DE GRUYTER

Amir Eshel, Rachel Seelig (Eds.) THE GERMAN. HEBREW DIALOGUE STUDIES OF ENCOUNTER AND EXCHANGE Mati Shemoelof The Bertin Prize for Hebrew Literature Translated by Rachel Seelig

(excerpt from a novel in Progress)

1

of the Landwehr The air was stale at urbanstrasse Hospital on the southem bank including canal.Anexhibitof photographsadomedthehallwaywithcolorfulfish, thetypeHelenahadseenintheRedSeawhenshewentdivingatBirSuwairwith the length of the wall that shabby red snorkel. Beneath the photographs running room 145' where was a summery yellow stripe. Third floor, area 1B, building 6' to the left pregnant women leave behind fluids and discharge in the bathroom bodily secretions' of the examination room. Detergents had lost the fight against under medical The result was putrid. No wonder Helena refused to remain there observation. water tinged But now it was all behind her and she was sinking into warm greenbyfoamingpinetreeoil.Usuallyshebathedonweekends,notTuesday impressions ftom the evenings. But she had to rinse off the smells and stale a mistake morning that now seemed an etemity away' Perhaps she had made tellingchezithetuth,butshehadtogetitout,lethimknowwhatahypocrite left him to he was. He didn't even call to thank his own father for the story iust Helena wither in that cheap old age home on Yitzhak Bar Moshe Street in Yahud' their home was afraid of the future that was quickly approaching. Is that what her husband's would be like? Full of squabbles, with her unable even to ask for get through help? Lately it was one fight after the other; it seemed they couldn't whether chezi could a single day without yelling at each other. she asked herself had always survive the truth. After all, her truth was one of the reasons she was unable to avoided serious relationships. one thought led to another and she the chaos that answer the question. She tried to focus on her breathing, to fotget engulfed her, sfretching her nerves thin. the carpet' a She got up to go to the bathroom and began dripping all over they knew small stream flattening tufts of dust. what would her parents say if about getting in that shed become peguant, she wondered. Helena had thought But Easter dinner fell touch nany times ad elen made an attempt a while back. *those lYho are to blame apart after her fatterls rcoa* about Arab irnmigrants"

Dox'o,fi,6.Ig,ailp,,7fEllJl for the rlse of sexual assault$, not to mentlon antl-Semltic attacks. Her ntrtlltpt face, and blul5h ttubblc on a tattooed face, who had placed on the black rubber trled to make contact a few tlmes, but Helena couldn't forgive her father, lttlllally conveyer belt a taurage resembllng a dissected penis, a gleaming eggplant, and for what he'd sald to her and later because he gave interuiews on the sublet'l lu lltp some sort of spaghettl sauce that Chezi had never seen before; in front of him was press. She suffered the fallout wherever she went. Her surname was a tllnnrlst, a foreign woman wlth a large piercing, tiny bits of silver-plated iron fastened to Recently her mother had begun sendlng appeasing text messages antl r,tttnllr her cheeks, a chain that looped through her eyebrow and descended to the outer about her father's poor health, practically begging Helena to come vlslt. Ilr,ltrnrt edge of her lip. Chezi was repulsed by this fashion of holes in one's face and dldn't want any contact with him, or with her. Not least because of thc tutrtrrt wondered what might happen if the small iron bars were to be removed from her she heard. One afternoon on Boppstrasse she ran into Brigitte, the dowttnlnltr delicate ivory skin. A man ioined the back of the line, his skin covered in tattoos, nelghbor from Stuttgart, who was in town visiting her son Mark. Brigltte tolrl ltpt with only the whites of his innocent eyes standing out, causing every shade of the secret: Helena's mother had become a rightwing fanatic who wanted oul ol'lltc the greenish tattoo surrounding them to resemble a warrior from another era, European Union - "Gerxit" - in order to prevent more immigrants from etrttrrlttg perhaps from outer space. Germany. Helena could not believe it. She blamed her dad for bralnwurltlttg Chezi was glad to see Helena's name appear on his screen. He listened her mom, who used to be a liberal. Once, her mother even put up a famlly of carefully to the nuances in her voice, checked how she was feeling and when Vletnamese refugees for an entire summer - the summer Helena lost her vlr8lnllv she woke up. Helena asked him to buy a specific type of cabbage that's known to Mark. He was fifteen at the time, she was sixteen-and-a-half. Her father tuxterl to be particularly healthy and prepare it for her for when she returned from the her about a surprise party for her mother in just a few days, asking her to t:ttttte, recovery room at Urbanstrasse Hospital. She mentioned the name of the cabbage She didn't answer. in German twice, but Chezi couldn't quite make it out. He had tried to learn the Helena feared she had miscarried the first time because she was nearlng lirrly, Iocal language but was dyslexic and struggled. Helena repeated the word again To make matters worse, Chezi avoided the subject and didn't know how to hrtttrlle and again: Gri)nkohl. He heard Grukol. She repeated it again - Grtinkohl - as he the paln of losing the longed-for pregnancy. She didn't want to go back to wotlr, reached the front of the line and noticed the cashier, Rosa Luxemburg, staring at having already prepared for a long maternity leave. Soon her coworkers wottlrl him, irritated. Chezi was hesitant to deal with her. During their many previous know about the miscarriage and she would return to her mindnumbing iob. encounters Rosa had spoken with such speed that the translation mechanism in his brain short-circuited. He looked behind him and realized the entire line was staring back at him impatiently, but unlike the convenience store in Or Yehuda, no one said a word. Rosa had no patience for the linguistic difficulties of immigrants. 2 She said "Bitte" a few times and signaled him to move forward. Chezi glanced at her and then at the long line behind him. He lifted his cell phone to his ear and Chezt had overslept. He woke up in a panic, worried that Helena might huve asked Helena quietly not to yell at him. (That was a trick he learned from her. She already checked out of the hospital before he had even managed to call or ht lgr often asked him to lower his voice when speaking with her.) "Text me the name," her home. It occurred to him that he had forgotten to ask Johannes Birne, tho he whispered to Helena in English, and wondered whether he still had time to find plano tuner, to drop by. Helena was supposed to come home to a tuned piano xo the cabbage, leaving behind on the conveyer belt all the items with barcodes that that she wouldn't need to tune it herself. Chezi was disappointed in himself. lk, the cashier was eagerly preparing to scan. Chezi asked Rosa in broken German to put on his clothes without even brushing his teeth and rushed off to the Spdfi, wait a moment and then turned to the crowd, interlacing his fingers as he lifted The roses at the exit to the building opened up in front of him and he couldtr'l and lowered his hands, and mumbled in English, "I am sorry." For a moment he resist, plucked a few red blossoms, cupping them close to his nose, and took ltt thought they might not understand and switched to German: "Tur mir Leid." The the fragrance of an especially serene evening. crowd groaned and didn't exactly consent, nor did they protest, aside from Rosa, Helena called just as he was standing in line to pay at the only open late-nlghl perhaps, who frowned dramatically. grocery store in the neighborhood. As Chezi glanced at his cell phone a Facebook Chezi smiled like a silly child, ran through the aisles in search of the invitation popped up for the Or Yehuda High School reunion. Behind Chezi in llnc vegetable, and finally found an empty box emblazoned with the name of the stood a man, perhaps German, perhaps foreign, with small gray eyes, a chublly salubrious cabbage. He returned in a sweat. By then Rosa had lost it and was 256 Mati Shemoetof - The Berlin prize for Hebrew Literature _ tf,

