eiews Zionism’s Neglected Existentialist Avi Sagi meet educated and intelligent people To Be a Jew: Brenner as who have not read a single line of his an Existential Jew writings. In fact, most Israelis barely Hakibbutz Hameuhad, 2007, know anything about him at all. Among those who do, many believe 286 pages, Hebrew. that Brenner is a relic of early Zion- Reviewed by Arik Glasner ist literature and that his works are of limited relevance to life in modern hat makes a literary work Israel. e austere-looking blue cover W “classic?” e answer to this of the last edition of Brenner’s com- question lies in the possibility of plete works, published in 1985, only perennially returning to a book or reinforces this impression. poem—or for that matter, any work Indeed, Brenner’s works are not of art—in order to derive pleasure, Israeli classics in the sense that the aesthetic exhilaration, psychological works of Dickens are British classics, insight, and moral inspiration. e Flaubert’s writings are French classics, qualities contained within classic and Hemingway’s novels are American works are revealed to be timeless by classics. Brenner’s status in the eyes of the very process of time. eir merit Israeli readers does not even begin to is rediscovered in each successive age. compare to that of other writers of e works of Yosef Haim Brenner his generation, such as Haim Nah- are classics of a singular kind. It can- man Bialik or Shmuel Yosef Agnon. not be denied that they are not espe- e minor role Brenner plays in the cially well known to the current gen- cultural life of our generation is con- eration of Israeli readers, let alone to nected to the general phenomenon of non-Israelis. It is not uncommon to cultural discontinuity characteristic / • of post-modern reality: is rupture, both more passionate and more in- while hardly confined to Israel, is ex- tense than the typical controversies emplified by the contemporary Israeli characteristic of literary scholarship. reader’s loss of connection to a variety While most literary works that attract of “classic” works: Texts that were once the attention of academics are also of integral parts of the Hebrew canon some enduring or at least persistent have lost prominence. is disconti- popularity, the study of Brenner is nuity, which merits its own discussion, not contingent upon or a response stems from (among other things) the to widespread interest in his writings. development of the Hebrew language is speaks to the passionate reactions and the often frantic changes it has Brenner elicits in debating scholars, undergone. evoking emotions that force them e case of Brenner, however, constantly to return to his works, is unusual in at least one respect: though they are not widely read by It departs from the general rule of others. cultural amnesia—and this partly ex- is fascination with Brenner— plains the interest it excites. Despite bordering on obsession—is not en- being mostly ignored by the general tirely limited to academia. Some of Israeli readership, Brenner is one of Brenner’s works, such as Out of Dis- the most studied and appreciated au- tress (Min Hametzar), Breakdown and thors among academic researchers of Bereavement (Shechol Vekishalon), and Hebrew literature. Eighty-seven years Around the Point (Misaviv Lanekuda), after Brenner’s murder during the have been re-published in recent Arab riots of 1921, he and his works years. Young authors such as Amir continue to fascinate the Israeli intel- Gutfreund and Maya Arad have pref- ligentsia. Professor Avner Holtzman, aced their own books with epigraphs who has charted the extensive literary taken from Brenner’s writings, and research dealing with Brenner (fol- the writer Dror Burstein intentionally lowing a previous study conducted gave one of his literary characters the in the early seventies by Professor family name “Brenner.” Other writ- Itzhak Bacon), has estimated that “in ers, of which Gabriela Avigur-Rotem the field of monographic research of is the most noteworthy, have made individual authors, only the study of him a supporting character in their Bialik and Agnon has surpassed in novels. e Israeli band “Habiluim” scope the research done on Brenner.” named its last album Breakdown e extensive academic study of and Bereavement. And the historian Brenner is noteworthy because it is Anita Shapira is planning to publish a • A / • comprehensive biography of the au- as relevant today as it was when Bren- thor. It is clear that for a small but ner introduced it in his writings. culturally dominant group of artists and intellectuals, Brenner continues vi Sagi weaves Brenner’s work to be an inexhaustible source of inter- A into the philosophical tradition est and inspiration. While few people of Western existentialism, and this is know his novels and short stories, his main contribution to the study of they form a committed core of read- the author’s corpus. e