DOCSLIB.ORG

Israeli Poets As Change Agents Session 3

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text

Load more

ISRAELI POETS AS CHANGE AGENTS Congregation Beit Simchat Torah Lehrhaus Judaica Fall 2020 RABBI REUVEN GREENVALD ([email protected]) WEEK THREE: ISRAELI ARABS USING HEBREW POETRY TO ASSERT SOCIAL AND POLITICAL IDENTITY AYAT ABOU SHMEIS Ayat Abou Shmeiss was born in Jaffa in 1984. Her mother, who was illiterate, insisted she get the best and broadest education possible, and as a result she completed her schooling at the French Jaffa school College de Ferrer, and speaks five languages: Arabic, Hebrew, French, English and Spanish. She is the לס אלמ תופש ) second of four children. Her first book of poetry, A Basket Full of Silent Languages also a ,( נא י הז נש י םי ) came out in 2013, in both Arabic and Hebrew. Her second, I Am Two ( תוקתוש bilingual volume, was published in 2018. Abou Shmeiss, who writes in Hebrew, won the Emerging Poets Award from the Israel Ministry of Culture in 2015. She has stated that she is constantly asked about this choice, whether simply because it seems odd to write in a language that is not one's native tongue, or because it is akin to "sleeping with the enemy". Abou Shmeiss says it was only years after beginning to write in Hebrew that she acknowledged that it is indeed a form of colonialism or occupation, but that it came naturally for her to write in Hebrew – to her Arabic is a holy language, the language of the Quran, and she would be diminishing it by writing her everyday thoughts and feeling. Yet, after she writes her poems in Hebrew, they are translated into Arabic so that her published books can be bilingual. In the poem that gives the title to her second book, I am Two, we get a sense of the how language and identity play out for her (see next page): 1 ִנֲא י ֶזה נְשׁ ַ י םִ I am two ֶקלֵח א ֵֶקְולח ב Part 1 and part 2 ַצד ָדֶאח ְָודצ נֵשׁ ִ י One side and the other side נְשׁ ֵ ֶםהי ָדגֻּנְמ יִם Both of them in conflict אַךְ ִנֲא י ָהוְֹקרב ְנִלשׁ ֵ ֶםיה But I am close to both of them " ֹבּ רֶ ק , ָמה ְנִע יםִנָי , ,boker1, mah inyanim2“ ְדַחמ ָהְלילִ , וו הָלאָ hamdilelah3, walla4 ֶרֵדְבּס , ָהְָילאל be-seder5, yalla6 ָאתָמָסל וּק נ ִ י ֶרֶשְׁבּק " ”salamat7 quni8 be-kesher9 ֶהְוז ֵקַלְּחִמת ַגּם " ָָלאםְלס יֵוָּכּםלַוע ְַַותבּשׁ םוֹלָשׁ " -and that also divides into “le-salaam we ָכּל ַהֲהפ יםִָכ ְֶהפּנַּה יםִָכ ֶהֵלָּהא יֲִנַוא ָםכוְֹבּת aleikum10 ve-shabbat shalom11 All these opposing opposites and I am in them 1 Hebrew: “morning” short hand for boker tov, “good morning” 2 Hebrew expression that is best translated as “what’s up?” 3 Arabic: “Thank Allah” 4 Arabic: “by Allah” and is used in Hebrew slang for “wow.” 5 Hebrew: “okay” 6 Arabic: lit. “O Allah” but it in colloquial Arabic and in Hebrew slang it means “hurry up” 7 Arabic lit. “may you be well” and used in colloquial Arabic and Hebrew as a greeting. 