THE SECULARISATION OF JEWISH CULTURE IN THE MODERN ERA 2008-9
The course will be taught by several members of academic staff, to be coordinated by Drs. Nir Cohen and Ada Rapoport-Albert.
30.9: No lesson (Rosh Hashana)
1. Modernity, Secularization, and the Jews of Europe (François Guesnet, 7.10)
Most theories of European modernization consider the significant shifts in the impact and the status of religious communities throughout Europe known as ‚secularization’ a centrepiece of their argument. This first lecture in the series about the secularization of Jewish culture in the modern era reflects on the theoretical and historical implications of the term of secularization itself, and assesses the validity of the concept for Jewish history between the 17th through 21st centuries.
Casanova, José: Public religions in the Modern World. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994, Part One: Introduction, p. 11-39. Chadwick, Owen, The Secularisation of the European Mind in the Nineteenth Century, Cambridge 1975. Endelman, Todd: Secularization and the Origins of Jewish Modernity – On the Impact of Urbanization and Social Transformation. In: In: Simon-Dubnow-Institut Yearbook V (2007), 155-68. Fishman, Talya, Shaking the Pillars of Exile: “Voice of a Fool”, an Early Modern Jewish Critique of Rabbinic Culture, Stanford 1997. Hundert, Gershon, Jews in Poland-Lithuania in the Eighteenth Century: A Genealogy of Modernity, Berkeley-Los Angeles 2004. Israel, Jonathan, Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity, Oxford 2002. Kaplan, Yosef, ‘Secularising the Portuguese Jews: Integration and Orthodoxy in Early Modern Judaism In: Simon-Dubnow-Institut Yearbook V (2007), p. 99-112. McLeod, Hugh, Secularisation in Western Europe, 1848-1914, New York 2000. --- (ed.), European Religion in the Age of Great Cities, 1830-1930. London, New York 1995. Rosman, Moshe: Hasidism as a Modern Phenomenon – The Paradox of Modernization Without Secularization. In: Simon-Dubnow-Institut Yearbook V (2007), p. 215-26. Ruderman, David: Jewish Thought and Scientific Discovery in Early Modern Europe. New Haven, London: Yale University Press 1995 (Paperback: Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2001). Simmel. Georg: The Conflict of Modern Culture [1918]. In: Essays on Religion. Edited and translated by Horst Jürgen Helle in collaboration with Ludwig Nieder. New Haven, London: Yale University Press, 1997, 20-25. Max Weber: The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Translated by Talcott Parsons. With an introduction by Anthony Giddens. London, New York: Routledge 1992 (especially Pt. II: The Practical Ethics of the Ascetic Branches of Protestantism, 51-125).
14.10: No lesson (Succot)
21.10 No lesson (Simhat Torah)
2. Spinoza, Spinozism, and Biblical Criticism (Lars Fischer, 28.10)
Few of the individual observations on which Spinoza based his critique of traditional Judaism were in any way original. What made his critique so explosive was his refusal to comply with the well-established modes developed by rabbinical scholars to reconcile reason and revelation. Instead, he insisted on a radical disjuncture between the two and thus on the existence of distinct spheres in which each formed the ultimate source of legitimacy. His approach thus prefigured many of the challenges Judaism would face in a world in which religion was no longer considered the sole source of legitimacy but also many of the opportunities this would provide for secular modes of Jewish self-definition. We will examine Spinoza’s own thought and various ways in which Spinoza and Spinozism have been castigated or endorsed as sources of secular Jewish self-definition.
Jonathan I. Israel, ‘Introduction,’ in idem, ed. Benedict de Spinoza: Theological- Political Treatise. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007: viii–xxxiv. Steven Nadler, ‘Spinoza’s Life and Work,’ in idem, Spinoza’s Ethics. An Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006: 1–34. Richard H. Popkin, ‘Cartesianism and Biblical Criticism,’ in Thomas M. Lennon, John M. Nicholas, John W. Davis, eds., Problems of Cartesianism. Kingston, Ont.: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1982: 61–81. Idem, ‘Jewish Anti-Christian Arguments as a Source of Irreligion from the Seventeenth to the Early Nineteenth Century,’ in Michael Hunter, David Wootton, eds., Atheism from the Reformation to the Enlightenment. Oxford: Clarendon, 1992: 159–181. Adam Sutcliffe, Judaism and Enlightenment. [Ideas in Context 66] Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
3. "What is a revelation that reveals nothing?" (Lessing): Moses Mendelssohn (Lars Fischer, 4.11, Reading Week)
Mendelssohn’s Jerusalem was a spirited attempt to explain why Judaism needed to maintain its own distinct existence if it really was just as perfectible and universal as non-Jewish Enlightenment thinkers claimed Christianity was (or at least could and ought to be). While in many ways ingenious on its own terms, Mendelssohn’s far- reaching acceptance of the prevalent non-Jewish terms of reference ultimately led him to radically decrease the significance of revelation for Jewish identity and rendered it more or less void of any specific religious content. We will examine Mendelssohn’s own approach and the way in which, contrary to his own intentions (and religious practice), he came to be seen by many as a precursor of secular concepts of Jewishness for which revelation played no more than a symbolic role.
Amos Funkenstein, Perceptions of Jewish History. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993. Alexander Altmann, ‘Moses Mendelssohn’s Concept of Judaism Reëxamined,’ in idem, Von der mittelalterlichen zur modernen Aufklärung. Studien zur jüdischen Geistesgeschichte. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 1987: 234–248. Julius Guttmann, ‘Mendelssohn’s “Jerusalem” and Spinoza’s “Theologico-Political Treatise”,’ in Alfred Jospe, ed., Studies in Jewish Thought. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1981: 361–386. David Sorkin, Moses Mendelssohn and the Religious Enlightenment. London: Peter Halban, 1996. Hess, Jonathan. Germans, Jews and the Claims of Modernity. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002.
4. Historicism and the Wissenschaft des Judentums School of Jewish Historiography (Lars Fischer, 11.11)
Recent scholarly literature on this pioneering school of Jewish historiography presents it as altogether less historicist, less positivist, less modern and less secular than it seemed even a generation ago. Far from conducting a fastidious ‘post mortem’ on the ‘corpse’ of traditional Judaism, for which they no longer had any use (as the late Gershom Scholem had put it), its proponents have come to be recognized as an important factor in the radical transformation of Jewish identity in the modern era. The focus they placed on historical precedent could be, and was used to shore up religious tradition, but by virtue of conceding the existence of an alternative source of legitimacy, one that did not have to be understood in inherently religious terms, they gave rise to distinctly secular notions of both Judaism and Jewishness.
