Since 1948: Israeli Literature in the Making

Description

Toward the end of the twentieth century, an unprecedented surge of writing altered the Israeli literary scene in profound ways. As fresh creative voices and multiple languages vied for recognition, diversity replaced consensus. Genres once accorded lower status--such as the graphic novel and science fiction--gained readership and positive critical notice. These trends ushered in not only the discovery and recovery of literary works but also a major rethinking of literary history. In Since 1948, scholars consider how recent voices have succeeded older ones and reverberated in concert with them; how linguistic and geographical boundaries have blurred; how genres have shifted; and how canon and competition have shaped Israeli culture. Charting surprising trajectories of a vibrant, challenging, and dynamic literature, the contributors analyze texts composed in Hebrew, Yiddish, and Arabic; by Jews and non-Jews; and by Israelis abroad as well as writers in Israel. What emerges is a portrait of Israeli literature as neither minor nor regional, but rather as transnational, multilingual, and worthy of international attention. Contents List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction Under Construction: A Kind of Festschrift for Israeli Literature Building and Being Built 1977—Building a Canon Moment Two: The Canon in the Mirror Moment Three: Dueling Canons To Be Determined Notes Part One: Through Time: Silences, Voices, Echoes Not One, but Five Moments of Silence: On the Poetics and Politics of Asking for Silence Introduction Natan Zach’s One Moment of Silence One Moment Haim Gouri and the Silence The Silence and I Yona Wallach’s Explicit Sheket Send Me Silence Carmit Rosen: Old Kings and a New Queen? Tehila Hakimi—The Time Has Come to Say Shut Up Notes Sounding the Mizrachi Voice: Ḥafla Thematics from the Ma‘abarah to the Post‑Arabic Novel Eli Amir’s Iraq Trilogy and the Melancholia of No Return A Bilingualism of Hebrew and Silence: Almog Behar’s Tchachla veH. ezkel Conclusion Notes Anthological Poetics: Reading Amichai and Halfi in Liberal Prayerbooks Rereading the Siddur with Amichai and Halfi Amichai in American Reform Liturgy Conclusion Notes Part Two: Across Language and Territory: Literature and Identity When Yiddish Was Young in Israel Notes A Canaanite Story: Language, National Identity, and the 1948 War Canaanite Ideology, Canaanite Fiction “Everything as it was a long time ago”— Language and Translation “Now the yahud were here” Re-Territorializing the Hebrew Language Notes Hebrew Unbound: Alternative Homelands in the New World Notes Part Three: Between the Lines: Rethinking Genres From Here to Elsewhere and Back in Israeli-Hebrew Children’s Literature 1 2 3 4 5 Notes “The pigs were my best friends”: Animals and the Holocaust in Alona Frankel’s Memoirs “They were always with me. The lice, my lice. . . .” From Animal Fable to “How Could Such Things Happen?” Wounded Crows and “Prisoners of Zion” Notes Stalagim: At the Limits of Israeli Literature Notes Part Four: Concerning Canons Disruptive Nativity: The Poetry of Rina Shani and the Sixties in Israel Committed and Nomadic: The Counterculture of the 1960s Planted-Twice and Non-Planted: Leah Goldberg and Rina Shani Conclusion Notes Asaf Schurr and the Critique of Postmodernism in Contemporary Hebrew Literature Notes “And the Winner Is . . .”: The Economy of Literary Awards Literary Prizes Case Study: The Care and Feeding of a Literary Award Conclusion Notes Appendix A Canaanite Story: “The Lord Be Praised” On Our Bookshelf Contributors Index