighteenth century. The new literature was to promulgate the ideas of humanism throughout European Jewry, to ...
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This chapter discusses the emergence of the new Hebrew literature beginning in the late eighteenth century. The new literature was to promulgate the ideas of humanism throughout European Jewry, to encourage rationalist thinking, to militate for changes in the structure and contents of Jewish education, and develop new sensibilities through emotive writing and educate aesthetically through belles-lettres based on current European models and focusing on human experience and emotions. The new literature also involved secularization of Hebrew and of the Bible not only in the sense of removing them from the enclave of synagogal ritual and religious study and projecting them into modern reality as living forces, but also in the sense of understanding them as realizable national assets that could be invested in new national projects.Less
This chapter discusses the emergence of the new Hebrew literature beginning in the late eighteenth century. The new literature was to promulgate the ideas of humanism throughout European Jewry, to encourage rationalist thinking, to militate for changes in the structure and contents of Jewish education, and develop new sensibilities through emotive writing and educate aesthetically through belles-lettres based on current European models and focusing on human experience and emotions. The new literature also involved secularization of Hebrew and of the Bible not only in the sense of removing them from the enclave of synagogal ritual and religious study and projecting them into modern reality as living forces, but also in the sense of understanding them as realizable national assets that could be invested in new national projects.
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804762007
- eISBN:
- 9780804775021
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804762007.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter discusses the war years and the shattered foundations of the Hebrew–Yiddish renaissance. Hebrew literature suffered more than its Yiddish counterpart because its readers were ...
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This chapter discusses the war years and the shattered foundations of the Hebrew–Yiddish renaissance. Hebrew literature suffered more than its Yiddish counterpart because its readers were concentrated in places that were distant from its centers of production (the editorial offices of periodicals and newspapers, the main publishing houses, the printers' shops). Whereas most of the production work took place in Warsaw, the Hebrew reading public resided in Lithuania, Byelorussia, the northwestern Ukraine, Palestine, and the United States. After Warsaw was occupied by the Germans, who also quickly penetrated southern Ukraine, and eventually occupied Odessa as well, the connecting lines that had tied production to readers broke one after another. But the exposure of writers to devastating dislocations and horrendous scenes of battles, pogroms, and homelessness appeared to sharpen rather than dull the edge of both old and new literary debates; and as soon as an opportunity made it possible, these debates found vigorous expression, no matter how irregular and discontinuous.Less
This chapter discusses the war years and the shattered foundations of the Hebrew–Yiddish renaissance. Hebrew literature suffered more than its Yiddish counterpart because its readers were concentrated in places that were distant from its centers of production (the editorial offices of periodicals and newspapers, the main publishing houses, the printers' shops). Whereas most of the production work took place in Warsaw, the Hebrew reading public resided in Lithuania, Byelorussia, the northwestern Ukraine, Palestine, and the United States. After Warsaw was occupied by the Germans, who also quickly penetrated southern Ukraine, and eventually occupied Odessa as well, the connecting lines that had tied production to readers broke one after another. But the exposure of writers to devastating dislocations and horrendous scenes of battles, pogroms, and homelessness appeared to sharpen rather than dull the edge of both old and new literary debates; and as soon as an opportunity made it possible, these debates found vigorous expression, no matter how irregular and discontinuous.
Chana Kronfeld
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780804782951
- eISBN:
- 9780804797214
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804782951.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Jewish Studies
Yehuda Amichai (1924-2000) was the foremost Israeli poet of the 20th century and an internationally influential literary figure. The Full Severity of Compassion is a modular retrospective of ...