Amos Funkenstein, Perceptions of Jewish History. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993. Yosef H. Yerushalmi, Zakhor. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1982. Michael A. Meyer, 'The Emergence of Modern Jewish Historiography: Motives and Motifs,' in Ada Rapoport-Albert, ed. History and Theory Beiheft 27 (1988): Essays in Jewish Historiography. Reprint as: South Florida Studies in the History of Judaism 15 (1991): 160–175. Shmuel Feiner, Haskalah and History. The Emergence of a Modern Jewish Historical Consciousness. [1995] Oxford, Portland: Littman, 2002. Susannah Heschel, ‘Jewish Studies as Counterhistory,’ in David Biale, Michael Galchinsky, Susannah Heschel (eds.), Insider/Outsider. American Jews and Multiculturalism. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 1998: 101–115. David N. Myers, Resisting History: Historicism and Its Discontents in German- Jewish Thought. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003.
5. Emancipation and the Emergence of Secular Jewish Identities in the West: The Disraeli Paradox (Michael Berkowitz, film session, 19.11, 14:30, Malet Place Eng 1.03)
This segment of the course will focus on a few test cases, such as Benjamin Disraeli and other ‘non-Jewish Jews’, as well as those Jews referred to by Todd Endelman as ‘radical assimilationists’, who served to transform the very terms of Jewry’s entry into ‘society’ and the process of emancipation in Britain. Although Disraeli was a converted and sincere Christian throughout his life, he was arguably the most significant "Jew" in British history. He played a greater role than perhaps any other single figure in advocating, and demonstrating, that there could and should be an honourable place for Jews in the emergent secular society of his time, reformulating notions of what it meant to be both a Christian and a Jew in modern Britain. His brand of Toryism was, in part, a way of transcending parochial Anglican interests. Yet Disraeli is not well-integrated into Anglo-Jewish historiography, and the treatments of him as a "British" figure tend to sidestep the various Jewish questions with which he was concerned. We will probe the writings, life, and career of "Dizzy", with particular attention to his impact on the position of Jews in Britain immediately before the period of mass immigration, and consider the extent to which he shaped what came to characterise much of Britain's secular, national culture.
Hannah Arendt, "The Potent Wizard," in Antisemitism; part one of The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1968 [1951]), pp. 68- 78. Shulamit Behr and Marian Malet, eds., Arts in Exile in Britain 1933-1945 [The Yearbook of the Research Centre for German and Austrian Exile Studies 6, Institute of Germanic Studies and Romance Studies, University of London] (Amsterdam, New York: Rodopi, 2005). Simon Blumenfeld, Jew Boy (London: Cape, 1935). _____, Phineas Kahn: Portrait of an Immigrant (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1988 [1937]). David Daiches, Two Worlds: An Edinburgh Jewish Childhood and Promised Lands: A Portrait of My Father (Edinburgh: Canongate, 1997). Benjamin Disraeli, Sybil, or, The Two Nations (Oxford: Oxford Paperbacks, 1998 [1845]). Todd Endelman, Radical Assimilation in English Jewish History, 1656-1945 (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1990). Todd Endelman and Tony Kushner, eds., Disraeli's Jewishness (London: Valentine- Mitchell, 2002). Bill Fishman, East End Jewish Radicals (London: Duckworth, 1975). Louis Golding, Magnolia Street (Nottingham: Five Leaves, 2006 [1935]). John Harding with Jack Berg, Jack Kid Berg: The Whitechapel Windmill (London: Robson, 1987). Howard Jacobson, Kalooki Nights (London: Cape, 2006). Sharman Kadish, Bolsheviks and British Jews: The Anglo-Jewish Community, Britain, and the Russian Revolution (London: Frank Cass, 1992). Charlotte Mendelsohn, When We Were Bad (London: Picador, 2007). Daniel Mendoza, The Memoirs of the Life of Daniel Mendoza, ed. Paul Magriel (London: Batsford, 1951). Oliver Sacks, Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood (New York: Knopf, 2001). Vikram Seth, Two Lives: A Memoir (New York: Harper, 2005). Clive Sinclair, Hearts of Gold (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1979). Zadie Smith, White Teeth (London: Hamish Hamilton, 2000).
6. The Secularisation of East European Jewry (Francois Guesnet, 18.11)
The Haskalah movement in Russia at the beginning of the 19th century appeared to have little chance of development and growth, aside from a few outposts (such as Shklov) and a few isolated individuals (such as Isaac Ber Levinson). Both the mitnagdim and the hasidim were hostile to the movement, and the close-knit community appeared to have all the infrastructure to resist the innovation. Ironically, it was the Russian Empire, whose motto was "Orthodoxy, Autocracy and Nationality", that rescued the first generation of Russian maskili from isolation and irrelevance. Russian statesmen identified the "Jewish Question" as composed, in equal measure, of "Jewish economic exploitation of the peasantry" and "religious fanaticism." It sought to remedy the latter by the creation of a state-sponsored Jewish school system, implemented in 1844. The result was an integrated system of primary and middle schools, topped by two rabbinic seminaries located in Vilna and Zhitomir, which were designed to train teachers for the schools, and "enlightened" rabbis for the communities. Both contemporaries and later historians have tended to be dismissive of the state Jewish school system. They pointed to the low enrolment, compared to those in hadarim and yeshivot, and the failure of most graduates of the rabbinic schoolsto secure a communal post. This is a case, however, of quality rather than quantity. The state Jewish school system attracted a cadre of young Jews wishing to escape the narrow world of religious orthodoxy and enter the wider society. In particular, the graduates of the rabbinic seminaries, which had a curriculum similar to that of the Russian gimnazium, qualified them to enter Russian universities, which they did in growing numbers. It is virtually impossible to find a secularized Jewish intellectual in the second half of the 19th century who did not either teach at some level of the system, attend one of its schools, or aspire to do so (by coming to Vilna and Zhitomir to "swat up" in order to gain entry. Some of those who passed on to secondary or higher education abandoned the Jewish world altogether, whether or not they formally converted, but a significant number entered the ranks of those who may be called the "Russian Jewish intelligentsia." They were secularized individuals who nonetheless maintained strong ties to their Jewish roots. They became pioneers of the newly emergent modern Jewish identity, based primarily, not on religious practice, but on historical tradition and ethnicity. The best-known example of this was the historian and communal activist S. M. Dubnov. This segment of the course will examine the process described above and the ideologies to which it gave rise.