8 Arabic: “I will be” 9 Hebrew: lit., “in connection” here it means “in touch” like in the phrase, “I will be in touch” 10 Arabic: “peace be unto you” like the Hebrew shalom aleikhem. 11 Hebrew: “sabbath peace” 2 רוּק ְ ס ִ מ שְׁמ ָ ל ִלוֹפוּ ִטי קי הָ רְשִׂיְבּ לֵאָ A Government and Politics Course in Israel יִיתִיָה ָהיִָּבֲרָהע I was the only Arab יִתְמְלֻסַהמּ Muslim ַָלַהפ ְִסט ני ִ תי ָהידְִחיַּה ָהִתּכָּבּ . .Palestinian in the class ֹז את ֹל א ַםַעַהפּ ָהִנאוֹשָׁהר נֲאֶשׁ ִ י ָהידְִחיַּה This wasn’t the first time I was the only one אַךְ ַםַעַהפּ ָהיָה וֹשׁ נ ֶ ה but this time it was different ָםֻכּלּ מאָ ְ ר וּ ְסרוַּקּהֶשׁ ֶהזַּה ֶהָקשׁ they all said this course was difficult וּנִּכּ וֹוֹאת וֹשׁ האָ ”they called it “shoah12 ִמְבּח ַתניִ ֶרמַֹהח because of the material ֹל י ֶרמַֹהח ָהיָה ֶהָקשׁ אַךְ ֹל א ְמ ֹא ד it was hard for me but not so much ָמה ָהֶשׁ י הָ ִלי ֱֶמתֶבּא ָהָקשׁ but what was really hard for me ֶזה ֶתֶבָלשׁ ָהִתּכַּבּ ְִֹעְומלשׁ ַ וֹאת ָ ם . .was to sit in the class and to listen to them ֶאת ֶהְחנַַהמּ , ,To the instructor ָלֲאב ָרִקְּבּע ֶאת ְוּדטַהסּ יִםְטֶנ but mostly to the students רָבְכֶּשׁ ַבִּמּפ ָשׁגְּ ִןאוֹשָׁהר מאָ ְ ר וּ לוְֹבּק ֶאת ֶםֵיהֵדּוֹעת who already in the first session would say וֹתיִּיטִוֹלַהפּ their political opinions aloud ְֶהחַַנְומּה מאָ ַ ר ְכּ ֶד ֶרךְ גּאַ ַ ב וֹא ֹלֶּשׁ א and the instructor said by the way or maybe וּהֶשׁ א ֵתרֵשׁ ָָבאְבּצ ִבְרִבּק ָי not וֹזכ ֶ ֶת ר רֹוּעִשׁ ָדֶאח ָדֻחיִבְּמ that he served in a combat unit in the army וֹבֶּשׁ וּנַּדּ וַּבּטִמּע יְִבַרָהע I remember one lecture in particular ֶשׁםָשּׁ לַֹהכּ ַרֱמֶנא לוְֹבּק ָרם . where we were discussing the Arab minority ָכּל ָוֹתאיִשְׁלַהקּ מּה ְ ֻח ְס ָפּ ס וֹ ת ָֻוֹסְבַּתכְומּה .and there everything was said loudly ָלֲאב ָםלוֵֹמע ֶזה ֹל א ָהיָה ָכּל ָכּךְ ְפּר ָ ִט י , ָכּל ָכּךְ ִא ני ְ ִימִט י . All the coarse and washed-out clichés ַעד רִהֶשׁ ַתְּשׁגְּ ִ י ָכּל ָהלִּמ ָהְדֻקדּ ְָמתִשׁנְבּ יִ . but it had never been so personal, so ֶהְחנַַהמּ יםִָמְעִלפ ָהיָה ִגֵמ יב , ַקְּמת ןֵ ִיםָרְדּב , ִיָםְמִעפְול .intimate ֹל א , ַקְּמת ןֵ Until I felt every word encoded into my soul. ָלכְבּ ֹז את ֵישׁ וֹל ֹח רֶמ ריֲִבַעְלה ַןְַמזְּוה ֹל א וֵנָתוְֹלבט . ּ ,The instructor would sometimes respond יֲִנַוא ָכּל ָמה ָצרֶשׁ ִ ִתי י ֶזה ֶשׁסּ ףוֹ ִוּרעַהשּׁ יִעַיגּ ַ ,correct something, and sometimes not יְֵכּד ֵאתָלצ ָהִתַּכֵּמה regardless he had material to teach and the ְנַתְלה ִ ַיע ֶאת ַוֹענְַטַהקּ רֲֹזְַוחל לאַ ָָיאאפ . :time was not to our benefit And I really just wanted the lecture to end in order to leave the class to start my moped and return to Yaffa13. Translated by Reuven Greenvald. The poem appears in I am in two (Hebrew & Arabic, 2018). 