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Yehuda Amichai (1924-2000) was the foremost Israeli poet of the 20th century and an internationally influential literary figure. The Full Severity of Compassion is a modular retrospective of Amichai's poetic project. It depicts the poet's life-long struggle against all hierarchical systems of privilege and exclusion, and his search for an alternative “language of love,” as he calls it. The book explores Amichai's fierce avant-garde egalitarianism at it is expressed in a commitment to both accessibility and daring experimentation. Through a series of close readings, the book discusses issues in contemporary literary studies, always theorizing from, rather than into, Amichai's poetry.Less
Yehuda Amichai (1924-2000) was the foremost Israeli poet of the 20th century and an internationally influential literary figure. The Full Severity of Compassion is a modular retrospective of Amichai's poetic project. It depicts the poet's life-long struggle against all hierarchical systems of privilege and exclusion, and his search for an alternative “language of love,” as he calls it. The book explores Amichai's fierce avant-garde egalitarianism at it is expressed in a commitment to both accessibility and daring experimentation. Through a series of close readings, the book discusses issues in contemporary literary studies, always theorizing from, rather than into, Amichai's poetry.
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804762007
- eISBN:
- 9780804775021
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804762007.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter begins by considering several questions about Hebrew and Yiddish literatures, which have been ignored by literary scholars in the second half of the twentieth century. It then addresses ...
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This chapter begins by considering several questions about Hebrew and Yiddish literatures, which have been ignored by literary scholars in the second half of the twentieth century. It then addresses the question of whether the issues that occupied Hebrew and Yiddish literary scholars before the Israeli era deserve to be salvaged from oblivion, and rendered once again an integral part of the Hebrew and Jewish theoretical literary agenda of the twenty-first century.Less
This chapter begins by considering several questions about Hebrew and Yiddish literatures, which have been ignored by literary scholars in the second half of the twentieth century. It then addresses the question of whether the issues that occupied Hebrew and Yiddish literary scholars before the Israeli era deserve to be salvaged from oblivion, and rendered once again an integral part of the Hebrew and Jewish theoretical literary agenda of the twenty-first century.
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804762939
- eISBN:
- 9780804779104
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804762939.003.0021
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Jewish Studies
This chapter presents some final thoughts from the author. This book has shown that the phenomenon of American Hebrew poetry was neither slight nor trivial, but that, despite America being the only ...
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This chapter presents some final thoughts from the author. This book has shown that the phenomenon of American Hebrew poetry was neither slight nor trivial, but that, despite America being the only major Hebrew literary center outside of Palestine/Israel, the existence of American Hebrew poetry was all but erased from accounts of Hebrew literature in the twentieth century. It is argued that there is no justification for perpetuating this exclusion, and that Hebrew plays a vital role in America, even if it lies in the domain of serious cultural literacy rather than of creative literature.Less
This chapter presents some final thoughts from the author. This book has shown that the phenomenon of American Hebrew poetry was neither slight nor trivial, but that, despite America being the only major Hebrew literary center outside of Palestine/Israel, the existence of American Hebrew poetry was all but erased from accounts of Hebrew literature in the twentieth century. It is argued that there is no justification for perpetuating this exclusion, and that Hebrew plays a vital role in America, even if it lies in the domain of serious cultural literacy rather than of creative literature.
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804770644
- eISBN:
- 9780804777247
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804770644.003.0007
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Jewish Studies
This chapter explores the emergence of modernist Hebrew literature in Berlin. Between 1920 and 1925, Berlin was a major center of Hebrew literary activity. A very distinguished group of East European ...
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This chapter explores the emergence of modernist Hebrew literature in Berlin. Between 1920 and 1925, Berlin was a major center of Hebrew literary activity. A very distinguished group of East European Hebrew and Yiddish writers immigrated to Berlin, where they lived, wrote, and published their works. The chapter considers the role of the city in a number of different contexts: Berlin as historical center of Hebrew literature; Berlin as a locus for Hebrew and Yiddish publishing enterprise; and Berlin as a center for a distinctive German-Jewish culture.Less
This chapter explores the emergence of modernist Hebrew literature in Berlin. Between 1920 and 1925, Berlin was a major center of Hebrew literary activity. A very distinguished group of East European Hebrew and Yiddish writers immigrated to Berlin, where they lived, wrote, and published their works. The chapter considers the role of the city in a number of different contexts: Berlin as historical center of Hebrew literature; Berlin as a locus for Hebrew and Yiddish publishing enterprise; and Berlin as a center for a distinctive German-Jewish culture.