Dohrn, Verena, "The Rabbinical Schools as Institutions of Socialization in Tsarist Russia, 1847-1873," Polin, XIV (2001):83-104. Frumkin, J., et al. Russian Jewry (1860-1917). New York and London; Yoseloff; 1966. Klier, John D. Imperial Russia's Jewish Question, 1855-1881. Cambridge; Cambridge University Press; 1995. Lederhendler, Eli. The Road to Modern Jewish Politics: Political Tradition and Political Reconstruction in the Jewish Community of Tsarist Russia. New York and Oxford; Oxford University Press; 1989. Melamed, Efim, "The Zhitomir Rabbinical School: New Materials and Perspectives," Polin, XIV (2001):105-115. Miron, Dan. A Traveller Disguised: A Study of the Rise of Modern Yiddish Fiction in the Nineteenth Century. New York; Schocken; 1973. Orbach, Alexander. New Voices of Russian Jewry: A Study of the Russian-Jewish Press of Odessa in the Era of the Great Reforms, 1860-1871. Leiden; Brill; 1980. Raisin, Jacob S. The Haskalah Movement in Russia. Philadelphia; Jewish Publication Society of America ; 1913. Stampfer, Shaul, "Heder Study, Knowledge of Torah, and the Maintenance of Social Stratification in Traditional East European Jewish Society," Studies in Jewish Education, Jerusalem, III (1988):271-89. __________, "Gender Differentiation and Education of the Jewish Woman in Nineteenth-Century Eastern Europe," Polin, VII (1992):63-87. Stanislawski, Michael. For Whom Do I Toil? Judah Leib Gordon and the Crisis of Russian Jewry. Oxford; Oxford University Press; 1988. __________. Tsar Nicholas I and the Jews. Philadelphia; Jewish Publication Society of America; 1983. Zipperstein, Steven J. The Jews of Odessa: A Cultural History, 1794-1881. Stanford, CA; Stanford University Press; 1985.
7. The Secularisation of Hebrew, 1780-1921 (Lily Kahn, 25.11)
This session will examine the ways in which the Hebrew language was shaped by the secularisation of Jewish identity between the late eighteenth and early twentieth centuries. It will begin with a brief assessment of the traditional Jewish perception and use of Hebrew as a holy language and then contrast this with the new attitudes and functions that evolved during the Berlin and Galician Haskalah in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Chief among these are the rejection of Rabbinic Hebrew because of its links to Hasidism, the promotion of Biblical Hebrew as a tool of Jewish enlightenment and modernisation, the emergence of new, secular Hebrew literary genres such as plays and scientific essays. The examination will then turn to the Russian Haskalah of the late nineteenth century, in which the Maskilic drive to disseminate Biblical Hebrew as a vehicle of Westernisation resulted in the proliferation of the first original novels and short stories in the language as well as translations of European literature, with concomitant changes in vocabulary and structure to reflect this new secular role. Finally, the survey will explore how this Maskilic literary language evolved into a symbol of secular Jewish nationalism in the 1880s and formed the basis for the Hebrew vernacular that was cultivated during the early Zionist settlement of Palestine (Eretz Israel). These points will be illustrated with examples from the Hebrew plays, novels, short stories and non-fiction created during the period under discussion.
Alter, Robert (1994) Hebrew and Modernity (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press), 40-61. Fellman, Jack (1973) The Revival of a Classical Tongue: Eliezer Ben Yehuda and the Modern Hebrew Language (The Hague and Paris: Mouton). Glinert, Lewis (ed.) (1993) Hebrew in Ashkenaz: A Language in Exile (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press). Halkin, S. (1958) תירבעה תרופסל אובמ (Introduction to Hebrew Literature) (Jerusalem: The Hebrew University). 2nd edition. Harshav, Benjamin (1990) Language in Time of Revolution (Stanford: Stanford University Press). Klausner, Joseph (1952-8) השדחה תירבעה תורפסה לש הירוטסיהה(The History of Modern Hebrew Literature) (Jerusalem: Achiasaf). 6 vols. 2nd edition. Kutscher, Eduard Yechezkel (1982) A History of the Hebrew Language (Jerusalem: Magnes Press), 183-243. Patterson, David (1964) Abraham Mapu: The Creator of the Modern Hebrew Novel (London: Horovitz Publishing). ________ (1988) A Phoenix in Fetters: Studies in Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century Hebrew Fiction (Savage, MD: Rowman and Littlefield). ________ (1999) The Hebrew Novel in Czarist Russia: A Portrait of Jewish Life in the Nineteenth Century (Lanham, MD, New York and Oxford: Rowman and Littlefield). Rabin, Chaim (1969) ‘The Revival of the Hebrew Language’, Ariel 25, 25-34. ________ (1973) A Short History of the Hebrew Language (Jerusalem: The Publishing Department of the Jewish Agency). Yitzhaki, Yosef (1970) ‘ תבחרהב םהיכרדו תירבעה ןושלה לע הלכשהה ירפוס לש םהיתועד השודיחו’ (‘The Hebrew Authors of the Haskala: Their Views on the Hebrew Language’), Leshonenu 34, no. 4, 287-305; 35, no. 1, 39-59; no. 2, 140-54.
8. Racial Discourse as a Secular Strategy for the Legitimization of Jewish Otherness (Lars Fischer, 2.12)
Lisa Moses Leff has recently argued that as early as the 1820s Jews, ‘far from unwittingly appropriating the language of their detractors […] borrowed the language of race from scholars neutral or sympathetic to their cause’ because it ‘provided a framework for understanding difference as legitimate, useful and dignified.’ By no means an exclusively defensive impulse, appropriations of racial discourse thus arguably emerged as an affirmative mode of secular Jewish self-definition once the legitimacy of Jewish otherness could no longer be explained in exclusively religious terms. We will examine the validity of Leff’s claim and its implications by focusing particularly on the Jewish Saint-Simonians, Moses Hess, and Freud’s phylogenetic notion of Jewishness.
Lisa Moses Leff, ‘Self-Definition and Self-Defense: Jewish Racial Identity in Nineteenth-Century France,’ in Jewish History 19, 1 (2005): 7–28. Ken Koltun-Fromm, 'A Narrative Reading of Moses Hess’s Return to Judaism,' in Modern Judaism 19, 1 (1999): 41-65. Idem. Moses Hess and Modern Jewish Identity. [Jewish Literature and Culture] Bloomington, Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2001. Yosef H. Yerushalmi, Freud's Moses. Judaism Terminable and Interminable. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991.
9. The Secular Origins of East European Zionism (Francois Guesnet, 9.12)
The most significant development of Zionism in Eastern Europe occurred in the aftermath of the pogroms of 1881-2. Its proponents were disillusioned maskilim (Moshe Leib Lilienblium) and members of the Russian Jewish Intelligentsia (Lev Pinsker), individuals who were searching for new forms of Jewish identity outside what they saw as the narrow bounds of religious Orthodoxy. Their efforts have been overshadowed by the political Zionism of Theodor Herzl, but they played a major role in preparing the grounds for the spread of Herzl's movement to Eastern Europe. As secularized individuals, they rejected religion as an ingredient of their movement. Indeed, Pinsker's famous tract Auto-Emancipation! did not demand a return to the religiously-charged traditional ‘homeland’ of Zion (although this was a possibility) but to any scrap of land the Jews might call their own. Despite his earlier reputation as a religious reformer, Lilienblium specifically eschewed debates over religion as harmful to the development of the Zionist cause. Herzl's foremost critic, Ahad Ha-Am, also emerged from this milieu, emphasising the cultural (but not religious) aspects of Zionism that Herzl was prone to ignore. This segment of the course will explore the complications arising from the "disconnect" between these secularized individuals, seeking a new Jewish national identity, no longer linked to religious practice or belief, and the still largely religiously-orthodox communities of Eastern Europe. It will be noted that most of the leaders of the movement were far removed from the religious environment, having already turned to secular politics of the centre (the struggle for acculturation and emancipation) or left (socialism). Reflecting recent scholarship on early Zionism, this section will question the existing stereotype of the secular, political Zionism of Herzl, contrasted to the Zionism of the East, which was more aware of the need to operate within an Orthodox environment.