put yelling loudly at him for holding everyone up. Nervously, Chezi Baghdad that won brg. The words at the center of the enrail,appeared in down on the conveyer belt just as it lit up, displaying an email "The ceremony bordt wlll take place in six days, on Iune 5,2OL6.. adfuess. The orange iuice bottle fell out his hand and broke. Rosa got the mess, shaking her head continuously. All eyes were on Chezi. to her black chair silently, calmly scanned his groceries and dismisee0fi no one said a word. ' ,sll 3 Chezi decidedthe road was too dangerous for a morning like walked toward his onto the sidewalk built of large square stones and chezi stormed into the_ house, tossed groceries the on the smail wooden table Along the way he passed the name of the prolific German-Jewish that Helena had brought from her apartmJnt, the table he saw as a symbor,of Miihsam peering at him ftom among the wotn, brass Sfolpersteime; honest christian rabor, entirely devoid of opurence and ornamentation. Helena stones" covered in a thin layer of dust. In the early morning of had come home ftom the hospital just minutes befbre him" she:ask"o to arrested blt the her rri, help the sun iust beginning to emetge, Miihsam had bedn remove,her faux reather boots as she lay dr*, ;;th.ilffi;, rug in the unknown transgression. Josef Goebbels, the Nazi Minister of Fro bedroorn. He tugged off the right boot, .na as he shifted to the reft foot, blurted Miihsam, then at the peak of his career, a subversive Jew, and out suddenly, prize "I won The Berlin for Hebrew Literatur" _ .u" yo, (why believe it?!,, planned to escape to Switzerland not, come to think of it?!). Over "ls it for the first book or the second?" she asked, nudging him with her toes of the next seventeen months Miihsam was imprisoned in the to remove the boot frorn hei other foot. camps of Sonnenbtrrg, Brandenburg, and finally Oranienburg, "The second." chezi's*ddenly fert worthy, bven though he had been certain tortured, beaten, and eventually found hanged. Chezi had been to iust moments before reading the email that he d n"u., ,iut.-rt.finar cut. His to imagine that these quiet second and to Oranienburg, and found it difficult book had earned him a grant to spend a year writing i, ,"rrrr, but he had have contained such evil and wickedness, and so many bitter enernle&i' t no idea what the following year would bring. ue would probabry have to appry With his left hand Chezi put his conversation with Helena on for more writer'in-residence programs and piay ror something to corne through. She was eager to knowwhether had had found the cabbage, and he "That's not a way to rive," chezi thought, * 'Lspecially not with a pregnant w,ife, that the entire street could hear them. And with his right he Don',t you want to be abre to support a baby, buy a house, give your wife and child heart attack he opened the incoming email that inforrned hirn he had a future?" - But everythingwas different ro*. The generouJ_#;;;;;il;il;; Berlin Prize for Hebrew Literature. He knew that he had been Berlin Prize for Hebrew Literature was about to relieve him, at reast for a few illustrious prize but was sure he didn t stand a chance of winning. lflas years, of alr existential fear. And, perhaps who knows? it would even put him in going to make this big step up from the national league to the the champions' league of literature. writers league? Authors big and small, famous and obscure sent ln Fate had decided that he would win the prize. Fate crowned him and fate lJebrew l_ooked all over the world to the committee of The Berlin Prize for after him. rt wasn,t tuck, he liked to thini, il;;r;;il;;;* come to most significant prize in the world for writers of Hebrew ( fruition, creativity and tarent that alowed his words to ascend the biggest radder and territory didn't matter; the nominees could be non-lsraellel of all, climbing toward their glorious apogee before chezi, like all otier mortals, citizens of any country in the world). The prize offered an engrmoua would pass on to the world to come. In soccer the trophy goes to the prayer that money, translation into a dozen languages,'including English, Getm8ili scores the largest number ofgoals in the European t"asue, ana yet trere was chezi Arabic, Portuguese, Chinese, and Russian, and a contract for one Morad from or yehuda taking the Gorden shoe ttranks to his measly second book. the international publishing house of Else Lasker-schiiler. Perhaps thS All of life's challenges, growing up under the poverty line, the constant feeling advantage Hebrew at least not of ofThe Berlin Prize for Literature, fitting in and doubts about his writing _ gone. major German literary prizes, was that translatlon was not a prerequlEltl Nobody in Germany is interested in yeianother Israeri author who writes - Hebrew books could be subrnltted ln Hebrew. What's mote, the in Hebrew Immlgrants belonged in the immigrant ghettoes. The big German was open to all authors who wrlte tn Hebrew, and not lust to thoae who publtshing hourea only 3ambled on authors with prior success in Israel. And manage to make a ltvtng fiom lt, fu lt happens, lt was Chczl'e trb what about thr hnrll communlty ln Berlln? euatsch,theywere nothing , Gurnisht, 259 258 Mati Shemoelof The Bertin Prize for Hebrew Literature - -

you?" Not worth translating,,unless of course they offer German readeread "Why don't you Enswer when I call perspective on Israeli culture. But Chezi didn't write about Israel. 'll'm sorty. I needed to check if anyone had written about the prize." Chezi Israel, meanwhile, wasn't all that different. No author from Or looked at the fllthy floor, rolls of dust mixed with water, his dark hairs made it onto Israel's national literature team. Besides, Israelis saw entangledwith her llght ones. emigrant and interloper, a traitor who had abandoned his country "I'rn'not,feellng well and I need you to come quick if something happens, '' brazenly about life in Germany. But now everything would change. okay?" Ilelena looked at him impatiently, trembling. :, would show them! Chezi would prove that it's possible to live in BerlIIt, "Yes, mJ 7ove, neshama, I'm sorry." Chezi looked at himsqlf-in the cloudy prizes in the diaspora based on his Baghdadi origins. He was the fitet mirror. Germans recognized as capable of writing about Baghdad while "I really don't feel well." Helena gently splashed the water thai cdme up to of an Israeli establishment that wins prizes. , r'i her breasts. Helena excused herself to change her clothes and go to rthe', 'fPoor thing.?'He lowered the volume of the music andlooked'atltrow ehe had while Chezi waited patiently on the couch in the living roorm.tA changed as she lay in the water. Something childlike csutsed throt8h her 'I wiping herself, she noticed drops of crimson blood on the Wldte and hewanted to iumpinto the bathtub with her. :rii,.,,;i' FIer underwear was drenched with brownish red,blood, The pad "I don't want your pity. It's iust- I've been thinking a lot ab-nrl1u,i lately,tr given at the hospital hadn t held up. She wondered whethenthey harli "Let's talk about it later on." ' r'l cutting costs or had in fact purchased defective rnaterials'; was thig "Ihadastrangedream," ' or accidental? She recalled the ultrasound that revealed damage to "Tell me later. Right now let's iust play a game." play sac, Bed rest hadn't been sufficient. When she final$ enrergedfrom "Let me guess, the one where you imitate me? No. I don't want to thgt. she asked for water. Something about her pale complexion wasnrt Not now." said she felt weak, lay down, and asked Chezi to let her sleep, But ttNo'" up, nearly vomited and couldn't calm down, so he drew her a bath wlth .;., .., oils. They met in the kitchen. "Please, please, please?" "It's not the right time. Even now you refuse to take 'no' for an answef." "That's not the vegetable I wanted you to buy," , Helena reluctantly complied and changed her voice to sound like chezi. "I'm sorry. It's all they had." "Honey, I should have explained it in English." "I'm the great CheziMorad, Iwon the Berlin Prize forFucking Literature,.Andyou're you "No, no, it's good that you speak to me in German." a big failure. You lost our child. But dont worry my Helenushka, I'll buy a child with the money I won, I'11 take you on vacations, buyyou a house, everything Helena returned to the bathroom and Chezi ducked into the office I was always unable to afford because I was a writer living from hand to mouth. All check his email and refresh his Facebook page, dying to find out whethet that time I kept saying, ')ust wait, it'll happen.'And now look! It happened! I won had heard the news. Should he share the email he received, he enough money to take care of us. And the money isn't just mine, Helena, itls also could hear Helena writhing uncomfortably as she yelled to him to bring tlrc yours. Because you were there by my side and you're the love of my life. So there, bath oil. Helena, now you should feel wonderful, fabulous, elated, because your partner is The sound of her favorite concefto emanated from the bathroom, no longer a loser who can't even take care of his teeth or buy a.car,... Thank yoU Brandenburg No. 5, written for the, Duke of Btandenberg ln L7L9 very much, kind audience. Thanks for the money. I always knew I was worth it. composerfs return from Berlirn. Chezi located the foam ort the top shelf of thdhfl I promise to spend it with reckless abandon out of respect for the capitalist values cupboard next to the shower and began to dttbble tt lnto the water when the eU you of the donors, iudges and respected audience. And while we'Ie at it, thank for came loose, causing the flutd to gush uncontrollably into the ,' ti bathtub. the antlsemltlsm and for the new trend of philosemitism, and, last but not least, out of her "lrVhy did you do that?" llelena atked, thanks for glvlng me an Ausldnder visa for artists." Helena had slipped actlng mode End wr! no longer lmpersonating Chezl's deep voice.