Efraim Sicher
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804759038
- eISBN:
- 9780804773331
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804759038.003.0011
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature
This chapter contextualizes Babel's writings in the contemporary Yiddish and Hebrew literature, drawing attention to another instance of Babel's “double bookkeeping”: the subtexts in his writings ...
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This chapter contextualizes Babel's writings in the contemporary Yiddish and Hebrew literature, drawing attention to another instance of Babel's “double bookkeeping”: the subtexts in his writings that could only be appreciated by a certain trilingual segment of his audience, namely, those who were conversant in all the three languages in use by the Jews of the Russian empire: Russian, Yiddish, and Hebrew.Less
This chapter contextualizes Babel's writings in the contemporary Yiddish and Hebrew literature, drawing attention to another instance of Babel's “double bookkeeping”: the subtexts in his writings that could only be appreciated by a certain trilingual segment of his audience, namely, those who were conversant in all the three languages in use by the Jews of the Russian empire: Russian, Yiddish, and Hebrew.
Alan Mintz
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804762939
- eISBN:
- 9780804779104
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804762939.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Jewish Studies
The effort to create a serious Hebrew literature in the United States in the years around World War I is one of the best-kept secrets of American Jewish history. Hebrew had been revived as a modern ...
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The effort to create a serious Hebrew literature in the United States in the years around World War I is one of the best-kept secrets of American Jewish history. Hebrew had been revived as a modern literary language in nineteenth-century Russia and then taken to Palestine as part of the Zionist revolution. But the overwhelming majority of Jewish emigrants from Eastern Europe settled in America, and a passionate kernel among them believed that Hebrew provided the vehicle for modernizing the Jewish people while maintaining their connection to Zion. These American Hebraists created schools, journals, newspapers, and, most of all, a high literary culture focused on producing poetry. This book is a critical introduction to American Hebrew poetry, focusing on a dozen key poets. This secular poetry began with a preoccupation with the situation of the individual in a disenchanted world and then moved outward to engage American vistas and Jewish fate and hope in mid-century. American Hebrew poets hoped to be read in both Palestine and America, but were disappointed on both scores. Several moved to Israel and connected with the vital literary scene there, but most stayed and persisted in the cause of American Hebraism.Less
The effort to create a serious Hebrew literature in the United States in the years around World War I is one of the best-kept secrets of American Jewish history. Hebrew had been revived as a modern literary language in nineteenth-century Russia and then taken to Palestine as part of the Zionist revolution. But the overwhelming majority of Jewish emigrants from Eastern Europe settled in America, and a passionate kernel among them believed that Hebrew provided the vehicle for modernizing the Jewish people while maintaining their connection to Zion. These American Hebraists created schools, journals, newspapers, and, most of all, a high literary culture focused on producing poetry. This book is a critical introduction to American Hebrew poetry, focusing on a dozen key poets. This secular poetry began with a preoccupation with the situation of the individual in a disenchanted world and then moved outward to engage American vistas and Jewish fate and hope in mid-century. American Hebrew poets hoped to be read in both Palestine and America, but were disappointed on both scores. Several moved to Israel and connected with the vital literary scene there, but most stayed and persisted in the cause of American Hebraism.
Jonathan Garb
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780226295800
- eISBN:
- 9780226295947
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226295947.003.0007
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
This concluding chapter reflects on the wider cultural implications of ideas of the soul developed in modern Kabbalah and their place within Jewish religiosity as a whole. The nomian and legal ...
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This concluding chapter reflects on the wider cultural implications of ideas of the soul developed in modern Kabbalah and their place within Jewish religiosity as a whole. The nomian and legal aspects of these ideas are outlined, with a special emphasis on the psychology of textual study, examined in comparative context. Ideas of the Sabbath as soul time and the ritual of Tefilin as granting a new soul are explored. Here the central model of soul making through human activity is both supported and elaborated. Nineteenth century Kabbalah is given special attention, including North African texts and the better known teachings and tales of Nahman of Bratzlav. In the latter context, the influence of Kabbalah on Modern Hebrew literature is considered. Chapter 7 concludes with a poetic reflection on the archetypal psychology of social justice.Less
This concluding chapter reflects on the wider cultural implications of ideas of the soul developed in modern Kabbalah and their place within Jewish religiosity as a whole. The nomian and legal aspects of these ideas are outlined, with a special emphasis on the psychology of textual study, examined in comparative context. Ideas of the Sabbath as soul time and the ritual of Tefilin as granting a new soul are explored. Here the central model of soul making through human activity is both supported and elaborated. Nineteenth century Kabbalah is given special attention, including North African texts and the better known teachings and tales of Nahman of Bratzlav. In the latter context, the influence of Kabbalah on Modern Hebrew literature is considered. Chapter 7 concludes with a poetic reflection on the archetypal psychology of social justice.