Avineri, Shlomo. The Making of Modern Zionism. The Intellectual Origins of the Jewish State. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1981. Berkowitz, Michael. Zionist Culture and West European Jewry Before the First World War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. __________. Western Jewry and the Zionist Project, 1914–1933. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Katz, Jacob. “The Jewish National Movement. A Sociological Analysis,” in Journal of World History 11, 1–2 (1968): 267–283; Reprinted as: H. H. Ben-Sasson, S. Ettinger, eds. Jewish Society Through the Ages. London: Vallentine, Mitchell, 1971; –also in Jacob Katz, Emancipation and Assimilation. Studies in Modern Jewish History. Westmead: Gregg International, 1972: 129–145. –also in Jacob Katz, Jewish Emancipation and Self-Emancipation. Philadelphia, New York, Jerusalem: JPS, 1986/5746: 89–103. Laqueur, Walter. A History of Zionism. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1972. __________ “The Jews and the Civic Religion of Nationalism,” in Jehuda Reinharz, George L. Mosse, eds. The Impact of Western Nationalisms. Essays dedicated to Walter Z. Laqueur on the Occasion of his 70th Birthday. London, Newbury Park, New Delhi: Sage, 1992: 319–329. Slezkine, Yuri. The Jewish Century. Princeton, NJ; Princeton University Press, 2004. Vital, David. The Origins of Zionism. Oxford: Clarendon, 1975. ___________. Zionism: The Formative Years. Oxford: Clarendon, 1982. ___________. Zionism: The Crucial Phase. Oxford: Clarendon, 1987. Zipperstein, Steven M. Elusive Prophet: Ahad Ha’am and the Origins of Zionism. London: Peter Halban, 1993.
End of term 1
10. Secular Messiah: Western Jewry and the Zionist Project, 1896-1933 (Michael Berkowitz, 13.1.09)
This segment of the course analyzes the rise of Zionism in the West, from the advent of Theodor Herzl until the establishment of National Socialism in Germany. It examines how and why the national movement was embraced by assimilated Jews who at the same time identified with the nationalisms of their home countries, and pays special attention to the symbolism, artistic representations, and mythology that projected a novel, secularised, national Jewish consciousness.
Steven Beller, Herzl (London: Peter Halban, 2004). Brandeis on Zionism: Collection of Addresses and Statements by Louis D. Brandeis (Washington, D.C.: Zionist Organization of America, 1942). Michael Brenner, The Renaissance of Jewish Culture in Weimar Germany (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996). Michael Brown, The Israeli-American Connection: Its Roots in the Yishuv, 1914- 1945 (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1996). Stuart Cohen, English Zionists and British Jews: The Communal Politics of Anglo- Jewry, 1895-1920 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982). Jonathan Dekel-Chen, Farming the Red Land: Jewish Agricultural Colonization and Local Soviet Power, 1924-1941 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005). John M. Efron, Defenders of the Race: Jewish Doctors and Race Scientists in Fin-de- Siécle Europe (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994). Arthur Hertzberg, ed. and intro., The Zionist Idea: A Historical Analysis and Reader (New York: Atheneum, 1977). Theodor Herzl, The Jewish State, trans. Harry Zohn (New York: Herzl Press, 1970). _____, Old-New Land, trans. Lotta Levensohn (New York: Bloch and Herzl Press, 1960). Kenneth L. Kann, Comrades and Chicken Rangers: The Story of a California Jewish Community (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993). Mary McCune, "The Whole Wide World, Without Limits": International Relief, Gender Politics, and American Jewish Women, 1893-1930 (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2005). Ezra Mendelsohn, On Modern Jewish Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993). George Mosse, Confronting the Nation: Jewish and Western Nationalism (Hanover, NH: Brandeis University Press [published by the University Press of New England], 1993). _____, Germans and Jews: The Right, the Left, and the Search for a "Third Force" in Pre-Nazi Germany (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1987). James Renton, The Zionist Masquerade (London: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2007). Moses Rischin, The Promised City: New York's Jews, 1870-1914 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1977). David Shneer, Yiddish and the Creation of Soviet Jewish Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). Leon Simon, Ahad Ha-Am: A Biography (London: East and West Library, 1960). David Vital, The Origins of Zionism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980). _____, Zionism: The Crucial Phase (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987). _____, Zionism: The Formative Years (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982).
11. Jews and Revolution (Francois Guesnet, 20.1)
While the number of Jews in the Russian revolutionary movement is sometimes exaggerated, it was nonetheless significant. This phenomenon is understandable. The revolution was essentially a movement of urban intellectuals, and the Jews were the most urbanized ethnic group in the Russian Empire, concentrated in "revolutionary" centres such as Odessa, Kiev, Vilna, and Warsaw. As a secularized Jewish society began to produce its own intellectuals, they gravitated towards political dissidence, just like the sons of the middle classes, of the clerical estate, and even the peasantry. The universities in particular were cradles of revolution, where the Jews were represented above their percentage in the over-all population (hence the attempt to impose quotas on Jews in secondary and higher education). Jews were to be found in all branches of the revolutionary movement, from the Social Revolutionaries, with their peasant-based ideology, to the Social Democrats, with their romanticization of the urban proletariat. While the Jews had no peasantry, they were well-represented in the urban working classes, so Social Democracy held out a special appeal. The more so, when Jewish activists argued that special skills (such as a knowledge of Yiddish) were necessary for agitational work "on the Jewish street." This clearly was not being done by Russian or Polish Marxists. Consequently, some Jewish activists organized a branch of Social Democracy called The General Jewish Labour Union in Lithuania, Poland and Russia--The Bund--founded in 1897. This body became the largest section of the Russian revolutionary movement. Having laid their claim, the Bundists had to develop new arguments to justify their monopoly of work among Jews. The net result was the development of another set of definitions of Jewishness.
This section of the course will explore the "revolutionary approach" to a modern, secular Jewish identity.
Aronson, I. Michael. Troubled Waters: The Origins of the 1881 Anti-Jewish Pogroms in Russia. Pittsburgh; University of Pittsburgh Press; 1990. Berk, Stephen M. Year of Crisis, Year of Hope: Russian Jewry and the Pogroms of 1881-2. Westport, CT; Greenwood Press; 1985. Brym, Robert. The Jewish Intelligentsia and Russian Marxism. London; Macmillan; 1978. Frankel, Jonathan. Prophecy and Politics: Socialism, Nationalism, and the Russian Jews, 1862-1917. Cambridge; Cambridge University Press; 1981. Hamm, Michael F. Kiev: A Portrait, 1800-1917. Princeton; Princeton University Press; 1993. Judge, Edward H. Easter in Kishinev: Anatomy of a Pogrom. New York and London; New York University Press; 1992. Klier, John D., Lambroza, Shlomo, eds. Pogroms: Anti-Jewish Violence in Modern Russian History. Cambridge; Cambridge University Press; 1991. Mendelsohn, Ezra. Class Struggle in the Pale. Cambridge; Cambridge University Press; 1970. Rogger, Hans. Jewish Policies and Right-Wing Politics in Imperial Russia. London and New York; Macmillan; 1986. Tobias, Henry J. The Jewish Bund in Russia. Stanford, CA; Stanford University Press; 1972. Weinberg, Robert. The Revolution of 1905 in Odessa. Bloomington, IN; Indiana University Press; 1993.
