The Drama of Narration: Y. H. Brenner's In Winter

AJS Review ◽  
1984 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-95
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Fleck
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Short Stories ◽  
Hebrew Literature ◽  
Inner Life ◽  
Unconscious Processes ◽  
Literary Theories ◽  
Modern Hebrew ◽  
Human Psyche ◽  
Twentieth Century Fiction ◽  
Do So

In her book, Transparent Minds, Dorrit Cohn reminds us that one of the special powers of fiction lies in its ability to reveal the normally hidden inner life of people other than ourselves. Writers of fiction can, if it fits their purposes, place before our scrutiny the most intimate and private thoughts, feelings, motives, fears, and passions of their imagined characters, and can do so with a variety of techniques which, especially in twentieth-century fiction, take account of the complex, overdetermined, and largely unconscious processes of the human psyche. In modern Hebrew literature, no novelist has exploited this aspect of fiction with more passion and technical inventiveness than Y. H. Brenner. From the very outset of his career, Brenner's ability to make transparent the minds of his characters drew special attention and praise. Responding to his first collection of short stories, M. Y. Berdyczewski, for example, marveled that Brenner's characters had only to speak and they “stand before us naked, revealing all that is within.” And even Bialik, who was troubled by Brenner's fiction on other grounds, had to admit his impatience with literary theories when, as he put it, he was able to “see a living soul.”

Gnessin, Uri Nissan (1879–1913)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Naama Harel
Keyword(s):  
Short Stories ◽  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Small Town ◽  
Publishing House ◽  
Russian Literature ◽  
Foreign Languages ◽  
Hebrew Literature ◽  
Modern Hebrew

Uri Nissan Gnessin was a Russian Jewish author, who is recognized as one of the founders of Modern Hebrew literature. He was born in Starodub, a small town in the Ukraine, as a son of a Hasidic rabbi. Attracted to the Haskalah (the Jewish Enlightenment movement), Gnessin immersed himself in the study of foreign languages, as well as other secular subjects, and was especially influenced by Russian literature. At the age of 14 he began to publish short stories, novellas, poems, literary criticism, and translations in various leading Hebrew periodicals. His first collection of short stories, Tsilele Ha’ḥayim (The Shadows of Life) was published in 1904 in Warsaw, where he also co-founded the Hebrew publishing house Nisyonot (Attempts) in 1906.

The Non-Reading Reader: European Hebrew Literature at the Turn of the 20th Century

Zutot ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 112-124
Author(s):  
Lilach Nethanel
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Religious Practice ◽  
National Literature ◽  
The Political ◽  
Hebrew Literature ◽  
Reading Practices ◽  
Hebrew Language ◽  
Modern Hebrew ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Common

Abstract European Hebrew literature presents a challenge to the study of early-twentieth-century national literature. By the end of the nineteenth century, the reading of modern Hebrew in Europe was neither part of a religious practice, nor did it merely satisfy a purely aesthetic inclination. It mainly functioned as an ideological means used by a minority of Jews to support the linguistic-national Jewish revival. However, some fundamental contradictions put into question the actual influence of this literature on the political sphere. This article asks a series of questions about this period in the history of Hebrew readership: How did the non-spoken Hebrew language come to produce popular Hebrew writings? How did this literature engage the common Jewish reader? In this article I propose a new consideration of Hebrew reading practices. I argue for the inclusion of the non-reading readers as important contributors to the constitution of the Jewish literary nation.

Neglected Origins of Modern Hebrew Prose: Hasidic and Maskilic Travel Narratives

AJS Review ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ken Frieden
Keyword(s):  
Short Stories ◽  
Travel Narratives ◽  
Hebrew Literature ◽  
One Dimensional ◽  
Straight Line ◽  
Modern Hebrew

The emergence of modern Hebrew literature has too often been represented as a straight line from Enlightenment authors' meliẓa to “Mendele's nusaḥ” in S. Y. Abramovitsh's fiction. If we are to move beyond this one-dimensional geometry, we must add additional lines of development: from traditional rabbinic writing in postmishnaic Hebrew, branching out to hasidic narratives and parodies of hasidic Hebrew, and gradually leading toward a more vernacular Hebrew style. Once we have recognized the inadequacy of the older model, which culminates in hyperbolic claims for Abramovitsh's short stories (1886–96), we can better appreciate the contributions of diverse authors such as R. Nathan (Nosn) Sternharz (1780–1845), Mendel Lefin (1749–1826), and their successors.

