Construction of Identity in Anglophone Israeli Literature

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Construction of Identity in Anglophone Israeli Literature Representations & Reflections Studies in Anglophone Literatures and Cultures Volume 10 Edited by Uwe Baumann, MarionGymnich and Barbara Schmidt-Haberkamp Nadezˇda Rumjanceva Roots in the Air ConstructionofIdentity in Anglophone Israeli Literature With 2figures V&Runipress Bonn UniversityPress Bibliographic informationpublishedbythe Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available online:http://dnb.d-nb.de. ISSN 2198-5448 ISBN 978-3-8471-0429-2 ISBN 978-3-8470-0429-5 (E-Book) ISBN 978-3-7370-0429-9 (V&ReLibary) Yo ucan find alternativeeditionsofthis book and additionalmaterial on our website:www.v-r.de Publications of Bonn University Press are published by V& Runipress GmbH. Printed with the supportofthe Förderungs- und Beihilfefonds Wissenschaftder VG WORT / Gedruckt mit Unterstützung des Förderungs-undBeihilfefonds Wissenschaft der VG WORT. 2015byV&Runipress GmbH, 37079Goettingen,Germany All rights reserved. No partofthisworkmay be reproduced or utilized in anyformorbyany means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording,orany informationstorage andretrieval system, withoutprior written permissionfromthe publisher. Printed in Germany. Coverimage:Evyatar Dayan Printedand boundbyaHubert & Co,Göttingen. Printed on aging-resistantpaper. Contents 1. Introduction ............................... 9 2. Cultures in Flux and the Flexible Selves ................ 17 2.1. Identity,Hybridity, Transculturality ............... 17 2.2. Challenging Autonomous Cultures and the Jewish Perspective . 30 3. English and English Speakers in Israel ................. 43 3.1. The Status of English in Israel .................. 43 3.2. Immigration from English Speaking Countries ......... 48 3.3. Geographical Distribution ..................... 53 3.4. Motivation of Immigrants ..................... 56 3.5. From DemographytoWriting .................. 60 4. Overview:Anglophone Israeli Literature ................ 63 4.1. In Lieu of aDefinition ....................... 63 4.2. The Beginnings ........................... 65 4.3. Writers’ Organizations ....................... 68 4.4. Creative Writing Courses ..................... 70 4.5. Publishing ............................. 71 4.6. Translation and Cultural Integration?.............. 75 4.7. Genre ................................ 79 4.8. The Poetic Form .......................... 83 4.9. Authors:Nativeand Non-NativeSpeakers of English ...... 86 5. Voices in Context ............................ 89 5.1. Jewish American Literature.................... 89 5.2. Hebrew Literature......................... 97 5.2.1. The RevivalofHebrew ................... 97 5.2.2. Non-Native Speakers Nowand Then:Proficiencyand Ideology........................... 101 6 Contents 5.2.3. Language and Uprootedness in the Israeli Hebrew Canon: LeaGoldberg and Ye huda Amichai ........ 112 6. Language and the Self .......................... 119 6.1. Me,Myself, Ani and Ikh ...................... 119 6.2. ShirleyKaufman and Riva Rubin:The Monolingualism of the Self ................................. 124 6.3. Translingual Heteroglossia .................... 132 6.3.1. The Critics’ Voice ...................... 132 6.3.2. Rachel TzviaBack:Echoes in the Third Space ...... 139 6.3.3. Lami:ALeak in the Word Pouch ............. 142 6.3.4. Richard Sherwin: The Continuum Widens ........ 146 6.3.5. Karen Alkalay-Gut:AnAlter Ego ............. 150 6.4. Conclusion ............................. 158 7. Landscapes of Belonging........................ 163 7.1. Territorializing the Translocal ................... 163 7.2. Demystifying the Land ...................... 169 7.3. Place, Acculturation and the Double Diaspora .......... 174 7.4. Sprouting Roots:ASuspended Ficusand aWalking Tree .... 177 7.5. Projections of Alienation and Attachmentinthe Landscape .. 181 7.5.1. Conflict in the Parched Land ................ 182 7.5.2. Projecting Belonging.................... 189 7.6. The Old Countryand the NewCountry:Questioning the Concept of Home ......................... 196 7.7. Conclusion ............................. 213 8. Deconstructing the Other ........................ 217 8.1. AQuestionofPerspective ..................... 217 8.2. Locating the Other ......................... 218 8.3. Tracing the FrontLine:Richard Sherwinand Rachel Tzvia Back ................................. 225 8.4. Short Lines from aSealed Room ................. 233 8.5. The Context of Contact: Looking for Solutions ......... 238 8.5.1. The Power of Coincidence ................. 238 8.5.2. The Mother and the Other ................. 241 8.5.3. From Personal to Political ................. 246 8.6. Conclusion ............................. 