DOCSLIB.ORG

Shulamith Hareven Voice of the Levant

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Shulamith Hareven Voice of the Levant WRITERS SHULAMITH HAREVEN VOICE OF THE LEVANT MORIS FARHI hulamith Hareven is one of Israel's most ligious differences". It nurtures the sort of per­ distinguished writers. A member of the son "who knows five languages and their lit­ SAcademy of the Hebrew Language, her erature to perfection" and distrusts powers and work encompasses novels, poetry, essays and cultures "that speak one language only". Al­ children's books. She is yet to be published in ways applying "the third eye and the sixth Great Britain; fortunately, three of her novels, sense", it is the humanism that "was created superbly translated by Hillel Halkin, have ap­ gradually, over a long, long period of time". peared in the United States. They are City of Consequently, it knows that "not everything Many Days (Doubleday, 1977), The Miracle has a solution" and is wise enough to exercise Hater (North Point Press, 1988) and Prophet "great patience". (North Point Press, 1990). Today, this mellow brand of humanism Shulamith Hareven is also a prominent ac­ barely survives in the· Levant-or anywhere tivist in Israel's peace movement. Having else. Today, intolerance, fanaticism, political ex­ served in the Haganah and, later, in the Israeli pediency and disregard for life have a strangle­ Defence Forces, she has first-hand knowledge hold even on liberal systems. The silent of conflict-"the total failure of common majority has multiplied; it continues to betray sense", as she defines it. She has also covered basic human rights by condoning with lunatic several of Israel's wars as a frontline corre­ complacency everything that will keep it fat spondent and, latterly, has been a close ob­ and contented. Shulamith Hareven rightly server of the Intifada. identifies these evils as mutations of Mani­ Like all true artists, she has the best insight chaean dualism and, therefore, non-indigenous into her own psyche. In an essay which she de­ to the Levant. She further identifies the most livered at the Barbican in London last year, and virulent of these evils, the kitsch totalitarianism which is due to appear in Poetry Nation Re­ and genocide which induces the schizophrenic view, she declares: "I am a Levantine." pursuit of "institutionalized sentimentality and The definition conjures the safety of a institutionalized brutality" as the outcome of a strong, protective arm, the hope of a compas­ Christianity cynically misused by Europe. Now, sionate bosom. Levantinism is, indeed, the per­ in those countries of the Levant where the soul fect perspective for fathoming the spirit which has been dazzled by western materialism, Le­ has forged Hareven into prominence both in vantinism is a mark of backwardness: in some Israeli literature and in the peace movement. Arab countries, it is virtually treason; in Israel, Hareven is the first to acknowledge that Le­ it is the sanity-"the common sense"-which vantinism has some deplorable aspects, that at is continuously spurned by the blinkered follow­ its worst it can manifest "the moral principles ers of unenlightened leaders and religious fana­ of an alleycat". But, in true Levan tine spirit, tics. she has the capacity to accommodate transgres­ All of which make Hareven's declaration a MORIS FARHI is a mem­ sions: after all, to be human is to be imperfect. bold one. For what she is stating, unequivo­ ber of the Editorial The virtues of Levantinism, on the other hand, cally, is that, above and beyond the universal Board of THE JEWISH are legion and outweigh all its shadows. values which every artist seeks to reach in QUARTERLY. His latest novel is Journey For Hareven, Levantinism is "the colour­ his/her work, she has also undertaken to up­ Through the Wilderness. blind pluralism that sees no racial, ethnic or re- hold the values of a whole region of which her 26 THE JEWISH QUARTERLY own country, Israel, is but only a part. Loosely, the plot revolves around Sara Consequendy, she is a constant target for whose father, Don Isaac, runs away with a obloquy. For the undertaking to serve Levan­ paramour (and is found, two decades later, in tinism's wisdom-distilled over several millenia an Egyptian asylum). Sara grows up in the from the region's profusion of cultures-im­ company of her mother, Gracia, grandfather poses the condition that she must challenge and grandmother Amarillo, sister Ofra, and the any behaviour or policy, including her own liberal, if not liberated, Aunt Victoria: a