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Hebrew Poetry

W. G. E. Watson

in Text in Context: Essays by Members of the Society for Old Testament Study

This is the last of five chapters on the text of the Old Testament, and discusses Hebrew poetry in the context of the Hebrew (Old Testament) Bible. The introductory section looks at recent work on ... More

This is the last of five chapters on the text of the Old Testament, and discusses Hebrew poetry in the context of the Hebrew (Old Testament) Bible. The introductory section looks at recent work on the discovery of the verse traditions of the ancient Near East, and discusses the difficulty of reading Hebrew poetry, the Hebrew poet's resources (tradition versus innovation) and the poet's voice and the lyrical first person singular (the lyrical ‘I’). The second section discusses the issue of differentiating between prose and poetry, the third discusses metre and rhythm, and the fourth discusses parallelism. Further sections discuss building blocks (line, half‐line, and couplet), the segmentation of poems, repetition, the exploitation of sound, figurative language, and poetic diction. The last section of the chapter looks at the matter of holding the reader's attention.Less

Hebrew Knights in a New Land

in Sanctuary in the Wilderness: A Critical Introduction to American Hebrew Poetry

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 ... More

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

Miṣḥaf al-Shbaḥot—The Holy Book of Praises of the Babylonian Jews: One Thousand Years of Cultural Harmony between Judaism and Islam

Merav Rosenfeld-Hadad

in The Convergence of Judaism and Islam: Religious, Scientific, and Cultural Dimensions

This chapter complements the Andalusian poetry study and deals with the impact of Arabic Islamic paraliturgical songs on Jewish culture and Hebrew poetry, with roots in Iraq, pointing out that since ... More

This chapter complements the Andalusian poetry study and deals with the impact of Arabic Islamic paraliturgical songs on Jewish culture and Hebrew poetry, with roots in Iraq, pointing out that since the days of the Abbasid Caliphate in the lands of Islam, the content of Jewish religious poems “comprises themes and ideas that were inspired by the Quran and the Hadith as well as Arabic poetry, Islamic philosophy, theology, and mysticism…. It lasted more than a thousand years … and continued across the Ottoman Empire, when Islam was no longer as strong and powerful. Such influence is still evident in the Aleppo-Syrian Jewish community of New York.”Less

The Jewish Literary Renaissance at the Turn of the Nineteenth and the Beginning of the Twentieth Centuries

in From Continuity to Contiguity: Toward a New Jewish Literary Thinking

The chapter continues the discussion of the development of Jewish literature from the late nineteenth to the early twentieth century. Among the topics covered are Achad ha'am's dominance during the ... More

The chapter continues the discussion of the development of Jewish literature from the late nineteenth to the early twentieth century. Among the topics covered are Achad ha'am's dominance during the 1890s and the challenges it faced in the first decade of the twentieth century; and how the success of Bialik's poetic revolution belied Achad ha'am's Zionist prognosis that only the existence of a Hebrew-speaking community in Palestine would levitate Hebrew poetry to the level of connotative and imaginative effectiveness.Less

Gabriel Preil

in Sanctuary in the Wilderness: A Critical Introduction to American Hebrew Poetry

This chapter analyzes the poetry of Gabriel Preil, the youngest of the poets considered in this study, and whose work represents the culmination of the enterprise of American Hebrew poetry. Preil is ... More

This chapter analyzes the poetry of Gabriel Preil, the youngest of the poets considered in this study, and whose work represents the culmination of the enterprise of American Hebrew poetry. Preil is the only American whose work attained the kind of enthusiastic and sustained critical reception among Israeli readers that had been so sorely desired by all who preceded him. The achievement is all the more remarkable because, unlike Efros, Halkin, and Regelson, who settled in Israel around the time of the establishment of the state, Preil remained in New York and visited Israel only later in his life. The style he achieved in his mature poetry fulfills one of the central aspirations of American Hebrew poetry: simplicity without avant-garde vulgarity.Less

The Apotheosis of Hebrew

in Sanctuary in the Wilderness: A Critical Introduction to American Hebrew Poetry

This chapter explores how American Hebrew poets persisted in producing a rich and substantial body of verse well into the middle of the twentieth century, despite being ignored by the center in ... More