..:l@,,. /', 260 Mati Shemoetof -

Chezi smirked and began imitating Helena: 'Poor me, Itn Helena. I lost my first child. I, the onewho fantasizes about a big family full of kids, want to thank Chezi for winning that prize. Maybe we can use it to buy children from third- world families who are in desperate need of money and are willing to live with the biggest trauma of all in order to supply fertility to wealthy countries,with an abundance of every resource other than children."

"Stop it. You're a lot nastier than me." Helena pleaded, her face drained, eyes nearly shut.

Chezi wiped his nose with the toilet paper next to the sink. On each square of paper were three green hearts arranged in a diagonal row. Yet inother excellent purchase from 'Edefa', the supermarket chain known for its soft, comfortable, ecofriendly and efficient toilet paper

"Your dad calletl. I told him you d gone grocery shopping." Helena's lake blue eyes gazed into Chezi's forest-green ones. "I love you," he said. "I think that's enough of that game for today. You need to get well." "l love you. And I'm asking you to help me, okayi Itfow maybe you call your dad to tell him the news?" "If you call your dad, I'11 call mine." "Don't be silly, Schatzi." YmlAlmog Seellg wlth Amlr Eshet Europr Wlll Br Stunncd: Vlrurllutlon olr f rwlrh ltturn -lgl 'lntroductlon Amlr Eshel "ln J{lg lmtge": On Danl Karavan's Artwork ln Grrmrny 211 prnlng - the dialogue Tal Hever-Chybowskt 'fuluttersprache tst ntcht dle Muttersprache meiner Mutter. Die (From Muttersprache meiner Mlkan ve'eylokh thls Polnt Onward), translated by Rachet Seellg 241 lat ntcht dle Muttersprache ihre Mutter: Die Mutter sprache ihre Mutter ist nicht die und so - weiter Und So viel viel weifer. (Tomer G ardi 2Ot6, 91) MatlShemoelof mother tongue ls not my mother's The Bcrlln Prlze for Hebrew Literature (excerpt from a novel in progress), mother tongue. My mother,s mother tongue is not the hu tongue her mother. The mother tranrlated by Rachel Seetlg- 253 tongue h"i moth"r is not her mother tongue and on 0n, And so much much more on,l

About the Authors _ 261 ungrammatical, ..improper,,' , some might say Broken German is not tltle of Israeli writer Tomer Gardi's latest novel but also the language It was written, As a hopeful for the 2016 Ingeborg Bachmann prize, the dark horse in what has been described as the most diverse group es in the prize's thirty-nine year history with five out of fourteen claiming non-German citizenship or ancestry (incruding the winner, novelist Sharon Dodua Otoo). yet unlike all of the other Gardi, a native of Kibbutz Dan and resident of Ter Aviv, neither lives in country nor speaks German perfectly. His nomination for the Prize points to a loosening of norms surrounding the aesthetics and German. Is "proper German', (reines Deutscft) no longer a prerequisite one of the highest German literary honors? This was the question i mind at the Festival of German-Language Literature in Klagenfurt,

question is deceptively simple. Today, with three and even four .,post-migrants,' of Turkish migrants and calling Germany home, of immigrants and refugees entering the country every year, most from syria, the country that Hermut Kohl once famously dlciared ..not Iand" (kein Einw anderungsland) isnow remarkably multicultural ngual. In light of the demographic changes _ as well as reactionary to these changes from the Radical Right _ the notion of ..proper has become highly controversial. According to I0aus Katsberger, the r nominated Gardi for the Bachmann prize, "broken German', constitutes alternative to this hegemonic concept. In his view, Gardi,s I idiom is the language of newcomers and a powerful symbol of emerging "welcome culture" (wiltkommensratltur)...one shourd have

