The Representation of Exile Between Germany, Turkey, Palestine, and Israel” Advisors: Gil Z

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Routes of Displacement: The Representation of Exile between Germany, Turkey, Palestine, and Israel A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Comparative Literature by Ethan Pack 2018 © Copyright by Ethan Pack 2018 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Routes of Displacement: The Representation of Exile between Germany, Turkey, Palestine, and Israel by Ethan Pack Doctor of Philosophy in Comparative Literature University of California, Los Angeles, 2018 Professor Gil Z. Hochberg, Chair This dissertation focuses on the figure of Jewish exile since the rise of Zionism. My research proposes a unique configuration of German, Turkish, Israeli, and Palestinian contexts, one that sheds new light on the challenge of representing minority subjectivity during moments of collective displacement. I argue that displacement is not only an experience, but also a structure of representation. My study begins by examining the representation of Jewish belonging at the turn of the century, when the German-Ottoman imperial alliance provided a potential framework for the immigration of European Jews to Palestine. The aesthetic possibilities that ultimately crystallize in Israeli and Palestinian literature, I assert, are inseparable from the imaginary of Jewish displacement in fin de siècle Germany and Turkey. ii Germany, Turkey, and Israel each occupy a space of intense critical focus in Comparative Literature. Beginning with Edward Said, scholars have called the discipline’s attention to a cohort of German-speaking Jewish academics who fled to Istanbul during the Nazi years. From this canonical moment in the emergence of Comparative Literature, Erich Auerbach’s composition of Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature, and his work on Weltliteratur (or “world literature”), have emerged as prominent models for the discipline’s self-conception. The achievements of German-Jewish intellectuals in Turkey would later reinforce notions of “exilic” critique as a practice of heroic opposition to nationalist chauvinism. These assessments could be enriched, however, by situating the very possibility of Auerbach in Istanbul within the political programs and cultural imaginaries that immediately preceded, and in fact enabled, the German-Jewish scholars’ remarkable refuge. My project begins the story of German-Jewish literature and aesthetics a generation earlier. I propose a comparative framework that juxtaposes the Zionist leader Theodor Herzl’s five visits to fin de siécle Constantinople with the German-Jewish scholars, such as Erich Auerbach, who found refuge from the Nazis in Turkey a generation later. I assert that the production of Mimesis is a vital part of the story of the representation of European Jewish exile – perhaps inseparable from the story of Zionism in the early 20th century. Through close readings of Herzl’s wide- ranging corpus of literature, I conclude that this exilic position – one who identifies with and yet (must) live beyond the settled location of the native – was an irreducible feature of Herzl’s Zionism. Mimesis, as the re-presentation (making present, again, elsewhere) of European reality and subjectivity, becomes an essential analytical tool for understanding the relationship iii between Jewish belonging and exile. My dissertation then turns to literary works written in the aftermath of the 1948 partition of Palestine and creation of Israel. I discuss the portrayal of Palestinian exile by two of the most canonical Hebrew authors from the period, the poet Nathan Alterman and the novelist S. Yizhar. My readings explore changes in the representation of exile at the moment when its simultaneous creation and negation comes to define two national communities. The dissertation’s final chapter presents an original, comparative analysis of poetry written by Dahlia Ravikovich and Mahmoud Darwish. Through recourse to what I term the visionary prophetic modes of Hebrew and Arabic literature, these authors re-open the literary significations of exile to pre-modern traditions of Jewish and Islamic exegesis, liturgy, and history. I assert that their poetics – attuned to the semiotic displacements between vision and text – unravel the political discourses of national belonging generated by the failed partition of Israel and Palestine. These alternative modalities of representation re-envision the nature of belonging in a post-colonial world. I contend that the study of Israeli and Palestinian literature cannot be extricated from broader inquiries into the representation of migration and flight across Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. iv The dissertation of Ethan Pack is approved. Aamir R. Mufti David N. Myers Sarah A. Stein Gil