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The Yeshiva and the Rise of Modern Hebrew Literature argues that the institution of the yeshiva and its ideals of Jewish textual study played a seminal role in the resurgence of Hebrew literature in modern times. Departing from the conventional interpretation of the origins of Hebrew literature in secular culture, Marina Zilbergerts points to the practices and metaphysics of Talmud study as its essential animating forces. Focusing on the early works and personal histories of founding figures of Hebrew literature, from Moshe Leib Lilienblum to Chaim Nachman Bialik, The Yeshiva and the Rise of Modern Hebrew Literature reveals the lasting engagement of modern Jewish letters with the hallowed tradition of rabbinic learning.
Over the last one hundred years, the story of Jews in the United States has been, by and large, one of successful and enthusiastic Americanization. Hundreds of thousands of Jews began the twentieth century as new arrivals in a foreign land yet soon became shapers and definers of American culture itself. One of the clearest expressions of this transformation has been the quick linguistic march of immigrant Jews and their children from Yiddish to English. In this book, Michael Weingrad presents a counter history of American Jewish culture, one that tells the story of literature written by a group whose core identity was neither American nor Jewish American. These writers were ardently and nationalistically Jewish and, despite adopting a new country, their linguistic and cultural allegiance was to the Hebrew language. Producing poetry, short fiction, novels, essays, and journals, these writers sought to express a Jewish cultural nationalism through literature. Weingrad explores Hebrew literature in the United States from the emergence of a group of writers connected with the Hebraist movement in the early twentieth century to the present. Radically expanding and challenging our conceptions of American and Jewish identities in literature, the author offers wide-ranging cultural analyses and thoughtful readings of key works. American Hebrew Literature restores a lost piece of the canvas of Hebrew literature and Jewish culture in the twentieth century and invites readers to reimagine Jewish American writers of our own time.
The Hebrew Bible, or Christian Old Testament, contains some of the finest literature that we have. This biblical literature has a place not only in the synagogue or the church but also among the classics of world literature. The stories of Jacob and David, for instance, present the earliest surviving examples of literary characters whose development the reader follows over the length of a lifetime. Elsewhere, as in the books of Esther or Ruth, readers find a snapshot of a particular, fraught moment that will define the character. The Hebrew Bible also provides quite a few high points of lyric poetry, from the praise and lament of the Psalms to the double entendres in the love of poetry of the Song of Songs. In short, the Bible can be celebrated not only as religious literature but, quite simply, as literature. This book offers a thorough and lively introduction to the Bible's two primary literary modes, narrative and poetry, foregrounding the nuances of plot, character, metaphor, structure and design, and intertextual allusions. Tod Linafelt thus gives readers the tools to fully experience and appreciate the Old Testament's literary achievement. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.
Demonstrating the pervasive presence of God in modern Hebrew literature, this book explores the qualities that twentieth-century Hebrew writers attributed to the divine, and examines their functions against the simplistic dichotomy between religious and secular literature. The volume follows both chronological and thematic paths, offering a panoramic and multilayered analysis of the various strategies in which modern Hebrew writers, from the turn of the nineteenth century through the twenty-first century pursued in their attempt to represent the divine in the face of metaphysical, theological, and representational challenges. Modern Hebrew literature emerged during the nineteenth century as part of the Haskalah (Jewish Enlightenment) movement, which attempted to break from the traditional modes of Jewish intellectual and social life. The Hebrew literature that arose in this period embraced the rebellious nature of the Haskalah and is commonly characterized as secular in nature, defying Orthodoxy and rejecting God. Nevertheless, this volume shows that modern Hebrew literature relied on traditional narratological and poetic norms in its attempt to represent God. Despite its self-declared secularity, it engaged deeply with traditional problems such as the nature of God, divine presence, and theodicy. Examining these radical changes, this volume is a key text for scholars and students of modern Hebrew literature, Jewish studies and the intersection of religion and literature.
The Story of Hebrew explores the extraordinary hold that Hebrew has had on Jews and Christians, who have invested it with a symbolic power far beyond that of any other language in history. Preserved by the Jews across two millennia, Hebrew endured long after it ceased to be a mother tongue, resulting in one of the most intense textual cultures ever known. Hebrew was a bridge to Greek and Arab science, and it unlocked the biblical sources for Jerome and the Reformation. Kabbalists and humanists sought philosophical truth in it, and Colonial Americans used it to shape their own Israelite political identity. Today, it is the first language of millions of Israelis. A major work of scholarship, The Story of Hebrew is an unforgettable account of what one language has meant and continues to mean.