l0,15tS I 9 7 B3lto 47 3384 - o o 7 mort falth ln German llteratur!," Krtrbtrtrt $gtltri-cfiruddrtdgwhercEutopedn culturt. The notlon that German and Hebrew could occupy the same pollttce /alls. Provldlng a homc to thr r.fuFa rnd to,Up4rl$tc tornigratlon, tDecc 3e€med unfathomable, even anathema. whlch arrlved long ago and llve among ur, lr lmong lthlr llteiature's] greatest the early !,€ars of Israeli statehood, German became taboo, despite tasks" (Katsberger 2016). It had been the llngua ftanca of thousands of Jewish immigtants and Katsberger's remarks reflect a shlft tn the crltloal rcc6ptlon of writing by most commonly heard language in the coffeehouses of the yishuv so.calledAusldnder (forelgners) in the last half century. It ts certalnly a departure 1930g and 1940s (Halperin 2015, 46). At the Hebrew University of fronr the reactlons provoked by Paul Celan's recelpt of the Georg Btichner Prize Getman language instruction was banned ia t934 in response to the ln 1960, which betrayed abiding antl-Semitic sentiments in describing the poet's Nazi regime, even though roughly fifty percent of the faculty at the hermetic language as the product of an "alien" (Fremdling) from the "eastern natlve German speakers or trained in German universities. It was outskirts of the German-language domain" (Eshel 2004, 59). In the post- following the signing of a reparations agreement between Israel teunlfication era a similar argument about language was attributed to Turkish- 6ermany, that German courses were reintroduced at the university German migrant writers such as Emine Sevgi Ozdamar, the first non-native . Even after,the establishment of diplomatic relations between West German speaker to receive the Bachmann Prize in 1991. One critic of 0zdamar's and Israel in 1965, the relationship between the two cultures remained play Karagdz in Almania (1982) declared, "Broken German is tantamount to once celebrated as a vehicle of. Bildung, came to be linked in the bad theatet" while another, commenting on Ozdamar's Bachmann-Prize imagination with Hitler's regirne; the language of Goethe and gubmission,'condescendingly praised the "awkwardness" (Unbeholfenheit) of now tied to the perpetrators of the Holocaust. the language as a sign of its "authenticity," ignoring the deliberate nature of years, however, the relationship between German and Israeli Ozdamar's language errors (Jankowsky 1992 267).Today,twenty-five years since rrhae evolved from one of mutual estrangement to one of mutual reunlflcation and Ozdamar's Bachrnann Prize victory writers who consistently Government-sponsored academic exchange programs, joint startup expand the horizon of the German language and the sphere of German 'national film board collaborations, not to mention the sheer increased llterature are respected, indeed celebrated around the globe. Yoko Tawada's of students and young professionals, have impacted this relationship agcendance to global literary recognition is but one indication of this tendency Whereas Germans growing up in the shadow of World War II were (Galchen 2016). with iews and Jewish culture, their children are now traveling Tomer Gardi, neither a native German speaker like Celan, nor a migrant 6s volunteers and exchange students and immersing themselves in the to Getmany like Ozdamar and Tawada, is seen not as an illegitimate interloper llanguage and Israeli culture. And whereas Israelis born to Holocaust but as emerging talent worthy of consideration. During the judges' discussion at tended to boycott all things German, their children now flock to Berlin, the Bachmann Prize competition, Hildegard Keller summed up the state of affairs grow.ing Israeli expat community has taken root.l These nomadic wlth a comment that mimicked what she called Gardi's "poetic pidgin," saying, and Israelis share liberal values and view increased exchange between "German belongs to everyone. German belongs also to me. I can Bachrnann as: an important response to rising ethnic nationalism and right- Prlzel" in both Germany and Israel. More than seventy years since the Gardi's self-confident arrival on the German literary scene signals not only War II, the rift between Germans and Israelis, especially those who a transformation in German attitudes toward writing by so-called Ausldnderbtfi ;age in the post-Cold War era, has begun to narrow. also a change in Israeli attitudes toward Germany and the German language. It is therefore an appropriate point of departure for the present volume, which is devoted to exploring the fraught yet fruitful relationship between German and estimates of Israelis living in Berlin range from 5,000 to 15,000. It is difficult to Hebrew cultures, two cultures long viewed as separate or even as diametrically a precise figure, since many enter Germany with European passports, and Israel's opposed. The essays gathered here call into question the prevailing beliel which iteau of Statistics does not identify as emigrants anyone who returns to visit Israel galned purchase in the wake of World lAlar II and the Holocaust, that there was of departure. For a sociological study of the Israelis in Berlin phenomenon, see no space for German in Israeli culture, iust as there remained no trace of Hebrew 2001; Yair 2015. For further demographic information, see AIon 2015. 4 Rachel Seetig with Amir Eshet .- - Editors'lntroduction S 2 Gerrnan-Hebrew studies twfh trrdltlon and cultural cohesion that they feared had iidribbled away;,l, es Frnr Krfka lamented in his famous letter to his father (I(afka t96G, Bt).Kafka's A maior outgrowth of increased exchange between Germany and Israel within lhtnwnotebook is fust one concrete example of the fascinationwith Hebrewthat the academic arena is the subfield sf 'rrGermafl-Hebrew studies.'r Moving heyond ;otltd durlng this period of Jewish renewal. Anolher more,syrubolic example concepts of ruptur€, ftauma and collective mernory that long have dominated lB lll found tn Martin Buber's address at the,1909 congress for the Hebrew German.Jewish studies, while challenging the Zionist frame that has long l]$tlrr ln Berlln. The paladin of iewish renewal, Buber would soon,trarmlate defined the study of modern Hebrew literature and Israeli.culture, this new area ln Hrbruw Blble into Gerrnan together with Franz Rosenzw,eig, yet ad,naitted of scholarship focuses on relational concepts such as rnigration, bilingualisrn, &hrt whcn called upon to speak publicly in Modern ltrebrew: *unfortur,rately, dialogue and translation, concepts that,refer less to the boundaries between hgt rpuk about the Hebrew language in a foreign tongue, as I am uot able to cultures than to the ways in which such boundaries are traverse d,. The German- llal tn thc Hebrew language and I do not want to translate my thougt$s; which Hebrew Dialogue: studies ofEncounter and Exchange is the first book dedicated li lh9Ufht ln the foreign language, intoirny own but less known langqage" to sketching out the parameters of this ernerging field. The idea for the volume, f nntr20u,13).ElseLasker-schiilertookadifferenttackwherathepoeturizvi which follows a number of scholarly gatherings, articles and issues iournal on the hebrn rcquested to translate someof fislpoems from Germaninto Hebrew,.to subject, stems frorn a workshop convened at the Flebrew university.of Ierusalern *h rhr rhot back incredulously, "But I have alreadywritten thern.in,Hebrew,, in 2o15, entitled "The German.Hebrew: Dialogue in the Multilingual Erat Crnnrr 1995, x38). Kafka, Buber and liasker-sehiiler,regarded Hehsew a$ thdr Expanding the focus of the workshop, which focused primarily on literature; f,tax tonSrrc, even if itwas less familiar than,Gerrnan, the,'foreign language" irr the present study brings together essays on literature; film, art, theater and Tthh thry ryoke and wrote exclusively. As they grappled with questioua,of nafi.ve intellectual history that reveal the manifold ways in which German and Hebrew ht$flr rnd natlonal identity, they turned to llebrew as an imagi,ned longr,laige cultures have intersected from the Enlightenment until the present day. ,,theirnpomibllity *gltln whtte faclng the conundrum that Kafka surnmed up as If German-Hebrew studies constitutes a "subfield," under which disciplinary flwtttnl Grrman and the impossibilfty of writing differently', (Kafka:1gfi4igg). ruhric does it fall? The question does not have a simple answex. As the hyphen Whlh urly twentieth-century German-Iewish writers expressed .fasciilaffoo indicates, German-Hebrew studies is by definition interdisciplinary and thug Slh Hrbnw as the wellspring of a dormant |ewishness, Iiebrewr(and,illddieh) disrupts and decenters the boundaries by which various fields are defined. First, illtrn ol the lntenvar years were strongly influenced by Geuaan literatffsraad it adds a crucial new layer to German-fewish studies, which generally has been tl&n, wrltera such as Michah yosef Berdichevsky, Irayim Nahma&rEial{ki restricted geographically to German-speaking lands and chronologically to the lL Afnon, Awaham Ben-Yltzhak and Leah Goldberg (to name just a few) wrots pre-world war II period.'Gerrnan-tr{ebrew Studies points to ways the in whlch Ittl Fublhhcd not only in Gerrnan"speaking cities hut also a,bout these cltlee. encounters between these two cultures emerged during the. eighteenth century I 6gty of ncw research on intenuar llehrew and Yiddish cultures identifies and have persisted albeit in a dramatically altered fashion - - until today. The Itilln rnO Vtenna as two leading centers, ror temporary lienclaves,,,,in which interlinguistic, intercultural dialogr.le between German and llebrew dates back at li mplfrrly dlaeporic Iewish literary rnodemism developed, (Brenner 20t5r least as far as Moses Mendelssohn, the father of the eighteenth century.Haskala.ft l$rad 2013i Plneker 201t schachter 2011; seelis 2015); Scholars intorested"la oewish Enlightenment), whose Bible translation (1780-17ss), written in High ll mnrnrtlonal, mulfllingual nature of Iewish modernism increasingly reslsf German but transcribed in Hebrew characters for a broad pub lc of ]ewish reade,rs, of Hebrew llllvlrton and Ytddtsh literatures;,their exclusion from the study,of , not only marked the beginning of linguistic assimilation for Iews in Germany but 'DDrlln modernlam, and the conflation of Hebrew with Zionism and the,6tate also foreshadowed the linguistic "hybrids" that are beginning to emerge with Ilill' Thdr work casts doubt on ttre monocultural na hnalist,narrative,that greater freqrrency in contemporary literature (Eshel and Rokem 2013, L). $ Fvrrnca thc rtudy of Hebrew culture by drawing attention to the vaflous The adoption of German and assimilation into German society that Jnprtn c.nter! ln whlch Hebrewltterature developed elongside Jewtghwrlttng Mendelssohn's Bible translation was intended promote to did not result in a lHAafn rnd othfflan8uages durlng the fhst half of the twentleth centufy. permanent reiection of languagee, as ls Iewjsh often assumed. During the early ?hh nrw body of scholarshlp reflecte a growlng discourse on ,dlasporlc decades of the twentieth eemtury maay post eEslmllatton - Gennen treun expracoed tlGntYr" r eonccpt that celebraiec lntercultural exchalrgn and ltnguletlc interest in languagea, ylddlsh, Jewish speclflcally Hebrew and as sourcee of the frr$lrm, Inrofar at lt contrlbute! to,thtE dhcowre, Gamm.t{cbpw Studlu 6r Rachel Seetlg wlth Amir Eshel - Editors,lntroductlon _ 7