12 Hebrew: “catastrophe” and is the Hebrew word for “The Holocaust” 13 She uses the Arabic name for the city of Jaffa whereas in Hebrew it is called “Yafo” 3 ( ֹל א וֹרצ ָ ה בְֹתִּלכ ַעל לוֹמ ֶ ֶ ד ת ) (I don’t want to write about homeland) ֹל א וֹרצ ָ ה בְֹתִּלכ ַעל לוֹמ ֶ ֶ ד ת I don’t want to write about homeland ְוֹאל ַעל ָהָמֲאד nor about land ֹל א וֹרצ ָ ה בְֹתִּלכ ַעל ֶזוּהת נֶּשׁ ִ ג ְ נ ָהבְ I don’t want to write about identity ְוֹאל ַעל ְָהדָיל נֶּשׁ רֶהֶ גְ הָ stolen ֹל א וֹרצ ָ ה בְֹתִּלכ nor about a girl who was killed ַעל ָהָלְפַּהשׁ יִדּוּכּ וֹא ַסַכּע I don’t want to write about humiliation ֹל א וֹרצ ָ ה בְֹתִּלכ ַעל פאַ ְ ל ָ י ָ ה oppression nor anger ֹל א וֹרצ ָ ה בְֹתִּלכ ַעל האַ ֲ ָב ה I don’t want to write about לֶשׁ ָע ִיְרב ָהִיּיִווּהד discrimination וֹא ִיְיוּהד ָהִיְַּבְורע I don’t want to write about love ֹל א וֹרצ ָ ה בְֹתִּלכ ַעל ִיוּדְיתד ָאָהְלֻמפ between an Arab man and a Jewish ְוֹאל ָםְסת ִיוּדְיתד woman ֹל א וֹרצ ָ ה בְֹתִּלכ ַעל וֹםֲחל לֶשׁ םוֹלָשׁ or a Jewish man and an Arab woman ֹל א וֹרצ ָ ה בְֹתִּלכ ַעל ףאַ וֹלח ֵ ם I don’t want to write about exceptional ְואַף ִגּוֹרבּ friendship וֹרצ ָ ה בְֹתִּלכ ַעל ִיםֳרִפַּהצּ nor any friendship ֶשׁ ֹלּ א ַָמַבּשּׁ ִים I don’t want to write about a dream of גֶּשׁ ָ וּרְז ֶםָלה ֶאת ִםיַָפנְַהכּ peace I don’t want to write about any warrior nor hero I want to write about the birds not in the sky because their wings were clipped Translated by Reuven Greenvald. The poem appears in I am in two (Hebrew & Arabic, 2018). 4 ( ִאם יָה ִ יִית ָאִאמּ ָהיִּוּדְהי ) (If I were a Jewish mother) ִאם יִיתִיָה ָאִאמּ ָיְּיהוּהד ִ If I were a Jewish mother ִייִתָיְוה רְצ ָהכיִ ְֹלִלשׁ ַח and I had to send ֶאת ִנְבּ י ָאָבַלצּ my son to the army יִיתִיָה ֶתֶמְחִנל I would fight I would sew יִיתִיָה וֹקשׁ ֶ ֶ ר ת my tongue to his ears ֶאת ִנְלוֹשׁ י זְלאָ ָנְ וי I would glue my hand יִיתִיָה ָהיְקִבַּמד ֶאת ִיָיד to his legs ַגרְל ָלְ וי I would hang my heart יִיתִיָה לוֹתּ ָ ה ֶאת יִִלבּ on his eyes ַעל ָניֵע וי ֹלֶּשׁ א יֵלֵךְ so that he won’t go Translated by Reuven Greenvald. The poem appears in I am in two (Hebrew & Arabic, 2018). 5 ( ֶזה ֵֶרְדסבּ ) (It’s okay) ֶזה ֶרֵדְבּס It’s okay תּאַ ָ ה לָֹיכ ֲֹרַלה ג you can kill ָלֲאב ַרק ִאם ֵישׁ לְךָ וֹרב ֶ ה but only if you have a rifle ְָואַהתּ וָּלבשׁ ְבַּמדּ יִם . .and you are wearing a uniform ףאַ ָדֶאח ֹל א ְָארִיק לְךָ No one will call you ַלֵבְּמח . .a terrorist ֶזה ֶרֵדְבּס It’s okay תּאַ ָ ה לָֹיכ ֲֹרַלה ג you can kill ָלֲאב ַרק ִאם ֵישׁ לְךָ וֹסָמט but only if you have jet ִֵטֶשׁמּ לי ָהָצְפּצ ַלַמע ִנִמְב ים . .that drops a bomb on buildings ףאַ ָדֶאח ֹל א ְָארִיק לְךָ No one will call you וֹרצ ֵ ַח . .a murderer ְְוּארִיק לְךָ ִגּוֹרבּ They will call you a hero ְוּנִתּיְו לְךָ וֹאת וֹהק ָ ָ ר ה And they will pin a ribbon on you14 ָלֲאב ֵםַחִתּנְת But don’t take comfort ִכּ י ָכָּכה That’s the way it is ֶזה בֹרְבּ וֹתניְִמד ָםוֹלָהע . .In most countries in the world Translated by Reuven Greenvald.
Recommended publications
  • Forgotten Palestinians

