Prose
Modern Hebrew prose in the Land of Israel was
first written by immigrant authors. Although their roots were
anchored in the world and traditions of East European Jewry, their
works dealt primarily with the creative achievements in the Land of
Israel to which they had come "to build and be built by
it." Yosef Haim Brenner (1881-1921) and Shmuel Yosef Agnon (1888-1970), who propelled Hebrew prose into the 20th century, are
considered by many to be the fathers of modern Hebrew literature,
although they acted neither alone nor out of historical context.
Brenner, torn between hope and despair, struggled
with his doubts concerning the difficulties of the Zionist enterprise
in the Land of Israel and the low spiritual quality of certain
sectors within the yishuv - the
Jewish community in Palestine (Land of Israel) prior to the
establishment of the state. He saw flaws everywhere and feared future
developments with regard to the encounter between the Jewish and Arab
populations of the area. In his endeavor to capture reality, he
favored the rabbinical and medieval forms of spoken Hebrew, creating
new idioms and employing dramatic syntax to give the effect of living
speech. Central to Brenner's works is his identification with both
the physical struggle of the pioneers for a toehold in an arid, harsh
land, very different from the European countries where they were
born, and the struggle, no less difficult, to shape the identity of
the Jew in the Land of Israel.
Agnon chose to use more modern forms of the Hebrew
language in his works. His familiarity with Jewish tradition,
together with the influence of 19th and early 20th century European
literature, gave rise to a body of fiction dealing with major
contemporary spiritual concerns, the disintegration of traditional
ways of life, the loss of faith and the subsequent loss of identity.
An Orthodox Jew and a writer of
intuition and psychological insight, Agnon expressed an affinity for
the shadowy and irrational sides of the human psyche and an
identification with the inner uncertainties of the believing and
non-believing Jew. Reality, as depicted by Agnon, exudes a tragic, at
times grotesque ambience, with war and the Holocaust influencing much of his work, and the world of pious Jews revealed
with all its passions and tensions. In 1966, Agnon was co-recipient
of the Nobel Prize for
Literature (together with Nelly Sachs), the first Nobel Prize granted
to an Israeli.
Native-born writers, who began publishing in the
1940s and 1950s, and are often referred to as 'the War
of Independence Generation,' brought to their work a different
mentality and cultural background from that of their predecessors,
primarily because Hebrew was their mother tongue and their life
experience was fully rooted in the Land of Israel. Authors such as S.
Yizhar, Moshe Shamir, Hanoch Bartov, Chaim Gouri and Benjamin
Tammuz vacillated dramatically between individualism and commitment
to society and state, and presented a model of social realism, often
in the heroic mode, featuring a blend of local and international
influences.
In the early 1960s, new approaches in Hebrew prose
writing were explored by a group of younger and very influential
writers, including A.B. Yehoshua, Amos Oz,, Yoram Kaniuk and Yaakov
Shabtai, marking a break from ideological patterns and focusing on
the world of the individual. During the next two decades,
experimentation with narrative forms and various prose writing
styles, including psychological realism, allegory and symbolism, as
well as speculation and skepticism regarding Israel's political and
social conventions, featured prominently in contemporary writing.
The 1980s and 1990s have witnessed a burst of
intense literary activity in which the number of books published
increased dramatically. Concurrently, several Israeli writers
achieved international recognition, notably Oz, Yehoshua, Kaniuk, Aharon
Appelfeld, David Shahar, David
Grossman and Meir Shalev.
A belief in literature as a means of enabling readers to understand
themselves as individuals and as part of their environment
characterizes the prose of this period, written by three generations
of contemporary authors.
Renewed efforts to cope with the tragedy of the
European Holocaust have brought
about the formulation of fresh modes of expression to treat
fundamental questions which can be discussed only within the
perspective of time and place, integrating distance with involvement
(Appelfeld, Grossman, Yehoshua
Kenaz, Alexander and Yonat Sened, Nava Semel and others).
Previously unprobed themes have also been
introduced, including the milieu of the Arab village (Anton Shammas,
an Arab-Christian writer), the world of ultra-Orthodox Jews who deliberately segregate themselves from modern society (Yossl
Birstein), the way of life in Jerusalem's Hassidic courts (Haim Be'er) and attempts to deal with the existence of the
unbeliever in a period when secular ideologies are collapsing and
religious fundamentalism is gaining strength (Yitzhak Orpaz-Auerbach).
Another important topic which some Israeli authors, themselves of Sephardic background, are addressing is the place in society of alienated new
immigrants from Arab countries (Sami Michael, Albert Suissa, Dan
Benaya Seri). Others explore universal themes such as democracy and
righteousness as seen in the context of a society which is subject to
constant challenges in most areas of its national life (Yitzhak Ben-Ner,
Kaniuk, Grossman, Oz).
A number of major women authors have recently come
to the fore, writing not only on general topics but also dealing with
the world of women aware of their place in Jewish tradition and their
role in the Zionist enterprise (Amalia
Kahana-Carmon, Hannah Bat-Shahar, Shulamit Hareven, Shulamit Lapid,
Ruth Almog, Savion Liebrecht, Batya Gur). Lapid and Gur have also
entered the genre of detective fiction to critical acclaim, both in
Israel and in translation abroad.
Recently a younger generation of writers, who
reject much of the centrality of the Israeli experience and reflect a
more universalistic trend, often of an alienated, surreal and
idiosyncratic nature, has emerged. Some of these writers enjoy almost
cult followings, and their new books are assured a place at the top
of the bestseller lists (Yehudit Katzir, Etgar Keret, Orly Castel-Blum,
Gadi Taub, Irit Linur, Mira Magen). In addition to the prolific body
of Hebrew literature, a significant amount of writing, both prose and
poetry, appears in other languages, including Arabic, English and
French. Since the recent immigration of over 700,000 Jews from the former
Soviet Union, Israel has become the largest center of literary
creativity in the Russian language outside Russia itself.
During the last few years, Israeli publishers have
entered the field of electronic publishing (multimedia, CD-ROM) in a
massive way. Covering a wide range of topics, Israeli programs are
being marketed worldwide.
Sources: Israeli
Foreign Ministry |