normal people's, that falls short of sanctifying life. In family, if the unique and intense relationships an age when mankind is poised to destroy the that govern families can qualify as normal. A whole of creation, there cannot be a saner atti­ British Captain, Tony Crowther, starts his tude. Army service in Palestine by befriending the Yet another characteristic which she at­ Amarillos with orders to pick up what intel­ tributes to Levantinism is "that quality which ligence he can on any subversive activity from knows that there is no great art, no serious lit­ the Amarillos' milieu of Jews and Arabs; but erature, without a hidden theology". This the growing conflict between the two peoples quality dominates her work. By "theology" she and his role in the Army plague his conscience. does not mean a code of religious behaviour Just before World War II, he successfully ap­ but, quite simply, the natural presence of God: plies for a discharge, returns to Jerusalem as a God the Supreme Creator whose miraculous civilian. Matti, Sara's boyfriend in her teens compositions we witness everywhere and at and, briefly, her lover in later years, becomes a every moment, and with whom we can deal di­ leading figure-and bomb-maker-in a Jewish recdy, without the need for any mediation, as underground group. Elias, Sara's husband, a we used to when we trusted our spirituality. lawyer sympathetic to the Arabs' aspirations, The presence of this Creator is felt-some­ nevertheless devotes himself to defending times even glimpsed in the reader's inner eye­ members of the Haganah and thus emerges as in all three of Hareven 's novels that have someone who will have a key role in the cre­ appeared in English. These works contain a ation of the Jewish state. An immigrant from classical density; or, perhaps I should say, the Germany, Dr Barzel, builds up a hospital classical qualities that permeate them give them where Sara is eventually employed and where, a density that is as durable as antiquity. in later years, victims of the disturbances-of which he himself becomes a victim-will find ensity should not be confused with ob­ some succour. Taleb, the son of the Amarillos' scurity. There can be no work of art Arab friends, Subhi and Faiza, joins the Palesti­ D without density. Invariably, this density nian nationalist movement. Dr Barzel's mother, is almost palpable, almost tactile; it contains a Elizabeth, sensing the impending Holocaust, weight which is as satisfYing to our imagination emigrates from Germany, but rather than as­ as ancient stone is to our hands. similate to her new country, tries to impose her Density of this calibre can only be achieved "superior" Germanic ways on all and sundry. through purity of insight, through the ability World War II intensifies the three-cornered to explore the individual mind and its extraor­ conflict between Jews, Arabs and the British. dinary habitat, the mass unconscious. Density The end of the War augurs further conflict; but of this calibre rediscovers for us our favourite what sort of peace, if any? myths, whisks us to mystic flights and invests A novel that uses a large canvas and covers a harsh reality with meanings that soften it in lengthy period must have a remarkable-a dia­ order to make it bearable, even acceptable. chronic-structure to accommodate all the And density of this calibre can only be com­ themes and nuances; it must billow and municated with a language that flows clear and tighten, drift and anchor all at the same time. unhindered, reflecting the wisdom, poetry and City of Many Days achieves this condition with resonance of life. Since all these components remarkable panache. can be blighted by an insensitive hand, great Most of the characters--except for Matti tribute must be paid to Hillel Balkin's transla­ and Elias who do get involved in the inde­ tion. pendence movement-are tangential to the City of Many Days is set in Jerusalem and main events of the times, yet serve as litmuses has, as its protagonist, Sara Amarillo, born to a of history. Much as they seek to lead quiet, well-to-do Ladino-speaking Sephardi family. peaceful lives, they cannot escape the tremors The narrative, spanning the early 1920s to of the events that are reshaping the region. 1945, the end of World War II, provides a The story unfolds in short vignettes, each bear­ panorama of the British Mandate years. The ing impressionistic strokes. Thus, as the charac­ labours that led to the birth of the Jewish ters interpret or misinterpret events, are acute state are highlighted with exotic echoes of or shortsighted about the future, we sense the preceding Ottoman period when the idea rather than witness the changes. The subdety of a homeland for the Jews started gaining of the narrative is further enhanced by "the ground. city of many days" itself, Jerusalem. 28 THE JEWISH QUARTERLY Shulamith Hareven's Jerusalem exudes a tians to bear children, either hid their sons or breath that is as alive as Durrell's Alexandria, sent them floating down the Nile to childless Kazantzak.is's Crete and Joyce's Dublin.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Responses to the Holocaust by Three Israeli Women Writers
    CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture ISSN 1481-4374 Purdue University Press ©Purdue University Volume 11 (2009) Issue 1 Article 9 "Ideologically Incorrect" Responses to the Holocaust by Three Israeli Women Writers Rachel Feldhay Brenner University of Wisconsin Madison Follow this and additional works at: https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb Part of the Comparative Literature Commons, and the Critical and Cultural Studies Commons Dedicated to the dissemination of scholarly and professional information, Purdue University Press selects, develops, and distributes quality resources in several key subject areas for which its parent university is famous, including business, technology, health, veterinary medicine, and other selected disciplines in the humanities and sciences. CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture, the peer-reviewed, full-text, and open-access learned journal in the humanities and social sciences, publishes new scholarship following tenets of the discipline of comparative literature and the field of cultural studies designated as "comparative cultural studies." Publications in the journal are indexed in the Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature (Chadwyck-Healey), the Arts and Humanities Citation Index (Thomson Reuters ISI), the Humanities Index (Wilson), Humanities International Complete (EBSCO), the International Bibliography of the Modern Language Association of America, and Scopus (Elsevier). The journal is affiliated with the Purdue University Press monograph series of Books in Comparative Cultural Studies. Contact: <[email protected]> Recommended Citation Feldhay Brenner, Rachel. ""Ideologically Incorrect" Responses to the Holocaust by Three Israeli Women Writers." CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 11.1 (2009): <https://doi.org/10.7771/1481-4374.1421> This text has been double-blind peer reviewed by 2+1 experts in the field.
    [Show full text]
  • Lecturers' Bio Notes
    Migration: Educational, Political and Cultural Aspects Beit Berl College 18-19 March 2019 Lecturers’ Bio Notes Steering Committee: Prof. Amos Hofman (Chairperson), Prof. Kussai Haj-Yehia, Dr. Orit Abuhav, Dr. Liat Yakhnich, Dr. Merav Nakar-Sadi, Dr. Adi Binhas, Dr. Ronit Web- man-Shafran, Dr. Saami Mahajna, Anat Benson Note: Bio-notes are listed alphabetically. They are presented as provided by the authors, with only minor editing. Alter, Grit Innsbruck University [email protected] Dr Grit Alter received her Ph.D. from the Münster University (Germany) in 2015. She currently holds a post-doc position at the School of Education/Department of Foreign Language Teacher Education at Innsbruck University (Austria). Her research interests include literature for young readers in foreign language education, CEF-based lit- erary competences, and concepts of cultural learning, textbook analysis, critical media literacy and means of differentiation in ELT. Arar, Khalid Al-Qasemi Academic College of Education [email protected] Prof. Khalid Arar, specializes in research on educational administration, leadership and policy analysis in education and higher education. He conducted studies in the Middle-East, Europe and in North America and in many other cross-national con- texts. His research focuses broadly in equity and diversity in educational leadership and higher education. He serves as associate editor for the International Journal of Leadership (Routledge). Dr. Arar is a board member of International Journal of Educational Management, Higher Education Policy, Journal of Educa- tion Administration & Applied Research in Higher Education. He authored Arab women in management and leadership (2013, Palgrave); Higher Education among the Palestinian Minority in Israel (2016, Pal- grave, with Kussai Haj-Yehia); and edited six different books in Higher Education, Multicultural Educa- tion, and Educational Leadership.