corresponds to another area of Hebrew literary scholarship that rejects monolithic l€rdrrr, Thls brings us to the third area to which German.Hebrew studles conceptions of "Israeli Hebrew" by drawing attention not only to lost European t3ntrlbutee, namely the study of migration, diaspora and transnationallsrn. heritage languages such as German, yiddish and R.ussian but also the to furt Gardl's Broken German exemplifies the fluidity of linguistic and naflonal suppressed heritage languages of Mizrahim (Jews of Middle Eastern and North lg6rrr ln the age of globalization. The epigraph of this essay, African whlch unr descent), especially Arabic and Ladino (Hochberg 2007; Le\ry 2014). with prize, l6Eludrrt ln Gardi's submission for the Bachmann is on the surface a slmplo increasing scholarly efforts to expose a wealth of cultural and linguistic origins Obrlt grmmatlcally flawed) statement about language, but in fact lt refera to and lnfluences the multiplicity of voices that make up Israeli society slowly ls fu rfttcffects of ongoing migration, the repeated transmutation of the mother comlng lnto clearer view Blma Wutterspractre) from one gmeration to the next in an age deflned by The Holocaust of European Jewry changed the relationship between German Foblllty and mass migration. As the epigraph suggests, the seemingly narsow and Hebrew cultures irrevocably. But the relationship was not cut shortr German. Iile of German-Hebrew exchange may be regarded as emblernatic of a rnuch ]ewlsh culture persisted after world war II in the newly formed state of Israel, with htFt wne of linguistic migration and subsequent cultural transformatlonr Getman"Jewish vrrriters and thinkers such as werner Kraft, Gershom Scholem, hfirpl "iubfleld," then, is not the correct term, since German.Hehrew gtudtGl Else Lasker-schiiler and Ilana shmueli continuing to write German in the Jewish $tlrlbutcc to several different disciplinary categories while also calltng lnto state. some writers who once had expressed a purely symbolic fascinatiort lufitlon the ways in which these categories are demarcated and divided. Indeed, with Hebrew actually began writing bilingually in both German and Hebrew, uhrt mrkes German-Hebrew Studies so rich is that fact that it reflects on the such as Arieh Ludwig strauss, whose oeuvre garnered has renewed interest in Opfflnl of borders while itself crossing borders. recent years (Barouch 2oi5; Seelig 2016). strauss is remembered not only as a bilingual poet but also as a prominent Hrjlderlin scholar and influential teacherj his lectures on Hebrew literature and world literature at the Hebrew university of ]erusalem strongly impacted the next generation of Hebrew writers, including t tttween Berlin and Tel Aviv Yehuda Arnichai, Tuvia Riibner and Dan pagis, likewise native German speakers. Although these writers are associated with the so-called Generation,l "statehood Effmrn.Hcbrew exchange is not merely a topic of academic fasclnaflon but the first crop of Hebrew writers to produce ostensibly ,,national literature', in ithrr r thrtvtng aspect of contemporary German and Israeli cultural llfe, vernacular Hebrew, their abiding attachment to German betrays the inherent pltlculrrly ln the wake of increasing Israeli migration to limitations Germany, especlally to of such designations (Gold 2008; Rokem 2010). i tltlln, lndced, "lsraelis in Berlin" has become a kind of catchphrase in lts own whereas early statehood writers often concealed German behind a veneer of filht, rllctttng a wlde range of reactions in the media. Some Israeli polltlclane "native" Hebrew, more recent Israeli fiction reflects the process of coming to term$ lfrd publlc personallties have lambasted young Israelis for choosing to ,,return', with Germany and the German language and its relationship to Israeli culture. The l tho eountry responsible fog the destruction of twentieth century Jewtsh ltfe semi-autobiographical protagonists of chaim Be'er's Lifney ha-makom (,.upon a h luropr. Former Mlnister of Finance yair Lapid, for instance, expressed utter certain place," 2007) and yoram Kaniuk's Der letzte Berliner (,,The last Berlilerr4 It€ndullty and dlsdaln over the willingness of these young migrants to ,,throur published in German translation in 2001 and then in the original Hebrew in 2004) *r enly country the Jews have in the trash just because life ls easler ln Berlln.', travel to Germany as representatives of Israeli culture, where they are forced to ilcmtty' the cholce of Berltn has touched a nerve. As Hahretz editor Aluf Benn grapple with the German-]ewish past. The experimentatr novelist yoel Hoffmann, GtmfnEd aardonlcally, the Israeli establishment sees Israell immlgaflon to the meanwhile, demonstrates the manner in which German has been pushed to the 0rmm crpltal, of all places, as "the ulflmate fallure of zlonism', (Rudoren zol4), margins of Israeli society byincorporating Gennan words and phrases (alongside Itlt tlnrlon reveals a growtng rift between mounting zlonlst natlonaHsm end the Yiddish, Arabic and the occasional Hungarian) accompanied by explanatory - *:prrrtlon and dlsenchantment of a generaflon of secular young Israells who notes in the rnargins directly - into his ostensibly monolingual Hebrew texts utgclrtr Gcrmanywlth future opportunlfles (Barzilai2OL4). rather than wlth the traurnatlc paet, Tbr controversy provoked by Israell mtgratlon to Berlln -europeanpolntg to another writing "between" Hebrew and German, or between Iarael and Germany, llft la lrrr:ll aoclety, namely between lshlcenaztm (lewa of orlgtn) these writers represent the r.novement of languageg acroog llngulsflc and natlonal (lews und Mbrahtm of Mlddle Eastern and North Afrlcan orlgln). Mtsraht lewe Editors'lntroduction 9 8 Rachel Seetlg with Amlr Eshel - - residing in Berlin feel alienated by the incendiary critiques of a Iewish "return" to hlruffihybowski describes the mission of his Berlin- and Paris-based Hebrew Germany, since they descend not from Holocaustvictims or survivors but from Jews Itrry fgurnal, Mikanvebylakh("From here onward"), whose rnission statement who emigrated or wele exiled from Muslim lands, for whom Arabic and LadinO; Inldt "th€ return of diasporic Hebrew to here - to Europe, to Ashkenaz, Iather than German and Yiddish, represent repressed heritage languages. Mati - not ,ust to the site of its destruction but also a place that was once of Hebrew letters." Hever' Shemoelof, a Mizrahi iournalist, activist and writer based in Berlin, co-olganizea et thr greatest centers of the diasporic republic the Poetic Hafla ("party" in Arabic), a monthly event for multilingual literary vlews his journal as part of a broader movement of "non-hegemonic; readings, spoken-word poetry and interdisciplinary performance art that taked lnterlingual literatute."2 In a similar vein, the Berlin-based iournal place at various venues throughout the city. Organized by Israelis but attended *il flfe founded in 2015 by a German, Hanno Hauenstein, and an lsraeli, Itarnar by guests of various national backgrounds, the Poetic Hafla reflects Shemoelof's h rlmrd at "renew[ing] the relationship between the Hebrew and German journalism belief that Berlin is not simply a city once conquered by Hitler or divided by d lnd culture" by showcasing art, literature, and that present menacing wall but rather a liberal environment in which linguistic, cultural and dlveratty as enrichment and bilingualisrn as a gift."3 religious identities can be negotiated openly, indeed, a city where walls can and ,tlLll btfore the new crop of "Israeli Berliners" began writing in and should be toppled. Berlin, for Minahiwriters like Shemoelof, must not be reduced 0ltmln, German writers of both Iewish and non-Jewish origin began to ' as a imagined second home. For example, to its blighted past but rather viewed as the city of a hopeful future. -r! Hrbrew and Israel kind of ghort ("Country It is not only the city but also its language that is capturing the imaginatiou Bllhr'c story "Land der Vdter und V€rrdter" of fathers of a growing cohort of young Israeli writers, some of whom take up German a$ Ftpattrtors," t994), set in Haifa's Mount Carmel neighborhood, seamlessly (market) (immigration a language of composition, as in the case of Tomer Gardi, or as a metalinguis; Hebrew words such as "Shuk" and "Alliiah" ('Tel tic preoccupation. Whereas Gardi writes "broken German" in Latin letters, whlle Katharina Hacker's Tel Aviv: Eine Stadterziihlung Aviv: tale perspective Shemoelof experiments with code-switching, occasionally incorporating translie tlty,tt t99Z) conveys intimate details of living in Tel Aviv from the and terated German fragments into his Hebrew writing: ''l: IBtllll, non.Jewlsh German woman. The increased mobility of Germans ud rttcndant decline of inherited stigmas have facilitated new forms of urN']f, il ilfrtlu urq flgloratlon and expression. For these cultural nomads, the relationship nt..Ey fnD urtl Orrman and Hebrew is no longer confined to conventional binaries of lrltttftn ulN ;'l:it''ll, tr'l"lNl UDJN-I!.]'I f)r: Ix and exile/homeland, but rather serves as a source of creativity y.rt' x5':x ,nlxl\ Futnrtlonal ldenttty. produced in German and Hebrew tends to [Ish shreibeh Hebreyish/ A man writes Hebred Du fragst varum shreibehl Hhlh contemporary literature (Shemoelof two.alded tralectory between disparate cultural spaces, cross'cultural ish hebrayish in Berlin/ Wallah,I don't knowl 2016) 'i: r ,rJ rnd lnter.llnguistic exchange increasingly takes place in the world .A.nother Israeli poet, Almog Behar, who does not actuallyspeakGermanbutclaims A wrterahed achievement in this field was Eytan Fox's WalkonWater premiered great acclaim a connection to it as one of the languages of his grandparents (along with Arabic, 9l ha.maytm,2004), produced in Israel and to Ladino, and Dutch), incorporates quotes from Hebrew translations of Germa8 lrrlln Fllm Festlval. The film tells the fictional story of Eyal, an Israeli poses guide and texts by writers such as Gershom Scholem and Paul Celan as part of his ongolng fpnt hlred to assassinate a former Nazi, who as a tour critique of "Israeli Hebrew" and the suppression of lewish heritage languageer hlr trrget's grandchildren, Axel and Pia (Pia now lives on a kibbutz, and primarily Not unlike the early twentieth century German Jews who felt a connection tS htf rrrlvrd to vlslt her from Germany). Although the film uhfolds Hebrew despite their limited familiarity with the language, contemporary Israell thr dlalogue often weaves seamlessly between German and Hebrew. writers like Behar claim a connection to German despite their tenuous gtasp of the language. In a sense, Israeli wrlters looktng to German and Germany are worklng lir hlfrlon rtttrmrnt on the lournbl's webglter http://mlkanve.net/wp/ (10lanuary 2017). to salvage the multilingual tradltlon of thelr ptedecessors. Thle ts how Tal on thr me$dm'a webglter http!//avlvmeg.com/en/ (10 lanuary 2017). 10 Rachel Seelig wlth Amlr Eshel Editors,lntroduction 11 - -