12. The Politics of Yiddishism (Helen Beer, 27.1)
Dubnow, Borokhov, Zhitlowski, Bundism, Communism, Poale Zion, Territorialsm, Birobidzhan. I would use Yiddish source materials to illustrate the significance of Yiddish for a range of political orientations in the 20th century, demonstrating. how Yiddish culture is functional in and becomes integral to political movements and activities.
S.M. Dubnov, Nationalism and History: Letters on Old and New Judaism, Ed. And transl. by Koppel S. Pinson, NY: Atheneum, 1970 Sophie Dubnov-Erlich, The Life and Work of S.M.Dubnov, transl. J. Vowles, ed. J. Shandler, Bloomington, Indianapolis: Indiana Univ. Press, 1991 G. Estraikh and M. Krutikov (eds.), Yiddish and the Left, Oxford: Legenda, 2001 Samuel Kassow, "Jewish Community Politics in Transition: The Vilne Kehile, 1919- 1920" YIVO Annual 20 (1991), pp.61-92 Kerler, Dov-Ber, ed. Politics of Yiddish: Studies in Language, Literature and Society, Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira, 1998 Eli Lederhendler, The Road to Modern Jewish Politics, NY: OUP, 1989 Tony Michels, A Fire in their Hearts: Yiddish Socialists in New York, Cambridge, Massachusetts, London: Harvard U.P., 2005 Samuel Portnoy, trans. and ed., The Life and Soul of a Legendary Jewish Socialist: The Memoirs of Vladimir Medem, NY: Ktav, 1979 Henry Tobias, The Jewish Bund in Russia, Palo Alto, CA: Stanford Univ. Press, 1972 David H. Weinberg, Between Tradition and Modernity: Haim Zhitlowski, Simon Dubnow, Ahad Ha-am and The Shaping of Modern Jewish Identity, NY: Holmes and Meier, 1996
13. The Literature of Yiddishism (Helen Beer, 3.2)
Looking at particular authors whose Yiddish writing corresponds to a 'view' on Jewish politics, J. culture and J. continuity, eg Perets, plus Soviet authors - Markish, Hofshteyn, Feffer, Kvitko, Bergelson.
Bechtel, Delphine, Der Nister's Work 1907-1929: A Study of a Yiddish Symbolist, Bern: P.Lang, 1990 G. Estraikh,. In Harness: Yiddish Writers' Romance with Communism, NY: Syracuse Univ. Press, 2005 Joshua A. Fishman ed., Never Say Die: A Thousand Years of Yiddish in Jewish Life and Letters, NY: Mouton, 1981 J.A. Fishman , Yiddish: Turning to Life, Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 1991 B. Harshav, The Meaning of Yiddish (Chp.5), California: Univ. of Stanford Press, 1990 B. Harshav, Language in Time of Revolution, LA: Univ. of California Press, 1993 Irving Howe and E. Greenberg, eds., Voices from the Yiddish: Essays, Memoirs, Diaries, NY: Schocken, 1975 Howe and Greenberg, A Treasury of Yiddish Stories, NY, London: Penguin Books, 1990 Irving Howe, R. Wisse, R., Kh Smeruk, The Penguin Book of Modern Yiddish Verse, NY: Penguin Viking, 1988 Dan Miron, A Traveller Disguised: The Rise of Modern Yiddish Fiction in the 19th Century, Syracuse, NY: Syracuse Univ. Press, 1996 Joseph Sherman, 'From Isolation to Entrapment: Bergelson and the Party Line, 1919- 1927', Slavic Almanach 6, no.9 (2000), pp.211-218 Ruth Wisse, A Little Love in Big Manhattan: 2 Yiddish Poets, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1988 Ruth Wisse, I.L.Peretz and the Rise of Modern Yiddish Culture, Seattle and London: Univ. of Washington Press, 1991 Seth Wolitz, 'The Kiev-Grupe (1918-20) Debate: The Function of Literature', Yiddish 3, no. 3 (1978), pp. 97-106
14. The Judaism of Secular Yiddishists (Helen Beer, 10.2) The function of Yiddish in the secular Jewish school movement, in cultural institutions and in the Yiddish press.
Lucian Dobroczycki, 'YIVO in Inter-War Poland: Work in the Historical Sciences' in The Jews of Poland between Two World Wars, ed Israel Gutman, Univ. Press of New England, 1989, pp.494-518 G. Estraikh, Soviet Yiddish: Language Planning and Linguistic Development, Oxford: OUP, 1999 Itzik Gottesman, Defining the Yiddish Nation: Folklorists of Poland, Detroit: Waynes State Univ. Press, 2005 Irving Howe, World of Our Fathers, NY: Schocken Books, 1983 Joseph C. Landis, Yiddish Then and Now: Studies in the Life of a Language, Flushing, NY: Yiddish Books J. Leftwich, ed., The Way We Think: A Collection of Essays from the Yiddish. Vol. 1. Sth. Brunswick, NJ: T. Yoseloff, 1969 Leon Shapiro, The History of ORT: A Jewish Movement for Social Change, NY: Schocken Books, 1980 Kh Shmeruk, 'Yiddish Literature in the USSR' in The Jews in Soviet Russia since 1917, ed., Lionel Kochan, Oxford, London, NY: OUP, 1978
15. Representations of Secular Zionist Identity on Screen, 1930-1960 (Nir Cohen, 17.2, Reading Week)
The roots of Israel’s predominantly secular nature can be found in the Zionist quest to create a new society in Palestine (Eretz Yisrael), which would be based on the image of the “muscle” Jew. Both were an attempt to create a new national tradition, one in which the old Jew of the Diaspora – feminized, victimized, and religious in practice and appearance – was replaced by his virile, brave and masculine counterpart. Turning away from the culture of the Diaspora, the Jewish population in Palestine, and later Israel, adopted a new set of values, epitomized in the creation of agriculture- based, socialist-inspired settlements: those were the temples of the new national religion where true Zionist worshipping was performed. Cinema played an important role in creating this Zionist ethos, making it one of the most scared foundations of the nascent society. Films such as Sabra (Alexander Ford, 1933) Avodah (Helmer Lerski, 1935), Adama (Helmer Lerski, 1947) and many others made after the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, immortalized the image of a secular community that put a much greater emphasis on materiality (as opposed to spirituality) than ever before. This session will explore the cinematic representations of the secular aspects and practices of the Zionist movement, and will offer a detailed study of various social, cultural, political and historical contexts in which these representations are situated.