    [Show full text]
  • 2006 Abstracts
    Works in Progress Group in Modern Jewish Studies Session Many of us in the field of modern Jewish studies have felt the need for an active working group interested in discussing our various projects, papers, and books, particularly as we develop into more mature scholars. Even more, we want to engage other committed scholars and respond to their new projects, concerns, and methodological approaches to the study of modern Jews and Judaism, broadly construed in terms of period and place. To this end, since 2001, we have convened a “Works in Progress Group in Modern Jewish Studies” that meets yearly in connection with the Association for Jewish Studies Annual Conference on the Saturday night preceding the conference. The purpose of this group is to gather interested scholars together and review works in progress authored by members of the group and distributed and read prior to the AJS meeting. 2006 will be the sixth year of a formal meeting within which we have exchanged ideas and shared our work with peers in a casual, constructive environment. This Works in Progress Group is open to all scholars working in any discipline within the field of modern Jewish studies. We are a diverse group of scholars committed to engaging others and their works in order to further our own projects, those of our colleagues, and the critical growth of modern Jewish studies. Papers will be distributed in November. To participate in the Works in Progress Group, please contact: Todd Hasak-Lowy, email: [email protected] or Adam Shear, email: [email protected] Co-Chairs: Todd S.
    [Show full text]
  • Coming to Grips with the Shoah in Hebrew Fiction
    Coming to grips with the Shoah in Hebrew fiction Dvir Abramovich (The University of Melbourne) The first woman to become a full member of the Academy of the Hebrew Language and Winner of the Prime Minister’s Creativity Prize in 1971 for her novel Ir Yamim Rabim (City of Many Days), Shulamith Hareven was one of Israel’s pre-eminent authors. Over forty years, her finely tuned plots and perceptive, intimate portraits of lonely frayed individuals, as well as her commitment to civil rights, had earned her the respect of readers and critics alike. As a matter of fact, in a 1992 New York Times article Hareven was acclaimed as achieving, “a level of success and acceptance among the literary elite in Israel known by no other woman”.1 Likewise, she was hailed by the French publication L'Express as one of the hundred women “who moved the world”, and in 1988, on the occasion of Israel’s fortieth anniversary she was selected by the Council of Women’s Organisation as one of eleven women to be honoured for their extraordinary achievement.2 Shulamith Hareven was born in Warsaw, Poland on 14 February 1930. Her father Abraham Ryftin was a lawyer and her mother Natalia Wiener was a teacher. She published her first poems in a Polish children’s magazine when she was six. Her parents escaped Poland and travelled throughout Europe using fake documents until they arrived in Palestine in 1940, settling in Jerusalem. She studied at the Rehavia Secondary school, graduating in 1947. A member of the Haganah3, she served as a medic during the 1948 War of Independence and later was one of the founders of Galei Tzahal, the Israeli Defence Forces radio network.
    [Show full text]
  • Lyric and Ideology in Shulamith Hareven's Short Stories 1
    IN THOSE DAYS AND AT THIS TIME: LYRIC AND IDEOLOGY IN SHULAMITH HAREVEN'S SHORT STORIES 1 by YUDITH NAVE Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA 0218 J Shulamith Hareven is one of the finest Israeli contemporary writers whose journalistic writings are a sincere and continuous attempt to instill human and national values and to fight anything that endangers them. For more than three decades Hareven has been regularly publishing essays in the most influential newspapers in Israel, selections from which were published in two books, The Dolcinea Syndrome ( 1981) and Messiah or Parliament (1987). Hareven's writings reflect her strong belief in Zionism as the only political solution for the Jewish people, and in socialism and constitutional democracy as the best systems to secure human rights. Since the establishment of the state of Israel she has been fighting for civil rights and human dignity for Jews and Arabs. In 1973 she became an active member of the Peace Now movement. Hareven's literary works stem both from these didactic goals and from her personal life experiences. The few biographical details published about her are summarized by Kresse! (1965, p. 626) in two laconic sen­ tences: "Hareven (maiden name: Riftin) was born in Warsaw in 1931. She was brought to Israel with her parents in 1940 and was educated in Jerusalem." Approximately three years ago, she was asked in an inter­ view by Haim Chertok (l 989, p. 77) to describe her upbringing. Hareven I. All emphases are mine unless noted otherwise. Transliterations will vary from the adopted transliteration system in the following cases: l) quotations, 2) names previously transliterated and published, and 3) names previously transliterated in a different system will be used where they best demonstrate the argument.