    Forgotten Palestinians

    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 THE FORGOTTEN PALESTINIANS 10 1 2 3 4 5 6x 7 8 9 20 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 30 1 2 3 4 5 36x 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 20 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 30 1 2 3 4 5 36x 1 2 3 4 5 THE FORGOTTEN 6 PALESTINIANS 7 8 A History of the Palestinians in Israel 9 10 1 2 3 Ilan Pappé 4 5 6x 7 8 9 20 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 30 1 2 3 4 YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS 5 NEW HAVEN AND LONDON 36x 1 In memory of the thirteen Palestinian citizens who were shot dead by the 2 Israeli police in October 2000 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1 2 3 4 5 Copyright © 2011 Ilan Pappé 6 The right of Ilan Pappé to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by 7 him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. 8 All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright 9 Law and except by reviewers for the public press) without written permission from 20 the publishers. 1 For information about this and other Yale University Press publications, 2 please contact: U.S.
  • Alandmark 1996 Interview with Mahmoud Darwish

    Alandmark 1996 Interview with Mahmoud Darwish

    “EXILE IS SO STRONG WITHIN ME, I MAY BRING IT TO THE LAND” A LANDMARK 1996 INTERVIEW WITH MAHMOUD DARWISH CONDUCTED BY HELIT YESHURUN Mahmoud Darwish—“national poet of Palestine,” “voice of the Palestin- ian people,” cultural icon for millions of Arabs—died four years ago this summer, on 9 August 2008, at the age of 67 following heart surgery. As be!tted a man whose poetry readings !lled sports stadiums and whose poems set to music became anthems across the Arab world, he was given the equivalent of a state funeral in Ramallah, his last abode, with a eulogy by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and three days of of!cial mourning. A political as well as a cultural !gure, Darwish was among the prin- cipal drafters of the 1988 Palestinian Declaration of Independence. His poetry, especially during the !rst period of his career, memorializes the Palestinian experience from 1948 onward, not only the broad sweep of it, but also speci!c events such as Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, the Tal Za'tar and Sabra and Shatila massacres, the !rst intifada, and so on. Under Israeli siege and bombardment in 1982, he wrote an auto- biographical memoir of his ten-year exile in Beirut titled Memory for Forgetfulness, frequently referred to in the interview that follows. Darwish’s poetry was always a mix of the political/collective and the personal/individual. But while it was the !rst that predominated through the 1980s, his poetry thereafter became increasingly personal. His 1995 collection Why Did You Leave the Horse Alone?—also referred to in this interview—is seen by many as a turning point, the !rst of his some thirty books of poetry (translated into more than twenty languages) to be almost exclusively personal.
  • The Hope of Salman Masalha: Re-Territorializing Hebrew