Almog, Oz. The Sabra: The Creation of the New Jew. Trans. Haim Watzman. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000. Ben-Shaul, Nitzan S. Mythical Expressions of Siege in Israeli Films. Lewiston: the Edwin Mellen Press, 1997. Boyarin, Daniel. Unheroic Conduct: The Rise of Heterosexuality and the Invention of The Jewish Man. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997. Bursztyn, Igal. Face as Battlefield (in Hebrew). Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 1990. Gertz, Nurith, Orly Lubin and Judd Ne’eman, eds. Fictive Looks: On Israeli Cinema (in Hebrew). Tel-Aviv: The Open University of Israel Press, 1998. Gertz, Nurith. Holocaust Survivors, Aliens and Others in Israeli Cinema and Literature (in Hebrew). Tel Aviv: Am Oved Publishers and the Open University of Israel, 2004. ---. Myths in Israeli Culture: Captives of a Dream. London: Vallentine Mitchell, 2000. Gluzman, Michael. “Longing for Heterosexuality: Zionism and Sexuality in Herzl’s Altneuland” (in Hebrew). Theory and Criticism 11 (1997): 145- 162, 217-218. Halpern, Ben and Jehuda Reinharz. Zionism and the Creation of a New Society. Hanover: Brandeis UP, 2000. Hjort, Mette and Scott MacKenzie, eds. Cinema & Nation. London: Routledge, 2000. Kimmerling, Baruch. “Militarism in Israeli Society” (in Hebrew). Theory and Criticism 4 (1993): 123-40. Kronish, Amy and Costel Safirman. Israeli Film: A Reference Guide. Westport: Praeger, 2003. Loshitzky, Yosefa. Identity Politics on the Israeli Screen. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2001. Massad, Joseph. “The ‘Post-colonial’ Colony: Time, Space, and Bodies in Palestine/Israel.” The Pre-Occupation of Postcolonial Studies. Ed. Fawzia Afzal-Khan and Kalpana Seshadri-Crooks. Durham: Duke UP, 2000. 311- 46. Melman, Billie. “The Legend of Sarah: Gender, Memory and National Identities (Eretz Yisrael/Israel, 1917-90).” Gender and Israeli Society: Women’s Time. Ed. Hannah Naveh. London: Vallentine Mitchell, 2003. 55-92. Mosse, George L. Confronting the Nation: Jewish and Western Nationalism. Hanover: Brandeis UP/University Press of New England, 1993. Ne’eman, Judd. “The Empty Tomb in the Postmodern Pyramid: Israeli Cinema in the 1980s and 1990s.” Documenting Israel. Ed. Charles Berlin. Cambridge: Harvard College Library, 1995. 117-51. Peled, Rina. ‘The New Man’ of the Zionist Revolution: Hashomer Haza’ir and his European Roots (in Hebrew). Tel-Aviv: Am Oved Publishers, 2002. Schlör, Joachim. Tel Aviv: From Dream to City. Trans. Helen Atkins. London: Reaktion Books, 1999. Schnitzer, Meir. Israeli Cinema: Facts/Plots/Directors/Opinions (in Hebrew). Tel Aviv: Kinneret Publishing House, 1994. Schweitzer, Ariel. The New Sensitivity: Modern Israeli Cinema of the 1960s and 1970s (in Hebrew). Tel Aviv: Babel and Third Ear, 2003. Shohat, Ella. Israeli Cinema: East/West and the Politics of Representation. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1989. Troen, Ilan S. Imagining Zion: Dreams, Designs, and Realities in a Century of Jewish Settlement. New Haven: Yale UP, 2003. Yosef, Raz. Beyond Flesh: Queer Masculinities and Nationalism in Israeli Cinema. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 2004. Zimerman, Moshe. Hole in the Camera: Gazes of Israeli Cinema (in Hebrew). Tel Aviv: Resling, 2003.
16. Secular Rituals of Commemoration: Jews and Photography (Michael Berkowitz, 24.2)
Scholarly investigation of the Jewish engagement with the arts has long been hampered or distorted by the myth that the second commandment precluded Jews from concerning themselves with the creation of human images. Along with the acculturation of Jewry into secular society in the mid-nineteenth century, Jews embraced photography as a means by which to orient themselves in a rapidly changing world. In both Eastern and Western Europe, as well as the United States, Jews were at the forefront of modern photography, their numbers within the profession far exceeding their proportion in the general population. We find them among professional photographers, purveyors of photography as a popular hobby, and later among those who advocated photography as an art form in its own right. There has been a growing scholarly interest in Jews as photographic subjects, as photojournalists and photographers who styled themselves as artists, but little attention has been paid to the large numbers of Jews who sought no more than a relatively stable vocation in photography. The technology they harnessed to the rituals of commemoration - both private and public, sacred and mundane – served to forge new Jewish identities that were emerging in the modern, secular world.
Joshua Benoliel 1873-1932: Repórter Fotográfico [Photojournalist] (Lisbon: Lisboaphoto, 2005). Erwin Blumenfeld, Eye to I: The Autobiography of a Photographer, trans. Mike Mitchell and Brian Murdoch (London: Thames and Hudson, 1999). Margaret Bourke-White, Portrait of Myself (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1963). Paul Buhle, From the Lower East Side to Hollywood: Jews in American Popular Culture (London: Verso, 2004). Stephen Bury, ed., Breaking the Rules: The Printed Face of the European Avant Garde 1900-1937 (London: British Library, 2007). Kate Bush and Mark Sladen, eds., In the Face of History: European Photographers in the 20th Century (London: Black Dog Publishing, Barbican Art Gallery, 2006). Yaffa Eliach, There Once was a World: A 900-Year Chronicle of the Shtetl of Eishyshok (New York: Little, Brown, 1998). Waldo Frank, ed., America & Alfred Stieglitz: A Collective Portrait (Millerton, NY: Aperture, 1979). Nachum T. Gidal, "Jews in Photography," in Leo Baeck Institute Year Book XXXII (1987), pp. 437-453. Mark Honigsbaum, "New Life Through a Lens," in Financial Times (London), 2 February 2007. Alexander Ivanov, "Experiments of 'Young Man for Photographic Works': Solomon Yudovin and Russian Pictorialism," trans. A. Kushkova, in Photo-archive of An-Sky's Expeditions (St Petersburg: Petersburg Judaica, 2005). Reese V. Jenkins, Images and Enterprise: Technology and the American Photographic Industry 1839-1925 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979). Alter Kacyzne, Polyn: Jewish Life in the Old Country, ed. Marek Web (New York: Metropolitan, 1999). Max Kozloff, with contributions by Karen Levitov and Johanna Goldfeld, New York: Capital of Photography (New York: The Jewish Museum, and New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002). Laura Levitt, "Photographic American Jews: Identifying American Jewish Life,"in Mapping Jewish Identities, ed. Laurence J. Silberstein (New York: New York University Press, 2000), pp. 65-96. Deborah Dash Moore, "Photographing the Lower East Side: A Country's Work," in Remembering the Lower East Side, eds. Hasia Diner, Jeffrey Shandler, and Beth Wenger (Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2000), pp. 28-69. Erich Salomon, Emigrant in Holland; Peter Hunter, Emigrant in London (Amsterdam: Focus, 1996). Jeffrey Shandler, "'The Time of Vishniac'" Photographs of Pre-War East European Jewry in Post-war Contexts," in Polin 16 (2003): 313-33. David Shneer, Yiddish and the Creation of Soviet Jewish Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). Susan Sontag, On Photography (London: Penguin, 1977). Wilfried Weinke, Verdrängt, vertrieben, aber nicht vergessen. Die fotografen Emil Bieber, Max Halberstadt, Erich Kastan, Kurt Schallenberg (Weingarten: Weingarten Kunstverlag, 2003). Eric D. Weitz, Weimar Germany: Promise and Tragedy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007). Carol Zemel, "Z'chor! Roman Vishniac's Photo-eulogy of East European Jews," in Shaping Losses: Cultural Memory and the Holocaust, eds. Julia Epstein and Lori Hope Lefkowitz (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2001), pp. 75-86. ______, "Imagining the Shtetl: Diaspora Culture, Photography, and Eastern European Jews," in Diaspora and Visual Culture: Representing Africans and Jews, ed. Nicholas Mirzoeff (London: Routledge, 2000), pp. 193-206.