    [Show full text]
  • UNDERSTANDING POWER the INDISPENSABLE CHOMSKY Edited by Peter R
    THE FOOTNOTES FOR: UNDERSTANDING POWER THE INDISPENSABLE CHOMSKY Edited by Peter R. Mitchell and John Schoeffel. Preface 1. For George Bush's statement, see "Bush's Remarks to the Nation on the Terrorist Attacks," New York Times, September 12, 2001, p. A4. For the quoted analysis from the New York Times's first "Week in Review" section following the September 11th attacks, see Serge Schmemann, "War Zone: What Would ‘Victory’ Mean?," New York Times, September 16, 2001, section 4, p. 1. Understanding Power: Preface Footnote Chapter One Weekend Teach-In: Opening Session 1. On Kennedy's fraudulent "missile gap" and major escalation of the arms race, see for example, Fred Kaplan, Wizards of Armageddon, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1983, chs. 16, 19 and 20; Desmond Ball, Politics and Force Levels: The Strategic Missile Program of the Kennedy Administration, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980, ch. 2. On Reagan's fraudulent "window of vulnerability" and "military spending gap" and the massive military buildup during his first administration, see for example, Jeff McMahan, Reagan and the World: Imperial Policy in the New Cold War, New York: Monthly Review, 1985, chs. 2 and 3; Franklyn Holzman, "Politics and Guesswork: C.I.A. and D.I.A. estimates of Soviet Military Spending," International Security, Fall 1989, pp. 101-131; Franklyn Holzman, "The C.I.A.'s Military Spending Estimates: Deceit and Its Costs," Challenge, May/June 1992, pp. 28-39; Report of the President's Commission on Strategic Forces, Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, April 1983, especially pp. 7-8, 17, and Brent Scowcroft, "Final Report of the President's Commission on Strategic Forces," Atlantic Community Quarterly, Vol.
    [Show full text]
  • Biblical Revision Both Ancient and Modern
    University of Denver Digital Commons @ DU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Graduate Studies 1-1-2009 Biblical Revision Both Ancient and Modern Jamie Christine Willeford University of Denver Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.du.edu/etd Part of the Biblical Studies Commons, and the Religious Education Commons Recommended Citation Willeford, Jamie Christine, "Biblical Revision Both Ancient and Modern" (2009). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 708. https://digitalcommons.du.edu/etd/708 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate Studies at Digital Commons @ DU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ DU. For more information, please contact [email protected],[email protected]. BIBLICAL REVISION BOTH ANCIENT AND MODERN __________ A thesis Presented to the Faculty of Arts and Humanities University of Denver __________ In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts __________ by Jamie Willeford June 2009 Advisor: Alison Schofield Author: Jamie Willeford Title: BIBLICLAL REVISION BOTH ANCIENT AND MODERN Advisor: Alison Schofield Degree Date: June 2009 ABSTRACT Biblical revision has been a part of the Jewish tradition since the Bible began to be canonized in the Second Temple period. Many authors throughout the centuries have seen fit to revise the biblical text: creating a literary genre that is in this paper termed “rewritten Bible.” Maxine Grossman’s literary critical method, as advocated in Reading for History in the Damascus Document: A Methodological Method, helps us to understand the different types of meaning that can be created from a text, including meaning that is created outside the intent of the author, as it is in the genre of rewritten Bible.
    [Show full text]
  • About the Book
    CITY OF MANY DAYS By Shulamith Hareven Translated by Hillel Halkin with the Author First publis hed in Hebrew by Am Oved, 1972 English translation published by Doubleday, 1977; Mercury House, 1993 Study guide by Ilana Kurshan ABOUT THE BOOK: This novel chronicles the interwoven lives of various Jerusalem residents between 1918 and 1948, during the British Mandate. At the center of the story is Sara Amarillo, the child of Sephardic immigrants who becomes an intrepid, spirited nurse in the local hospital. There she is supervised by Dr. Heinz Barzel, known affectionately as Dr. Bimbi, an immigrant from Frankfurt whose hobbies include botany, playing the violin, and the health of his “Organismus,” as he puts it. Also featured in the novel are Subhi Bey and his wife Faiza, a prominent Arab couple with close ties to several Jewish families; their sons, including a nurse named Husni who aspires to be a famous singer; and Alfred von Kluck, a stranded Christian Prussian fiddle maker who eventually marries Sara's younger sister Ofra. At the novel's heart lies Jerusalem, city of many days, whose history passes over its stones like ever- shifting patterns of light. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Shulamith Hareven was born in Warsaw in 1930 and came to pre-State Israel in 1940. She served in the Hagganah underground, and was a combat-medic in the 1947-48 siege of Jerusalem. Hareven was one of the founders of the IDF broadcasts and an officer in Command/Operations in the IDF. During the early 1950s, she worked in transit camps with refugees from Arab countries and served as a war correspondent in 1967 and 1973.