existentialist ers, and the discussion of his works tradition did not place reason, histo- continues to be characterized by ry, nation, class, or God at the center a passion and interpretive creativity of its analysis; instead it emphasized which attest to his relevance—both the private and concrete individual. intellectually and emotionally. e hero of existential philosophy e new book To Be a Jew: Brenner asks himself about the meaning of the as an Existential Jew by the philoso- world into which he was involuntar- pher Avi Sagi, head of the department ily born and which he must inevitably of hermeneutics at Bar-Ilan Univer- leave. As Sagi says: sity and the author of many works on My interpretive perspective on Bren- general and Jewish philosophy, dem- ner’s literary-philosophical work will onstrates well the singularity of the be the following: I seek to identify in Brenner phenomenon. Sagi explains Brenner’s extensive work—literature, that he chose his subject because literary reviews, and journalism—the “Brenner’s rousing and challenging existential characteristics of human existence, and to examine their com- work has generated a surge in writing, patibility with the characteristics pre- which is tempestuous but not always sented in the existentialist tradition. critical.” e result is that “one of the most essential and relevant options As Sagi himself notes, his book for a meaningful Jewish existence on Brenner follows on his studies in modern times has gradually dis- of other existentialist philosophers, sipated.” Sagi, it seems, attempts to including Sören Kierkegaard and accomplish two aims with his book: Albert Camus. In his introduction, e first and more “academic” aim is as well as intermittently throughout to elucidate Brenner’s works and to the book, Sagi labors over a brief, uncover their riches. e second aim, necessary, and for the most part which is in my opinion more impor- convincing theoretical exposition in- tant, is to re-introduce a forgotten tended to defend his decision to read type of Jewish existence, one which is Brenner through a philosophical lens. • A / • Students of Brenner have already Sagi’s Brenner is what Isaiah Berlin pointed out the existential elements called a “hedgehog,” meaning that it in his work, but Sagi does a more is possible to identify a single element exhaustive job: He collates various at the core of his entire literary, philo- intuitions, isolated remarks, decisive sophical, and critical project. Sagi re- yet unsupported assertions, philo- futes previous attempts to explain the sophical insights of quintessential essence of Brenner’s thought as the literary scholars, as well as partial and individual’s experience of social al- schematic studies, melding them into ienation (Gershon Shaked), religious a detailed, systematic, and convincing detachment (Baruch Kurzweil), and philosophical presentation of Bren- nihilistic aestheticism (S.Y. Pnueli). ner’s existentialism. Instead, Sagi argues that the crux of In order to show that Brenner’s Brenner’s work is the metaphysical views unquestionably belong to the ex- experience of the absurd, of the loss istentialist tradition, Sagi begins with of meaning, which touches a deeper a comparison of Brenner’s thought to level of existence than the feeling existentialist philosophy. Sagi’s Bren- of socio-cultural detachment. e ner is an existentialist by virtue of his experience of the absurd combines being a philosopher whose thinking the desire to resolve the riddle of life revolves around his own individual with the sober recognition of the im- and concrete existence. According possibility of doing so. It crystallizes to Sagi, Brenner’s existentialism is out of the consciousness of death, expressed through his view that man which dissolves the possibility of a is “thrown” into the world. In this re- rational or metaphysical response to gard, he anticipates a concept later for- the questions of existence. Accord- mulated by the German philosopher ing to existentialists (such as Kierke- Martin Heidegger. e subjective self- gaard, Heidegger, Rosenzweig, Sartre, reflection of the individual, according Camus, and Brenner himself), the to Brenner—as well as other thinkers problem of death belongs not to the in the existentialist tradition—is com- future but to the present—the inevi- mitted to a daring and merciless rec- tability and absolute finality of death ognition of the givens of reality. At the threatens to deny human existence same time, it grants man the freedom any meaning. to shape the meaning of the existence e Brennerian experience of which has been forced upon him. the absurd has two aspects: negative • A / • and positive. e negative aspect erefore Brenner does not contrast is the recognition that existence is religiosity with the absurd and does irrational. e positive aspect is a not dismiss religious feeling. As Sagi yearning for clarity and meaning.