17. The Literary Construction of Secular Nationhood: 1900-1950 (Tsila Ratner, 3.3)
Hebrew literature played a major role in the construction of the Zionist master-narrative, providing the language that newly defined the ideal of secular nationhood. This segment of the course will study the emergence of this secular nation-building narrative, from the turn of the 20th century to the late 1940s, focusing on the following key issues:
• The transformation of religious/spiritual attachment to Eretz Israel into a concrete relationship with the actual geographical territory. • The construction of new secular perspectives on Jewish history. • The call for unequivocal identification with the new secular ideology of nationhood. • Some early dissenting voices. The following literary works will be studied: 1. Avraham Shlonsky – selected poems from Shirim, Vol. 2, Sifriat Poalim, 1954. 2. Haim Guri - selected poems from Shirey Chotam, Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 1953. 3. Haim Hazaz – “Hdrasha” in Avanim Rotchot, Tel-Aviv: Am Oved, 1965 pp. 227-245 4. Yosef Haim Brenner’s Atzabim (Nerves), and Hamotza (The Way Out), in Kol Kitvey, Vol.1, Dvir, 1965.
Critical Texts:
Oz Almog 1997, The Sabra – A Profile, Tel Aviv: Am Oved (Hebrew) (Available in English) Shmuel Almog, Jehuda Reinharz and Anita Shapira (eds) 1989, Zionism and Religion, Brandeis University Press Benedict Anderson 1991, Imagined Communities, N.Y. & London: Verso Arnold Band 1987, The Evanescence of Nationalist Themes in Israeli Literature, in Literature East and West, 23, pp. 16-111 Homi Bhabha 1990, Nation and Narration, London: Rutledge Nancy Berg 1996, Exile from Exile, N.Y.: State University of New York Rachel Brenner 2003, Inextricably Bonded: Israeli Arab and Jewish Writers Re-Visioning Culture, University of Wisconsin Press Malcolm Chase & Christopher Shaw 1989, The Imagined Past: History and Nostalgia, N.Y.: Manchester University Press Nissim Calderon 2000, Pluralistim Beal Korham (Multiculturalism Versus Pluralism in Israel), Tel Aviv: Zmora Bitan (Hebrew) Risa Domb 1995, Home Thoughts From Abroad, London: Vallentine Mitchell Arnold Eisen 1986, Galut: Modern Jewish Reflection on Homelessness and Home-coming, Indiana University Press Anthony Giddens 1987, The Nation-State and Violence, Oxford: Polity Press Michael Gluzman 1991, The Exclusion of Women from Hebrew Literary History, In Prooftexts, 11, No. 3, pp. 259-278 ------------------ 2002, The Politics of Canonicity: Lines of Resistance in Modernist Hebrew Poetry, Stanford University Press Montserrat Guibernau & John Rex 1997, The Ethnicity Reader: Nationalism, Multiculturalism and Migration, Polity Press Hannah Herzog & Eliezer Ben-Rafael (eds) 2000, Language and Communication in Israel, Transaction Publishers Hanan Hever 1999, Sifrut Shenichtevet Mikan (Literature Written from Here), Tel Aviv: Yediot Acharonot (Hebrew) Hanan Hever 1990, Israeli Fiction in The Early Sixties, in Prooftexts, 10, pp. 47- 129 Fredric Jameson 1981, The Political Unconscious, Ithaca: Cornell University Press Baruch Kimmerling 2001, The Invention and Decline of Israeliness, University of California Press Yitzhak Laor 1995, Anu Kotvim Otach Moledet (We Are Writing You, Homeland), Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad (Hebrew) Alan Mintz (ed.) 1997, The Boom: Contemporary Israeli Fiction, Hanover & London: Israeli University Press Hannah Naveh 2002, Nosim Venosot – Sipurey Masa Basifrut Haivrit Hachadashah, Tel Aviv: Misrad Habitachon (Hebrew) Ratner Abramovitz Tsila 2005, “Not So Innocent – An Israeli Tale of Subversion: Dorit Rabinyan’s Persian Brides”, in Stephen Hart and Wen- chin Ouyang (eds), A Companion to Magical Realism, London: Tamesis Jehuda Reinharz & Anita Shapira (eds.) 1996, Essential Papers on Zionism, London: Routledge Howard Sachar 1985, Diaspora: An Inquiry into the Contemporary Jewish World, Philadelphia: Harper & Row Tom Segev 1986, 1949 – The First Israelis, N.Y.: Macmillan 1993, The Seventh Million: The Israelis and the Holocaust, New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux Gershon Shaked from 1993, Hasiporet Haivrit ,Vol. 3-4, Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad / Keter (Hebrew, available in translation) 1987, The Shadows Within, Philadelphia: JPS Anita Shapira 2004, Identity in Transition, Greenwood Press Zeev Sternhell 1999, The Founding Myths of Israel, New Jersey: Princeton University Press Moshe Zuckermann 2001, Haroshet HaIsraeliut, Tel Aviv: Resling
18. The Secular Idiom of Post-Modernity: ‘Thin’ Language in Israeli Literature of the 1990s (Tsila Ratner, 10.3)
‘Thin’ Language was first introduced into Israeli literature by Orly Castel-Blum, who rejected the literary language of canonical Modern Hebrew writings. ‘Thin’ stands for the turn away from the rich referential linguistic contexts of traditional Jewish texts. It represents the secular, urban landscape of contemporary Israeli culture. This deliberate subversion of aesthetic conventions is a critique of political, social, and artistic agendas. It has been an important factor in shaping the post-modern, secularist discourse in Israeli society.