In the last ten years since Fox's success, there has been a veritable renaisr !t E thr arrly twentieth century in its comparison of Moses Mendelssohn's and sance of German-Israeli film co.productions, many dedicated to exploring lollnzweig's translations of the medieval Hebrew poet Yehuda Halevi. postwa.r German-Israeli relations, including Arnon Goldfinger's The Flat (2OL2):, llIUCo that working with poetry specifically with Halevi's most famous

EsterAmrami'sAnderswo(2Ol4)andMorKaplansky'sCaf,iNagler(2016).Perhapo I lht Zlonlde, shaped both philosophers'vocation as translatore and served the most interesting of these films in terms of linguistic and cultural exchange ie i ttpplnS.stone on the path that led both to translate the Hebrew Bible. Anderswo (tneaning "elsewhere"), about a romantic relationship between Israell l ntrl of the essays that follow take up the topic of self-translation. Using Noa (Neta Riskin) and Getman Jdrg (Golo Euler). The relationship is put under dlrcovered materials from the archive of Awaham Ben-Yitzhak (born pressure when Noa leaves their home in Berlin to visit her ailing grandmothst Sonne), Maya Barzilai explores the interplay of German and Hebrew in and Jtirg follows her unannounced. Although he manages to find common grounfi modest yet seminal oeuwe. By tracing common motifs in poetic drafts with Noa's mother (played by Hanna Laszlo) thanks to a mishmash of Germd produced in both languages, Barzilai demonstrates an "interlingual and Yiddish, he is tone deaf with respect to Israeli gallows humor. When Nodr$ dlrlogue" that reveals a profound tension between fin-de-si6cle Viennese brother, Dudi, mentions that the grandfather of the German football star Basti md the Zionist conception of Hebrew as the "language of revival." Schweinsteiger died in Auschwitz, 16rg is perplexed. "He fell from a watch p0tt whose archive betrays a continuous, non-linear movement between says Dudi without cracking a smile, eliciting nothing but a blank stare. "It waE Ifafn rnd Hebrew is Dan Pagis, the subfect of Na'ama Rokemrs essay. Through joke, man," Dudi quickly adds. of two archival documents written in German, a translation of the f Although the relationship between Noa and 1619 survives such ln thr Laboratory" (Ba-ma'abadah) and a letter addressed to the Austrian moments, culturaltensionspersistandsome thingsareinevitablylostintra lmrt lrndl that includes two poems of homage, Rokem offers an intimate The culture gap forms the heart of Noa's floundering academic research of PaElc'g bllingual "laboratory" her metaphor for the process of self. a "dictionary of untranslatable words," featured throughout the film in a that creates space for experimentation, uncertain otrtcomes and of short linguistic "excursions" in which immigrants from China, Korea, pb eontlngent paths. The process of self-translation is likewise the focus America, Russia and Israel attempt to explain untranslatable words from lfehrl Ercllg'e essay on Tuvia Riibner, a contemporary and,close friend of native languages. Yet, as the movie clearly demonstrates, this gap also serves ttlllg trkes as her point of departure the concept of "stuttering" as both a fertile ground for artistic engagement and the creation of new narratives and rRd an aesthetic strategy that calls into question monolithic notlons of of art - indeed, the very fabric of an emerging German-Hebreq German. rnd challenges the conventional binary categories oftranslation theot'y. shared life and culture. While the generation of Schweinsteiger's Whlh thr ebove essays focus specifically on translation and bilingualism ln may have lived or served in the grim locations where many Jews were murder@, ilorkr ol lndlvldual poets, two of the essays in Part One examine cultural. their grandchildren and great-grandchildren tell each other stories about th'dU rvanB and trends through the genres of memoir and book history. Giddon divided and shared histories, creating herewith new literaiure, cinema and.eu@ ptalents a new readin g of Leah Goldberg's Enc ounter with a P oet (Mifgash new families. Katharina Hacker's more recent novels, Eine Art Ifebe (2O03), arid: llfihonr,1952), lnsplred by the life and work of Awaham Ben Yitzhak, as a Sktp (2015) are just one example of what is a clearly discemable, broade'r traiecto$i ht thr ancounter of East Eutopean Jews with Gerrnan and Austrian moder: tluil{ the flrat of the twentieth century. He argues that lewish writers who lron tho "perlphery" of the German Kulturlcreis saw themselves as sclons Eutopa (the true Europe), ldentified strongly with German culture and 4 Chapter overview ,1. to ptaaarve lt as part of thelr collective memory. Stefanle Mahrer turm to 'lti #drr fhld of book publlshlng as an lndex for German-lewish cultural contl- The following essays are divided into two parts. The first part, "German-Hebrevf ln r trrnmatlonal context. Her study of the Salman Schocken Publishtng Exchange in Modernist Literature," concentrates on twentleth.century German. k (gcfiockcn Verlag) traces the venture's tra,ectory from Berlln to New York Hebrew literary exchange, whlle Fart l\rro tEkeE up conternporary toplcs. Tht }l luumhm End dlacuases lts role tn promotlng Iewloh cultural llterary, facl. essays gathered ln Part one coal,gtql Etound questloni of tranrlatlon, blllnguallam hffi eollrbotatlonr bGtwe€n Iewtsh publlahera and non,Jiudgh arttaane and and llngulstlc mlgratlon. Ablgrll Gllmrn'r contrlbutlon apans the Enllghtenment tbr pollclos of the Natlonal Soclallst Reglme. Flnally, thc lsst e$ay ln Editors'lntroduction 73 72 Rachel Seetig with Amlr Eshel - -