    The Hope of Salman Masalha: Re-Territorializing Hebrew

    CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture ISSN 1481-4374 Purdue University Press ©Purdue University Volume 22 (2020) Issue 1 Article 10 The Hope of Salman Masalha: Re-Territorializing Hebrew Yael Dekel Ben Gurion University Eran Tzelgov Ben Gurion University Follow this and additional works at: https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb Part of the Arabic Language and Literature Commons, Comparative Literature Commons, Jewish Studies Commons, Modern Literature Commons, and the Other Languages, Societies, and Cultures 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 Dekel, Yael; and Tzelgov, Eran. "The Hope of Salman Masalha: Re-Territorializing Hebrew." CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 22.1 (): <https://doi.org/10.7771/1481-4374.3713> This text has been double-blind peer reviewed by 2+1 experts in the field.
  • Dwelling in the Stanzas of the Text

    Dwelling in the Stanzas of the Text

    Dwelling in the Stanzas of the Text: The Concept of “Bayit” in Hebrew Poetry SHMA.COM VERED KARTI SHEMTOV aving grown up outside the United destruction of both the physical and the poetic States, I’m aware of the comfort I feel space is tied together thematically and happens Vered Karti Shemtov is the seeing a familiar landscape, taking in simultaneously. For Pagis, in this and many H Eva Chernov Lokey Senior my native culture, or hearing, speaking or writ- other poems, poetry cannot provide a safe and Lecturer in Hebrew Language ing in Hebrew — when I am immersed in secure home for the speaker who has experi- and Literature at Stanford Hebrew texts. Heinrich Heine and, years later, enced a trauma. The destruction of both the University, and coordinator of George Steiner associated this feeling with physical and the poetic space described in these the Hebrew@Standford: Multimedia website. She being Jewish, claiming that for the wandering three stanzas, or batim, is tied together themat- served as the co-director of the 1 2 Jew, the text is the homeland. But when look- ically and happens simultaneously. The third Taube Center for Jewish ing at Hebrew poetry, one can find much older stanza presents a slightly more optimistic pic- Studies at Stanford University and not necessarily Jewish origins for the idea ture: “among the ruins, / the pen is absolved of until 2011. Shemtov is the of feeling at home in literature. One of these all its duties. / It scribbles on the page as it author of “Discontinuous roots is the double meaning of the word bayit.
  • Man's- Land of Language