Literary works: 1. Orly Castel Bloom – Dolly City, Loki Books, 1997 - selection from Sipurim Bilti Retzoniim, Zmora-Bitan 1993 2. Etgar Keret - The Bus Driver Who Wanted to be God and Other Stories, Toby Press, 2004
Critical Texts:
Avraham Balaban “Gal Acher Basiporet Haivrit”, Efes, Vol. 2, 1993 Nurith Gertz Myths in Israeli Culture: Captives of a Dream, Valentine Mitchell, 2000 Dan Miron Im Lo Tiheyeh Yerushalaim: Masot al Hasifrut Haivrit Beheksher Tarbuiti Politi, Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 1987 - - - -- - - “Mashehu al Orly Castel Bloom”, Al Hamishmar, 16.06.89, p. 19 - - - - - - - “Hirhurim Beidan shel Prozah” in Shloshim Shanah, Shloshim Sipurim, ed. Zisi Stavi, Yediot Achronot, 1993, pp. 404-408 Adi Offir “Al Ktiva Postmodernistit vefsharut Hatzdakata Hamusarit: Kri’a be ‘Sipurim Bilti Retzoniim’ Orly Castel Bloom”, in Mikan, Vol. 1, 2000, pp. 115-133 Gershon Shaked Hasiporet Haivrit, Vol. 4, Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 1998, pp.19-105 Smadar Shiffman “Mina veDolly: Ra’aya va’em” in Hatishma Koli, eds. Yael Atzmon, Hakibbutz Hameuchad/ Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, 2001, pp.225-240
19. Secularized ‘Midrash’ in Contemporary Israeli Literature (Tsila Ratner, 17.3)
Contemporary Israeli authors have employed midrashic structures to undermine traditional values, and to express their defiance of prevailing socio-political preconceptions. Ethnic demarcation in particular has lent itself to this ‘midrashic’ treatment, since the hegemonic discourse of secular Israel has traditionally marginalized those ethnic groups that it associated with lingering adherence to religious practice. Thus, for example, midrashic themes and techniques are used to expose the Orientalist nature of Israeli society, or to portray the dominant Ashkenazi Jews as a distinctive ethnicity rather than the norm. Both these examples are deeply rooted in the secular culture of contemporary Israel, which has appropriated, while wholly subverting, elements of the religious literary tradition of historic Judaism.
Literary Works:
1. Dan Benaya-Seri ‘The Thousand Wives of Naftali Siman-Tov’ in Birds of the Shade (לצ ירופיצ), Jerusalem: Keter, 1989, pp.70-71. 2. Haim Be’er Havalim [The Pure Element of Time] Tel-Aviv: Am Oved, 1998 3. Yoel Hoffman’s Sefer Yosef Keter, 1988
Critical texts:
Nancy Berg Exile from Exile, Suny, 1996, - - -- - - - - “Sephardi Writing: From the Margins to he Mainstream”, in A. Mintz (ed.),The Boom in Contemporary Israeli Fiction, Brandeis University Press,1997, pp.114-142 Hannan Hever “Al Haprozah shel Dan Benaya Seri”, Siman Kri’a 20, 1990, pp. 394-397 David Stern Parables in Midrash: Narrative and Exegesis in Rabbinic Literature, Harvard University Press, 1991 Eli Yassif Sipur Ha’am Ha’ivri, Mosad Bialik, 1999, pp.401-437; 506-561.
20. Orthodox Perspectives on Secular Jewish Society (Naftali Loewenthal, 24.3)
During the process of modernization, perceptions of modernising or secularist Jews by Orthodox self-styled traditionalists followed a number of models. On the one hand, a hierarchical model of society developed in Central Europe, as described by Adam Ferziger. Here the Talmudic-scholarly observant Jews are held to be at the top of the hierarchy, and the other ranks - ignorant observant, non-observant, Reform - are lower down. This structure could include those we would term 'secular', but there was also an attempt to emphasise a cut-off point, such as when a man had not been circumcised. At this point the rabbinic leadership tended to consider that a person had, in effect, left the Jewish community.
Another model was the Orthodox enclave, defined by the rabbinic ruling of Michalowce in 1865. This saw those inside the enclave and those outside as two completely different categories. This had considerable influence on the perspectives of the contemporary haredi (‘ultra-orthodox’).
Yet another, earlier model, is that of hasidic inclusivism: everyone is part of the picture. This was first expressed in 18th century Eastern Europe in a virtually pre- modern setting, but it could be mobilised to underpin the ‘outreach’ activities of some contemporary hasidic communities.
Later another model emerged, provided by Rabbi Shmuel of Sochatchew writing in 1917, which tried to combine hasidic inclusivism with the enclave concept.
A final model we will consider is that of contemporary Habad, which attempts to 'include' every Jew, even outright secularists, or those who have intermarried or crossed some other traditional boundaries, considering all Jews – whether they are aware of it or not – as still in some way part of the spiritually conceived entity of Klal Yisrael.
These perspectives and models seem to operate together in contemporary orthodox society, and they feed the variety of ‘Return to Judaism’ movements which exist both in Israel and the Diaspora. The existence of these movements highlights the discussion concerning the perspectives on those who do not want to ‘return’. Are they ‘sinners’ or the hidden righteous?
Secondary Sources
El-Or, Tamar, Educated and Ignorant, Ultraorthodox Jewish Women and their World (London, 1994).
Ferziger, Adam S. Exclusion and Hierarchy, Orthodoxy, Nonobservance, and the Emergence of Modern Jewish Identity University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005
Friedman, Menachem. "The Lost Kiddush Cup: Changes in Ashkenazi Haredi Culture - A Tradition in Crisis", in Jack Wertheimer, ed., The Uses of Tradition, Jewish Continuity in the Modern Era (1992), 175-186.
Katz, Jacob A House Divided, Orthodoxy and Schism in nineteenth century central European Jewry translated Ziporah Brody,(Hanover: Brandeis University Press, 1998).
Kranzler, George. Hasidic Williamsburg. A Contemporary American Hasidic Community (Northvale, N.J.: Jason Aronson, 1995).
Lehmann, David with Batia Siebzehner Remaking Israeli Judaism: The Challenge of Shas (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006).
Liberman, Khaim "Rabbi Nakhman Bratslaver and the Maskilim of Uman", Yivo Annual of Jewish Social Science, VI, (1951), 287-301.
Piekarz, Mendel. Hasidut Polin, Ideological Trends of Hasidism in Poland During the Interwar Years and the Holocaust (Hebrew, Jerusalem, 1990).
Rubin, Israel. Satmar: An Island in the City Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1972
Silber, Michael. "The Emergence of Ultra-Orthodoxy - the Invention of a Tradition", in Wertheimer, ed., The Uses of Tradition, Jewish Continuity in the Modern Era (1992), 23-84.