This chapter explores how American Hebrew poets persisted in producing a rich and substantial body of verse well into the middle of the twentieth century, despite being ignored by the center in Palestine and their loss of readership at home. It suggests that Hebrew was an essentially religious and sensual experience which flooded their daily lives and provided them with direct access to the object of their desire. American Hebrew poets' passion for Hebrew is the secret spring of American Hebraism precisely because it played such a small role in the public rhetoric of the movement.Less

Wordsworthian Naturalism and the Coleridgean Sublime

John Beer

in Coleridge's Play of Mind

Coleridge's early views on poetry and his growing admiration for Wordsworth, together with his realization that their ideas on poetry differ, Wordsworth pursuing his interest in nature and the life ... More

Coleridge's early views on poetry and his growing admiration for Wordsworth, together with his realization that their ideas on poetry differ, Wordsworth pursuing his interest in nature and the life of human beings in a natural setting, while Coleridge tries to develop his idea of sublimity in poetry, engaging with contemporary writing in Germany and writing poems devoted to mountainous places. His previous delight in Hellenism is supplemented by a new respect for the achievements of Hebrew poetry.Less

Afterword

in Sanctuary in the Wilderness: A Critical Introduction to American Hebrew Poetry

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 ... More

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

Introduction

David Goldstein

in Hebrew Poems from Spain

This introductory chapter provides an overview of Spanish Hebrew poetry. The revival of Hebrew poetry was a direct consequence of two factors: the residence of the Jews in Muslim lands, and the Jews’ ... More

This introductory chapter provides an overview of Spanish Hebrew poetry. The revival of Hebrew poetry was a direct consequence of two factors: the residence of the Jews in Muslim lands, and the Jews’ reappraisal of the Hebrew Bible. The Jews of Spain followed their Arabic masters in much of their poetic subject-matter, but they often transmuted it into specifically Jewish material. One encounters often their awareness of the passing of time, of the futility of life, and of the precious quality of the immortal soul. And, above all, one experiences with them their search for the knowledge of God, their sense of dependence on him as the Creator of the world, their consciousness of the relationship between God and the Jewish people, their desire to serve him with all their being, their remorse at their own iniquity, and their torment and their bewilderment at the sufferings of their people. The Spanish period not only saw the efflorescence for the first time since the ‘song of Songs’ of secular Hebrew poetry. It also provided for the first time the framework for the professional Jewish poet.Less

Twelve Sections in the Overall Pattern

Mary Douglas

in In the Wilderness: The Doctrine of Defilement in the Book of Numbers

This chapter identifies the units of structure in the Book of Numbers. Instead of unwarranted interruption, the periodic switch back and forth between the law sections and narrative sections is more ... More

This chapter identifies the units of structure in the Book of Numbers. Instead of unwarranted interruption, the periodic switch back and forth between the law sections and narrative sections is more like montage or cinema flash-backs. Rather than judge the book severely because the laws interrupt the narrative, the chapter finds that it is composed deliberately of two strands, one of law and one of narrative. By introducing the alternative mode each new section cuts off the previous section: the result is a pattern of alternating strands. In Numbers the sections are marked off automatically by stylistic rules which anyone can check, without making reference to the themes developed within a section. The two modes, story and law, differ in their treatment of time. The chapter demonstrates that they are an elaboration of the well-known poetic structure of parallelism which is typical of Hebrew poetry.Less

Hebrew Poetry in Poland between the Two World Wars

David Weinfeld (ed.)

in Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry Volume 13: Focusing on the Holocaust and its Aftermath

This chapter addresses David Weinfeld's anthology Hebrew Poetry in Poland between the Two World Wars (1997). This anthology includes two dozen Hebrew poets and is valuable if only from a historical ... More

This chapter addresses David Weinfeld's anthology Hebrew Poetry in Poland between the Two World Wars (1997). This anthology includes two dozen Hebrew poets and is valuable if only from a historical viewpoint as most of these poets are forgotten and their works are mostly unavailable. Weinfeld includes biographical details on each writer and a ninety-two-page introduction to the social and historical background, with sections on the most important of the poets, Yitzhak Katznelson (better known as a Yiddish poet), Matityahu Shoham, and especially Berl Pomerantz. However, most of the poems, Weinfeld concedes, are of limited artistic interest. This poetry is inadvertently a tombstone for Polish Hebrew literature and, indeed, for Polish Jewry. About half the poets died in the Holocaust.Less