    [Show full text]
  • The Gender Challenge of Hebrew the Brill Reference Library of Judaism
    The Gender Challenge of Hebrew The Brill Reference Library of Judaism Editors Alan J. Avery-Peck (College of the Holy Cross) William Scott Green (University of Rochester) Editorial Board David Aaron (Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, Cincinnati) Herbert Basser (Queen’s University) Bruce D. Chilton (Bard College) José Faur (Netanya College) Neil Gillman (Jewish Theological Seminary of America) Mayer I. Gruber (Ben-Gurion University of the Negev) Ithamar Gruenweld (Tel Aviv University) Maurice-Ruben Hayoun (University of Strasbourg and Hochschule fuer Juedische Studien Heidelberg) Arkady Kovelman (Moscow State University) David Kraemer (Jewish Theological Seminary of America) Baruch A. Levine (New York University) Alan Nadler (Drew University) Jacob Neusner (Bard College) Maren Niehoff (Hebrew University of Jerusalem) Gary G. Porton (University of Illinois) Aviezer Ravitzky (Hebrew University of Jerusalem) Dov Schwartz (Bar Ilan University) Günter Stemberger (University of Vienna) Michael E. Stone (Hebrew University of Jerusalem) Elliot Wolfson (New York University) VOLUME 42 The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/brlj The Gender Challenge of Hebrew By Malka Muchnik LEIDEN | BOSTON Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Muchnik, Malka, author. The gender challenge of Hebrew / by Malka Muchnik. pages cm. — (The Brill reference library of Judaism ; volume 42) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-28270-4 (hardback : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-90-04-28271-1 (e-book) 1. Hebrew language—Gender. 2. Hebrew language—Sex differences. I. Title. PJ4625.M83 2015 492.45’5—dc23 2014028948 This publication has been typeset in the multilingual ‘Brill’ typeface. With over 5,100 characters covering Latin, ipa, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the humanities.
    [Show full text]
  • Israeli Literature and the American Reader
    Israeli Literature and the American Reader by ALAN MINTZ A HE PAST 25 YEARS HAVE BEEN a heady time for lovers of Is- raeli literature. In the 1960s the Israeli literary scene began to explode, especially in terms of fiction. Until then, poetry had been at the center of literary activity. While S.Y. Agnon's eminence, rooted in a different place and time, persisted, the native-born writers who began to produce stories and novels after 1948 never seemed to be able to carry their ef- forts much beyond the struggles and controversies of the hour. Then suddenly there were the short stories of Amos Oz, A.B. Yehoshua, Aharon Appelfeld, and Amalia Kahana-Carmon, followed by their first and second novels. These writers were soon joined by Shulamit Hareven, Yehoshua Kenaz, Yaakov Shabtai, and David Grossman. Into the 1980s and 1990s the debuts of impressive new writers became more frequent, while the productivity of the by-now established ones only intensified. What was different about this new Israeli literature was the quality and inventiveness of its fictional techniques and its ability to explore univer- sal issues in the context of Israeli society. There was also a new audience for this literature; children of immigrants had become sophisticated He- brew readers. Many of the best books became not only critical successes but best-sellers as well. Was this a party to which outsiders were invited? Very few American Jews knew Hebrew well enough to read a serious modern Hebrew book, so that even if they were aware of the celebration, they could not hear the music.