    Man's- Land of Language

    Introduction The No- Man’s- Land of Language Two myths perish simultaneously: the myth of a language that presumes to be the only language, and the myth of a language that presumes to be completely unified. — Mikhail Bakhtin1 A language is therefore on the hither side of Literature. — Roland Barthes2 hat does it mean to write when you inhabit the fraught bor- derline between Hebrew and Arabic? Well, it depends on whom you ask. In a Hebrew poem insisting that strangers can be friends, the Palestinian Israeli poet Salman Masalha infuses the statement “Ani kotev ‘ivrit,” “I write Hebrew,” with myriad Wshades of wonder and possibility.3 In an opposing poetic maneuver, Sami Shalom Chetrit, a Moroccan- born Jewish Israeli, challenges his readers by declaring (in Hebrew), “Ani kotev la- khem shirim/be- lashon ashdodit/ she- lo tavinu mila”: “I write you poems in Ashdodian,” a nonexistent lan- guage, “so you won’t understand a word.”4 These antithetical gestures, that of the Palestinian Arab who embraces Hebrew and the Moroccan Jew who disavows it, are mirror images of one another, at once equal and opposite. Both are provocative in their unexpected disruption of the norms defining language, identity, and belonging in the State of Israel. More subtly, the two poetic declarations are tempered by the muteness of the other language, Arabic— the mother tongue of both poets, concealed but not absent. What is the place of Arabic in these two Hebrew poems, with their crisscrossings 1 Bakhtin, Dialogic Imagination, 68. 2 Barthes, Writing Degree Zero, 10. 3 Masalha, Eḥad mi- kan, 15– 16.
  • Report of the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies 2015–2016

    Report of the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies 2015–2016

    Report of the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies 2015–2016 Report of the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies Report of the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies 2015–2016 OXFORD CENTRE FOR HEBREW AND JEWISH STUDIES A Recognised Independent Centre of the University of Oxford Contents President’s Preface 7 OXFORD CENTRE FOR HEBREW AND JEWISH STUDIES Highlights of the 2015–2016 Academic Year 10 Clarendon Institute Oxford Seminar in Advanced Jewish Studies Walton Street Oxford Israel in Egypt / Egypt in Israel: The Land of Egypt as OX1 2HG Concept and Reality for Jews in Antiquity and the Early Medieval Period Tel: 01865 610422 Email: [email protected] The Work of the Seminar Professor Alison Salvesen 21 Website: www.ochjs.ac.uk Bringing Scribal Culture to Life: The Physicality of Reading and Writing in Early Hellenistic Judea and Ptolemaic Egypt The Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies is a company, limited by guarantee, Dr Lindsey Askin 23 incorporated in England, Registered No. 1109384 (Registered Charity No. 309720). The Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies is a tax-deductible organization within Dating and Locating the Septuagint of Proverbs in its Jewish- the United States under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code (Employer Hellenistic Cultural Context Dr Lorenzo Cuppi 24 Identification number 13–2943469). From Egypt to Palestine and Back: Links and Channels in Medieval Judaism Professor Miriam Frenkel 25 A Corpus of Jewish Papyri from Egypt Professor Tal Ilan 26 The Jewish Tax and
  • The Status of the Arabic Language in Israel

    The Status of the Arabic Language in Israel

    05.2011 15. Table of Contents A. From the Editors' Desk.............................................. 2 B. Opinion Section ......................................................... 4 Meital Pinto / Minority language and language policy: The case of Arabic in Israel4 Elana Shohamy / Arabic as a minority language? Linguistic landscape as a test case ....................................................................................................................................6 Alon Fragman / Teaching Arabic to Hebrew speakers: What have we learned so far? .............................................................................................................................8 Abdul Rahman Mar’i / Young Arabs in Israel: Arab identity, Hebrew language? .10 Mahmoud Kayyal / The Academy of Arabic Language in Israel: Current status and challenges of the future............................................................................................12 Mohanad Mustafa / Arab Students and the Obstacle of Hebrew: The Individual and the Collective Experience ........................................................................................14 C. From the Press and the Media ..................................16 Arabic language as a component in national and religious identity ........................16 Opinions on the declining official status of the Arabic language............................17 Concerns over the declining status of Arabic among the Arab youth .....................19 On the Establishment of an Arab University in Israel