"Mendele Mocher Sforim. Shem and Japheth on the train.--Peretz, Y. L. Scenes from Limbo.--Feierberg, M. Z. In the evening.--Ahad Ha-Am. Imitation and assimilation.--Bialik, H. N. The short Friday. Revealment and concealment in language.--Brenner, Y. H. The way out.--Barash, A. At heaven's gate.--Agnon, S. Y. Agunot. The lady and the peddler. At the outset of the day. Forevermore.--Hazaz, H. Rahamim. The sermon.--Yizhar, S. The prisoner.--Amichai, Y. The times my father died.--Oz, A. Before his time.--Yehoshua, A. B. Facing the forests."
“Makes a persuasive argument” that gothic ideas “play a vital role in how Hebrew writers have confronted history, culture, and politics.” —Robert Alter, author of Hebrew and Modernity Sinister tales written since the early twentieth century by the foremost Hebrew authors, including S.Y. Agnon, Leah Goldberg, and Amos Oz, reveal a darkness at the foundation of Hebrew culture. The ghosts of a murdered Talmud scholar and his kidnapped bride rise from their graves for a nocturnal dance of death; a girl hidden by a count in a secret chamber of an Eastern European castle emerges to find that, unbeknownst to her, World War II ended years earlier; a man recounts the act of incest that would shape a trajectory of personal and national history. Reading these works together with central British and American gothic texts, Karen Grumberg illustrates that modern Hebrew literature has regularly appropriated key gothic ideas to help conceptualize the Jewish relationship to the past and, more broadly, to time. She explores why these authors were drawn to the gothic, originally a European mode associated with antisemitism, and how they use it to challenge assumptions about power and powerlessness, vulnerability and violence, and to shape modern Hebrew culture. Grumberg provides an original perspective on Hebrew literary engagement with history and sheds new light on the tensions that continue to characterize contemporary Israeli cultural and political rhetoric.
"The Oxford Handbook of the Historical Books of the Hebrew Bible offers 36 essays on the so-called "Historical Books": Joshua, Judges, 1-2 Samuel, 1-2 Kings, Ezra-Nehemiah, and 1-2 Chronicles. The essays are organized around four nodes: contexts, content, approaches, and reception. Each essay takes up two questions: (1) what does the topic/area/issue have to do with the Historical Books?" and (2) how does this topic/area/issue help readers better interpret the Historical Books?" The essays engage traditional theories and newer updates to the same, and also engage the textual traditions themselves which are what give rise to compositional analyses. Many essays model approaches that move in entirely different ways altogether, however, whether those are by attending to synchronic, literary, theoretical, or reception aspects of the texts at hand. The contributions range from text-critical issues to ancient historiography, state formation and development, ancient Near Eastern contexts, society and economy, political theory, violence studies, orality, feminism, postcolonialism, and trauma theory-among others. Taken together, these essays well represent the variety of options available when it comes to gathering, assessing, and interpreting these particular biblical books"--
Glenda Abramson's informative introduction sets the scene for a powerful literary collection, the definitive anthology of a vibrant modern genre.
Netanya is a fascinating blend of reminiscence, fiction, and amateur science, seeking to convey not only a personal story but the big picture in which the saga of life on Earth and of the stars that surround it have the same status as anecdotes about one’s aunts and uncles. With a tip of the hat to W. G. Sebald and Yoel Hoffmann, Netanya seeks to transform human history into an intimate family story, and demonstrates how the mind at play can bring a little warmth into a cold universe. The “plot” of Dror Burstein’s dazzling meditation consists of nothing more than the author’s lying on a bench, looking up at the night sky. What results from this simple action is, however, a monologue whose scope is both personal and cosmic, with Burstein’s thoughts ricocheting between stories from his past and visions of the origin and end of the universe. The result is a fascinating blend of reminiscence, fiction, and amateur science, seeking to convey not only a personal story but the big picture in which the saga of life on Earth and of the stars that surround it have the same status as anecdotes about one’s aunts and uncles. With a tip of the hat to W. G. Sebald and Yoel Hoffmann, Netanya seeks to transform human history into an intimate family story, and demonstrates how the mind at play can bring a little warmth into a cold universe.