Yasir Suleiman
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748620739
- eISBN:
- 9780748653102
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748620739.003.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Middle Eastern Studies
This book examines the role literature played in constructing, articulating or challenging interpretations of national identities in the Middle East, and most of its chapters are hence devoted to ...
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This book examines the role literature played in constructing, articulating or challenging interpretations of national identities in the Middle East, and most of its chapters are hence devoted to Arabic literature. The remaining chapters look into Hebrew literature, Arabic literature in translation and Arab literature in its trans-national mode as expressed in a language other than Arabic, in this case English. In terms of genre, the book covers poetry and the novel in their capacity as the prime examples of high culture, as well as oral or ‘folk literature’ in the modern period as an expression of the localisation of the lived socio-political experience of a national group. In terms of provenance, some chapters deal with the literary expression of Palestinian nationalism as the enunciation of a ‘stateless’ or ‘refugee’ nation, while others cover the construction of national identity in Egypt, Sudan, Lebanon and Israel. These analyses provide an array of geographies and sociopolitical contexts that can add to the better understanding of the interaction between literature and the nation in the Middle East. Drama is not dealt with in the book because of its marginal position in the national cultures of the region. Furthermore, the book does not cover the short story or North Africa due to the limitations of space.Less
This book examines the role literature played in constructing, articulating or challenging interpretations of national identities in the Middle East, and most of its chapters are hence devoted to Arabic literature. The remaining chapters look into Hebrew literature, Arabic literature in translation and Arab literature in its trans-national mode as expressed in a language other than Arabic, in this case English. In terms of genre, the book covers poetry and the novel in their capacity as the prime examples of high culture, as well as oral or ‘folk literature’ in the modern period as an expression of the localisation of the lived socio-political experience of a national group. In terms of provenance, some chapters deal with the literary expression of Palestinian nationalism as the enunciation of a ‘stateless’ or ‘refugee’ nation, while others cover the construction of national identity in Egypt, Sudan, Lebanon and Israel. These analyses provide an array of geographies and sociopolitical contexts that can add to the better understanding of the interaction between literature and the nation in the Middle East. Drama is not dealt with in the book because of its marginal position in the national cultures of the region. Furthermore, the book does not cover the short story or North Africa due to the limitations of space.
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804759021
- eISBN:
- 9780804777360
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804759021.003.0006
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Jewish Studies
Hebrew literature of the 1940s and '50s overturned historical cultural processes that in late antiquity had slowly shifted both the burden and the merit of the aqedah from the biblical Abraham to the ...
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Hebrew literature of the 1940s and '50s overturned historical cultural processes that in late antiquity had slowly shifted both the burden and the merit of the aqedah from the biblical Abraham to the post-biblical Isaac. Abraham was returned to his role as the sacrificing father by the generation that fought for and paid the price for the establishment of the State of Israel. This chapter explores the complex and anguished aqedah story told by this generation. It questions not only the widely accepted reversal hinted in the epigraph to the Interlude, but also its timing: the anchoring of the father–son rupture in 1973, the year that seems to divide Israeli time into a “before” and “after.” The Israeli narratives of the aqedah examined—prose fiction, drama, poetry, critical writings, and historical studies—reveal that the golden age of “the-name-of- the-father” was first undermined not in the wake of the Yom Kippur War (1973), but rather decades before it; certainly before the Six-Day War (1967), and even earlier.Less
Hebrew literature of the 1940s and '50s overturned historical cultural processes that in late antiquity had slowly shifted both the burden and the merit of the aqedah from the biblical Abraham to the post-biblical Isaac. Abraham was returned to his role as the sacrificing father by the generation that fought for and paid the price for the establishment of the State of Israel. This chapter explores the complex and anguished aqedah story told by this generation. It questions not only the widely accepted reversal hinted in the epigraph to the Interlude, but also its timing: the anchoring of the father–son rupture in 1973, the year that seems to divide Israeli time into a “before” and “after.” The Israeli narratives of the aqedah examined—prose fiction, drama, poetry, critical writings, and historical studies—reveal that the golden age of “the-name-of- the-father” was first undermined not in the wake of the Yom Kippur War (1973), but rather decades before it; certainly before the Six-Day War (1967), and even earlier.