  • Fields of Belonging - Interpreting Jewish Literatures

    Writing / Reading Place: Fields of Belonging - Interpreting Jewish Literatures READER May 5-7, 2015 1 Table of Contents UWorkshop Schedule..........................................................................................................U ................3-5 Cixous,U Hélène. Ay Yay! The Shout of Literature.............................................................U ..............6-31 Cixous,U Hélène. Oy!.........................................................................................................U ............32-48 RimmonU -Kenan, Shlomith. Belonging Destabilized: Anton Shammas' Arabesques..............U .....49-61 Ginsburg,U Ruth. French Scholem, or Scholem's Purloined Letter.U ..............................................62-81 Telaak,U Anastasia. "When the roof flies off the house and the words don't provide refuge, I speak". Space, Form and Language in Alejandra Pizarnik's Poetics of Un/Belonging..U .............82-110 Zepp,U Susanne. "Sou caleidoscópica." Clarice Lispector's Belongings..........................U ........111-124 Liska,U Vivian. "The Places that we saw now look at us.” Vienna in Contemporary Austrian-Jewish Literature...............................................................................U .........................................125-145 Gordinski,U Natasha. Childhood Discoveries: Epistemologies of Belonging in post-Soviet American Jewish Fiction...........................................U .......................................................................146-156 Dickow,U Sonja. Architectures
  • The Claim for Recognition of Israel As a Jewish State a Reassessment

    The Claim for Recognition of Israel As a Jewish State a Reassessment

    The Claim for Recognition of Israel as a Jewish State A Reassessment Tal Becker Policy Focus #108 | February 2011 The Claim for Recognition of Israel as a Jewish State A Reassessment Tal Becker Policy Focus #108 | February 2011 All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. © 2011 by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy Published in 2011 in the United States of America by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 1828 L Street NW, Suite 1050, Washington, DC 20036. Design by Daniel Kohan, Sensical Design and Communication Front cover: The signers of Israel’s declaration of independence, at a ceremony at the Tel Aviv Art Museum, May 14, 1948. First prime minister of Israel David Ben Gurion stands up to speak during a session of the new Israeli government. (AP Photo) Contents About the Author . v Acknowledgments. vii Executive Summary . ix Introduction . xiii 1. Recognition as a Jewish State. 1 2. Historical Overview. 5 3. Palestinian, Arab, and Other Objections. 12 4. The trategicS Dimension . 23 5. Reconciling the Claim and Its Objections. 25 Appendix . 27 Balfour Declaration, 1917. 27 League of Nations Mandate for Palestine, 1922. 28 UN General Assembly, Partition Resolution, 1947. 33 Israeli Declaration of Independence, May 14, 1948. 49 Notes. 51 About the Author Tal Becker, an international associate of The Washington Institute, served as senior policy advisor to Israel’s minis- ter of foreign affairs from 2006 to 2009 and was a lead negotiator during Israeli-Palestinian negotiations that took place under the auspices of the Annapolis peace process.
  • Mahmoud Darwish: Poetry's State of Siege

    Mahmoud Darwish: Poetry's State of Siege

    Journal of Levantine Studies Summer 2011, No. 1, pp. 189-199 Mahmoud Darwish: Poetry’s State of Siege Almog Behar Department of Literature, Tel Aviv University Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish often wrote under siege: He wrote under the military government of the nascent State of Israel, when he was required to appear before government officials to prove that he had not left Haifa and was later imprisoned for leaving Haifa without permission in order to read poems at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He wrote in Beirut, that in 1982 was bombarded and besieged by the IDF; and he wrote during the Israeli incursion in Ramallah in 2002. Besides these real-time sieges, his poetry repeatedly returned to the moment of the arch-siege, to his village Al-Birweh, which was destroyed in 1948 when he was seven years old. He wrote about his family’s exile in Lebanon and their return as infiltrators a year later—or as “present absentees”1—to his non-existent village in the Galilee: “I didn’t understand why they destroyed this world, and who destroyed it. I was a refugee in Lebanon, and now I am a refugee in my homeland.”2 With his multifaceted personal and family story, Darwish represents the “state” of the Palestinian in the second half of the twentieth century—continuously in exile and under siege: exile from the Galilee to Lebanon in 1948, return to his destroyed village in the Galilee and life as a present absentee, life as a Palestinian citizen of Israel under the military government, departure for exile in the Palestinian diaspora, joining the PLO, the siege on Beirut and the exit from it, life in Tunis, the life of the exile in Paris, living in Ramallah after the establishment of the Palestinian Authority, and living in Amman.
  • Anton Shammas (Aug 2014)