presents Karavan's as a expres- Part One provides a kind of poetic coda and spiritual mediation on bilingUalisrn, tgfnrh Arendt, Eshel works in Germany crucial the loss of language, Ioss and mourning. Focusing on the lexically distinct ye{ *n of thc relationship between German and Hebrew and as a case study for junction vocally similar words n:,$ and Ach, Gatili Shahar considers the ways in whieB hfftl;lttng the German-Hebrew in the arts. Both Almog and Eshel polltically and words of despair, in both Hebrew and German, are reduced to mere sounds, crieq Ilf how aware and internationally active artists such as Bartana and breath. The pairing of these words, which are utterly emptied of meaning' not only erect bridges between Israeli and German/European cultures part allows German and Hebrew to meet, as Shahar puts it, "at a place of lingual dro move beyond hermetic discussions of national identity to take in the poverty." rt discourse on the politics of memory. ,,German-Hebrew previously of texts by In the second part, Encounters in the Arts Today," we mov&, Thf volume concludes with unpublished translations is from discussions of literary modernism and twentieth century German' hE hedtng representatives of the new Israeli culture in Berlin. The first the Paris-based Hebrew and Israeli culture into the twenty-first century and recent discourses s Ittoduetlon to the inaugural issue of the Berlin- and lite- (From Editor ing contemporary art. Ruth Ginsburg proposes a fresh approach to the poet fournrl Mlkan ve'eylakft here onward), written by Founding programmatic Behar's notion of "multilingual Hebrew," a concept that implicitly critiques heg6tt Hlvu.Chybowski. This essay endorses the concept of "world monic ,.Israeli Hebrew,' by remaining open to the past and to silenced " ('lwlt blamit), a term that encompasses both spatial and temporal (the languages. While most scholars interested in Behar's work have emphasized Hebrew adlective blami means "worldwide," 'iuniversaln' and Mizrahi origins and critique of the suppression of Arabic as a fewish hltnrl") rnd htghlights the reach of the Hebrew language and Hebrew literature generations. question Ginbsurg examines two poems that betray Behar's relationship to German, a SfgUlhout the world and across Calling into "the myth of plea guage he does not speak but that he regards as an equally integral aspect of h derth of Hebrew," Hever-Chybowski makes a powerful to salvage the family history, the site of collective memory and acknowledged rupture. SlPortc orlglns and legary of Hebrew by celebrating the continuity of literary place is Rokem transports us into The Ruth Kanner Theatre Group's experimental ln clties like Paris, London, New York and Berlin. Pride of Bcrlln, the cradle of. Ashkenaz, not only as a historical site of cultural performance , The Hebrew Notebook - And Other Stories by Franz Kafka' to as loca- sioned in 2013 in honor of the 120th anniversary of the National tibrary of I lhd transformation since the period of.the Haskalah but also the gathered journal were where the notebook is now housed. A non-traditional performance ht whrrr most of the essays and literary works in the recitation (in both German and Hebrew), interactive performance and Slttrn rnd edited. t Mati Shemoelof (pub- storytelling, The Hebrew Notebook, Rokem argues, investigates the mech Thr volume closes with a literary contribution by progress, of translation between languages and cultural contexts while offering a hrtr ln English ttanslation), an excerpt from his novel in The critique of the dominant Israeli Hebrew culture. Ptllc for Hebrew Literature. Whereas Hever.Chybowski's essay concen- The focal point of Yael Almog's essay is Yael Bartana's experimental' on the relationship between Hebrew and'the languages of Ashkenaz, piece trilogy, And Europe will Be stunned, which mirrors the classic Zionist thems rnd Ytddish, Shemoelof's introduces us to the inner world of "return" to the Land of Israel in its portrayal of an imagined "Jewish return Mond, a Berlin-based Israeli writer of Iraqi origins who feels snubbed Europe." Almog shows how Bartana, an Israeli artist based in Berlin and A thl Eurocentrlc mainstream Israeli literary establishment, and his'German psychological a mis- dam, critiques established Zionist narratives and memorial practices while ftlfnd, Helena, who is coping with the aftermath of quarters of part in the broader discourse on migration, integration and xenophobia Shcmoelof's writing takes us into the most intimate this portrait and underway in Europe. Transnational arflstic production is a central theme of nt rnd rtruggllng Berlin couple, offering a restrained oflove Taken together, Hever- Eshel's essay on the Israeli artist Dani KaIavan, whose work combines sc eOmpaSalon and inevitable misunderstanding. and and architecture with natural topography and literary sources, often from essay and Shemoelof's literary excerpt reveal the dynamism Hebrew Bible. Focusing on some of Karavan's maior public works in Germamry of Hebrew culture in Berlin, which spans not only a vast historical to present, but from the t970s to the present, Eehel examlnes the role of Hebrew names in fac{l , cxtendlng from the days of Moses Mendelssohn the encompasses German, litating a meaningful aesthetlc exped€flce that tnvlteg the vlewer to reflect OG' thr ethnlc and cultural spectrum that Hebreq rnd Arablc, llterary languages cultlvated ln the dlaspora and nouris' the German and Jev{i$h pa8t as wdl lt on btoadil ethlcal and poltttcal dtlcmi ilCatln mas of modern hlstory Dranrtnl on th! phtlorophter of Metttn Hetdegger ald ha ly ont rnother. 74 Rachel Seelig with Amlr Eshel Editors,lntroduction 15 - -