Eisig Silberschlag

in Sanctuary in the Wilderness: A Critical Introduction to American Hebrew Poetry

This chapter analyzes the poetry of Eisig Silberschlag, who was a lyric poet, and, unlike many other American Hebrew poets, never reached a point at which he experienced the lyric as inadequate for ... More

This chapter analyzes the poetry of Eisig Silberschlag, who was a lyric poet, and, unlike many other American Hebrew poets, never reached a point at which he experienced the lyric as inadequate for his ambitions. In fact, as he got older, his poems became even shorter and were published in a succession of volumes whose small physical size made them resemble chapbooks.Less

Abraham Regelson

in Sanctuary in the Wilderness: A Critical Introduction to American Hebrew Poetry

This chapter analyzes the poetry of Abraham Regelson, who embraced his vocation as poet-philosopher at a young age and clung to it throughout his life, despite the fact that the world rewarded him ... More

This chapter analyzes the poetry of Abraham Regelson, who embraced his vocation as poet-philosopher at a young age and clung to it throughout his life, despite the fact that the world rewarded him little for his fidelity. Regelson's entire literary enterprise can be understood as a struggle to find poetic forms capable of accommodating his philosophical thought.Less

On Native American Grounds

in Sanctuary in the Wilderness: A Critical Introduction to American Hebrew Poetry

This chapter explores three Indian epics written in Hebrew: Silkiner's Mul ohel Timurah [Before the tent of Timurah] (1910), Efros' Vigvamim shoteqim [Silent wigwams] (1933), and Lisitzky's Medurot ... More

This chapter explores three Indian epics written in Hebrew: Silkiner's Mul ohel Timurah [Before the tent of Timurah] (1910), Efros' Vigvamim shoteqim [Silent wigwams] (1933), and Lisitzky's Medurot do'akhot [Dying campfires] (1937). The Indian epics were written at a time of great anxiety about the continuity and survival of the Jewish people by poets whose allegiance to Hebrew placed on their shoulders the mantle of national conscience. A closer inspection shows that these poems differ greatly in terms of the style of their composition, the historical models upon which they are based, and the contemporary dilemmas which each projects onto the lives of Native Americans who lived long ago.Less

In the Tents of Cush

in Sanctuary in the Wilderness: A Critical Introduction to American Hebrew Poetry

This chapter examines Lisitzky's Be'oholei Khush [In the tents of Cush] (1953). This is a key text in the canon of American Hebrew poetry, not only because of its singularity but also because of its ... More

This chapter examines Lisitzky's Be'oholei Khush [In the tents of Cush] (1953). This is a key text in the canon of American Hebrew poetry, not only because of its singularity but also because of its insistence on going beyond observation and description toward an impersonation of the black voice. Lisitzky appropriates the voices of black preachers and, through the fluently ornate biblical Hebrew idiom they are made to speak, builds a poignant, if fragile, bridge between black and Jewish historical experience.Less

Benjamin Nahum Silkiner

in Sanctuary in the Wilderness: A Critical Introduction to American Hebrew Poetry

This chapter analyzes the poetry of Benjamin Silkiner, who was unique among the new Hebrew poets who appeared in America at the beginning of the twentieth century. While fellow poets wrote lyric ... More

This chapter analyzes the poetry of Benjamin Silkiner, who was unique among the new Hebrew poets who appeared in America at the beginning of the twentieth century. While fellow poets wrote lyric poetry for several years before taking on longer narrative and epic forms, Silkiner made his poetic debut in 1910 with Mul ohel Timurah [Before the tent of Timurah], a hundred-page epic about the struggle of Native Americans against their Spanish conquerors. In a powerfully elevated Hebrew style, the poem addresses such large and noble themes as heroic suffering and renunciation, native myths, the fate of nations, and the grandeur of the American landscape. As the major inaugural work of Hebrew poetry in America, Mul ohel Timurah functioned like a broadside, announcing the ambitions of this new cultural outpost to the international republic of Hebrew letters.Less