Shabtai, Yaakov (1934–1981)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shai Ginsburg
Keyword(s):  
Heart Failure ◽  
Short Stories ◽  
Short Fiction ◽  
Military Service ◽  
Hebrew Literature ◽  
Original Publication ◽  
Literary Critic ◽  
Tel Aviv ◽  
Literary Achievement ◽  
Modern Hebrew

An Israeli Hebrew author, playwright, lyricist, and translator, Yaakov Shabtai was born in Tel Aviv in 1934 (Wikipectia …). Shabtai began translating plays and writing lyrics and original plays following his military service, when he lived in a kibbutz. In 1967, he moved back to Tel Aviv to dedicate himself to writing. In 1972, a collection of his short stories was published. Both his plays and short fiction received mixed reviews at the time of their original publication. In 1977, Shabtai published his first novel, ZikhronDvarim [Past Continuous], which was immediately recognized as a unique literary achievement and as one of the most significant works of modern Hebrew literature. Shabtai died in 1981 of heart failure. His second novel, SofDavar [Past Perfect], edited jointly by his widow, Edna Shabtai, and by the literary critic Dan Miron, was published posthumously in 1984 to great critical acclaim.

Theological Stains

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Assaf Shelleg
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Modern Art ◽  
Art Music ◽  
Hebrew Literature ◽  
Modern Hebrew ◽  
Musical Traditions ◽  
Hebrew Culture ◽  
Late Modern

Theological Stains traces the growth of art music in Israel from the mid-twentieth century to the turn of the twenty-first. In a riveting and provocative account, Assaf Shelleg explores the theological grammar of Zionism and its impact on the art music written by emigrant and native composers grappling with biblical redemptive promises and diasporic patrimonies. Unveiling the network that bred territorial nationalism and Hebrew culture, Shelleg shows how this mechanism infiltrated composers’ work as much as it triggered less desirable responses from composers who sought to realize to the nonterritorial diasporic options Zionism has renounced. In the process, compositional aesthetics was stained by the state’s nationalization of the theological, by diasporism that refused redemption, and by Jewish musical traditions that permeated inaudibly into compositions written throughout the second half of the twentieth century. Accompanying this rich and dramatic story are equivalent developments in modern Hebrew literature and poetry alongside vast and previously unstudied archival sources. The book is also lavishly illuminated with 135 music examples that render it an incisive guide to fundamental chapters in modern and late modern art music.

The Samarin Family and the Parish Question in the Russian Empire. 1860s–1910s

2019 ◽  
Vol 54 ◽  
pp. 235-246
Author(s):  
Alexey L. Beglov
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Russian Empire ◽  
Public Discussion ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Social ◽  
Church Life ◽  
The Russian Empire ◽  
In The Beginning ◽  
The Church ◽  
Do So

The article examines the contribution of the representatives of the Samarin family to the development of the Parish issue in the Russian Empire in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The issue of expanding the rights of the laity in the sphere of parish self-government was one of the most debated problems of Church life in that period. The public discussion was initiated by D.F. Samarin (1827-1901). He formulated the “social concept” of the parish and parish reform, based on Slavophile views on society and the Church. In the beginning of the twentieth century his eldest son F.D. Samarin who was a member of the Special Council on the development the Orthodox parish project in 1907, and as such developed the Slavophile concept of the parish. In 1915, A.D. Samarin, who took up the position of the Chief Procurator of the Most Holy Synod, tried to make his contribution to the cause of the parish reforms, but he failed to do so due to his resignation.

Alien Internment in John Galsworthy’s ‘The Bright Side’ and ‘The Dog It was that Died’

2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-61
Author(s):  
Jill Felicity Durey
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Short Stories ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Historical Sources ◽  
Internment Camp ◽  
Bright Side ◽  
Second World ◽  
John Galsworthy

This article illuminates two short stories by John Galsworthy through examining them with the help of his diaries and letters, a handful of unpublished letters by his nephew from an internment camp and secondary historical sources. It argues that the stories, when read in conjunction with these sources, are highly revealing about human nature during Second World War and also about Galsworthy’s prescient fears concerning a second twentieth-century world war, which he did not live to see.

Guarding the Public Interest: England's Coroners and Organ Transplants, 1960–1975

2015 ◽  
Vol 54 (4) ◽  
pp. 926-946 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helen MacDonald
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Public Interest ◽  
Spare Part ◽  
Organ Transplants ◽  
Legal Requirement ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Law ◽  
Do So

AbstractFrom the mid-twentieth century, England's coroners were crucial to the supply of organs to transplant, as much of this material was gleaned from the bodies of people who had been involved in accidents. In such situations the law required that a coroner's consent first be obtained lest removing the organs destroy evidence about the cause of the person's death. Surgeons challenged the legal requirement that they seek consent before taking organs, arguing that doing so hampered their quick access to bodies. Some coroners willingly cooperated with surgeons while others refused to do so, coming into conflict with particular transplanters whom they considered untrustworthy. This article examines how the phenomenon of “spare part” surgery challenged long-held conceptions of the coroner's role.

Cyclopedia of Modern Hebrew Literature, Vol. I

1967 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 64
Author(s):  
Abraham I. Katsh ◽  
G. Kressel
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Literature ◽  
Modern Hebrew
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