The essays gathered in this volume do not exhaust the parameters of tlld 0ll, llws, Arabs, and the Limits of Seporatist lmagination Princeton: Princeton broad, emerging field of German-Hebrew Studies, but they gesture at the deptb Unlvr[lty Press, 2007, Literature and hreadth of an twertX l(llan, "'German' Contested: The 1991 lngeborg-Bachmann-Prize Debate, ongoing and constantly evolving encounter. Indeed, the rCUltUnt Dlverslty,' and Emine Sevgi 0zdamar j' The Germon QuarterlytO.3 (Summer tieth and twenty"first centuriec alone account for four generations of writers D)r|t261-276. artists whose creative consciousnegs bears the imprint of multilingual, ?nnt, httar to hls Father. Brief on den Vater. Trans. Ernst Kaiser and Eithne Wilkins. tional exchange between German and HebreW two languages and cultures lltW Yorkr Schocken Books, 1966. are anything but separate. Itlnr, trtters to Friends, Family, and Editors. Trans. Richard and Clara Winston. Xftv Yo;kr Schocken Books,7977. , Khui, "Wlr schaffen das!" Die Zeit, August 19, 2016. httpr//www.zeit.de/kultur/ lllfntUt/ZOt0-08/tlteratur-migration.tomer-gardi-broken-german (9 March 2017). Works cited lltft, Portlc Trespass: Writing between Hebrew ond Arabic in lsrael/Palestine. Princeton: lilnilton Unlverslty Press, 2014. , Lllrch, "Davld Vogel's Lost Hebrew Novel, Viennese Romonce." Prooftexts: Alaurnal Aton, Tat. "The most comprehensive survey about lsraelis in Germany reinforces the image: 4lOwhn Lfierary Hlstory 33.3 (Fatl2013) r3O7-332. secular, educated - and leftwing." Spitz Nlogazine (December 2015). http:// , Fanla. /srael/s in Berlin.1. Auf[. Frankfurt am Main: Ji.idischer Vertag im webonly/7238 (9 January 2017) luhrkrmp.Verlag, 2001. Barouch, Lina. Between German ond Hebrew: The Counterlanguages of Gershom Scholem, lhfChrr. Llterary Passports: The Making of Modernist Hebrew fiction in Europe. Werner Krafr and Ludwig Strauss. Berlin, Boston &.lerusalem: De Gruyter & Magnes Itfnlotd, CAr Stanford University Press, 2011. University Press, 2016. l{l'tmr, "German-Hebrew Encounters in the Poetry and Correspondence ofYehuda Barzitai, Maya. "Translation on the Margins: Avraham Ben Yitzhak and Yoe[ Hoffmann." AmlChrt and Paul Celan," Proofte*s: A lournal of lewish Literary Hrstory 30.1 (Winter Th e I o u rn a I of I ewi sh t d enti ti es 7.7 (2074)t 109-128, l0l0)r 97-122 Brenner, Michaet, The Renaissonce of tewish Culture lnWeimor Germany. New Havenr t'An lodl, Exodus from lsrael to Germany, a Young Nation's Fissures Show," lhe New \€[e University Press, 1996. lQrhllmu,Octoberl5,20T4.https,tllwww,nytimes.conl2}lalfiltTlworld/mtddleeast/ Brenner, Michael. "Between Tfiumph and Tragedy: The Use and Misuse of Hebrew in G ln,lxodur.from-lsraet-to-bertin-young-nations-fissures-show.htmt?-r=0 (9 March 20lfl. from Mendelssohn to Eichmann," Proofrexts: Atournolof Jewish Literary History33-7 Alllton, Dlasporlc Modernisms: Hebrew and Yiddish Literature in the Twentleth (Winter 2013): 9-24. IiUhlu, Clntury. Nrw York: Oxford University Press, 2011. Brenner, Naomi, Lingering Bilingualism: Modern Hebrew ond Yiddish Literatures in Coniact.'i\ l|chrl. Strange rs ln Berlin: Modern Literature between East and West, Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2015, lewish ttlt-r1rt, Ann Arbor: Unlversity of Michigan Press, 2016. Dohrn, Verena, and Gertrud Pickhan. Transit und Transfbnnatio,n: Osteuropdisch-jildlsche Mtll, Germanlt shvurah ayn yuden dikhter ("Broken German by a 'Migranten in Berlin 1918*1939. G6ttingen: Watlstein Verlag, 2010. fun Jewlsh Habkrts, September 23, 2076. http://www.haokets.otgl2ot6 23 Eshe[,Amir. ZeitderZdsur:lildiNheLyrikerimAnqesichtderShooh. Heidelberg: folt"), | og I | lTlllll.nlt:rrr-I!-IN-lllt-"lNu:rl @ March 2017). Universitiitsvertag Heidetberg, 1999. I Yfflt, "Rtlckkehr ln den Etfenbelnturm: Deutsch an der Hebrdischen Universitat." Eshel, Amir. "PautCelan's Other: History, Poetics, and Ethics," New German CritiquegT lleharalm Zcltschrlfr deutsch - Literatur und Kulturgeschichte (2014)t 2OO4):57-77. filr lt)dische 8,2 lll-74r, Eshet, Amir, and Na'ama Rokem. 'Gerrnan and Hebrew: Histories of a Conversation." 0td, loyr It not Praktlsh: The tsraell Look at Germany (Hebrew). Tet Aviv: Klbbutz A lournol of lewlsh Literary Histo4l 33.1 (Winter 2013): 1-8. , Mruchrd/Poatlm, 2015. Estraikh, G.ennady, and Mi,khail Krutilkov. Yiddish in Weimar Berlin: At the Crossroads of ., DiaspoTa Politics and Culfure. Legenda: O.xfOrd, 2010. Galchen, Rivka. "lmagine That: The Profound Empathy ofYoko Tawada." ihe NewYork Tines, 27 October 2016. http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/20 T6lt0l3Otlmagazlnel

yoko-tawada.htmt?_r=O (5 Jan uary 2OU), Gardi, Tomer. Broken German, Graz & Wion: Droschl, 2016. Gotd, Niti Scharl, Yehudo Amlchol: lhe Moklng of lsro.l's Natlanal Poet, Wdtthamr Brandels,r 1f{ University Press, 2008. It Halperin, Llora. Bobel ln Zlon: laws, Natlanallsn, and Language Dlverslty ln Paleqtlng, 1920-1948. New Havenr Yal. Unlvrrllty Pimr, 2011 In the wake of World War II and ttp Holocaust, it seerncd there was no place for German in Israel and no trace of Hebrew in Gerrnany - the two languag€s end their cultures appeared as divergent as the directions of their scripts. Yet when plrced side by side on opposing lxtges, German and Hebrew converge in the middle. Cornprised of essays on literaturg history, philosg,phy, and th€ visual and ecrforming arts, this volume explores ttre mutual influence of two linguistic cultures long held as rcparate or sven as .dinmetrically opposed. Frour Mooes Mendelssohnk arrival in Bslin in 1748 to the recent wave of Israeli migration to Bedin, the essays gattrered here shed new light on the painfrrl yet productive relatiurship betw'een rnodern German and Hebrew c,ultures.

TtlE SERIE9: PERSPECTIVES Otl JEWISH TEXTS AND CONTE:XTS This series focuses on the Jewish textual tradition as well as the ways it evolves in response to new intellectual, historical, social and political contexts. Fostering dialogue htwecn literary, philoaophical, political and religious perspectives, this series, which consists of original rcholarship ad proceedingc of international coltferenc*, reffects contsnporary ctxmerns of Jewish Studies in the broadest sense. Perspectives on JewishTexts and Contexts is edited by Vivian Liska, directu of the Institute of Jewish Sttldics' University of Antwerp, Bclgium.

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