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804770644
- eISBN:
- 9780804777247
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804770644.003.0020
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Jewish Studies
While the aim of this book has been to explore Hebrew modernist fiction in Europe in the early decades of the twentieth century, its findings also shed new light on the nature of the changes in ...
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While the aim of this book has been to explore Hebrew modernist fiction in Europe in the early decades of the twentieth century, its findings also shed new light on the nature of the changes in Hebrew modernism between the mid-1920s and the mid-1940s in both Europe and Palestine. This epilogue explores European modernism in Palestine, and the important developments in Hebrew literature and culture in this period.Less
While the aim of this book has been to explore Hebrew modernist fiction in Europe in the early decades of the twentieth century, its findings also shed new light on the nature of the changes in Hebrew modernism between the mid-1920s and the mid-1940s in both Europe and Palestine. This epilogue explores European modernism in Palestine, and the important developments in Hebrew literature and culture in this period.
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804770644
- eISBN:
- 9780804777247
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804770644.003.0006
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Jewish Studies
This chapter discusses Vienna as an important intellectual center for Hebrew modernism. Within a few years around World War I, Hebrew and Yiddish literature blossomed in Vienna. The diaries and ...
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This chapter discusses Vienna as an important intellectual center for Hebrew modernism. Within a few years around World War I, Hebrew and Yiddish literature blossomed in Vienna. The diaries and memoirs of this period reveal a close and fertile collaboration between the Hebrew and the Yiddish writers. Literary cafés such as Café Griensteidl and Café Central were also indispensable for the creation of Viennese modernism. These coffeehouses had a very high Jewish presence, bringing immigrant Hebrew and Yiddish writers together and opening new paths for them.Less
This chapter discusses Vienna as an important intellectual center for Hebrew modernism. Within a few years around World War I, Hebrew and Yiddish literature blossomed in Vienna. The diaries and memoirs of this period reveal a close and fertile collaboration between the Hebrew and the Yiddish writers. Literary cafés such as Café Griensteidl and Café Central were also indispensable for the creation of Viennese modernism. These coffeehouses had a very high Jewish presence, bringing immigrant Hebrew and Yiddish writers together and opening new paths for them.
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804770644
- eISBN:
- 9780804777247
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804770644.003.0015
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Jewish Studies
This chapter, which discusses the role of religious tradition and religious experience by examining different aspects of Hebrew literature and culture in early twentieth-century Europe, explores the ...
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This chapter, which discusses the role of religious tradition and religious experience by examining different aspects of Hebrew literature and culture in early twentieth-century Europe, explores the reinvention of Jewish traditions carried out by Chaim Nachman Bialik, Micha Yosef Berdichevsky, and Y. L. Peretz. These writers composed stories, poems, and essays that attempted to retell traditional texts in radically new ways, and also collected, edited, and published thoroughly modern anthologies and collections of Aggadah and hasidic texts.Less
This chapter, which discusses the role of religious tradition and religious experience by examining different aspects of Hebrew literature and culture in early twentieth-century Europe, explores the reinvention of Jewish traditions carried out by Chaim Nachman Bialik, Micha Yosef Berdichevsky, and Y. L. Peretz. These writers composed stories, poems, and essays that attempted to retell traditional texts in radically new ways, and also collected, edited, and published thoroughly modern anthologies and collections of Aggadah and hasidic texts.