251 9. Conclusion................................ 253 Contents 7 10. ATimeline of Anglophone Israeli Literature.............. 261 11. Acknowledgements ........................... 265 12. Works Cited ............................... 267 12.1. Academic and Critical Works ................... 267 12.2. Articles and Reports without Specified Author ......... 277 12.3. LiteraryWorks ........................... 277 12.4. Reviews and Interviews ...................... 279 1. Introduction “I always thoughtthat Iamwho Iam, that Ihaveaname, alabel, amoniker, almost unique, that my name is me and Iammyname” writes Jerome Mandel in the opening lines of his shortstory“HowIDisappeared:AnImmigrant’s Tale” (Mandel 2012:27). Butthe wishful, simplistic formula of “I am whoIam” is about to be challenged. In the story, the protagonist, identical with Mandel himself, acquires anew identity throughaseries of misunderstandings. Upon arrivalinIsrael, his Jewish, but distinctly Anglophone-sounding name is bent by Israeli officials to fit the local phonetics and orthography, and as each sub- sequentclerk tries to improvethe work of his predecessor,“Jerome Mandel” gradually mutates into “Mendel Gross” in the records of various institutions. Althoughthe protagonist refusestopay taxes under the localized versionofhis name, the new appellation enters not only the Israeli bureaucracy, but also seeps into the sphere of casual contact. The storyisnarrated in acomical mode, yet the gradual and involuntarymodification of the protagonist’s name uponhis mi- gration to Israel becomes symbolic of adeeper and broader change of identity that hasbecome one of the central themes of Anglophone Israeli writing. The growing body of Anglophone literaturethat has been produced in Israel since the 1970s is arather untypical case among contemporaryAnglophone literatures. On the onehand, it can be placed among NewLiteratures in English due to the untraditional localityofproduction and to its emphasis on hybrid consciousness and cultural synthesis. Defying the bordersofthe ownership of culturebytraditional Anglophone societies of Britain and the USA, new literary waves, currents and traditions have emergedfrom former colonies, such as from India and the Caribbean, and from migrantcommunities, likethe Latino community in the Unites States, reassessing past and presentparadigms of power and critiquing the increasingly complex social fabric that is permeated by transnational and transcultural connections. Ye talthoughthe geographicalsite of production of Anglophone Israeli Literatureisremoved from the western centers, it is nevertheless markedly differentfrom most branchesofliterature which are normally subsumed under the label NewLiteratures in English. This 10 Introduction loosely bound communityofapproximately 500–1000authors (Alkalay-Gut 2002) primarily consists of immigrants from English-speaking countries such as the United States, Canada and South Africa. Being perhaps the largest creative Anglophone expatriate communityworldwide –comparable to the American community in Parisinthe 1920s –ithas no claim to being subaltern or re- pressed. Anglophone Israeli Literatureoperates outside the dominantHebrew cultureand is virtuallyunknown to mainstream Israeli readers, yetits ach- ievements are recognized on governmentlevel –two Anglophone Israeli poets have received the President’s Prize for literature–and it is being progressively translated into Hebrew.Atthe same time it enjoys positivereviews and the attention of readers in Anglophone countries. Being often introspective, it still resists aclear self-definition. In that respect, Anglophone Israeli Literature presents aremarkable view of the individual’s place in the milieu of diversity,ofthe relation between the native and the acquired cultureand of the choice and validityofgroup identities.While cultural studies increasingly propagate the awareness thatintra-cultural diver- sityand local and trans-local transcultural connections are not merely acon- temporaryphenomenon but have been characteristic of communities throughout history (e.g. Hannerz 1996, Kraidy 2005, Erll 2011), the recognition of the various diachronic and synchronic threads and layers of locations, lan- guages and worldviews is the cornerstone of Anglophone Israeli writing,asitwill be argued in this book. Counting backwards, there is the personal storyof migration to Israel, the migration of parents or grandparents to an Anglophone countryfrom easternorcentral Europe, the received or constructed memories of the family’s life beforemigration and the dialogue with the traditional concepts of Zion and with the narratives of exodus, exile and return, which are an integral partofJewish and Israeli consciousness.While Mandel’s storysatirizes the transformation of his name
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