    [Show full text]
  • Ideas of Jewishness in Contemporary Jewish, Postcolonial, and Palestinian Literature
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by White Rose E-theses Online The Outsider Inside: Ideas of Jewishness in Contemporary Jewish, Postcolonial, and Palestinian Literature Isabelle Hesse Ph.D. University of York Department of English December 2012 2 ABSTRACT My thesis creates a comparative framework for unDerstanDing representations of Jewishness in Jewish, postcolonial, and Palestinian literature in response to particular historical events such as the Holocaust, the creation of the state of Israel, the first intifada, anD the siege of Ramallah During the seconD intifaDa. Central to my stuDy is the shift from Jewish identity in Europe before the creation of Jewish settlements in Palestine – as a minority iDentity in the Diaspora, facing Discrimination anD persecution in Europe, which culminateD in the Holocaust – to Jewishness as Israeliness, defined in relation to the state of Israel, Zionism, and settler-colonialism. My study contests ahistorical and Decontextualised uses of Jewishness and each chapter proposes a different angle to engage with ideas of Jewishness in their specific historical context. I examine narrative fiction and travelogues, published between 1971 and 2008, by Jurek Becker, Anita Desai, David Grossman, Shulamith Hareven, EDgar Hilsenrath, Sahar Khalifeh, Caryl Phillips, Anton Shammas, Raja Shehadeh, and A. B. Yehoshua. Through these examples, I interrogate the political and stylistic reasons underlying the inclusion and appropriation of ideas of Jewishness in literature.
    [Show full text]
  • Minorities in Modern Hebrew Literature: a Survey1
    Minorities in Modern Hebrew Literature: A Survey Minorities in Modern Hebrew Literature: A Survey1 近現代ヘブライ文学におけるマイノリティ：概観 Doron B. Cohen, Ph.D. ドロン・B・コヘン，Ph.D. Summary:1 Along their history, Jews often found themselves in a minority situation, and their awareness of this fact was expressed in their writings, but in modern times Jews also experienced being a majority. However, even while being an ethnic minority, they had various groups of social minorities in their midst. The present article offers a survey of the attitude towards various kinds of minorities as expressed in Modern Hebrew literature, along a division to three periods: (1) in Eastern Europe, from mid-19th to early 20th century (minorities such as orphans, the handicapped, and women as marginal- ized in society); (2) in Central Europe and Palestine, during the first half of the 20th century (similar minorities); (3) in the State of Israel (similar minorities, as well as Arabs, Jews of Asian and African origin and migrant workers). Our survey shows that authors of Modern Hebrew literature displayed an acute awareness of the plight of different minorities. Key words: Hebrew Literature, Minorities, Jews & Arabs, Ashkenazim, Mizrahim 要旨： 歴史を通じて、ユダヤ人はしばしばマイノリティの状況にあり、その意識は彼らの書くもの に表現されてきた。しかし、近現代においては、ユダヤ人はマジョリティとしての立場も体 験することになった。民族としてはマイノリティであっても、彼らの内部には様々な社会的 マイノリティ集団を抱えていた。本稿は、近現代ヘブライ文学に表れた様々なマイノリティ への態度を概観するものである。近現代を以下の三つの時期に区分する：（1）19 世紀半ば −20 世紀初頭の東欧（社会の周縁にあるマイノリティとしては、孤児、障がい者、女性な ど ）、（ 2）20 世紀前半の中央ヨーロッパとパレスティナ地域（同上のマイノリティ）、（3） イスラエル国家において（同上のマイノリティに加えて、アラブ人、アジア系及びアフリカ 系ユダヤ人、移民労働者）。本稿の概観を通して、近現代ヘブライ文学の著者は、様々なマ イノリティの窮状を鋭く認識し、それを表現していたことが窺える。 キーワード： ヘブライ文学、マイノリティ、ユダヤ人とアラブ人、アシュケナジーム、ミズラヒーム 1 I am grateful to Prof. Nitza Ben-Dov of Haifa University for her generous assistance in the writing of this article, but I must obviously assume sole responsibility for any error or misjudgment in it.
    [Show full text]