    Anton Shammas (Aug 2014)

    shammas - 1 Anton Shammas (Aug 2014) Professor of Modern Middle Eastern Literature Departments of Near Eastern Studies and Comparative Literature The University of Michigan 4111 Thayer Building, 202 S. Thayer St. Ann Arbor, MI 48104 <[email protected]> Employment, Fellowships 2010-2011: Fellow, Institute for the Humanities, University of Michigan. 1997- present: Professor of Modern Middle East Literature, Department of Near Eastern Studies and Department of Comparative Literature, University of Michigan. Fall 1999: Acting Chair, Program in Comparative Literature, University of Michigan. 1996: Visiting Literary Translator, The International Institute, University of Michigan. 1989-1998: Intermittently, Adjunct Professor in the Departments of English, Near Eastern Studies, and Program in Comparative Literature, University of Michigan. 1988-1989: A Visiting Fellow, Institute for the Humanities, University of Michigan. 1987-1988: A Rockefeller Fellow, The Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies, University of Michigan. 1982-1987: Free-lance journalist and columnist for the Hebrew newspapers Kol-Ha'eer, Jerusalem, and Ha'eer, Tel-Aviv, Israel. 1970-1975: Editor of the monthly, Arabic literary magazine Al-Sharq, Jerusalem. Education 1968-1972 The Hebrew University in Jerusalem: English and Arabic literatures, and History of Art. Published Essays, Articles, and Book Reviews: “The Drowned Library” (Arabic), Majallat al-Dirasaat al-Filistiniyyah (Journal of Palestine Studies), Beirut, No. 100, Fall 2014. “The Size of a Cloud: on the Poetry of Taha Muhammad Ali” (Arabic), Majallat al- Dirasaat al-Filistiniyyah (Journal of Palestine Studies), Beirut, No. 96, Fall 2013, p. 21-29. “Palestine: Writing on the Move,” a short introduction to the special issue of Banipal (London) on Palestinian literature, No.
  • Arabic Traces in Masalha's Language in the Literary Translated Work the Cactus by Dr

    Arabic Traces in Masalha's Language in the Literary Translated Work the Cactus by Dr

    Global Journal of HUMAN-SOCIAL SCIENCE: G Linguistics & Education Volume 15 Issue 3 Version 1.0 Year 2015 Type: Double Blind Peer Reviewed International Research Journal Publisher: Global Journals Inc. (USA) Online ISSN: 2249-460x & Print ISSN: 0975-587X Arabic Traces in Masalha's Language in the Literary Translated Work the Cactus By Dr. Adel Shakour Al-Qasemi Academmy, Israel Abstract- The main target of this article is to examine the impact of Arabic on the Masalha's literary translated work The Cactus from Arabic into Hebrew, focusing on the lexical effects. Specifically it examines his use of words and phrases borrowed from Arabic and loan translations of idioms and proverbs, specially from colloquial Arabic. These words and phrases serve to increase the authentic sense of the Arab culture that the text depicts. This article reports also on the phenomenon of Arab authors in Israel writing in Hebrew. "Writing in Hebrew" refers to literary works originally written in Hebrew or translated from Arabic to Hebrew. The article examines the status of the Hebrew for Israeli Arabs, the scale of the phenomenon of writing in Hebrew, the bilingual literary works of Arab authors in Israel, and Israeli society's acceptance of Arab authors writing in Hebrew. Methodologically, the article contributes to the teaching of the general topic: "The linguistic contact between Hebrew and Arabic in the state of Israel" as it presents a broad background to the status of Hebrew language in Israeli Arab society. The article also contributes specifically to teaching the topic: "Bilingualism in Arab authors in Israel who write in Hebrew".