Z. Hochberg, Committee Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2018 v Dedicated to my parents, who have made everything possible vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements xiii-xi Vita xii-xiii Introduction 1-46 Chapter 1 47-102 German Mimesis in the Orient: Theodor Herzl and the Ottoman Empire Chapter 2 103-134 “Auerbach in Jerusalem”: Imperial Collapse, National Revivals, and Exilic Critique Chapter 3 135-185 Palestinian Exile and the 1948 War in Hebrew Literature Chapter 4 186-251 Exiles’ Return: The Post-1982 Poetics of Dahlia Ravikovich and Mahmoud Darwish Selected Bibliography 252-257 vii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS An unconventional project from its conception to its completion, this dissertation would not have been possible in most departments. I owe its intellectual ambition and exciting scope to the team of advisers who mentored me at UCLA. Firstly, I would like to thank Gil Hochberg, who has always been a receptive listener, a staunch advocate, and, of course, an unforgettable teacher. She has an uncanny ability to translate the intricacies of theory into a toolkit that empowers her students to approach our texts with boldness and insight. I am greatly indebted to Aamir Mufti for countless developments in my project, my interests, and my entire understanding of the issues that motivate my academic pursuits. On a boat crossing the Bosporus between Istanbul’s Asian and European shores, he told me about the Berlin-Baghdad Express, thus planting an expansive idea for my research. Back at UCLA, his close attention to the possibilities of my work launched me on a rigorous path that will continue beyond this dissertation. Sarah Stein helped me build a bridge to historiography, which was essential to my project’s intellectual viability. Her wide-ranging scholarly achievements, and her personal kindness, have inspired me along the way. And I am especially grateful for David Myers’ contributions; his sheer generosity in adding my project to those under his supervision (at an exceedingly demanding time) demonstrates the depth and sincerity of his commitments to our scholarly community. I would further like to thank other faculty members who shaped my intellectual development and supported my work during my time at UCLA: Saree Makdisi, Ra‘anan Boustan, Efraín Kristal, Zrinka Stahuljak, David MacFadyen, Nouri Gana, and Stephanie Bosch Santana. I would also like to thank Rabbi Chaim Seidler-Feller, for his shared interest in exile. viii I am profoundly grateful for my dear colleagues and friends with whom I worked at UCLA. Many of them have continued to help me even after they have crossed into the great beyond of other universities and cities. I extend my heartfelt thanks to Fatima Burney, Shir Alon, Ronjaunee Chatterjee, Zen Dochterman, Nasia Anam, Duncan Yoon, Yu-ting Huang, Dana Linda, Alexei Nowak, Sina Rahmani, Suleiman Hodali, Helga Zambrano, and Peter Lehman. I am profoundly thankful to Jessika Herrera, who fought tirelessly on my behalf during a challenging time; without her efforts, I would not have made it this far. I also thank Michelle Anderson and Asiroh Cham for their excellent work in the department. And I owe an infinite debt to my students, who taught me more than they will ever know – I only hope I can share what I have learned from them. At UCLA, my research was supported by the Graduate Division Dissertation Year Fellowship, the Center for Jewish Studies’ Amado Program in Sephardic Studies Grant, and the Center for Near Eastern Studies’ Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship. My research in Germany and Turkey was enabled by the International Institute’s Dissertation Fieldwork Fellowship and the Center for European and Eurasian Studies’ Dissertation Research Fellowship. I am grateful for the opportunities afforded by this support. I would also like to thank the generosity and hospitality of my friends and colleagues in Berlin and Istanbul, including the organizers of the 2015 Israel-Deutschland arts festival, who brought me into their circle: Elad Lapidot, Ofri Ilany, Tal Hever- Chybowski, and Dekel Peretz, among others. Eight years of work on a dissertation truly represents a collective effort, and I would like to thank my extended community beyond my home campus. Uri Cohen, Hannan Hever, Chana Kronfeld, and David Damrosch all played instrumental roles in ix shaping my graduate study. For inspiring me to pursue the study of literature and culture, I will be forever grateful to my professors at Columbia University: Roosevelt Montas, Hamid Dabashi, Dan Miron, Margaret Vandenburg, and Orhan Pamuk, as well as the late Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, of blessed memory. In Israel, my family, especially my late great uncle Avraham Braun, of blessed memory, have given me a second language and a home

Load more